City of Ottawa moves to ban protests outside “vulnerable” institutions

Author Sharlene Gandhi

The City of Ottawa wants to develop a bylaw that will ban demonstrations and protests near “vulnerable social infrastructure.” 

The bylaw will be developed over the next nine months and follows a similar one recently approved by the City of Toronto. 

Toronto classifies places of worship, schools and childcare centres as “vulnerable,” while Ottawa has added hospitals and long-term care facilities to its list of institutions outside which protests will not be allowed. 

Although the bylaw will exclude labour union protests and strikes, the Canadian Union of Public Employees’ Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU-CUPE) has “vowed to fight” it, stating that the bylaw “would prevent health care workers from exercising their charter rights and organizing demonstrations outside their workplaces.”

According to its statement, OCHU-CUPE represents a largely female and racialized workforce. 

In Ontario, the cities of Vaughan and Brampton have also developed similar bylaws. Further afield, in Calgary, the Safe & Inclusive Access Bylaw is being challenged in court by the Canadian Constitution Foundation. 

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  • Sharlene Gandhi is the Future of Good editorial fellow on digital transformation.

    Sharlene has been reporting on responsible business, environmental sustainability and technology in the UK and Canada since 2018. She has worked with various organizations during this time, including the Stanford Social Innovation Review, the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business at Lancaster University, AIGA Eye on Design, Social Enterprise UK and Nature is a Human Right. Sharlene moved to Toronto in early 2023 to join the Future of Good team, where she has been reporting at the intersections of technology, data and social purpose work. Her reporting has spanned several subject areas, including AI policy, cybersecurity, ethical data collection, and technology partnerships between the private, public and third sectors.

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