Pickering City Council removed a tax-funded “propaganda” video after community complaints revealed it illegally used surveillance footage, breaching the Protection of Privacy Act.
Following conversations with the City of Pickering, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario forced the local government to remove a video it posted, which used footage from a town hall meeting at one of its community centres.
The footage showed individuals, some of whom were from a group called “Veterans for Freedom” and other community groups, attending Pickering City Councillor Lisa Robinson’s November town hall meeting.
As previously reported by True North, the video allegedly highlighted an “existential threat” from the “alt-right” and was used to justify ending public delegations at city council meetings, according to reports.
Oshawa’s former Mayoral candidate and Durham region journalist, Joe Inigo, shared a response to a complaint filed with the privacy commission on Facebook. The response detailed that the city had taken down the publicly funded video.
“Your complaint outlined your concern with the city’s decision to use video surveillance from a community centre in an announcement that was posted on social media,” Marianne Garcia, an analyst for the IPC, said in an email response to the complaint.
“I contacted the city to discuss the circumstances of your complaint and requested a response. I have thoroughly reviewed the city’s response, and through my exchanges with them, the city confirmed that the video has been removed from all of the city’s social media platforms.”
The IPC cannot fine or force an apology from the city, but has a mandate to ensure that the city upholds the Information and Privacy Act. The act stipulates that any footage used by the city may only be used for the purpose for which it was captured initially, namely, safety and security.
Robinson has been embattled with her colleagues on the Pickering City Council since 2022 for her activism, including against gender ideology and Pride in schools.
The Ontario Divisional Court announced Friday its decision to uphold a decision from the city’s integrity commissioner to suspend Robinson’s pay as a city councillor for a series of social media posts. Robinson, who would have to pay $30,000 in fees, has vowed to attempt to appeal the court’s decision.
Robinson posted a nearly 11-minute and 30-second video announcing the IPC decision on X.
“It was edited and then used in a politically motivated video. It wasn’t for public safety, it wasn’t to investigate a crime. It was to target political opposition, discredit residents and shut down public participation and to discredit my character,” Robinson said. “That’s not just unethical, it’s illegal under Ontario’s Municipal Freedom of Information Protection of Privacy Act.”
One exchange obtained from an Access to Information Request and posted by DDSB Concerned Parents organizer, Jess Street, shows internal messages from city staff which Robinson alleges prove a deliberate coordinated effort to “manufacture a threat narrative.”
“They argue about whether existential threat sounds too abstract and agree to use language that makes it sound real and intimate,” Robinson said in her video response. “Marissa Carpino (CAO of Pickering) even says it is not an abstract threat. It is real and upon us. This is proof of deliberate manipulation, bending language to fit a political story, not the truth.”
Robinson told True North that despite the mayor claiming there was no cost to the video, he later admitted in a video that it cost over $1,000 to make. The cost did not include legal advice, time coordination, staff time and internal planning that went into making the video.
She names Sean Amir, a staff member who narrated the video, opening and closing remarks from the mayor, calling the “propaganda video” a “coordinated campaign involving several staff.
“They used their power to illegally access surveillance footage, to smear a sitting councillor, to mislead the public, to defame residents, to break privacy laws, to silence dissent, to block community engagement. This was all deliberate,” she said. “The IPC has confirmed that no public safety threat existed. The Digital shutdown must end, and don’t let the excuse of chamber renovations be used to justify this ongoing suppression of public access.”
Street, who appeared in the footage from Robinson’s town hall meeting, told True North that the IPC decision shows Canadians that holding the government to account is achievable. She wants to inspire others that they have the power to hold the “democratic process to account.”
“We have emboldened government systems that have gotten used to a population that doesn’t hold them to account for their own policies and procedures,” Street said. “It’s time for people to start stepping up.”