CKMS News -2025-10-02- Panel on genocide in Gaza goes forward despite WLU’s attempts to delay it.
dan kellar
Waterloo, ON – On Thursday September 18th, retired professor Peter Eglin received word from Wilfrid Laurier University’s Safety, Health, Environment & Risk Management division, that the September 19th event he was helping to organize and speak at, would be postponed because they required more time to “do a proper risk assessment.”
The event was a discussion between Eglin, who released the book Analysing the Israel Effect in Canada: A Critical Auto-Ethnography in 2024, and political activist and author, and NDP leadership hopeful Yves Engler, entitled Canada and the Genocide in Gaza. The event was to be moderated by PhD candidate and peace activist Tamara Lorincz, and was scheduled through the University’s online booking platform on August 27th.
On the 19th, the organizers decided to push forward with the event, and it did take place, without incident, in the common area outside the locked classroom, with 50 people in attendance. Security dropped by the discussion, but did not disrupt the event, and, according to Eglin, did not stick around for too long before leaving.
This show features an interview with Dr. Peter Eglin. CKMS News reached out to WLU and initially received responses which are referenced in the interview. However, the school did not respond to follow-up questions regarding any possible threats the school received, how long an assessment usually takes, or if anyone pressured the school to review the event.
*In the interview, Peter Eglin mentions a disruption to Norman Finkelstein’s speech at the University of Waterloo in 2010. Here is a link to the clip: https://archive.org/details/finklestein-holocaust-card.
