By: Paul Choptuik, Coordinating News Editor
On Sunday, May 5, stickers promoting the anti-immigrant organization ID Canada were found on the Burnaby campus by a student. They were reportedly found near Highland Court at UniverCity. Campus security was contacted by the student and the stickers were removed. The Peak reached out to the student, who wishes to remain anonymous, through email.
The student, who wished to remain anonymous, first noticed the stickers while walking to the bus stop. They initially believed the stickers to be cannabis related but were surprised when the sticker directed them to a website that was explicitly anti-immigration.
In their email to The Peak, the student expressed feelings of fear and uneasiness. They further stated that when they found the stickers, “campus felt unsafe especially as SFU identifies as such an international student university.’”
Ian Bryce, communications associate for University Communications and Marketing, commented to The Peak on behalf of Tim Marron, senior director of Campus Public Safety (CPS), that “reported incidences of racist graffiti, posters, stickers or similar notices on SFU campuses are very infrequent [ . . . ] a review of Campus Public Safety records going back to 2013 found only four instances where these types of materials were reported on an SFU campus.”
Marron noted that, though CPS tracks security incident statistics, which can be found on SFU’s website, they do not have a specific category for this type of incident.
Marron reiterated that “if something is believed to be a safety or security threat, our university members are reminded to please call Campus Public Safety at 778-782-7991 to report it.”
The student also conveyed their hope that by reaching out to The Peak about this incident, it could “create some sort of awareness about the horrible state of the conversation about race and immigration on a campus that continuously presents itself as a place that value[s] equality and equal treatment.”
