The Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) filed a court petition on Tuesday challenging the City of Whitehorse’s civility policy. While the City of Whitehorse had adopted the civility policy, the CCF said it places unacceptable limits on the freedom of expression of people who wish to participate in or observe city council meetings, including by regulating their attire. “A policy that allows a presiding officer at a city council meeting to block people from conveying messages that he or she finds offensive, detrimental, or vulgar or to exclude members of the public from participating for so-called microaggressions cannot possibly be a justified limit on freedom of expression,” said CCF counsel Josh Dehaas in a press release. “It’s perfectly normal to wear provocative or even some times offensive buttons and T-shirts to city council meetings to get one’s political message across.”Whitehorse city council approved the civility policy in a 4-2 vote in August. Some of the changes it made were a ban on bringing signs into the venue where city council is meeting; a rule requiring participants refrain from using microaggressions; a rule allowing the presiding officer at a meeting to require participants remove or cover up any attire such as buttons, non-religious headwear, pins, or other items he or she deems disrespectful; and a rule allowing the presiding officer or city administration to discard any document if reasonable grounds exist to believe distribution of it in an open, public forum might be inappropriate. Whitehorse lawyer Vincent Larochelle wrote to the former mayor and city councillors in August on behalf of the CCF to outline its concerns and to threaten possible legal action if the policy was not amended by September. Since the City of Whitehorse did not respond to the letter, the CCF said it had no choice but to seek a judicial review.Dehaas said the policy is one of many examples of municipalities choosing to restrict the freedom of expression of people who are trying to participate in local democracy. Because the Supreme Court of Canada has said the purpose of the constitutional protection of freedom of expression is to protect unpopular, distasteful, and unorthodox views, he said it “is difficult to see how such a restriction could comply with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”He said the ban on inappropriate written materials disproportionately limits freedom of expression. “Citizens are entitled to use language in their communications that politicians and others might find insulting or inappropriate,” he said. Moreover, he noted the ban on bringing signs into city council chambers is a serious restriction to freedom of expression. “There is a long history of citizens bringing signs into council chambers to try to convey political messages to councillors, the media and other citizens in attendance,” he said.“There’s simply no reason to ban them.”This ordeal comes after a woman was thrown out of a Cambridge, ON, city council meeting in February, where city councillors were voting on a glass-walled universal gender-neutral common area for a new recreation centre..Woman opposed to gender neutral changing areas tossed out of Ontario city council meeting.Blueprints released by Reduxx on social media show the gender-neutral area would replace conventional mens’ and womens’ changerooms. Men, women, and children would be expected to change in front of each other. Cambridge city council voted 7-2 in favour of following through with the proposal to build the new recreation centre, but not before having to contend with one woman who spoke out against the idea because it would put women and children in a vulnerable position.
