City to pay almost $13K for breaking election law

Posters depicting child killed in bombing removed illegally during 2015 campaign

The city of Montreal has been ordered to pay $12,860 in damages for ordering its blue-collar workers to take down election posters belonging to the Boycott, Désinvestissement et Sanction Québec movement and the Communist Party of Canada. Quebec Court Judge Sylvie Lachapelle ruled last month that the city violated Canada’s election law by removing posters during the federal election campaign in the fall of 2015. The posters showed a picture of a dead Palestinian child who had been killed in an Israeli bombing that also killed three other children. After receiving a lawyer’s letter warning the city not to remove any more posters, workers continued to do so, actions the plaintiffs say violated their rights to freedom of expression. Some of the posters that were put up in the Outremont riding of New Democratic Party leader Thomas Mulcair were taken down by Hasidic Jews who live nearby, the judgment says. The city must pay $12,000 in damages to the BDS Québec movement. The court also ordered the city to pay BDS $540 for removing 30 of its posters and $320 to the Communist Party of Canada for the removal of about 20 of its posters. BDS Québec had been given third-party status and had the legal right to put up campaign posters. The Communist Party of Canada was registered with Elections Canada during the campaign. The city says it removed the posters after receiving numerous complaints from citizens. Founded in 2005, the BDS movement promotes sanctions against Israel to press for Palestinian self-determination, the return of Arab lands, equal citizenship for Palestinians and refugees’ right to return home.