Patrick Brown’s bylaw to curb protest under fire: divisive politics or community protection?

This week Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown pushed through his controversial bylaw restricting “nuisance demonstrations” within a hundred metres of places of worship. The move has triggered concern among advocates, residents and legal experts from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

With unanimous consent from all councillors, Brown enacted the bylaw—loosely using one Vaughan already has in place—following a series of recent incidents outside Hindu and Sikh places of worship, that began after Sikhs For Justice notified police and temple officials the group was organizing a demonstration outside the Hindu Sabha Temple on November 3. 

Staff from the Indian Consulate were inside at the time, as part of a series of controversial, publicized seminars in the community. The demonstrators said they gathered to peacefully protest the actions of the Indian government which has been accused by the US and Canadian governments of a disturbing plot to assassinate and intimidate North American Sikh advocates demanding more rights and an independent homeland to be carved out of India, where they are a minority group.

People from the temple confronted the group, according to video footage, and members from both sides engaged in a clash that grew violent as some Sikh demonstrators entered the temple grounds with many using hand-held flag poles to hit those who had come out from the temple, while both sides used sticks and rocks. Peel Police officers were at the scene and assault charges were eventually laid against a handful of people. Further incidents were sparked outside places of worship in Brampton and Mississauga over two days, as members of the Hindu community clashed with police and tried to descend on Sikh places of worship. 

Brown took to social media with inflammatory posts suggesting the organizers of the initial protest, Sikhs For Justice, were purposely engaging in violence. 

He quickly planted himself in the mainstream media, claiming the bylaw he intended to push through was a solution. 

Advocates, residents and rights groups pointed out Brown appears to be doing little more than creating headlines with a law that is unnecessary, vague and would not withstand a Charter challenge on the grounds of freedom to peacefully assemble and protections of expression; others are criticizing a “divisive” move by Brown who has a history of exploiting ethnic and religious tensions for his own political gain. 

Under the title “Bylaw to Prohibit Nuisance Demonstrations”, Brown claims his new rules will prevent “nuisance” demonstrations within 100 metres of places of worship.

The bylaw took effect on Wednesday, November 20.

Despite claims by Brown of acting to prevent gatherings like the protest organized by Sikhs For Justice outside the Hindu Sabha Temple on November 3, his bylaw contains a clause that specifically allows such an event: the bylaw “does not prevent persons from peacefully protesting against foreign governments at a Place of Worship”. Critics are suggesting Brown is doing nothing but drawing attention to himself while purposely dividing communities for his own political gain, by going to groups during election time claiming he supported their cause.

Sikhs For Justice told The Pointer the bylaw does nothing to prevent the group from “continuing its campaign” to peacefully draw attention to the atrocities being carried out by the Indian government, as highlighted in recent evidence and statements by US and Canadian law enforcement authorities. The group reiterated that its demonstration on November 3 and future ones are in no way aimed at places of worship or the Hindu community, they are “peaceful” efforts to confront the Indian government’s alarming covert plot against Sikhs in Canada. 

Critics are questioning Brown’s motives. 

“The Brampton mayor has pushed a bylaw that states no person ‘shall organize or participate in a nuisance demonstration within one hundred metres’ of a place of worship, and it is ‘not intended’ to prohibit peaceful protest,” Ranjit Khatkur, a co-founder of the Peel Coalition Against Racialized Discrimination (P-CARD), human rights advocate and former educator, began in an email to The Pointer.

“As a retired educator, human rights activist, parent and now grand-parent living in Mississauga for nearly 40 years I am appalled that things are really deteriorating at many levels, with people in leadership positions who have no interest in leading.

“What did Patrick Brown do to sit down with community members, experts who have worked across Peel’s diverse communities to find solutions on a wide range of complicated issues and residents who have a big stake in making sure we all, and I stress ‘all of us’, come together as Canadians, embracing Canadian values? The answer is nothing.

“Instead, as seems to be a pattern with him, he wants to divide the Sikh and Hindu communities. As someone who has worked for decades in these spaces, right here in Peel, I wish experienced individuals in each community had been brought together to lead and guide a resolution.

