Vancouver councillor Suzanne Anton demands more time to debate political expression report

David Eby, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, has already tweeted his disapproval.

Now NPA city councillor Suzanne Anton is also taking aim at the Vision Vancouver-dominated council's late-distribution report on political expression.

The report is slated to come before today's (April 7) planning and environment committee meeting, but was only made known to Anton on Tuesday (April 5), according to a news release issued by the councillor.

"An extremely controversial report is being slipped in at the last minute without allowing for any meaningful public discussion," Anton states in the release. "This has become a regular pattern with the Mayor and his caucus colleagues. Freedom of expression is fundamental to democracy. Any possible restriction on that freedom must be well-understood and properly debated. Two days notice is not enough."

According to city transportation director and engineer Jerry Dobrovolny's report, its proposals are designed to "facilitate" forms of political protest and how that will fit within the current bylaws. This comes in the wake of the 2009 removal of Falun Gong protest structures outside the Chinese consulate.

After Falun Gong practitioner Sue Zhang and others went to the B.C. Supreme Court, the court ruled in favour of the city in 2009.

The B.C. Court of Appeal subsequently ruled in favour of the practitioners.

Comments

1 Comments

Taxpayers R Us

Apr 7, 2011 at 3:41pm

This is at once a Vision cash-grab and a way for Vision to silence protests in general.

Robertson has publicly said that he supports China's iron-fisted policies, and this is a direct manifestation of his beliefs.

Why do we let these people govern? Bike lanes?