Ontario passes Bill 100.
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnist...e-activism
It’s one of the oldest plays in the book — a crisis is followed by new laws that are intentionally broad enough to be applied to just about anybody considered inconvenient.
That’s what we’re seeing with the Ontario government’s Bill 100, Keeping Ontario Open for Business Act, a piece of legislation that could do little more than stamp out and criminalize many labour actions, like strikes and picket lines, and critically important demonstrations on issues including racial justice and meaningful climate action.
The thing is, law enforcement already had all the tools they needed to disperse the blockades at their disposal. Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act allows officers to remove a vehicle from streets and the Criminal Code covers offences like mischief. Indeed, the major border blockades were cleared using normal legal tools before the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act.
The legislation prohibits disruptions on protected transportation infrastructure if it could reasonably be expected to disrupt economic activity. But that’s exactly the purpose of a strike and a picket line, activities that some of us, and thousands of other Canadians, proudly take part in when the moment requires it. They are also constitutionally protected.
The legislation also says the definition of “protected transportation infrastructure” could be expanded through a time-limited regulation. Needless to say that allowing a government the discretion to expand an anti-protest law through regulation sounds like a very effective way of silencing justified criticisms of the government.
You don’t need to stretch too far back in history to think about the kinds of protests that governments might use a Bill like this to shut down: The Indigenous land defenders engaged in rail blockades near the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory between Toronto and Montreal in 2020; the climate activists demonstrating at the Toronto Pearson airport in the fall; the Ottawa airport cabbies demonstrating in 2015; or Black Lives Matter Toronto when they sent a delegation in support of Haitian migrants facing deportation at the Canada-U.S. border in early 2018.
We’ve always been proud to support, to be in solidarity with, and to advocate on behalf of organizations and demonstrators like these. One of us has even taken part in demonstrations that undeniably would have been illegal if this legislation was law, like standing alongside striking Porter Airlines workers at the Toronto Island airport, an action that could, under Bill 100, lead to an arrest, a fine of up to $100,000, and potentially one year in jail.
Let’s be clear that as concerning as the recent convoy protests were, there’s no evidence that we need to expand police powers or create a suite of new and expansive anti-protest measures. And there are no guarantees they won’t be used against those of us calling attention to injustice, to racism and colonialism, and to economic exploitation.
Moya Teklu is Executive Director and General Counsel at the Black Legal Action Centre; Cara Zwibel is Director, Fundamental Freedoms Program with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association; and Fred Hahn is President of CUPE Ontario
Are the Black Legal Action Centre, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and CUPE all just useful idiots/fronts for white supremacy, and organizations that have outlived their usefulness? And this article doesn't even take into account that the Federal government intends to pursue making a good deal of the emergency act into permanent law.
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnist...e-activism
It’s one of the oldest plays in the book — a crisis is followed by new laws that are intentionally broad enough to be applied to just about anybody considered inconvenient.
That’s what we’re seeing with the Ontario government’s Bill 100, Keeping Ontario Open for Business Act, a piece of legislation that could do little more than stamp out and criminalize many labour actions, like strikes and picket lines, and critically important demonstrations on issues including racial justice and meaningful climate action.
The thing is, law enforcement already had all the tools they needed to disperse the blockades at their disposal. Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act allows officers to remove a vehicle from streets and the Criminal Code covers offences like mischief. Indeed, the major border blockades were cleared using normal legal tools before the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act.
The legislation prohibits disruptions on protected transportation infrastructure if it could reasonably be expected to disrupt economic activity. But that’s exactly the purpose of a strike and a picket line, activities that some of us, and thousands of other Canadians, proudly take part in when the moment requires it. They are also constitutionally protected.
The legislation also says the definition of “protected transportation infrastructure” could be expanded through a time-limited regulation. Needless to say that allowing a government the discretion to expand an anti-protest law through regulation sounds like a very effective way of silencing justified criticisms of the government.
You don’t need to stretch too far back in history to think about the kinds of protests that governments might use a Bill like this to shut down: The Indigenous land defenders engaged in rail blockades near the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory between Toronto and Montreal in 2020; the climate activists demonstrating at the Toronto Pearson airport in the fall; the Ottawa airport cabbies demonstrating in 2015; or Black Lives Matter Toronto when they sent a delegation in support of Haitian migrants facing deportation at the Canada-U.S. border in early 2018.
We’ve always been proud to support, to be in solidarity with, and to advocate on behalf of organizations and demonstrators like these. One of us has even taken part in demonstrations that undeniably would have been illegal if this legislation was law, like standing alongside striking Porter Airlines workers at the Toronto Island airport, an action that could, under Bill 100, lead to an arrest, a fine of up to $100,000, and potentially one year in jail.
Let’s be clear that as concerning as the recent convoy protests were, there’s no evidence that we need to expand police powers or create a suite of new and expansive anti-protest measures. And there are no guarantees they won’t be used against those of us calling attention to injustice, to racism and colonialism, and to economic exploitation.
Moya Teklu is Executive Director and General Counsel at the Black Legal Action Centre; Cara Zwibel is Director, Fundamental Freedoms Program with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association; and Fred Hahn is President of CUPE Ontario
Are the Black Legal Action Centre, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and CUPE all just useful idiots/fronts for white supremacy, and organizations that have outlived their usefulness? And this article doesn't even take into account that the Federal government intends to pursue making a good deal of the emergency act into permanent law.
