Whitehorse civility policy updates floated after legal action

Hamilton Spectator

23-05-2025

The city is planning on changing its civility policy — and it could result in a lawsuit against it being dropped.
The policy, introduced last summer by the previous council, has been a controversial one: it attracted multiple delegates when it was first proposed. It passed with four votes in favour and two against. Then, after threatening legal action, the Canadian Constitution Foundation, a charity group, filed a court challenge against the policy on the grounds it violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The original policy set rules regarding the conduct of people entering city hall chambers while council meets. Among other things, the policy banned micro-aggressions, signs, physical attacks, threatening behaviour, and verbal abuse, including threats.
The original policy also bans participants from wearing clothing that has imagery or language which is discriminatory, offensive, detrimental, profane, racial, sexist, violent or vulgar.
At the May 20 standing committee of city council, corporate services director Valerie Braga introduced a new version of the civility policy with changes at least partially motivated by the legal challenge initiated late last year.
The policy overhaul completely axes the section about micro-aggressions and allows certain signs based on sign size and content. It includes a definition of hate speech and changes the parameters of what type of clothing is permitted inside city council chambers.
The petition filed with the Yukon Supreme Court by the Canadian Constitution Foundation in November alleged the civility policy is contrary to section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression. It also includes freedom of the press and other media of communication.
The lawyer representing the Canadian Constitution Foundation in this lawsuit, Vincent Larochelle, told the News that his client would be backing down from the lawsuit should the updates to the policy be adopted.
'They consider the amendments to address the vast majority, the essence of what their lawsuit was,' Larochelle said.
'My client's issue was with how vague and wide-ranging and subjective that previous policy was. It covered all sorts of language or expression, from attire, signs, language and even just offensive stuff, but the fact that you're offended by what someone is saying doesn't make it necessarily hate speech.'
He said his client said the original policy was 'flagrantly unconstitutional.'
One of the things highlighted in the petition, as noted by Larochelle, was that the policy was brought forth in the wake of people voicing support for the people of Gaza within city chambers.
The Middle Eastern enclave has been under Israeli bombardment since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre in 2023.
A United Nations report
tallying cumulative deaths as of May 14, 2025, said 1,200 people were killed in that massacre. The same United Nations report said nearly 53,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023.
Last summer,
delegates
in Whitehorse packed the public gallery to speak on a motion to publicly support calls for a ceasefire.
At May 20's standing committee meeting, Braga told councillors about the history of the policy when presenting the changes.
'When the policy was originally brought forward, we had gone through a period of time where we had a few contentious meetings. Topics were heated. People took positions on one side or the other. There was a gap in extremes, for lack of a better term,' she said.
'And what we wanted to do was to ensure that all participants felt safe coming into chambers, felt able to speak their piece, that council also felt that they were respected through the process, and were able to give respect back to participants. It was very important to the council of the day that people feel safe within this room. That was the main intent of the policy.'
The new policy focuses on hate speech, Larochelle said, and there are recognized limits to that form of expression. The Canadian Constitution Foundation does not take issue with that type of targeted policy.
'We need to be able to have rigorous debates in our society, and the civility policy as amended, if it's accepted, would presumably allow that to happen in the context of city council meetings,' said Larochelle.
'What the lawsuit was getting at was that vagueness, the micro-aggression, the sign ban, the attire ban, and all that's essentially gone.'
The majority of the current council was elected in October, after the civility policy was installed by the previous council. Only Coun. Dan Boyd and Mayor Kirk Cameron are holdovers from the previous council: they both voted in favour of adopting the policy when it was presented last year.
Coun. Lenore Morris, who is also a lawyer, said it is incumbent on city council to not infringe on political speech anymore than necessary.
'I think everybody who's on city council really wants to encourage engagement and polite, courteous, lively discourse with the public, and I think that the changes that we are making to the policy, or that we are proposing to make to the policy, will permit that,' she said.
Coun. Jenny Hamilton also said that she was upset as a citizen when the policy was installed last year, and that she supports the changes.
Larochelle said his client still has some minor concerns regarding the policy — specifically on some remaining vagueness within the policy and the limits on signs — but they do not believe the updated policy would warrant a lawsuit.
He said the Canadian Constitution Foundation considers the amendments a victory.
'The lawsuit seems to have triggered a pretty significant overhaul of the policy. So even better, if we can affect change without having to go to court.'