The one rainbow crosswalk in Westlock, Alta., about 75 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, has been painted white.
Roughly 35 kilometres to the west, within the city of Barrhead, 4 flags have been faraway from municipal flag poles. Quickly two crosswalks can be redone: one for satisfaction, one other supporting folks with disabilities.
This comes after residents of every city voted in favour of neutrality legal guidelines that permit solely white crosswalks, and for nationwide, provincial, or municipal flags to fly on city flagpoles.
“Our hope was to see if folks additionally wished the city to only be impartial and mainly a clean house,” stated Stephanie Bakker, spokesperson for the Westlock Neutrality Group, a citizen group. She was amongst those that petitioned for the city’s bylaw.
“A spot the place everybody can simply really feel snug and welcome as they’re.”
It has been almost one yr since a plebiscite compelled the neutrality bylaw in Westlock. A number of months afterward, Barrhead residents adopted go well with.
The cities are a part of a swell in some Canadian communities, pushing for legal guidelines towards ornamental crosswalks and restrictions on some flags.
The rise comes as different municipalities add extra color every year, together with Edmonton, which added 20 ornamental crosswalks and alleyways in 2024 alone.
“Turning crosswalks into causes, that is not the way in which to go,” stated Ard Doornbos, spokesperson for Barrhead Neutrality, one other citizen group.
Crosswalks are primarily used to control and information site visitors, and should not help any political, social, spiritual or business entities, he stated.
“It was a little bit of a once-in-a-lifetime expertise,” Doornbos stated about his city’s incoming neutrality bylaw, including that the ornamental crosswalks have been creating division.
“We’ve got the identical aim to make Barrhead a city the place everybody likes to stay.”
However some individuals who spoke with CBC Information really feel the core of the problem is not neutrality.
“It is to maintain it the way in which it’s”, stated Westlock Mayor Jon Kramer, including that he thinks the brand new legal guidelines will do extra hurt than good.
Neutrality spreads
Residents in Westlock and Barrhead can nonetheless fly their very own flags on personal property. Freedom of expression in public areas, akin to by means of protests and rallies, are nonetheless protected by the Canadian Constitution of Rights and Freedoms.
Barrhead residents can nonetheless acknowledge the 2SLGBTQ+ group with satisfaction month and the city may have a continuance of Indigenous Day, a City of Barrhead spokesperson informed CBC Information in an electronic mail.
But, the push for neutrality is rising in Alberta: one other group is working to convey related adjustments in Leduc, a metropolis simply south of Edmonton.
“It is not the place of any authorities to raise somebody over others by means of bylaws and insurance policies,” stated Shirley Thompson, with Leduc Neutrality.
Leduc has one rainbow crosswalk. The group, Thompson stated, goals to begin petitioning towards it this yr.
Radio Energetic10:39Alberta’s rising push for impartial public areas
Neutrality teams — organizations that petition municipal councils to take away ideological crosswalk paint or flags — are popping up throughout the nation. In two Alberta communities, the teams are behind legal guidelines to maintain crosswalks white and permit solely nationwide, provincial and city flags at municipal-owned buildings. Reporter Liam Harrap is right here with extra on the rise of neutrality teams.
Bakker, of the Westlock Neutrality Group, believes extra teams like hers are popping up as a result of persons are much less afraid to face up towards one thing they disagree with.
“For the previous a number of years, it has been social suicide to say you do not agree,” she stated.
“They’re extra prepared to threat it.”
Different communities in Canada are seeing related revolts, together with Minto, Ont., a city roughly 120 kilometres west of Toronto.
Final yr, Minto residents introduced a petition for impartial public areas to city council with greater than 900 signatures — about 10 per cent of the group’s inhabitants.
Council denied the petition and did not maintain a vote, as a result of it is not legally required in Ontario. In addition they stated a referendum may very well be pricey. (The City of Westlock paid nearly $20,000 on its plebiscite.)
The problem grew contentious. Throughout a council assembly, one resident described the state of affairs as “war-like.”
Council later handed a movement forbidding councillors and city employees from discussing the problem with the city’s chief administrative workplace, involved that the ideological storm it created risked the group’s popularity and will result in authorized challenges on human rights.
The Township of Norwich, in southern Ontario, banned non-government flags on its buildings in 2023, after a number of satisfaction flags have been stolen or destroyed at houses and companies. Some houses have been reportedly shot at.
