At a packed meeting of the Region of Waterloo Council, councillors unanimously passed an amended bylaw that bans communications that make others “feel harassed.”

The Waterloo Region’s solicitor Graham Walsh explained the amended bylaw’s intention at the meeting on Sept. 27, saying it was “designed specifically to address and prohibit harassing behaviour by one person against another on the Region’s premises.”
Mr. Walsh said the bylaw, which is proposed to take effect on Jan. 1, 2024, seeks to limit behaviour that would “objectively cause a person to feel harassed,” but it is not “intended to prevent legitimate political discourse” on the region’s property. The lawyer said the distinction between activism and lawful protest would “factor heavily into the training of our bylaw enforcers.”

He noted that the bylaw amendments have been in effect since 2004, but the community had advocated for the bylaw to be modernized.