The City of Calgary is the “winner” of the Canadian Constitution Foundation’s (CCF) first-ever Municipal Muzzle Award for its “censorious” crackdown on free speech. The CCF legal team profiled bylaws of more than 80 municipalities, and flagged Calgary as the award’s recipient, particularly “for its Orwellian-named Safe and Inclusive Access bylaw.” Caledon, ON, and South Bruce Peninsula, ON, were runners-up. The CCF introduced the Municipal Muzzle Award this year to “recognize the municipality that has done the most to stifle free speech.” The announcement came alongside a 39-page report examining censorious bylaws across Canada. As the Western Standard exclusively reported at the time, two brothers who were on their way to Calgary’s 1 Million March for Children in September 2023 were ticketed for a conversation they had on the CTrain. The city never disclosed what was said, and eventually dropped charges against them after their lawyer applied for disclosure. .EXCLUSIVE: Calgary brothers ticketed on C-Train decry lack of free speech and privacy in Canada.Lawyers “identified an alarming increase in local laws that suppress the free expression Canadians are entitled to under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” CCF said in a press release announcing the award on Thursday.“When Canadians think of government censorship, they usually look to Parliament Hill or their provincial legislatures,” said the report’s co-author and CCF Litigation Director Christine Van Geyn.“Increasingly, it’s city halls that are quietly chipping away at Canadians’ free expression.”“If you’ve encountered a bylaw in your municipality that unfairly restricts what you can say or do, now is the time to speak up. We’re ready to step in, challenge these laws, and defend your fundamental freedoms.”Co-author and CCF Counsel Josh Dehaas said he hopes the report will help Canadians better understand their constitutional freedoms and give them the tools to challenge unreasonable speech restrictions in their own communities.“This report discusses restrictions on speech in city council meetings, in streets and parks — even in some cases what people say online or in their own backyards,” said Dehaas.“Some of these restrictions are so absurd that you can’t help but laugh – and yet they’re still serious restrictions on our right to say what we think and participate in democracy. We hope this report will force municipal politicians to think twice before enacting speech-restricting bylaws.”The CCF concluded Calgary’s “Orwellian-named” Safe and Inclusive bylaw “may be the most obviously unconstitutional speech restriction of any city, town or municipality in Canada.”.EXCLUSIVE: City of Calgary REDACTS 100 pgs in FOIP request from brothers ticketed for speech on C-train.The bylaw, dubbed the “bubble-zone” law, creates 100-m speech-free zones around public spaces where protests are prohibited — particularly those critical of government-endorsed social policies, such as gender ideology or drag events.“Calgary’s bubble zone is especially dangerous because it gets the government involved in deciding which topics can be protested, and which cannot. Once the government is deciding the content of speech and protest, the right ceases to have any meaning,” states the report.The bylaw defines a “specified protest” as any “expression of objection or disapproval” about the government’s list of topics.“The bylaw could apply to random outbursts by people suffering from mental illness at the drop-in centre, located right beside the library. It could apply to private conversation overheard on the street if the person who overheard it thinks that conversation expressed ‘objection or disapproval,’” explained the report..Crown pushes for 12-month sentence for Calgary pastor Derek Reimer .It further applies to gatherings protesting various government policies, which Canadians have a right to engage in according to section 2(b) and 2(c) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, wrote CCF.“This is a bylaw that is explicitly aimed at eliminating speech based on messages the city doesn’t like, and to protect the ‘emotional safety’ of residents, which the court has said are not justifiable reasons to limit expression."The CCF is currently challenging the bylaw in the Alberta Court of King’s Bench.Neither city hall or Mayor Jyoti Gondek's office have responded to the Western Standard request for comment.
