A group fighting to stop “disgusting” anti-abortion flyers being hand-delivered to homeowners across Canada is upset at a City of Burnaby staff report that recommended against enacting a new bylaw to ban them.
Staff was tasked with reviewing the situation after a request from the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC) after a few residents reported having these flyers left on their doorsteps and in their mailboxes. The flyers contain graphic images of fetuses and some parents have told the NOW that their children had picked up the flyers after being dropped off.
The ARCC letter requested the city research how it could regulate the display and distribution of graphic images. ARCC suggested enacting a “bylaw banning delivery of unwanted flyers to homes with a ‘No Flyers’ or similar notice," the report says, and enacting or amending a bylaw "limiting public signage."
The report recommends not enacting a bylaw because there has only been the one formal complaint filed with the city.
“Without broad-based complaints from the community, the implementation of a bylaw regulating unaddressed advertising is not needed at this time,” said the report, presented to council on Monday night.
Joyce Arthur, executive director with the ARCC, slammed the report for its reasoning that more complaints are needed.
“I’m very disappointed in the recommendation against a bylaw to prohibit the graphic flyers,” Arthur said by email. “Why does the city require ‘broad-based’ complaints from the community to justify a bylaw, when it’s extremely obvious that no-one wants to receive these horrible graphic flyers? If the city is worried that a bylaw against unwanted flyers would ban more ‘harmless’ flyers without a history of complaints, why didn’t city staff consider a different approach? For example, they could specifically ban graphic flyers – as the City of London is now recommending [see starting pg 49] – or they could require graphic flyers to be delivered inside envelopes with identifying information on the outside.”
The ARCC has now sent a letter to the city expressing their concerns. The group said it also didn’t receive a copy of the report, as was promised in a city email reviewed by the NOW.
