Advocates frustrated London’s graphic images sign ban fizzles

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Politicians and advocates pushing London to ban the public display of graphic anti-abortion signs are dismayed after city council voted this week to kill a proposed bylaw.

City council voted 10-5 against holding a meeting to allow the public to comment on a draft “advocacy message” bylaw that would have regulated how large signs could be and where they could be placed on city streets and crosswalks.

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Anna Hopkins, David Ferreira, Elizabeth Peloza, Sam Trosow and Hadleigh McAlister voted to move ahead on the proposed bylaw while all other councillors were opposed.

The bylaw was born out of efforts to regulate graphic anti-abortion images being displayed in public. The London chapter of the Viewer Discretion Legislation Coalition led the drive that took a turn to a more content-neutral approach.

Katie Dean, the coalition’s co-founder, told The London Free Press she was “extremely frustrated and disappointed” with council’s decision to quash the *proposed bylaw before the public could even weigh in.

“Ultimately, city council were … voting to listen to their constituents,” she said. “So to say, ‘No, we’re not going to listen to the public about this issue,’ that’s what’s really got me really ramped up.”

The sign bylaw was spurred on by a previous victory from the coalition that lobbied the city to pass a bylaw requiring mailouts with graphic anti-abortion images to come in an opaque envelope with a warning label attached.

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Coun. Sam Trosow, who advised the group before he was elected to council, agreed council “landed in the wrong place,” saying that though the difference of opinion among councillors raised legitimate questions, a public meeting would have explored those questions.

“To just stop the process without giving the public, on both sides of this issue quite frankly, the opportunity to come to a public participation meeting, I thought was very poor policy, and I’m very disappointed in the council for not letting this proceed to the next step,” he said.

During discussion at a city council meeting Tuesday, some councillors said they agreed with a more content-neutral approach, while others wished to return to a targeted approach for graphic images.

Deputy mayor Shawn Lewis voted to kill the sign bylaw despite being one of the proponents of the bylaw for the distribution of graphic images. He said he was open to the idea, and was confident a bylaw restricting the display of graphic images on roads and sidewalks could be upheld if challenged in court.

But when residents raised concerns about the bylaw affecting other forms of protest such as picketing, he said he became concerned the city could be vulnerable to a legal challenge.

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“As soon as I started hearing, ‘We’re going to need an exemption for one group or another group,’ that, to me is a big red flag that the proposal is flawed in the first place,” Lewis said.

Council received confidential legal advice from the city solicitor that convinced him that it was a “no-win situation,” he said.

Dean said the group will continue to respond to anti-abortion protests by blocking view of graphic images that the group views as traumatizing.

“All we can do at this point is protect ourselves, the politicians aren’t going to help us,” she said.

The advocacy group London Against Abortion applauded the move by council in a statement Wednesday.

“These bylaw proposals would have unjustly infringed on the Charter right to freedom of expression for all Londoners,” said spokesperson Maria McCann. ” It is crucial that we maintain our city’s ability to have civil dialogue on difficult issues.”

jmoulton@postmedia.com

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