York community members surprised and shocked by offensive, immigrant-targeting posters found on campus and in the village.
The posters, by Immigration Watch Canada, were brought to attention by the YorkU Memes page on August 13.
Joanne Rider of York media notes the posters were removed immediately, though was unable to confirm when they were posted.
“Official notification was sent to the group identified telling those responsible to cease and desist using the York University logo and photographs,” says Rider in an email to Excalibur on August 13.
The posters claim “If mass third world migration continues, White Canadians will be reduced to a persecuted minority.”
Immigration Watch Canada compares two photos of white York students from 1968 to a group of multicultural students. The bottom photo is from the 2013 LeaderShape conference put on by York’s Student Leadership and Community Development department.
The York Federation of Students was also quick to respond with a press release on August 13.
“We are disturbed and appalled by these blatantly racist flyers and the actions of Immigration Watch Canada,” said YFS vice-president equity Mithilen Mathipalan in a press release.
York student Joe Fantauzzi says “York University’s diversity is a blessing. I’m glad that quick action was taken to remove the posters but I’d like to know how they were able to get up in the first place.”
“This disgraceful incident should serve as a reminder to the York University community that hatred is often right around the corner and that we all need to everything we can to fight against it,” says Fantauzzi.
IWC describes themselves as being “ an organization of Canadians who believe that immigration has to serve the interests of its own citizens…it should never be a social engineering experiment that is conducted on Canada’s mainstream population in order to make it a minority.”
IWC has recently distributed similar posters in Brampton starting in April. The latest poster sparked a community protest at city hall on August 8, though IWC told CP24 they did not authorize the last one in Brampton.
“No one should be subjected to such hateful and offensive messaging on their campus or in their community,” said Mathipalan.
The Toronto Police Service has been informed of the posters and are investigating.
UPDATE: Excalibur received a response from Immigration Watch Canada’s Dan Murray this morning, August 15.
Excalibur: Why did you distribute flyers on York’s campus?
Dan Murray: Why would we not distribute them at York? Does York deserve some immunity from exposure to free speech? Does the material in the flyers conflict with York ideology?
Overall, the purpose of the flyers are to alert more Canadians, this time younger Canadians, to the point that our federal government has never provided any credible evidence to justify bringing in an average of 250,000 immigrants per year. That policy has persisted for 23 years. That policy is an abnormality in Canada’s immigration history. About six million people have arrived in that 23 years. In that time, Canada has experience three significant economic “downturns,” the last of which has been compared to one of the worst economic downturns in the history of Canada and the rest of the world.
In the past, Canada followed a policy of the turning the immigration tap down or off when “downturns” happened. The purpose of turning the immigration tap down or off had been to protect Canadian workers. This time, not long after StatsCan had announced that 300,000 Canadians had lost their jobs as a result of the 2008 fiasco, our prime minister announced that Canada was increasing its immigration intake to 280,000. This boast was made in front of Canada’s opposition parties, but none of them objected to the PM’s statement!!!
Canada’s entire population needs to know that Canada’s immigration intake policy has abandoned Canadian workers.
E: Do you feel you are justified by your actions?
DM: Of course. We and others would be complete fools to put up with such government policies. The “Others” include students who are going to be entering the workforce and who are inevitably going to face severe problems in finding jobs. Some academics at York should have brought this issue up on the York campus. Where are they? If they continue to say nothing, they leading lambs to the slaughter.
E: How do you feel about York removing the flyers?
DM: York did not remove the flyers. It merely stated that one of them contained the York logo and that we should not be using the logo. We had not authorized that flyer and have no problem complying with York’s statement.
UPDATE: York University released a statement this morning, August 15.
Recently a group unaffiliated with York University distributed a poster on our campus using York’s logo and photography without our permission. These posters have caused a great deal of concern within our community. As soon as York was made aware of them, we immediately removed these posters wherever they could be found, and formally instructed the group responsible for creating them to cease and desist using our logo and photos in any communications.
Diversity, inclusiveness and freedom of expression are core values of York University. The racist messages on these posters stand in stark contrast to our values. Going forward, York’s campus services and business operations department and our security services will be increasing their checks for unauthorized posters and any similar communications on campus. If you have any information about individuals who have or who are postering or handing out these posters, please contact campus security at 416 736 5361.
This story will be updated as more information is received.
Divyesh Mistry, Executive Editor (Online)
Ashley Glovasky, News Editor
Ryan Moore, Assistant News Editor
Photo courtesy of YorkU Memes.
what about all the anti white graffiti at york? lets get rid of that now too!
i have never seen that anti white graffiti at york but yea i agree with you we need to get rid of that as well.
Yes, there was some in March and April this year on the Ross building.