St. Catharines city council voted to give city staff chance to change it, so it withstands court challenges
The City of St. Catharines has repealed a by-law concerning the mailing of graphic images, for now.
The by-law required that mail with pictures of aborted fetuses be put in envelopes, along with a warning, after complaints from residents.
Mayor Mat Siscoe says city staff will tweek it, after a group claimed the by-law infringed on their freedom of expression.
"We believe that the new by-law will be able to withstand any challenges from groups that say it's infringement. We don't see it as an infringement on freedom of expression, but when you're trying to make that case in a court of law, you have to have all your ducks in a row... staff seem to think there's a few more ducks we need to line up."
He added council is in full support of the by-law.
The mayor says there's a high standard to meet when challenging Charter rights. "Any form of the mail, is considered expression. We have to meet a very high threshold for how we do that. We can't be unreasonable, we can't try to paint too broad of a brush, so peoples' freedoms are being infringed upon."
The mayor says this is about the public seeing gory images without their consent.
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