Free speech is in the spotlight after the City of Kamloops jacked up the price for controversial politician Dallas Brodie to speak at a publicly-owned venue — forcing her One B.C. party to scramble and change locations just days before the event.
The city wanted Brodie, who represents Vancouver-Quilchena in the legislature and is the sole sitting member of One B.C., to pay more than $7,700 to cover security costs for a two-hour appearance at the municipally-owned Sandman Centre on Sunday, June 7.
Some, such as the city’s mayor, say the charges are unfair and politicians should have the right to make their pitch without extra fees.
Others disagree. David Black, an associate professor at Royal Roads University and an expert on political communication, says it is a “perfectly reasonable” response to concerns stemming from past incidents involving the party.
Brodie is well-known for courting controversy by raising doubts about the evidence of children’s graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. She suggested that adding the security costs was an effort by the city to block her from a public venue.
“It’s terribly unfair because public spaces are paid for by everybody,” she said in an interview with Black Press Media.
The city says it needs the money to implement a safety and security plan that it created with the help of the RCMP. These costs were then added as a permit requirement.
“Those were the measures that were deemed necessary to keep all attendees at the event safe,” Kamloops Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Jen Fretz said. “And, because those costs were directly stemming from One B.C.’s event, we didn’t feel it was appropriate for city taxpayers to cover those costs.”
The initial bill charged $583.32 for the venue, according to an invoice emailed to the party on May 26. Then on May 29, the city delivered a bill for an additional $7,729 — including $3,041 for policing, $3,188 for community service officers and $1,500 for exterior crowd control.
After questioning the bill, the party was informed in a June 2 email that the city had the right to revise the permit based on risk assessments. Given a final June 4 deadline, the party opted to switch venues.
Brodie called the added costs a “fake excuse” to “cancel” the party’s appearance.
“We should be allowing people to speak on all the different issues and have different points of view,” she said, pointing out that she does not agree with a lot of what is said by members of the B.C. Greens or NDP, but would still “fight for their right” to make those statements.
While Fretz says the content of the speech did not factor into this decision, a news release from the city posted on June 3 — and removed shortly after — does link One B.C.’s positions to concerns about the event.
At the time of the release, which Brodie’s staff downloaded before it disappeared and provided to Black Press Media, the party still had its tentative booking in place. In it, the city and council say they are “unequivocal” in the position that “We do not support or condone residential school denialism, anti-Indigenous racism, or any form of hate speech.”
The statement continues by saying that the city cannot refuse the permit based on rhetoric or past views, because doing so would “expose the city to a Charter challenge that we would not succeed in defending.”
Fretz says the release was “inadvertently” posted by a staff member without the proper approvals, but wouldn’t comment on what was wrong with the release itself.
A fair charge or a free-speech violation?
Kamloops Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson — who can only speak for himself after being stripped of the position of city spokesperson due to several highly publicized and acrimonious conflicts with staff and council — says he does not think Brodie should be footing the bill for these costs.
“I think in Kamloops, since I’ve been elected, democracy has gone out the window,” he said, adding, “I believe in free speech.”
He says people like Brodie ought to be heard out.
“I think you’ve got to listen to everybody,” he said.
Black, the Royal Roads professor, does not agree that these charges stifle free speech, arguing that the potential presence of protesters and the history of One B.C. events in other venues make it a fair decision.
“The city has said, ‘We are prepared to support this event as per the Charter, but it’s going to cost us more to provide your security,’” he said. “I don’t think this is unreasonable.”
This debate over free speech comes just as the federal government is poised to criminalize hate speech, with Nunavut Senator Nancy Karetak-Lindell trying to add residential school denialism as an offence. The Senate opted not to include this provision when passing the bill on Thursday.
In addition, a recent piece by the Globe and Mail’s editorial board added fuel to the debate by arguing that while it is true that children died at residential schools and atrocities were committed, more proof is still needed to confirm that bodies were put into unmarked graves.
Brodie acknowledges abuse happened at residential schools, but says the claims of bodies in unmarked graves are being used by the “reconciliation industry,” as she calls it, to create a negative narrative about Canadian history. Critics consider this stance residential school denialism, and protesters have shown up at her appearances in droves.
This includes events she attended with the activist Frances Widdowson at the University of British Columbia and the University of Victoria. Both nearly devolved into violence and ended with police intervention. She was also met with a protest during a stop in Creston.
Black says the debate over whether graves are actually found where ground-penetrating radar has detected anomalies is besides the point.
“We can’t build like our understanding of the historical trauma of residential schools on the presence or absence of bodies at one school in Kamloops,” he said. This creates an opening for “people who don’t have good faith arguments, who really want to take aim at reconciliation or undo the history.”
Nevertheless, Black says the messaging from Brodie and her allies likely does not meet the standard for hate speech.
“But it’s certainly exploring the edges,” he said.