NANAIMO, BC: The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announces that lawyers provided by the Justice Centre have sent a legal warning letter to the City of Nanaimo after it passed new bylaws banning citizens from recording public City Council meetings and taking photographs or video on municipal property without approval.
On April 7, 2025, the Nanaimo City Council passed sweeping amendments to two municipal bylaws: the Council Procedure Bylaw and the Respectful Spaces Bylaw.
The amendments not only ban members of the public from recording public meetings or taking photographs or video in any municipal facility, including parks and recreational areas, but also authorize penalties for violations, including removal from City Council meetings, fines, and suspension from accessing city property for up to 18 months.
In one section of the bylaw, for example, it is deemed “inappropriate behaviour” for a person to “take photographs or record video unless expressly authorized by the Chair,” constitutional lawyer Andre Memauri explained.
“These bylaws are an unjustified infringement of the Charter rights of Nanaimo’s residents,” he said.
“Recording a public meeting of City Council clearly supports democratic discourse and truth seeking—core purposes protected by section 2(b) of the Charter,” Mr. Memauri added.
Indeed, Courts have affirmed that this right applies to government-owned spaces when the expression aligns with democratic purposes. “There is no reasonable justification to enact a blanket ban on the recording of public Council meetings,” Mr. Memauri’s letter affirms. “The free engagement of residents with their municipal government is a fundamental component of democracy.”
The scope of the Respectful Spaces Bylaw is particularly troubling. It prohibits recording or photography in any area where municipal services are provided, without providing clear criteria of what spaces are “off limits” or how citizens should go about obtaining permission to record.
The language of the bylaw is so unclear that it could be understood to apply to everyday activities, such as taking a family photo in the park or filming their child’s soccer game in a public park.
