CLC Blog

A disturbing trend is spreading across the country, one that directly threatens the free-speech rights of Campaign Life Coalition’s supporters, and indeed, the rights of every liberty-loving Canadian.

Over the past two years, three different Canadian cities have passed pro-LGBT municipal censorship by-laws, with eerily similar wording, and others have made moves to do the same.

In 2021, Edmonton City Council passed a controversial “anti-harassment” by-law which grants municipal enforcement officers the power to shut down lawful protests and free speech on taxpayer-owned public property, in the event that a person who identifies as LGBT “feels” harassed.

It was totally unconstitutional.

Individuals charged can be forcibly removed from city property and fined $250 for offending people based on their “gender identity”, “gender expression”, and “sexual orientation”.

The definition of harassment in the by-law was so subjective that it can easily be weaponized by LGBT activists, or “woke” city staff, to shut down any peaceful protest on public property that is critical of Gender Theory or homosexual propaganda.

Here’s Edmonton’s definition of harassment, as passed:

“In this section “harassed” includes, but is not limited to:

(a) feeling tormented, troubled, worried, plagued or badgered;” (emphasis added)

What an extremely low bar to suppress someone’s free-speech rights, or to shut down a lawful protest, to base it merely on someone’s allegation that: “I feel troubled and worried by the sign that person is holding. You must charge them with harassment.”

Next, the City of Calgary passed similarly worded censorship legislation in 2022.

And, just recently, on September 27, 2023, the Region of Waterloo, which includes the Ontario cities of Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo, voted on a proposed by-law amendment to add wording to its anti-harassment legislation for public spaces that was almost a word-for-word carbon copy of the Edmonton by-law.

Waterloo Region’s Councilors passed it, but thankfully, due to massive pushback from local pro-family citizens, including Christian and Muslim parents, some of the most dangerous language was first deleted from the legislation before Councillors voted to approve it.

That makes three municipal governments in two provinces that have passed similarly worded censorship by-laws that can be used to strip taxpayers of their constitutional right to protest on public property.

Do you notice a pattern?

In all three cases, the pro-LGBT censorship proposal was smuggled in by the municipality’s “anti-racism committee”, who then pitched it to the elected Councillors.

And it’s happening again in other municipalities...

Just recently, the City of St. Catharines, Ontario, and the Regional Municipality of Niagara, have been hit with demands for similar municipal legislation from their respective “Anti-Racism Committees”.

That makes five now and there are probably a lot more we don’t know of.

This isn’t happening by accident.

Certainly, it is being coordinated by a powerful LGBT lobby.

In the case of Niagara Region, those pushing for the censorship by-law admitted quite plainly that the reason for the desired legislation is to stop any more 1 Million March For Children protests against LGBT indoctrination in schools.

The “Niagara Anti-Racism Association” sent a letter of demand to Regional Councillors just five days after the September 20th Million March protests that took place nationwide.

By the way, can someone please tell me when the teaching of Gender Identity Theory in schools became equivalent to a “race”?

It seems very clear to me that there’s a coordinated campaign to systematically target City Councils across Canada, under the guise of “anti-racism”. The goal is to strip Canadians of their Charter rights to freedom of expression, freedom of association, and the right to protest LGBT ideology.

What they’re doing is very sneaky, but I’ve got to hand it to these leftists…

It’s a brilliant strategy.

Instead of going through the front door to censor speech nationwide by changing the Criminal Code of Canada through our federal parliament, these clever Marxists are attempting to accomplish the same thing through the backdoor, via a patchwork of municipal by-laws which, when weaved together, will have the effect of making it illegal to criticize transgender ideology throughout Canada, on any public property.

Let’s Stop the Weaponization of Municipal By-Laws!

We can’t allow this Trojan Horse, so-called “anti-harassment” by-law to spread to any more of Canada’s cities or towns.

The public property in our municipalities cannot become LGBT censorship zones that are off-limits to taxpayers who believe in parental rights and traditional family values.

So how do we stop the spread of this legal disease?

For one, supporters like you - who care about family, faith and freedom - must get involved in municipal politics. You must monitor what is being debated at city hall and be prepared to lobby your local councilors to reject the tyranny of LGBT speech-and-thought control.

Here are some tips for what you can do in your local community:

1. Run for Municipal Council.

What better way to block these tyrannical censorship proposals, than by occupying a seat in City Hall yourself?

Consider running for municipal council, or encouraging someone else whom you believe would be good for the job… and who shares our pro-life-and-family values.

