Committee recommends amending Public Spaces Bylaw
By Justin Seward - Lethbridge Herald on April 19, 2022.
The City of Lethbridge’s Community Safety Standing Policy Committee has visited amendments to the Public Spaces Bylaw.Councillor John Middleton-Hope had wanted to address the concerns identified in the report under Sections 9 and 10.2 (e) in the bylaw.
“I’ll reference Section 9, there was a concern in regard to the language that was used within the document,” said Middleton-Hope.
“So, what I’ve done is gone to common definitions for Anti-Street Harassment as well Harassment under the Criminal Code of Canada and I’ve provided some of that documentation. Then I provided a proposal at the bottom that manages the language a little bit differently.”
Middleton Hope’s changes under Section 9 is to rearrange some wording that would say, “No person shall without lawful excuse repeatedly communicate either directly or indirectly with another person in a public places without consent for the purposes of intimidating, threatening, menacing, bullying, terrifying or alarming that person.”
The city’s regulatory services general manager Duane Ens’s one concern was the purpose surrounding intimidating and threatening.
“And in this particular section when it says for the purpose of intimidating, it brings into having to prove or put evidence forward of a guilty mind in this particular sense, it might make it a little more difficult to prosecute that,” said Ens.
City Solicitor Brian Loewen agreed with Ens in that the language seemed to be broader in the sense of requiring some intent on whoever will be charged.
“The other thing that is missing from the proposed language, councillor, is the phrase that we included in the draft in the package — which talks about ensuring that the court would have a review of what’s reasonable in all the circumstances. We really want to with these sections where there’s perhaps some subjectivity or call for interpretation at times — the wording of the section is designed as such that you need the person who’s feeling victimized to legitimately feel that they actually feel threatened and that feeling is reasonable in all the circumstances to sort of balance everyone’s interests.”
As for Section 10.2.e, in the report there were concerns of a person perceived to be under the influence of alcohol or stupefying substance.
“My concern with that language, reflected that of the members either of the public or other committees who said that seemed to be problematic, and so my comments are, ‘The proof of intoxication or stupefaction by a laid person may be difficult to prove and articulate any indecency of impairment. Therefore, I would remove Section 10, subsection two, subsection e,” said Middleton-Hope.
Middleton-Hope said he wouldn’t want anyone who would be in a position to enforce the bylaw to determine whether or not it’s alcohol, glue, gasoline, some other paint thinner or other substance that’s being used by a subject and then have to get into some other argument around that language.
Ens and Loewen had no objection at all to removing it.
The committee voted in favour of recommending city council remove Section 10.2.e from the Bylaw.
The second motion that was passed was to receive the report and file as information and recommend city council give the Public Space Bylaw first reading as amended. 2
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