On Thursday Toronto city council
passed a bylaw allowing schools, daycares and places of worship to apply
for a 50-metre “bubble zone” in which protesting would be prohibited. The impetus, obviously, is the anti-Israel protesters who have been targeting synagogues since Oct. 7, 2003. They and their supporters naturally complained bitterly about this new bylaw — a violation of the Charter, they said confidently. (Typically, council voted down a motion that would have made public the legal advice it had received on the matter.)
That said, it seems doubtful any of the synagogue protesters are much worried about this development. Several have proven themselves perfectly willing to be arrested for their cause (
though Crown prosecutors have often been uninterested in pursuing charges
). The idea they would defer to Toronto’s bylaw officers is risible.
The idea Toronto bylaw officers would even wade into this is somewhat dubious, frankly, though council approved funding for 12 new officers. “Toronto bylaw officer” is not a byword for “robust, consistent and judicious enforcement.” In an extraordinary illustration of who really runs City Hall, in January, Toronto’s executive director of licensing and standards
announced to council’s budget committee
that he was thenceforth refusing to have bylaw officers deal with unlicensed marijuana retailers.
“These officers do not have arrest powers and are not permitted or trained to use force while carrying out enforcement activities,” Carleton Grant, who remains in his position, told the committee. “This makes the enforcement of unlicensed cannabis dispensaries challenging and presents health and safety risks to officers.”
And wading into a baying mob demanding global intifada 40 metres in front of a bubble-zoned synagogue is … what, exactly? A fun day out?
Restrictions on unpopular or even repugnant speech, and freedom of association on public property, are not to be taken lightly. It’s chilling to hear politicians decide for themselves what constitutes “hate speech” and demand police enforce their arbitrary definitions — and all the dropped charges only make it worse. You’re supposed to be arrested for breaking the law, not to relieve political pressure for police and their nominal civilian overseers. (People seem to notice and appreciate the arrests far more than they notice the dropped charges.)
But Jewish Canadians have freedom of association as well, not to mention freedom of worship. On its face, a 50-metre no-go zone seems reasonable. If it’s unreasonable, then the Criminal Code is also unreasonable — perhaps even more so. Section 176 reads as follows: “Everyone who wilfully disturbs or interrupts an assemblage of persons met for religious worship or for a moral, social or benevolent purpose is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.”
Furthermore, “everyone who, at or near (such) a meeting referred, … wilfully does anything that disturbs the order or solemnity of the meeting is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.”
So again, we’re asked to believe that bylaw officers will intervene where police will not. Some councillors argued the bylaw might soon be moot, because
during the election campaign, the Liberals promised
tougher federal laws along these lines. But as usual when federal politicians promise to get tough on crime, all they really can do is write things down on paper. Canadian police, and certainly Toronto police, basically enforce what they feel like enforcing.
Some officers are clearly embarrassed by the, shall we say, less than zealous enforcement of existing laws with respect to the anti-Israel protests. A recent video by protest-chronicler Caryma Sa’d shows a keffiyeh-festooned rabble hounding diners at a location of the Jewish-owned Cafe Landwer, including setting off smoke bombs. “Why aren’t you stopping them?” a woman implores police, no doubt speaking for millions of Canadians. Officers sheepishly ordered the protesters back a few feet, accomplishing not much.
That scene really emblematizes the central problem here, and it’s probably not one that police or bylaw officers can ultimately solve under the current rules of engagement. Canada and its institutions simply aren’t set up to deal with protesters, of any stripe, who refuse to accept when enough is enough. And we have never really grappled with the old-world conflicts and hatreds that have been imported to Canada. It’s not often that those conflicts are so in our faces as they are with the anti-Israel mobs, and all we seem to know how to do is look away.
National Post
cselley@postmedia.com
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