Just before far-right commentator Faith Goldy could take the stage to speak at Wilfrid Laurier University on Tuesday evening, the fire alarm started to ring.

A packed room with a capacity of 125 people was cleared and the student event, which has been criticized by some students and faculty since it was announced less than a week ago, was halted before it could start.

Prof. William McNally, who booked the room for the event, was in the middle of welcoming the crowd when the fire alarm rang. He called the action “really juvenile and irresponsible” to a crowd of cheers.

The university issued a statement shortly after.

“The Faith Goldy event at Wilfrid Laurier University was interrupted shortly after it began Tuesday evening by a fire alarm,” it read.

“Organizers chose to move their event off university property to a nearby location on University Ave.”

Goldy made a few remarks to the crowd off-campus and said she would be back another time.

The former host with far-right Canadian media outlet the Rebel was to give a talk to a crowd at the university on “Ethnocide: Multiculturalism and European Canadian Identity.”

Goldy was let go by the Rebel in August after appearing on a podcast affiliated with a neo-Nazi, white supremacist American website called the Daily Stormer.

Goldy was invited to speak on campus by a new, unofficial student club called Laurier Students for Open Inquiry. It was the first talk in the club’s “Unpopular Opinion Speaker Series.”

The club’s co-founder and president is Lindsay Shepherd, the Laurier graduate student who made headlines last fall after she was reprimanded by professors for showing students a TVO video clip featuring University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson, who argued against using gender-neutral pronouns.

Initially, the new club had hoped to host a debate on immigration with Goldy arguing against it.

However, Shepherd said the five Ontario professors they asked to oppose Goldy declined to attend.

Shepherd acknowledged there are problems with the views held by Goldy, but said it was important to hear her out and discuss and challenge her points.

“We need to be aware of the movement,” she said. “It’s a form of monitoring it, really.”

Just an hour before the event, hundreds of people gathered in the quad, just outside the campus venue, in protest.

Laurier special constables could be seen outside among the protesters and inside, where the talk was to be held.

“It’s important to show Laurier and its community we do not tolerate or accept white supremacy on or off campus,” said Ethan Jackson, an organizer behind the demonstration.

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Earlier on Tuesday, Laurier president Deborah MacLatchy issued a statement in response to calls from some faculty, students and community groups who wanted the event shut down.

“In short, the university does not censor or limit the lawful and free expression of ideas, including ideas that are unpopular or offensive,” she said.

MacLatchy added: “I want to state very clearly that I personally and absolutely reject the ideas and values attributed to this speaker, and that they are in no way aligned with or reflective of the core values of our university.”

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