By Tom Ledgley
On October 30 2024, Ottawa City Council asked staff to study the possibility of creating zones around “vulnerable social infrastructure” where protests would be prohibited. This includes schools, healthcare facilities, and religious buildings, according to a feasibility assessment recently sent by Ryan Perrault, the General Manager of the City of Ottawa Emergency and Protective Services.
The assessment recommends a review of a potential Vulnerable Social Infrastructure By-law that would create a 100 metre zone around buildings in which law enforcement can ticket individuals up to $100,000 for “protesting something or expressing views on any issue, in any manner, whether it is intended or not, that is likely, on an objective standard, to cause a reasonable person to be intimidated.” The vague and broad language makes it unclear as to which protesters would be targeted by a “bubble” by-law, despite the Canadian Criminal Code having clear definitions of harassment and public incitement of hatred.
“We will expect more fines, more tickets, and more charges against peaceful protests should this by-law be enacted.”
The idea to create a “bubble” by-law was inspired by the City of Vaughan, which was proposed in response to a 2024 protest of the “Great Israeli Real Estate Event,” which involved selling property in the illegally-occupied West Bank in Palestine. Some have claimed that protesting outside of a synagogue is inherently antisemitic and discriminatory. However, this protest was not about the identity of the organizers and attendees, but rather the illegality and immorality of their decision to participate in settler-colonialism.
In Ottawa, some members of City Council are pushing for a similar by-law in response to an increase in protests and hate crimes. This item is now on the agenda for the May 15 Emergency Preparedness and Protective Services meeting while Toronto City Council too considers a similar by-law. At face value, taking action to reduce hate crimes sounds like a good thing, but when you dive a bit deeper, it’s clear these interventions are not an appropriate response. The hate that city officials are claiming to address with this by-law is an invention based on the characterization of pro-Palestinian activists as dangerous and hateful.
Banning protests in a substantial portion of downtown would be a significant erosion of the fundamental Charter right to freedom of expression. Further, it amounts to a serious deterrent to protests in general. Shaheen Lotun of Labour for Palestine told The Leveller “protests are meant to be disruptive because the cost of doing nothing outweighs the risks of taking action. This applies to fighting for workplace rights and demonstrating international solidarity.”
“We will expect more fines, more tickets, and more charges against peaceful protests should this by-law be enacted. If the city wishes to willfully criminalize our Charter protected rights, then we will continue to rely on allies and relationships built to keep organizing and defending the right to dissent.”
In the feasibility assessment provided to council, City of Ottawa staff recognize that this is constitutionally questionable, and have recommended a careful approach that considers how “the types of negative activities would trigger the application of the by-law, the types of social infrastructure around which a protective zone is required, and the size or geographic limits of the protective zone itself.”
Staff have not addressed who would be making decisions about enforcement on the ground, which we have to assume will be police and by-law officers. Police and by-law officers already have a broad range of responsibilities, and many advocates are calling for some of these to be de-tasked from the police to other departments. Allowing police and by-law officers to make the decision to shut down a protest would only be assigning them more duties.
As it stands currently, the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) has a poor record when it comes to responding to protests and demonstrations. Chief Eric Stubbs, in particular, has a concerning history of cracking down on dissent. Prior to joining the OPS, he oversaw the RCMP raids of land defender camps on Wet’suwet’en territory, reported by The Leveller. Using a court injunction as justification, four large-scale raids occurred between 2019 and 2023 in an effort to remove land defenders opposing a pipeline construction. These actions led to calls from human rights organizations like Amnesty International urging the government to stop this harassment, intimidation, and unlawful surveillance. In 2019, The Leveller also reported on protesters in downtown Ottawa opposed the RCMP’s actions and gathered to support the Wet’suwet’en nation.
