Toronto City Council passes ‘bubble zone’ bylaw to limit protests around vulnerable institutions

Arda Zakarian speaks with Toronto councillor Brad Bradford who called the passing of the ‘bubble zone’ bylaw a ‘victory.’

Toronto City Council has voted to create a bylaw that would limit protests outside places of worship and other vulnerable institutions on a case-by-case basis.

The motion would create a 50-metre buffer around the spaces following an application from the property owner and would be in effect for a year, subject to renewal.

The motion passed 16-9, with a slew of amendments, following several hours of debate.

The original bylaw proposal written by the city manager called for a buffer of 20 metres to be created for a period of about six months, if an institution attested that it had been subject to a protest that “impeded” access to the property in the previous 90 days.

Council rejected a proposal to increase the buffer to 100 metres, but did pass a motion from Coun. James Pasternak to increase it to 50 metres.

Council also passed a number of motions from Coun. Rachel Chernos-Lin to increase the initial coverage time from six months to a year; to drop the requirement of having been previously targeted; and to request police support for bylaw officers charged with enforcing the rules.

The bylaw will limit protests outside places of worship and other places like hospitals, schools, daycares and libraries if requested by the owners of those facilities.

The city said it would need to spend $1.6 million for 12 bylaw officers to enforce the rules. Another $200,000 would go towards public education. Those who break the bylaw could face a fine of up to $5,000.

The bylaw will go into effect on July 2.

Council sees passionate debate

The city manager was asked to craft the bylaw, in consultation with the city solicitor, in Dec. 2024. Since then, a number of public consultations were held to gather input for the proposal. Sixty-three per cent of respondents said they were either strongly unsupportive or somewhat unsupportive of the law.

Speaking before council on Wednesday, Mayor Olivia Chow acknowledged that the city has to balance competing priorities.

“On one hand, there are community concerns around attending places of worship and a lot of fear for their safety. On the other hand, we have to protect the Charter rights to freely assemble and expression,” she said.

Protests in the city have increased in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war and Toronto police said earlier this year that they responded to 2,000 “unplanned events” in 2024. It’s unclear how many of those protests took place outside of the institutions described in the bylaw.

Coun. James Pasternak, speaking at city hall, said he believes the law would not impact freedom of speech.

“It doesn’t take any rights away. It doesn’t take away the right to protest, the right to picket, or the right to free speech. And all it’s doing is extending rights to those who want to walk into vulnerable institutions,” he said Wednesday.

Coun. Brad Bradford echoed those remarks, calling the bylaw an “additional tool” that could help “clear out and protect” places of worship that he says have been targeted with hate, harassment, intimidation and violence.

Several councillors said they had heard from constituents who said they no longer feel safe in some parts of the city because of some of the protests.

Meanwhile, Coun. Gord Perks argued that “everybody has the right to express themselves.”

“If we don’t encourage the right to protest, we lose all the democratic rights that have been built up in Canada over time,” he said.

Coun. Chris Moise said he was “concerned” the bylaw could violate people’s Charter rights. As such, he put forward his own motion to defer a vote on the proposed bylaw until Ottawa introduces a federal bill related to accessing places of worship, something Prime Minister Mark Carney said he would table in the run up to last month’s election. The motion was defeated.

Similar bylaws have been passed in Vaughan and Brampton, after large-scale, and in some cases violent, protests broke out near synagogues and temples, respectively, last year. Those bylaws limit protests to 100 metres from a place of worship and owners of those institutions do not need to apply for an access area to be established.