The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms just celebrated its 43rd anniversary. On this occasion, Anaïs Bussières McNicoll (director of CCLA’s Fundamental Freedoms program) and Jin Huh (Social Planning Toronto’s Executive Director) co-authored an op-ed sounding the alarm on Toronto’s plan to prohibit offensive or disruptive – yet peaceful – protests near various types of community gathering spaces.
“We acknowledge that dissenting speech is frequently controversial and can be perceived by many as offensive or even painful. Yet governments must not answer such concerns with state censorship. As clearly laid out in 2017 by the Ontario Court of Appeal: “In a free and democratic society, citizens are not to be handcuffed and removed from public space traditionally used for the expression of dissent because of the discomfort their protest causes.” ”
You can read here the op-ed published in the Toronto Star.
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