Here’s a link to a chart with the dates for the next municipal elections in each province and territory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_elections_in_Canada.

Even if the next municipal election is far away, surprise by-elections sometimes pop up, due to resignations, deaths, or other reasons. Local news reports will make you aware of by-elections, so keep your eyes and ears open.

2. Do Some Research.

Find out whether your city, town, county or regional Council are considering an “anti-street harassment” by-law modeled on Edmonton’s repressive one, which was also the model for Calgary and Waterloo Region.

If there is a known Christian or pro-lifer on your City Council, perhaps you could approach them and find out if any moves have been made to bring in such a censorship proposal?

You can also go to your municipality’s website and read all the meeting agendas and minutes for the past 12 months or so, as well as the upcoming agendas for each future meeting.

In the course of searching for evidence of a push for a pro-LGBT censorship by-law, you might even find other issues that are worth fighting against (or supporting).

Finally, you could begin attending your Town Council’s monthly meetings. If sub-committee meetings are open to the public, and if your municipality has formed an “Anti-racism Committee” you could perhaps start attending those to find out if they’re smuggling in the LGBT agenda, under the guise of “racism”.

3. Tell Us about it

If you find out that your Town Council is considering a censorship by-law, let us know.

We can get out the word to other pro-life, pro-family taxpayers so you can all mount an effective resistance, in greater numbers.

If you plan to run in a municipal election or by-election, let us know right away so we can help get-out-the-vote and recruit volunteers for you.

4. Fund Our Efforts

If you’re not able to run for office, to attend Council meetings, or to conduct research on your municipality’s by-laws, you can donate to CLC to better equip us to fight this on a national level.

The stronger the financial position of CLC, the more resources we can commit to fighting this battle. Donate by clicking here.

Case Study: How by-law was resisted in Waterloo Region

If you find out that your City Council has been approached with the idea of copying Edmonton’s LGBT censorship by-law, what should effective opposition look like?

To answer that question, I’d like to go through a case study of how local Christians, Muslims, and other freedom loving citizens came together on short notice to oppose Waterloo Region’s so-called “anti-street harassment” by-law.

On September 24, 2023, a concerned CLC supporter contacted us after reading in the local news that the Regional Municipality of Waterloo was going to vote September 27th, on a proposed “anti-hate” by-law amendment to ban people from public property if they make others “feel harassed” on the basis of their “gender identity”, “gender expression” or “sexual orientation”.

CLC leapt into action to fight the tyrannical legislation.

On September 25th, we sent an alert to all our supporters in the region asking them to:

a) Email and phone the Regional Councilors;

b) Attend the September 27th Council meeting, and

c) Apply as delegates to speak against the proposed legislation before the vote.

We then contacted two public interest law firms who specialize in defending free speech, and asked if they could apply as delegates too. One of them, The Democracy Fund, was able to free up their Litigation Director, and got him onto the Delegates list.

Between September 25 – 27th, Regional Councillors were bombarded with emails and phone calls from people opposed to the anti-free speech proposal.

In total, nine local taxpayers plus a constitutional lawyer ended up making persuasive delegation speeches to the Councilors before they voted.

Below are three of the best speeches delivered by pro-freedom delegates:

Mrs. Marium Ali, MillionMarch4Children KW

Adam Cooper, Cambridge

Alan Hohner, The Democracy Fund

Delegate speeches were so persuasive that Council agreed to delete the most dangerously subjective wording in the proposed by-law amendment through a motion to delete language that would have defined “harassed” as: “feeling tormented, troubled, worried, plagued or badgered”.

As a further response to the concerns expressed by local citizens and an expert in constitutional law, Councillors moved a second motion, to add wording clarifying that this by-law shall not be abused to ban protests, as follows: “…. subject to the provision that nothing in this subsection shall prevent or limit a lawful protest”.

Councillors also sought and obtained clarification from their in-house legal counsel that roadways owned by the Region of Waterloo would not be subject to these by-law restrictions.

Although the censorship by-law did end up passing, our collective resistance ended up making it much less dangerous than the LGBT lobby had planned.

For that reason, this case study can help guide us on how to fight the battle in other municipalities throughout the country.

One other element we can’t forget is prayer.

All our efforts are rooted in the Holy Spirit because this is a spiritual battle, even more than it is a political one, and action guided by prayer is the way we always work.

Pray for our efforts, for our supporters engaging on the frontlines, and yes, even for our opponents.