Photos, video and audio taken by members of the public could be prohibited if changes to a Nanaimo City Council bylaw are adopted. (File photo/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Alex Rawnsley

freedoms vs privacy

Nanaimo Council advancing video/audio recording bans, citing safety concerns

Feb 27, 2025 | 4:16 PM

NANAIMO — Referencing multiple incidents of disruption in Council Chambers over the last year, the City is preparing to implement a blanket ban on media capture by the public during meetings.

Councillors on Monday, Feb. 24 approved the first three readings of amendments to their Council Procedure Bylaw, among which are provisions to prohibit video and audio recordings or photography by the public inside Council chambers during public meetings.

Karen Robertson, the City’s deputy corporate officer, said the bylaw already covers expected conduct from the public during meetings, but more definitions were required given recent events.

“Clarity was needed as to what constitutes inappropriate behaviour in those meetings, particularly when it comes to electronic recording devices and offensive signage, given some of the recent incidents in past council meetings.”

Exceptions to the proposed ban would be granted at the discretion of a meeting’s chair.

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Nanaimo City Council and other meetings have devolved at multiple points in the last 12 months, as a small group of individuals clash with Council’s agenda.

Concerned about topics ranging from City spending and taxation, to alleged alignment with the World Economic Forum and chem trails, members of the public have both formally presented as a delegation, and also heckled from the gallery.

Council meetings are held under a strictly enforced ‘no cheering, no jeering’ policy, to ensure all can speak freely on a topic without fear of intimidation from the gallery.

A handful of members have also taken to regularly live stream Council meetings to their personal social media accounts, despite the City providing a produced live feed on their website.

Robertson said it’s the live streaming and recording from the public which has crossed the line on more than one occasion, and in situations which targeted her directly, she believed it to be an invasion of her personal privacy.

“I have no idea what somebody is doing when they’re zooming in on a conversation I might be having. I have experienced it, talking about a legal matter, where the video was zoomed right in to try and capture the conversation that was private between a staff member and myself…then [it was posted to] another social media site.”

Robertson added it would be difficult to enforce or police what someone would do with the footage after the fact, so banning its capture was the direction chosen.

Two members of Council, Hilary Eastmure and Sheryl Armstrong, raised immediate concerns regarding infringement on Charter protected rights to record in public settings.

Coun. Eastmure, a former journalist, confirmed Council chambers was a public place with a City-hired lawyer before stating she couldn’t support a ban on recording devices.

“From my understanding of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, people have a Charter-protected right to photography and videography and recording of sound in public spaces, and as we heard from our legal advice, tonight, this is considered a public space.”

Coun. Armstrong, a former RCMP officer, concurred by citing a 2019 Supreme Court of Canada decision surrounding a voyeurism case.

“The courts had said basically that when there’s already surveillance present in a room which we have now, there is no expectation of privacy and the only way that that would be determined elsewhere is if it was to be used for criminal offence, such as voyeurism. So…I think we’re on shaky ground.”

Sara Dubinsky, of Lidstone & Company Law Corporation, told Councillors privacy is legally considered to be on a spectrum and rarely is a venue black or white in terms of being public or private.

She referenced a 1998 Supreme Court decision which favoured the privacy of a woman sitting outside, in public, over a person’s right to capture their image without consent.

“Even in that circumstance, that individual was considered to have the right to control her own image and the use of her own image, and her privacy right to her image outweighed and superseded the right of another person to take a photograph of her and do with it as they wished.”

Armstrong and Eastmure were unable to find additional support around the Council table.

Coun. Paul Manly said the House of Commons in Ottawa, the Legislature in Victoria and court rooms are all considered public venues, but none allow public recording or capturing of media unless previously granted permission.

While all three venues restrict media capture, none invite members of the public to participate at the level City Council meetings typically operate through delegations and open question periods.

“It’s unfortunate that people have taken their constitutional rights and abused them in ways that are kind of abhorrent,” Manly said. As a documentary filmmaker, I think that there is value to be able to record things and to, to be able to use them in other forms.”

Mayor Leonard Krog said staff safety was paramount, and reasonable steps taken toward ensuring a more respectful environment should be taken.

He said staff should not be subject to threats for doing their jobs, at the direction of Council.

“I never expected to be treated kindly [by the public]. The concept that people come into this chamber, when it is publicly recorded and open to journalists and open for them to attend and watch the proceeding and stay for the whole proceeding and listen to everything that is, from my perspective, more than sufficient to guarantee that democracy takes place in this chamber.”

The feed provided by the City of Nanaimo is muted immediately before and after meetings, with both the video and audio from the meeting room cut during recesses.

Council passed the first three readings of updates to the bylaw in multiple votes on different sections, with Armstrong and Eastmure opposing to aspects related to the prohibition of media capture.

Final adoption of the updated bylaw will return for Council consideration at a future meeting.

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