CLC Blog

What a wonderful victory the pro-life movement just won in St. Catharines, ON!

A tyrannical municipal by-law to censor pro-life speech throughout the City of St. Catharines has been repealed!

City Councillors recognized that the by-law, as written, would face powerful constitutional challenges, and voted to scrap it.

We know it's only a temporary reprieve. The enemies of free speech will regroup and mount a renewed attack soon enough.

But in the meantime, let's celebrate and give thanks to God for the win.

Explanation of What Transpired

At the August 12th meeting of St. Catharines City Council, Councillors voted 10 to 2 to repeal their draconian by-law, which had been in effect since September 2023.

That by-law restricted the free and open distribution of any “image or photograph showing, or purporting to show, a fetus or any part of a fetus”, which it described as "offensive or disturbing".

What caused this change of direction among the majority of St. Catharines Councillors?

Unfortunately, it wasn't a change of heart, but rather the realization that their censorship by-law was indefensible and would be struck down in court.

The pro-life advocacy group, Association for Reformed Political Action Canada (APRA), had filed a lawsuit against the anti-free speech by-law, and the case was before the courts.

ARPA's lawsuit focused on the fact that St. Catharines City Council does not have the constitutional power to restrict the public distribution of material “based on the city’s judgment of what specific content, point of view or subject matter is objectionable or offensive.”

ARPA itself was directly affected by the censorship by-law because it had conducted past advocacy campaigns in St. Catharines that used ultrasound images of unborn babies.

You see, the censorship by-law was originally introduced to target abortion victim photography and ban it from being delivered to households by other pro-life groups.

However, during the drafting of the by-law, it morphed into something so restrictive that it even became illegal for ARPA and its volunteers to continue distributing and displaying the far less controversial ultrasound baby images!

In the face of censorship gone wild, ARPA made the persuasive argument that their fetal images were not "gory" or "disturbing", and that it was unfair to ban their advocacy for the unborn.

Even though ARPA's challenge was still before the courts at the time of the August 12th Council meeting, the Councillors, in consultation with the city's solicitor, were forced to recognize that their high-handed by-law was untenable.

As a result, almost all of the councillors voted to repeal their Charter-defying by-law in its entirety, including the ban on abortion victim photography.

Anti-free speech councillors vow to keep censoring pro-life expression

However, the appetite among at least some councillors to suppress pro-life free speech as much as possible is still evident.

It's clear to CLC that Council likely intends to introduce a narrower by-law which targets only abortion victim photography. We suspect any future by-law that's put forward will no longer prohibit baby ultrasound images.

For reasons I'll explain below, while we're pleased at the exemption of non-controversial images from a censorship law, we won't accept any law that takes away our right to express our beliefs with abortion victim photography. The latter is constitutionally protected.

The St. Catharines Standard interviewed some Council members after the vote to repeal, and their responses were quite revealing.

Mayor Mat Siscoe is quoted as saying:

“We want to make sure that all of our ducks are in a row, so that what we have in place can withstand the charter challenge . . . So pull (the by-law's scope) back, make sure that it’s where it needs to be and then put it forward again. We’re still moving forward with it.”

Councillor Greg Miller was quite forthright in his comments after the vote, vowing that Council will take a "second crack" at formulating an anti-free speech by-law that will withstand legal interventions.

Miller also asserted, rather cryptically, that "everyone here is on the same page", and that:

“We want to see this effected in St. Catharines, that we are banning graphic images from being put in mailboxes, and we’ll get there, eventually.”

Let's push back against the censors' totalitarian impulses!

We must take the threat by the St. Catharines City Councillors seriously, and push back while we have the momentum of ARPA's legal challenge on our side.

We want to hit these councillors with tons of emails and phone calls from St. Catharines voters, asking them to leave their freedom-destroying by-law in the trash can, where it belongs, and NOT introduce any new censorship by-law, ever.

Why?

Because abortion is the cold-blooded murder of children in the womb, at the earliest stages of their lives. Although controversial to some, abortion victim photography is a powerful tool in the fight to restore legal protection to unborn children.

Morally principled people, who recognize the value and sanctity of human life - wonderfully made in the image of God - cannot sit back and pretend that pregnant mothers have the right to kill their unwanted children.

That's what cowards and the amoral do, like many of the members of St. Catharine's City Council.

Theirs was indeed a cowardly by-law that tried to conceal a terrible human rights abuse. But instead of hiding the victims, is it not better to end the crime of abortion itself?

Abortion is the problem – not photographs of the child victims of the barbaric practice. They cry out for justice.

Don't let morally indifferent councillors silence the voices of those who recognize the real lives, and real deaths, of the 100,000 babies murdered by abortion in Canada every year.

Contact St. Catharines' mayor and city councillors today

Please phone and email the Mayor and Councillors as soon as possible and urge them to put the lid on the trash can where their anti-free speech by-law lies and where it belongs.

Any new by-law proposal to restrict the free speech rights of pro-life advocates in any way is an attack on the Charter Rights of Canadians. Period.

Call and then email the Council members, who are listed below:

Mayor Mat Siscoe
Phone: 905-688-5601 Ext. 1540
Email: [email protected]

Councillor Councillor Greg Miller
(Ward 1, Merritton)
Phone: 905.327.0442
Email: [email protected]

Councillor Councillor Jackie Lindal
(Ward 1, Merritton)
Phone: 905.327.0484
Email: [email protected]

Councillor Councillor Matt Harris
(Ward 2, St. Andrew's)
Phone: 905.329.6802
Email: [email protected]

Councillor Councillor Joe Kushner
(Ward 2, St. Andrew's)
Phone: 905.327.9638
Email: [email protected]

Councillor Councillor Mark Stevens
(Ward 3, St. George's)
Phone: 289.696.3673
Email: [email protected]

Councillor Councillor Kevin Townsend
(Ward 3, St. George's)
Phone: 905.327.0401
Email: [email protected]

Councillor Councillor Caleb Ratzlaff
(Ward 4, St. Patrick's)
Phone: 905.327.0473
Email: [email protected]

Councillor Councillor Robin McPherson
(Ward 4, St. Patrick's)
Phone: 905.328.0003
Email: [email protected]

Councillor Councillor Dawn Dodge
(Ward 5, Grantham)
Phone: 905.933.0373
Email: [email protected]

Councillor Councillor Bill Phillips
(Ward 5, Grantham)
Phone: 905.327.5363
Email: [email protected]

Councillor Councillor Carlos Garcia
(Ward 6, Port Dalhousie)
Phone: 905.937.7012
Email: [email protected]

Councillor Councillor Bruce Williamson
(Ward 6, Port Dalhousie)
Phone: 905.934.2787 or 905.327.9754
Email: [email protected]