Emo, Ont. was also cited for not flying a pride flag, despite not having a flag pole

An Ontario town has been fined $10,000 and its officials ordered to complete mandatory “human rights” training after it refused to celebrate Pride Month.

Emo is a township of about 1,300 people located in the far west of Ontario, along the border with Minnesota.

In a decision handed down last week, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario ruled that Emo, its mayor and two of its councillors had violated the Ontario Human Rights Code by refusing to proclaim June as “Pride Month.”

The town was also cited for failing to fly “an LGBTQ2 rainbow flag,” despite the fact that they don’t have an official flag pole.

The dispute began in 2020 when the township was approached by the group Borderland Pride with a written request to proclaim June as Pride Month.

Attached to the letter was a draft proclamation including clauses such as “pride is necessary to show community support and belonging for LGBTQ2 individuals” and “the diversity of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression represents a positive contribution to society.”

Emo was also asked to fly an “LGBTQ2 rainbow flag for a week of your choosing.”

Borderland Pride then asked Emo to “email us a copy of your proclamation or resolution once adopted and signed.”

Although symbolic proclamations are standard fare in larger municipal governments such as Toronto or Hamilton, this didn’t happen all that often in Emo.

“The record indicated the Township did not receive many requests for declarations or proclamations or requests for display of a flag,” the subsequent Tribunal decision would read. In a single 12-month period they received only four — two of which were from Borderland Pride.

Tribunal hearings would also reveal that Emo doesn’t really have a central flag pole, aside from a Canadian flag angled over the front door of the Emo Municipal Office.

Nevertheless, Borderland Pride’s draft proclamation was tabled before a May 2020 meeting of the Emo Township Council, where it was defeated by a vote of three to two.

The claim of discrimination ultimately hinged on a single line uttered by Emo Mayor Harold McQuaker. When the proclamation came up for consideration, McQuaker was heard to say in a recording of the meeting, “There’s no flag being flown for the other side of the coin … there’s no flags being flown for the straight people.”

As Human Rights Tribunal vice-chair Karen Dawson wrote in her decision, “I find this remark was demeaning and disparaging of the LGBTQ2 community of which Borderland Pride is a member and therefore constituted discrimination under the Code.”

Dawson also ruled that given the “close proximity” of McQuaker’s comment to his nay vote — that too “constituted discrimination under the Code.”

The five days of hearings into the case would also include Emily Saewyc, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Nursing who was cited as “an expert on the LGBTQ2 community.”

“Dr. Saewyc testified that one of the ways that negative speech contributes to harms is through tacitly encouraging others to imitate that discriminatory speech,” read the decision, which cited Saewyc’s claim that U.S. President Donald Trump inspired “hate and violence” against the LGBTQ community.

The Human Rights Tribunal ultimately ordered the Township to pay $10,000 to Borderland Pride, and for McQuaker to personally pay them another $5,000.

This was lower than what Borderland Pride had been seeking; they wanted $15,000 from the township and $10,000 each from the three councillors who voted no.

But McQuaker and Emo’s chief administrative officer were also ordered to complete an online course known as “Human Rights 101” and “provide proof of completion … to Borderland Pride within 30 days.”

The course is offered by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and their latest edition opens with an animated video telling viewers that the Human Rights Code “is not meant to punish.”

Students are also told that “it doesn’t matter if you didn’t intend or mean to discriminate … it’s the impact on the person that matters.”

In a statement celebrating the decision, Borderland Pride noted that Emo joins both London and Hamilton in the category of Ontario communities that have been “sanctioned for refusing to adopt proclamations in support of their local Pride organizations.”

In 1995, Hamilton Mayor Bob Morrow was fined $5,000 for refusing to proclaim Gay Pride Week. That same year, London, Ont., was similarly fined $10,000 for refusing to officially recognize Pride weekend.

Borderland Pride said Emo was “explicitly warned” about the 1995 examples, but “ignored those cautions.”

This is an apparent reference to an April 2024 letter that Borderland Pride sent to Emo on the eve of its Human Rights Tribunal hearing, threatening an “impending national public relations tire fire for your council and community” if it went ahead.

The township was told they could avoid the hearing only if they apologized, imposed mandatory “diversity and inclusion” training for council, agreed to undisclosed financial terms, pledged to green-light future Pride proclamations without edits and provide free facilities for a “charitable drag event … the proceeds of which will support the Emo Public Library.”

Borderland Pride also said it would return one third of their financial reward to the Emo Public Library, but only if the library hosted a “drag story time event” on a “date of our choosing.”

This is the second time in four months that Borderland Pride has won a five-figure award via legal action. In August, the group won a $35,000 small claims court judgement against a Fort Frances man who wrote a Facebook post saying a Borderland-organized all-ages drag show was a “pedophile show.”

In a statement to Dougall Media at the time, Borderland Pride director Douglas Judson outlined his intention to continue imposing “consequences” on anyone else who attacked them.

“As a lawyer who does this work that means I’m going to start taking people’s houses and their vehicles and their toys and draining their bank accounts and garnishing their wages because no one is going to stop behaving this way until there are real consequences,” he said.

link to post : https://nationalpost.com/opinion/ontario-town-fined-10000-for-refusing-to-celebrate-pride-month