Protesting in front of city halls and university campuses is acceptable in the eyes of most Canadians, but hospitals and abortion clinics are off-limits and protests held there should be illegal, according to a poll by the Angus Reid Institute.
The think tank created a survey to determine where Canadians feel it is appropriate – or not – to protest.
Of the many options, Canadians found protests most acceptable when they took place in front of city hall. 92% of Canadians said protests in front of city halls were acceptable. In comparison, 5% said that protests in front of city halls are never acceptable and it should be illegal to protest there.
“While demonstrations are far from new phenomena in Canada, the last several months—and indeed—recent days, have put the question of where it is acceptable to protest under an increasingly intensified lens,” read the study.
Josh Dehaas, counsel for the Canadian Constitution Foundation, said that courts have found that the Charter protects all expression, regardless of its content, short of violence, however, governments are allowed to limit free speech if demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
“That said, there are also time, place, and manner restrictions. To determine whether speech is protected in a particular location, the law says to consider the historical and actual use of the place,” said Dehaas.
For example, speech has historically taken place outside city halls and speech is compatible with the use of that space, therefore it is almost always protected outside of city halls, he explained.
However, speech is not historically protected outside of a mayor’s office, as speech is not deemed compatible with the function of that space. “The mayor needs to work, so it’s not protected in that space,” he added.
Around the same time the survey was issued, protests on McGill University’s campus featured encampments with “evidence of appalling and antisemitic rhetoric and behaviours.”
The university said it “cannot and will not tolerate this.”
The McGill encampment organizer refused to condemn Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, when the terrorist organization killed over 1,200 Israelis.
However, 37% of Canadians said protesting on a university campus is always acceptable. 44% of Canadians said that it is acceptable but that there should be a 50-metre buffer between the location and the protestors, totalling 81% of Canadians who deem university protests acceptable.
Meanwhile, 13% of respondents said that protests on university campuses are never acceptable and that it should be illegal to protest there.
While protests at city halls and university campuses were deemed mostly acceptable, Canadians had other opinions concerning other common locations.
The majority of Canadians said that it is never acceptable and should be illegal to protest in front of hospitals and abortion clinics. An almost equal 54% and 55% of Canadians held that position for hospitals and abortion clinics, respectively.
Meanwhile, 9% of Canadians said that it was always acceptable to protest in front of hospitals, and 10% said the same for Canadians protesting in front of abortion clinics.
33% of Canadians said it is acceptable to protest in front of hospitals, assuming there’s a 50-metre buffer between the location and the protestors. 30% said the same for abortion clinics.
The opinion of Canadians holding protests in front of houses of worship, such as churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples, and in front of public schools shared a similar distribution as well.
45% of Canadians said that it is never acceptable and should be illegal to protest in front of public schools, while 39% said the same for houses of worship. Only 11% of Canadians deemed it always acceptable to protest in front of public schools, while 15% said the same for houses of worship. Protests being acceptable with a 50-metre buffer zone was a view held by 39% of Canadians for protesting in front of houses of worship and 38% for protesting in front of public schools.
Dehaas said that the government needs a very strong justification to limit speech in places like outside of schools and hospitals.
“With places like sidewalks outside schools and hospitals, speech has historically occured (think striking workers) and speech is compatible with the function of those places as long as protestors aren’t blocking anyone from coming or going, or chanting so loudly that the patients can’t recover or the kids can’t hear their teachers,” said Dehaas.
Opinions on where Canadians should be able to protest varied with age and other demographics.
“Older Canadians are more likely to believe more locations should be off-limits to protestors,” read the survey.
Young men between the ages of 18 and 24 are the least likely to say a protest is unacceptable, irrespective of the venue, while women over 55 are the most likely.
Polled Canadians who were protestors themselves were more likely to be accepting of protests.
For example, 75% of Canadians who protested last month said it was okay to protest in front of a hospital, while only 33% of those who had never protested said the same.
The survey is the first release in what will end up being a series of surveys intended to explore Canadians’ views of protesting.
The online survey was conducted from Apr. 25-28 among 1,707 Canadian adults.