“Not an easy task, I understand, but the effort should be to have leaders who are trained, trusted and understand the community perspective that will bring folks together.

“The ban will tear up and divide our communities further, it will create further animosity and violence, I fear.”

According to the bylaw, "nuisance demonstrations" are protests or actions that have the potential to intimidate people, bar people from entering a place of worship, or promote intolerance, violence, hatred or prejudice.

In an unusual move, Brown held no public consultations, there was no staff report and legal concerns are only vaguely addressed in the language of the bylaw, with some sections drawing concerns about overreach: “An Officer may enter on land, premises, or buildings or structures at any reasonable time for the purpose of carrying out an inspection to determine compliance with” the bylaw. 

Brown did not respond to a request for comment about concerns raised by critics. 

“As currently drafted, the proposed by-law is likely to chill free speech and lawful, peaceful protests. This bylaw uses vague and open-ended definitions that leave it to police officers to make subjective and unpredictable determinations,” said Anaïs Bussieres McNicoll, Director of the Fundamental Freedoms Program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which issued a news release Tuesday, the day before the bylaw came into effect, expressing concern that the bylaw, with its ambiguous and subjective definitions calling for unpredictable enforcement, will restrict free expression and peaceful protests.

Additionally, she said the bylaw imposes an unreasonable and excessive maximum penalty of $100,000 on anyone found guilty of violating it.

She highlighted the significance of public spaces as places that enable people to peacefully exercise their rights to association, assembly, and self-expression. She urged Brampton City Council to refrain from unjustly and unduly cutting off these spaces because they are the cornerstone of any free and democratic society.

Gary Batasar with the Peel Law Chambers says this maximum fine would most likely only be applied for a “gross violation” or repeated behaviour. 

“It is doubtful that violations by a first offender is going to get a fine of $100,000.  However, I’m sure that if a party or parties are organizing individuals to gather armed with weapons in large numbers to confront worshippers or people of a different ethnic background or religion, not only would that person face criminal charges, but also the bylaw would be an added level of deterrence to ensure that nobody has those types of thoughts in mind,” he told The Pointer. 

It remains unclear how the bylaw achieves anything beyond the Criminal Code. 

CCLA also wrote a letter to Brown on November 18 and pointed out the failure of the bylaw to meet the requirements of freedom of expression. The organization says the proposed legislation creates an imbalance between peaceful protests and free speech, and it’s not carefully crafted.

The bylaw's provisions are already covered by the Criminal Code, which regulates illegal activity, including actions that sometimes occur at demonstrations, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which safeguards nonviolent and legal protests. 

"If the potential bylaw aims to prohibit protests that are violent, that are not peaceful, that's already covered under the Criminal Code… police do not need a new bylaw to intervene now," McNicoll told The Pointer a week ago.

"If the proposed bylaw goes further and aims to prohibit nonviolent protests just because they are near places of worship or maybe also other locations, that's a clear limit on freedom of expression and the right to peacefully protest."

Free expression is essential in a democracy, she reminded.

"So, everybody in Canada should be safe, and we agree with the mayor of Brampton that places of worship should be safe spaces free from violence.

"But it's also important to remember that free speech and the right to protest peacefully are pillars of our democracy.

"They allow everyone in Canada to speak up about issues they care about. So, limits to these charter-protected rights should not be taken lightly."

Pro-Indian government protesters clashed with police in Brampton on November 4.

(Muhammad Hamza / The Pointer)

The absence of stakeholder consultation before Brown rushed the bylaw through was in stark contrast to a local law in Vaughan enacted after the October 7th attacks by Hamas, aimed at ensuring residents feel safe amid public gatherings related to the ongoing conflict in Gaza. Brown has repeatedly pointed to the Vaughan bylaw to justify and compare his move, even though he has included language that goes far beyond the neighbouring city, which conducted extensive stakeholder engagement for almost a year before passing its new rules. Brown did not. 

He has long been criticized for dividing specific communities to exploit them for political gain. 

“Some Canadians are concerned that mayor Brown is sowing division in our country,” Jamil Jivani, who is now a GTA MP representing Durham, said while moderating a federal Conservative Party leadership debate in 2022, when Brown ran but refused to show up and be questioned at the event. “He has been criticized for manipulating diaspora politics to bolster his campaign.”

