Pro-Trump activist within rights on profane protest

TORONTO • A Donald Trump supporter had every right to brandish a profane protest sign in a busy public park on a summer’s day at Niagara Falls, Ontario’s top court ruled on Monday.

In quashing a trespass notice issued to Fredrick Brack- en, the Court of Appeal said the ability to protest publicly — even using vulgar language — is an essential part of the democratic process.

“In a free society, individuals are permitted to use open public spaces to address the people assembled there, to challenge each other, and to call government to account,” the Appeal Court said. “The idea that the parks are somehow different — that they are categorically a ‘safe space’ where people are to be protected from exposure to political messages — is antithetical to a free and democratic society and would set a dangerous precedent.”

At the same time, the court upheld the constitutionality of a rule barring park users from abusive behaviour that could interfere with the enjoyment of other users. The provision, the court found, was a reasonable restriction on free speech.

The case arose in August 2016 in the run- up to the presidential election in the U. S.. Bracken, of Fort Erie, Ont., was in a park near the falls holding up a sign reading: “Trump is right. F** k China. F**k Mexico.”

Niagara Parks police decided the sign was offensive and disturbing to visitors. Officers told Bracken he could not display the sign and told him to leave.

A couple of days later, Bracken went to the Parks police headquarters, where he was told that if he returned to the park with the sign, he would be removed under trespassing laws.

He turned to the courts, seeking a declaration that parks rules prohibiting “abusive or insulting language” that interferes with other park users was unconstitutional, and that the oral trespass notice police gave him had violated his free speech rights.

In September 2016, Superior Court Justice James Ramsay ruled that consti- tutionally guaranteed freedom of expression does not apply to shouting insulting or abusive language in parks. However, Ramsay declined to rule on the validity of the oral trespass notice because he was not satisfied police had actually issued such a notice.

Bracken turned to the Court of Appeal, which decided Ramsay was mistaken to conclude that park rules did not infringe on free speech. The judge was also wrong in deciding police had not issued a trespass notice, the Appeal Court found.