An Ontario municipality has extended safe spaces to private conversations, a move that concerns at least one legal advocacy group..The Council for the Regional Municipality of Waterloo passed an amendment to bylaw 13-050 late Wednesday, September 27, which will now regulate communications between private persons. .The bylaw will now prohibit “communicating, causing or permitting communication” with any person in a way that causes the person, reasonably and in all the circumstances, to feel harassed. The definition of harassed includes, among other things, feeling troubled, worried or experiencing objectionable comment. .The new prohibition will only apply on certain property that is owned or occupied by the regional municipality. It will not apply to communications on “highways” which are usually defined in municipal law as including roads and sidewalks..The Democracy Fund (TDF) sent their litigation director, Alan Honner, as a delegate to the regional government to urge them against passing the by-law. .While the purported objective of the by-law is to prevent discriminatory communications on human rights grounds, Honner explained to Council the by-law goes further than required to achieve that objective because it prohibits communications that are unrelated to human rights..Despite Honner’s submission the by-law was not minimally impairing free expression, council passed the by-law..According to municipal documents, the by-law was modelled after the City of Edmonton Public Place By-Law 14-614. In fact, Waterloo’s by-law amendments are almost word-for-word identical to those of the Edmonton’s by-law..“The regional municipality says they have a problem with discrimination,” says Honner. “Unfortunately, councillors decided to copy the wording of a deeply flawed Edmonton by-law rather than make their own efforts to combat discrimination. That makes me wonder if they are taking the problem seriously.”.The amendments come into force on January 1, 2024. TDF will consider representing persons charged with the by-law on a case-by-case basis..TDF was successful in defending someone else who ran afoul for his speech in the separate case of an Ontario teacher accused of failing to use pronouns in his classroom. The client and his community was not named in the press release, but was said by TDF to be “well-regarded by students and peers” following “decades of classroom experience.”.“However, the introduction of convoluted guidance and rules by the school board regarding the use of trans students' pronouns resulted in tension among students. In an attempt to resolve this tension, it was alleged that our client ran afoul of the school's pronoun rules,” TDF explained in a press release..“After a complaint was made to his professional regulator, he retained TDF to assist. TDF took the position that our client did not breach the school's pronoun rules. After correspondence with TDF and review by the investigation committee, our client's professional regulator decided only to issue an oral caution to our client. Our client is now free to resume his profession.”.Mark Joseph, senior litigation counsel for TDF, said, "We've recently seen a move by regulatory bodies for doctors, nurses, psychologists and lawyers to scrutinize and overly police the speech of their members. This is worrying to those of us who value professional independence and free speech."
