Canada: Pro-Abortion Councillors in Calgary Seek to Ban Pro-Life Activity Near Schools: Free Speech? They Just Don’t Get It

[Paul Fromm sent me this. Jan]

Pro-Abortion Councillors in Calgary Seek to Ban Pro-Life Activity Near Schools: Free Speech? They Just Don’t Get It

Over 9,000 concerned Canadians have signed our petition to demand that Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi does everything in his power to stop the amendment to the Temporary Signs on Highways Bylaw.

This amendment would make it so that any large signs advocating a message could not be carried within 150 metres (to put this into perspective, this is longer than the length of a football field) of any school in Calgary. This amendment was designed to silence pro-life activism, similar to the bubble zones that were made around abortion clinics in Alberta in 2018

I called the office of the Mayor last week to confirm that the Mayor had been receiving the petition emails. His secretary confirmed he was receiving them, but I was not able to get a comment from the Mayor about it.On Monday, October 6th, the Calgary City Council discussed and voted on the amendment to the Temporary Signs on Highways Bylaw. The bylaw passed 12-3, with councillors Jeromy Farkas, Peter Demong, and Joe Magliocca voting against it.It seems, therefore, that it is now against the law in Calgary to carry any advocacy message larger than a postcard near any school.

This is a reprehensible move on behalf of the Calgary City Council and continues a worrying trend of attempts by Canadian governments in censoring the pro-life message and the attempts of pro-life activists to save babies.Since we know Mayor Nenshi is seeing your emails, it would be great if you could sign onto our campaign.

SIGN TO STOP PRO-LIFE SIGN BANThanks so much,James Schadenberg and the entire CitizenGO TeamP.S. If you live in Calgary, we strongly urge you to also contact your Ward Councillor and hold them to account for their vote against the Temporary Signs on Highways Bylaw amendment (or if you’re in Farkas’, Magliocca’s, or Demong’s Ward, thank them for their vote).Here’s the email we sent you earlier on this:

Soon, the Calgary City Council will be voting on an amendment to the Temporary Signs on Highways Bylaw.This amendment would make it illegal to carry signs larger than three-and-a-half by five inches that display “messaging that publicly expresses an opinion on an issue or cause” from being within 150 metres of school property.

This proposed ban was designed to censor pro-life activists by banning pro-life posters near Calgary schools.Help us fight against this authoritarian bylaw amendment by urging the Mayor of Calgary to vote against and speak out against it.

SIGN THE PETITIONDear Paul,One thing that pro-life Canadians have come to expect from their government is attempts to abuse the law to silence the pro-life message. For example, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario have used the law to create “bubble zones” around abortion clinics, making it illegal for pro-life advocates to speak out against the killing of the unborn around the buildings where this killing is happening.

In Calgary, Alberta, we are now seeing this censorship to pro-lifers expanded. On September 9th, it was announced that a proposed amendment to the Temporary Signs on Highways Bylaw would be heading to City Council for a vote. This amendment would make it illegal to carry signs larger than three-and-a-half by five inches that display “messaging that publicly expresses an opinion on an issue or cause” from being within 150 metres of school property.This is another attempt by politicians to silence the pro-life message.

For the past year in Calgary, the media has been up in arms about pro-life activists from the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform occasionally doing pro-life activism near schools in Calgary. Their activism would consist of them having conversations with students about the ethics of abortion while carrying signs with abortion victim photography. If this by-law gets voted in by the Calgary City Council, continuing this activism could get them fined up to $1000!

This is a direct attack against the pro-life community in Calgary. Please sign our petition to let the mayor of Calgary, Naheed Nenshi, know that you will not stand for this!

The pro-abortion politicians in Calgary are so desperate to silence the pro-life message that they are willing to ban all messages around schools to accomplish their goals.That means that it would be illegal for even students and teachers to use large signs to advocate for a cause that is important to them on public property near their schools!Of course, the amendment is so broad in who it is silencing because

if they merely targetted pro-life activists, this would likely be too explicitly discriminatory, and pro-life activists could probably successfully fight against it. But pro-abortion politicians are so set on silencing the truth about abortion that they’d prefer to silence everyone to silence a particular view they disagree with.Because of this, the proposed bylaw amendment is not only an attack against the rights of pro-lifers, but an attack on the rights of everyone in Calgary.

We cannot tolerate this attack on the fundamental rights of Canadians. Stand up for freedom of speech and freedom of peaceful assembly by joining our campaign against this awful bylaw change.We also have to recognize that pro-abortion activists in the Calgary area definitely do not want high schoolers to know the truth about the unborn. Teenagers are inundated with media that promote left-wing causes such as abortion, and now the pro-abortion crowd is upset that CCBR has found a way to pierce that left-wing bubble. CCBR’s activism here is important as well because, in Canada, teenagers are legally old enough to abort their unborn children for whatever reason, and even without parental knowledge.And even ignoring this, the messages teenagers surround themselves with will greatly impact their mindset when they enter their early 20s, which is the largest abortion-seeking demographic in Canada.

We cannot let the pro-life message be censored by pro-abortion politicians in Calgary. Join us in telling Mayor Naheed Nenshi to vote against and speak out against this amendment!Thanks for all you do,James Schadenberg and the entire CitizenGO TeamP.S. If you live in Calgary, we strongly urge you to also contact your Ward Councillor and tell them to vote against the proposed amendment to the Temporary Signs on Highways Bylaw.

More information:New bylaw would ban large advocacy signs near Calgary schools (Global News) https://globalnews.ca/news/7325383/new-bylaw-ban-large-advocacy-signs-calgary-schools/