The UBC Social Justice Centre’s (SJC) fundraiser was canceled only a few days prior to the event by AMS Food and Beverage Services, and the group is calling it a politically-motivated decision.

Nancy Toogood, AMS Food and Beverage Manager, said the event was canceled due to technical reasons, which she was alerted to following a call from the RCMP.
“I was a little embarrassed when the RCMP called wanting to know why The Pit Pub [was going to] put on an event that said ‘Fuck the police’ on the posters,” Toogood said to The Ubyssey.

Toogood explained that “any kind of postering or ticketing” has to be approved by Food and Beverage Services if the event is associated with an AMS food outlet.
The SJC claims that the cancelation of the event is partly a political decision. The event in question, called “FIGHT THA POWER! Fundraiser in Solidarity with Anti-Olympics Convergence Arrestees,” aimed to raise funds for those who had been arrested while participating in an anti-Olympic protest during the 2010 Winter Games.

While half of the proceeds were going to go towards the legal fees of one individual—a member of the SJC who was arrested—the other half would have gone to SACA, a city-wide coalition that is also trying to raise funds to help protesters pay their legal fees.

Another reason for the cancelation, said Toogood, who made the decision to cancel the fundraiser, was that the intent of the event was not made clear.

“The event wasn’t booked under the terms and conditions,” Toogood said. “We were a little misled about the initial intent of the event. We weren’t aware that it was on behalf of a third party and we do have a policy to keep the priority on AMS clubs and campus-related groups.”

However, Arielle Friedman from the SJC has a different explanation. “The anti-Olympic movement has been controversial and some people don’t want to [be] associated with it,” she said.

“We feel [the reason for the cancelation] is political. They never asked us to see our posters. Had we known that our event would have been cancelled because of it, we would have gone with a different design because we knew that this one was controversial.”

“We even offered to make changes to everything they had problems with and only raise funds for the student involved, but they said there was nothing we could do.”

Toogood sees things differently. “There is nothing political about it. We’ve had things of a political nature. We have had fundraisers for Haiti, although that has nothing to do with UBC, either. It’s not our place as a business to make any kind of judgment calls about what type of event is being run, as long as we are fully aware of what is happening,” she said, adding that the group told the AMS they were not going to advertise.

“We answered all their questions, we weren’t trying to be secretive,” Friedman said.

“We would have been very open if they had asked…it doesn’t seem entirely fair to us when we had discussed everything with them.”

The SJC has been reimbursed for their expenses on their advertising campaign and are now searching for another venue to hold their fundraiser.

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