2024-09-07 Saturday Peaceful Freedom Rally
11:00am - 12 noon Markham and Lawrence
Toronto Garden Bylaws Freedom of Expression Issues
Sandy Bell v Toronto and subsequent cases established that gardening is protected expression under Charter 2b. This has created tension between the still widely held desire for lawn and order especially in the outer suburbs of Toronto where I live and the freedom to express oneself through gardening. Over the years Toronto has come up with both clever and brute force legal techniques to attempt to balance the court rulings against local public opinion. Toronto has both written vague bylaws that didn’t define key terms like weeds or hyper precise bylaws that enumerate weeds but then edict that private (not public) property must be free of these weeds. This is almost impossible for weeds such as Dog Strangling Vine unless perhaps you continuously and closely mow every square centimeter of your property.
Toronto enforces the garden bylaws by complaint and most properties, at least in West Hill are likely to have a prohibited weed somewhere. This is the Lavrentiy Beria approach to law enforcement: “Show me the man and I'll show you the crime” applied to gardens. The Notice of Violation (linked below) leads me to conclude that Toronto actually enforces the bylaw for aesthetic reasons to placate neighbours and references to weeds only appear as a token gesture to the court precedents. Toronto has the option to enforce the bylaws by charging Provincial Offences and proving them beyond a reasonable doubt in court or by proceeding administratively, i.e. by mowing and then billing the property owner. Toronto overwhelming proceeds administratively as below. After 10 years of bylaw notices I have yet to figure out what rules, if any, apply to this administrative procedure. It’s not quite to the level of Laventiy Beria’s Soviet Union but I still don’t know how to invoke the Charter 2b right to freedom of expression under administrative bylaw enforcement. With the massive expansion of administrative tribunals, similar issues of how to enforce Charter 2b freedom of expression rights under administrative law have come up in cases like psychologist Jordan Peterson and in the ongoing hearing of nurse Sarah Choujounian in relation to COVID-19.
For any other Toronto gardeners undergoing bylaw enforcement that might find this helpful, here are the key documents of Toronto’s 2024 enforcement action against my property.
My response email, attachment 1, attachment 2
2024-09-05 Toronto inspected and taped p1 of the original Notice to my storm door
Toronto response 1, response 2 recognizes that my Natural Garden Exemption from the previous bylaw 489 carried forward to the new bylaw 489
Legal Disclaimers: I remain not a lawyer so please absolutely don’t rely on any of this as legal advice.
Rally at Markham and Lawrence this Saturday from 11:00am - 12 noon
Please bring a freedom related sign, flag, flyers etc. if you have them.
I will be at or near Markham and Lawrence, ending up directly outside Healthy Planet in Cedarbrae Mall towards noon.