Pierre Poilievre, who won the race, responded at the time. “Well listen, the bottom line is that Patrick Brown says one thing in one room and exactly the opposite in another room. And that is what he has done throughout this campaign, it’s what he did when he ran for leader of the Ontario PC Party.”

Brown admits to these divisive tactics in his memoir, published in 2018, detailing his 2015 victory to become PC Party leader in Ontario.

He detailed how he used local ethnic groups, including Tamils, who he pledged to support in their efforts to oppose the Sri Lankan government in a long-standing conflict, which had largely faded away back home, stoking differences between local communities here. 

“By the time I announced my intention to run for Ontario Party leader in October [2014], I had lined up all sides of each of these communities—the four sides of the Sikh community and the three sides of the Tamil community.”

“The Tamil community organizers told me when I announced my candidacy that they would be able to sweep the GTA for me.”

“During the campaign, we signed up around 10,000 Tamil members.”

“In key ridings such as in Scarborough, where there were about 20,000 Tamil families per riding, my campaign team knew it would be a cakewalk for us. But I said to the team that the goal was to find Tamil families in other ridings.”

“In the weaker ridings, if we could get 500 Tamil members signed up to vote, we knew we’d have 80 percent of that riding.”

“This guy’s our hero,” Tamil organizers, instructed by Brown’s team, would tell families to persuade them to take out PC riding memberships and turn out to vote for Brown when the leadership race was held.

In a widely circulated article titled B2B—MR. BROWN: From Barrie to Brampton, published in a Tamil-language platform and translated into English, one of the community organizers who worked on Brown’s Tamil membership scheme, wrote that community members who helped pull together membership votes were promised that, “When Patrick Brown becomes the Premier of Ontario, Tamil people will be given higher positions in many government boards such as regulatory boards of LCBO.” Later, the article states, “…it became apparent that these kinds of emotional campaigns and attractive promises were the main reasons behind Patrick Brown’s popularity among the Tamil community.”

Brown’s well publicized relationship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who he calls an “older brother”, has been part of a wider concern over the role Canadian politicians play, often unwittingly, in foreign interference. 

He has visited India more than two-dozen times and has bragged about the “state status” Modi has given him, with few details about the nature of the trips as experts warn that Canadian politicians who try to exploit demographics here for their own gain, might be part of a dangerous game. 

Brown has been asked by Parliamentarians to appear at the ongoing committee hearings in Ottawa as part of the government’s investigation into foreign interference. 

When Brown ran for Brampton mayor in 2018, “similar techniques were used once again on the Tamil community.” The article says the same promises of jobs for loyal followers were thrown out to the Tamil community. “Once Patrick is our Mayor, we will give municipality jobs to Tamils living in Brampton.”

After he was elected by voters who now feel betrayed, many in Brampton's Tamil and Sikh communities asked what happened to the high-paying jobs Brown promised; those went to his white male Conservative-insider friends from places like Barrie and Niagara.

Sri Lankan Canadians later accused Brown of dividing them using long-standing religious and ethnic tensions related to the bloody civil war in Sri Lanka that had ended more than a decade earlier, with minority Tamils in armed conflict against the majority Sinhalese government. 

An article published in The Canadian Jewish News in 2022 by writer Josh Lieblein, made the point that Brown will say whatever a room full of potential supporters wants to hear: “… I once stood not 10 feet from Patrick Brown and heard him speak to an audience of Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee donors at a fundraiser. He spoke for perhaps five minutes, said the pro-Israel things he knew everyone wanted to hear, and then fell silent,” knowing he already said everything he could to win the support of those gathered around him.

Critics during the 2022 CPC leadership race admonished Brown for playing Palestinian-Canadians and Jewish-Canadians off each other regarding promises to each side about where the Canadian Embassy in Israel would be located if he became prime minister. He told Ukrainian-Canadians he would effectively support a third World War to help their cause (he then used the widespread support for Ukrainian refugees across Canada to stir resentment among Palestinians).

“Brown treats people as a means to an end,” Lieblein wrote. 

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