Court orders TransLink to review anti-abortion ad

VANCOUVER — B.C.’s highest court has ordered TransLink to reconsider its denial of an advertisement from an anti-abortion group.

In January 2015, the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform made inquiries about placing an advertisement on TransLink buses.

The non-profit society’s proposed ad included images of fetuses and the words “ABORTION KILLS CHILDREN.”

TransLink’s advertising agent refused to place the ad.

About a month later, John Beaudoin, TransLink’s director of customer engagement and marketing, sent an email to the centre’s lawyer saying that the transportation authority supported the refusal of TransLink’s advertising agent to place the ad.

The centre took TransLink to court, arguing that TransLink’s decision was unreasonable because it didn’t reference charter values. The society also argued that TransLink could reject advertising content only if it was discriminatory or hateful.

But in his ruling, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Peter Leask rejected those arguments and accepted TransLink’s submission that the ad could cause psychological harm to children and women. The judge accessed the centre’s website, which he said contained many images more graphic than those in the proposed ad, including images of dismembered fetuses.

The centre appealed Leask’s ruling, contending that the judge had erred in finding justification for Beaudoin’s decision outside of his email and by accessing the centre’s website.

In a ruling released Tuesday, a threejudge panel of the B.C. Court of Appeal agreed that the chambers judge had erred and set aside the dismissal of the centre’s legal action.

TransLink argued on the appeal, as it had before the chambers judge, that Beaudoin had made his decision by balancing the centre’s right to freedom of expression and TransLink’s objective of providing a safe, welcoming transit system.