Mayor Jim Palmer informed CBC a minister visited him throughout the traumatic state of affairs “to ensure I wasn’t going to blow my brains out.”
Norwich has since determined to create a group flag pole, the place flags representing numerous causes and concepts, together with satisfaction, may very well be flown for a set interval.
The compromise lowered the temperature from boiling to lukewarm, stated Palmer, who’s doing higher mentally.
Backlash towards neutrality
The neutrality bylaw votes in Westlock and Barrhead final yr have been tight races.
In Westlock, 51 per cent of voters have been in favour. In Barrhead, 57 per cent supported — though one-third of eligible voters solid a poll.
Radio Energetic8:10Voters in Barrhead have handed a bylaw banning Satisfaction crosswalks
There can be no ornamental crosswalks within the city of Barrhead, and no flags on municipal owned buildings besides Canadian, provincial or city flags. Residents have voted in favour of a neutrality bylaw that may stop flags and crosswalks recognizing the 2SLGBTQ+ group. Westlock did the identical factor earlier this yr. Janis Irwin is the MLA for Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood. She’s queer and is initially from Barrhead.
The outcomes devastated some folks within the 2SLGBTQ+ group.
“We’re hurting proper now,” stated Alana Hennessey, a Barrhead resident.
“It is positively put doubt in my thoughts that that is the place I wish to name residence.”
Shaylin Lussier, who helped paint the rainbow crosswalk in Westlock, finds her city a lot much less welcoming now.
“They thought a few colors could be probably the most probably offensive factor to exist,” she stated.
Lussier has suffered abuse because the challenge of neutrality got here into the highlight. She acquired messages from strangers, together with one which was a menace to her security, she stated.
The messenger prompt that again within the day, “freaks such as you would have been taken out again and… given a tune-up,” she recalled.
Different varieties of crosswalks and flags do not elevate one group over one other; they spotlight folks after they’ve been invisible for therefore lengthy, stated Shelley Craig, a College of Toronto social work professor and the Canada analysis chair in sexual and gender minority youth.
Youths who’re 2SLGBTQ+ are as much as six instances extra more likely to try suicide than their friends, as a result of discrimination, stigma and rejection, in keeping with Craig’s analysis.
Varied spokespeople from neutrality teams informed CBC that they aren’t concentrating on 2SLGBTQ teams.
Craig disagrees, arguing that these conversations are solely taking place in communities with rainbow crosswalks or satisfaction flags on municipal flagpoles.
In Barrhead, others are additionally disgruntled over the adjustments.
Criss Schaffrick, a incapacity advocate in Barrhead, stated she acquired a letter from a youth in a wheelchair with an mental incapacity.
Based on Schaffick, the kid wrote that eradicating the incapacity crosswalk would make them really feel “disconnected and undesirable” and that the group is not standing up for folks with disabilities.
The City of Barrhead has additionally taken down the Treaty 6 flag, which represents an alliance of sovereign First Nationwide governments. Barrhead is on Treaty 6 territory.
“Discuss going backward 15 to twenty years; that isn’t reconciliation,” stated Robin Berard, an Indigenous information keeper in Barrhead. She teaches group workshops on Indigenous tradition and historical past.
“Why are they concentrating on the flag? The flag hasn’t finished something to anyone,” she stated.
In an announcement, the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nation informed CBC the bylaw fails to acknowledge it isn’t a particular curiosity group.
It additionally described eradicating the Treaty 6 flag as a mistake and a step backward.
“We hope this misunderstanding is corrected earlier than it turns into an unlucky precedent,” the assertion stated.
The Legion, county and purple ensign flags — the latter of which was the de facto Canadian nationwide flag from 1865 to 1965 — have additionally been faraway from flagpoles in Barrhead.
Westlock, 11 months after plebiscite
The City of Westlock nonetheless goals to make its group inclusive.
Final summer season, the city designated June as satisfaction month — a primary for the municipality. There are plans to construct an accessible playground this yr for youngsters with mobility or developmental challenges.
Finally, the premise of a city being impartial is defective, stated Mayor Kramer.
Society is slanted, he stated, pointing to taxes for example. Some organizations are taxed whereas others, like church buildings, are usually not.
Some folks in Westlock’s 2SLGBTQ+ group are scared and really feel unloved, stated resident Lussier. However she believes the brand new legal guidelines can be challenged.
“Somebody goes to reignite the struggle — and it is going to be superb,” Lussier stated.
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