An event hosted by Laurier Students for Open Inquiry (LSOI) set to take place on April 30 has been cancelled due to increased security costs.
Lindsay Shepherd, the controversial Laurier TA behind LSOI, announced the cancellation of the event via tweet at 1:57 p.m.
“$28,500 is the confirmed figure @UWaterloo said we would have to pay for security and police presence. Apologies to everyone who was planning on attending, there is no way we can pay that. We are going to cancel the event,” the tweet read.
The event was supposed to consist of a conversation between Ricardo Duchesne — a University of New Brunswick professor who made headlines a few years ago for his comments regarding Asian immigration — and Faith Goldy, the right-wing pundit whose appearance at Laurier was disrupted by fire alarm last month.
Shepherd updated her followers on Twitter as she learned of the rising security costs from the University of Waterloo.
Security costs increased drastically due to the fact that a number of community and campus groups — including Kitchener-Waterloo Against Fascism and the UW Black Association for Student Expression — had announced plans to organize a counter-demonstration in the Arts Quad at UW.
“The original security cost for this event was to be $1,600. This morning, I was told that figure will now be approx $15,000, as many groups have communicated their intent to protest, and there is a high risk of danger,” a tweet sent out earlier this afternoon read.
The Indigenous Students’ Association (ISA) of the University of Waterloo also circulated a petition in opposition to the event which has received more that 900 signatures in the past 24 hours.
Shepherd turned down offers to crowd fund security costs, tweeting: “…It would be a very awful situation if we raised $28,500 and protestors disrupt the event anyways, and that money goes down the drain.”
