Protection of elected officials | Quebec amends its bill to protect freedom of expression

(Quebec) The Legault government amends its bill to protect elected officials against intimidation, in order to respond to the concerns of the media and union centers, and specifies that it does not want to harm freedom of expression. But gray areas remain, critics say.

“We added amendments, that’s for sure, because freedom of expression is essential, and journalists, we need them, they are essential. We just want to look for possibilities to save [les élus municipaux] on the brink of the abyss,” pleaded the Minister of Municipal Affairs, Andrée Laforest, during the study of her bill to protect elected officials.

Several provisions of this bill were harshly criticized by major union centers and the bosses of the main news rooms in Quebec, including The Press.

Read the article “A bill that risks “criminalizing democratic participation””

Read the letter “A bill that compromises freedom of expression”

They mainly targeted the portions of the law indicating that an elected official targeted by “words or gestures which unduly hinder the exercise of his functions or infringe his right to private life” can request an injunction from the Superior Court, as well as an article allowing a fine of $50 to $500 to be imposed on a person who, “during a meeting of any council of a municipal body, causes disorder in such a way as to disturb the proceedings of the meeting”.

For the unions, it was “far too broad a formula, which opens the door to anti-democratic and arbitrary excesses”.

For press owners, this could confer on the courts, “at the request of an elected official […]the power to order a citizen or a media outlet to stop broadcasting comments that unduly interfere with the exercise of their functions or violate their right to privacy.

Participate in public debates

The minister therefore adopted a series of amendments to her bill last week, in collaboration with the opposition parties.

• One of them specifies, in article 1 of the bill, that he wants to protect elected officials “without restricting the right of any person to participate in public debates”.
• He also adds that, to be the target of an injunction, one must “abusively” obstruct the work of an elected official or “unlawfully” infringe on his or her right to private life.
• The Court will have to assess this request “taking into account the public interest”.
• The government believes that it is guiding the court by specifying that “the fact of expressing, by any means, one’s opinion while respecting the democratic values ​​of Quebec” is not obstruction.

Another important modification: the Director General of Elections was to be responsible for prosecuting citizens who had obstructed members of the National Assembly of Quebec. However, he did not want these powers, which are now given to the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions, via an amendment to the National Assembly Act. And elected officials will not be able to sue each other with this law, to avoid any form of politicization, said M.^me Laforest.

Democratic values

“The decision to amend the bill is the right one, and we welcome it. The government thus explicitly recognizes that the objectives of the law must and can be achieved without restricting the right to participate in public debates. It also recognizes that expressing one’s opinion while respecting democratic values ​​is not an obstacle to the work of an elected official,” said the deputy editor and vice-president of Information at The PressFrançois Cardinal.

On the side of the Centrale des syndicats du Québec, however, we believe that the notion of obstruction should have been further clarified. “This is where we perhaps see impacts on the exercise of democratic rights at the municipal level. For us, this is something to watch out for,” said Mario Beauchemin, third vice-president of the union.

In Quebec, the Liberal Party says it is “reassured”. He now says he hopes that “its implementation will protect our municipal elected officials without undermining our precious freedom of expression”.

The Parti Québécois and Québec solidaire are more pessimistic. “It is difficult to determine whether the balance has been found since, despite our proposals for clarification, the notion of hindrance is not as precisely defined as we would like. The government preferred to leave it to the court to decide,” said PQ member Joël Arsenault.

QS MP Etienne Grandmont says that opposition elected officials have “worked hard” to restore the balance “between the protection of elected officials and the guarantee of the fundamental right to freedom of expression”, but that “the draft law remains imperfect” and that “the introduction of the notion of obstruction still raises many questions”.

This is also what made the League of Rights and Freedoms say that it would have been better for Quebec to completely abandon this portion of the bill. Spokesperson Lynda Khelil believes that with its adoption, there will necessarily be “attacks on freedom of expression”.

In the opinion of Pierre Trudel, professor at the faculty of law at the University of Montreal, the “problem is that, when an elected official alleges that the obstruction is “undue” or “abusive”, the burden of demonstrating that the comment or action is not abusive falls on the citizen or the media.” “The bill therefore adds a specific remedy which could be used to silence [des gens]the time that the controversy or the controversial measure passes,” he fears.

But Minister Andrée Laforest insisted that she “had to act”, as part of a wave of resignations of elected officials from the municipal world. “I arrived from the conference of the Fédération québécoise des municipalities: a mayor came to see me and said to me, you have just saved my life, M^me Laforest. »