Police conduct during the so-called “Freedom Convoy” in 2022 included coordinating with protestors, which made the OPS infamous for their biased enforcement. After extensive investigations and review, numerous recommendations have been made to address the community’s concerns about the police response, but the most significant change in policing experienced by protestors is an increased appetite to crack down on dissent in general.
Last year, a group of over 60 local and national organizations came together to form a coalition to “Defend the Right to Dissent” in response to OPS and By-law Services ticketing and arresting demonstrators for normal protest activities like using a megaphone. This novel application of the city’s noise by-law largely targeted pro-Palestinian protestors, as The Leveller previously reported. During this period, OPS also arrested Alex Silas, the president of Public Service Alliance of Canada at the time, and laid criminal charges which were later dropped.
Staff’s reasoning for recommending council pursue this by-law boils down to two main factors: an increase in demonstrations and other protest activities, and preliminary research that indicates hate crimes are happening at these demonstrations. The “preliminary research” cited are four news articles, one of which is a National Post opinion piece (which PressProgress already called dubious when a Rex Murphy column was used for OPS intelligence on the Freedom Convoy).
Staff also cited The Oakes Test in their report, a guideline from the Supreme Court of Canada for making decisions regarding conflicting Charter rights. A key part of the Oakes test is that “the benefits of the infringements must outweigh its consequences.” In this case, there isn’t any way to substantively evaluate the “benefits of the infringement” other than anecdotal reports, since this by-law would be intended as a deterrent to protesting in the first place. Without clear evidence of a systemic causal relationship between an increase in protests and confirmed hate crimes, it would be very hard, if not impossible, to justify that these “benefits” outweigh infringing on our freedom of expression.
One of the most significant concerns about demonstrations causing harm surrounds the anti-2SLGBTQIA+ protests on Wellington Street and Broadview Avenue in 2023 and on April 25 of this year. These protests were hateful in nature, and could be described as an effort to “incite hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace,” a violation of the Criminal Code of Canada. Why did police not simply enforce existing laws in this situation? We can only speculate.
We do know where the community stood, as they showed up in great numbers to counter-protest and support our queer and trans neighbours against this hate. The organizers who made this counter-protest happen and who consistently stand up for their communities would have to greatly consider the risks of future counter-protests with a by-law that could lead to their people being ticketed and arrested.
“The expression of dissent is a fundamental right for a reason, and absolutely critical for a healthy democracy.”
We also need to consider the real possibility of bad actors co-opting “vulnerable social infrastructure” to host hateful and discriminatory events while shielding themselves from community backlash in the form of protests. Far-right and white supremacist groups, like those involved with the Freedom Convoy, already tend to be exempt from the kind of surveillance and disproportionate criminalization that is faced by Black, Indigenous, and racialized community activists and organizations.
Horizon Ottawa has been working with numerous other organizations within the Defend Dissent Coalition including Labour for Palestine Ottawa, Justice for Workers Ottawa, Palestinian Youth Movement Ottawa, Independent Jewish Voices Ottawa, and other partners in a growing labour and social justice movement in opposition to a “bubble” by-law. These efforts are also taking place in other cities currently considering similar by-laws such as Toronto.
The Defend Dissent Coalition encourages people in Ottawa to get involved in opposing the by-law by contacting city councillors and asking them to vote against proceeding with the Vulnerable Social Infrastructure By-law, especially if they are a member of the Emergency Preparedness and Protective Services committee. Horizon Ottawa is also organizing and inviting the public to join the Defending Dissent panel on May 12.
There are countless arguments against the assumptions and recommendations made in staff’s report, but this is simply not a good policy in principle. The expression of dissent is a fundamental right for a reason, and absolutely critical for a healthy democracy. Many in Canada are concerned that we may start to see the authoritarian politics of the Trump administration slip into our politics, and this is only made easier with legislation that limits speech.
Editor’s Note: Tom Ledgley is the coordinator at Horizon Ottawa, a coalition member of the Ottawa Coalition for a People’s Budget, which drafted the Alternative Municipal Budget.
