There was a difficult debate at Council last week regarding “bubble zones” - and the details matter. The concept is to establish safe access zones, otherwise known as bubble zones, around places of worship, schools, and daycares that have stronger limits on freedom of expression to ensure that people aren’t impeded from entering.
Unfortunately, the City Manager brought a report to Council that did not make sense. To make the infringements on rights charter compliant, Staff twisted themselves into knots with a ridiculous and bureaucratic application system that would have required proof that an incident occurred in the past 90 days within 20m of the site and Transportation Services’ officials acting as detectives just to establish a “bubble zone”. Once established, the bubble zones would be under the purview of by-law enforcement, whose officers already don’t use the powers they have to protect tenants (see below) and will not even break up a loud house party without calling police.
That’s why I moved amendments that would have made the proposed by-law charter compliant, effectively enforced by police and wouldn't have required an application process. If my motion had passed, the by-law would have been more likely to hold up in court as it respected the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms while protecting our communities from targeted harassment, intimidation, and physical impediments to entering a place of worship, school, or daycare.
Unfortunately, Council decided on a version of a “Bubble Zone” that removed some, but not all, of the bureaucratic nonsense, but clearly infringed on the charter and would be the responsibility of by-law officers. I could not support a performative measure that would do nothing to keep us safe and would very likely be overturned by the courts.
In the past couple of years, Toronto has seen a concerning rise in hate crime incidents, including at an alarming rate targeting the Jewish community. Many residents are living in fear, and its vital to do everything we can to stop the rise in antisemitism and hate in all forms.
It’s important that we identify real problems and ensure the solutions address them - but they have to be real and helpful. Nothing Council did or considered last week, including any iteration of a bubble zone, would have any effect on the deplorable acts of hate we’ve seen in our city including hate speech, antisemitic posters, vandalized businesses, and the shooting of a Jewish girls’ school.
In fact, voices in the media from different ends of the political spectrum on this debate have concluded that the direction taken by city council is fundamentally wrong. Please see this column from the
Toronto Star and another from the
National Post.
The real solution? The police should be enforcing our existing laws around harassment, violence, hate speech, and intimidation. Instead of the motion that was ultimately approved that would be merely enforced by city staff, my motion asked the police to enforce all relevant laws and to hold people accountable for criminal code violations.
When we take a stand against hate, it can’t just be performative or symbolic. It has to actually protect our communities and our rights. There is a still a lot of work to be done and
I am deeply committed to keep working with our neighbours, faith leaders, community leaders, and police to provide effective enforcement of the law to keep all Torontonians safe from hate.
