CALGARY, AB: The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announces that the Alberta Court of Appeal has dismissed a challenge by Dr. Frances Widdowson and Jonah Pickle, upholding the lower court’s refusal to permit a constitutional challenge to Alberta’s Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) “safe spaces” provisions.
The applicants had sought to challenge OHSA’s “harassment” and “psychological safety” mandates, which compel employers to police workplace speech under threat of fines or imprisonment. However, with today’s ruling, those provisions are immune from Charter scrutiny.
The case stemmed from the University of Lethbridge’s 2023 decision to cancel Dr. Widdowson’s lecture, How Woke-ism Threatens Academic Freedom. Despite the cancellation, Dr. Widdowson attempted to speak on campus but was drowned out by hundreds of protesting students and faculty. She and student, Mr. Jonah Pickle, later filed a constitutional challenge with lawyers funded by the Justice Centre, arguing that the University’s cancellation suppressed their freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly. In written argument the University claimed, for the first time, that the cancellation was due, in part, to its safe spaces obligations under OHSA.
OHSA’s safe spaces provisions are a serious threat to Charter freedoms,” said constitutional lawyer Glenn Blackett. “Employers who don’t censor ‘unsafe’ speech are liable to be fined or even jailed. This isn’t just the government censoring speech—it is the government requiring private citizens to censor speech too.”
The Court’s decision effectively allows vague legislation to evade constitutional review, undermining the principle that all laws must comply with the Charter.
Lawyers are pressing forward with the key legal and strategic avenues to defend Canadians’ freedoms of expression and conscience from compelled censorship.
