23 Feb 2026 Council meeting Community

The Responsibility of Council and its Policies Regarding Community Standards

Motion
That Council direct Staff to issue a public statement affirming that we stand with marginalized people and visible minorities and reaffirm our commitment to fostering a safe and respectful community, and write a letter to the Port Theatre requesting that i t review its booking practices to ensure performances align with its stated core values of being accessible, inclusive, and welcoming.
Minutes, page 8
This vote follows the minutes. The City’s vote record differs.
Sources
City vote record

Hilary Eastmure Yes

But I'm also not interested in propping up and facilitating the proliferation of discrimination and bigotry and racism under the guise of comedy on a stage funded by taxpayers and calling this comedy is an insult to comedy. It's punching down in the worst way. In hate speech in Canada. Hate speeches is defined as Communication that insights hatred against identified groups based on characteristics like race, religion, sexual orientation. And it's governed by the criminal code and provincial human rights laws. And freedom of expression is critically important in a democratic society. We do not have the right to be shielded from speech that we disagree with or that merely offends us or hurts our feelings. But there is a clear definition in the criminal code about hate speech. And that speech that crosses a legal line into discriminatory speech. For example, advocating genocide against an identifiable group, publicly inciting hatred against an identifiable group where that incitement could lead to a breach of the peace and willfully promoting hatred against identifiable group with public statements and presumably if you're speaking on a publicly funded stage, you are making a public statement. And I do not believe that we as the city should or can shook responsibility because the co - management agreement. And that means that we share responsibility. And I take that really seriously. Um, and even if that agreement doesn't explicitly give the city control over programming. There is a shared responsibility. And I take my role as an elective representative seriously. And when it comes to representing my community, I think it's really important for me to listen to what my community is saying. And I see them saying that they're deeply concerned. And so my decision is an action need to reflect that. And that's why I've been pushing for clarity on how and why this performer was booked and how we can ensure future performances aren't booked when they're based around demeaning and dehumanizing the very people that we purport to want to protect. And a statement that we stand with marginalized people and visible minorities and reaffirm our commitment to fostering a safe and respectful community is good, but it is disingenuous. It is not accompanied by a real intent to work towards tightening and clarifying policies so that to me on this, uh, is this person's remarks about residential schools and about indigenous people in the motion. It refers to visible minorities and marginalized people. And, um. I think really specifically, especially here in NNIMO, we are talking about indigenous people and residential school survivors and warriors. And I think that that. Is, I know it's that wording isn't in the motion, but we've, I feel done so much work in NNIMO to grapple with the ugly history and to, um, work towards reconciliation. And I've seen incredible works on the port theater stage, like the play with the NIMO Indian hospital. And it was so moving, um, and so incredible. And to think that that stage is going to be defiled by someone who is making remarks about residential schools is disgusting to me. And so that's why I think writing a letter to the port is really important because it gives us unified voice. And I know that many of us on council have talked to members of the port theater, um, board about how to fix this in the future. But I think it's, it's really important that we, as a council, uh, speak with unified voice that we want to support them in a way that ensures that they continue building a trusted relationship with our community.

Erin Hemmens Yes

I don't, it's going to be a letter. That's a request. I don't, it's going to be up to the port theater board. This is not as strong of a position as I thought was going to come out. Um, I'm going to support want to acknowledge how difficult this is. And everyone is feeling elevated. Um, I want to respond to this, the second half of this motion telling the port theater what to do. The reason I'm able to vote and support of it is because it's not telling the port theater what to do. It simply requesting a review. And I can do that. You don't do that. That's inappropriate. Um, I can tell you at the library, we struggle with this a lot in terms of who books our Public Spaces. And we have had requests to review our policies at the library about who comes in and who doesn't and how we receive that request is yes, thank you. We protect free speech. And I suspect the court theater will do the same. So that's, I wanted to clarify that's why I see this second half has benign.