By Christine Van Geyn
July 29, 2025
From one province in 1995 to thousands of locations across multiple cities by 2025, “bubble zone” laws have significantly and rapidly expanded speech restrictions in Canada.
“Bubble zones” restrict protests near specific locations, often under laws peppered with terms like “safety,” “access,” and “inclusion.” What began as a narrow response to violence at abortion clinics has metastasized into sweeping municipal bylaws that silence political debate on topics from transgender rights to drug addiction to foreign policy.
Public protests make people uncomfortable, especially in our current moment of political turmoil. Whether protesting “drag story hour” at libraries, supporting Palestine, opposing critical gender theory near schools, or demonstrating against abortion, these movements express ideas many Canadians would rather not hear, in places they would rather not hear them.
But that’s precisely the point. When politicians and the public ignore certain groups and causes, protest ensures society and our leaders cannot ignore grievances they would rather dismiss. This is especially important for marginalized or unpopular groups that have no access to mainstream political channels. When protests are loud and chaotic, they generate attention and put pressure on those in power. When protests are in places that leave people feeling uncomfortable, the public and politicians pay attention. It is in these places where protests have the most practical impact. This is one reason why protest is protected in our constitution.
The language, subject matter, and tactics of protests can offend people. But there is no right not to be offended. Being exposed to controversial viewpoints is part of democracy and exposure to different perspectives builds individual resilience and a stronger democracy. Conversely, “Bubble zone” make us individually frail and chip away at the foundation of our democratic society.
Canada’s constitutional framework
Canada’s constitution guarantees freedom of expression, including speech and protest, in section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Were the Charter to exclude controversial speech from protection, the right would be meaningless – no one seeks to silence benign ideas.
Canadian courts have consistently affirmed this. In R v. Kopyto (1987), the Ontario Court of Appeal called free expression “[t]he very life-blood of democracy.” In Edmonton Journal v. Alberta (Attorney General), 1989, the Supreme Court wrote: “It is difficult to imagine a guaranteed right more important to a democratic society than freedom of expression… It seems that the rights enshrined in s.2(b) should therefore only be restricted in the clearest of circumstances.”
The governing principle in freedom of expression interpretation is content neutrality. This principle means that governments cannot restrict speech based on its message. In Irwin Toy Ltd v. Quebec (Attorney General), 1989, the court established that the state cannot “exclude human activity from the scope of guaranteed free expression on the basis of the content or meaning being conveyed. Indeed, if the activity conveys or attempts to convey a meaning, it has expressive content and prima facie falls within the scope of the guarantee.”
Yet governments are increasingly relying on “bubble zones” to stop protests. These laws, while taking different forms, are likely unconstitutional because they violate this fundamental principle of content neutrality.
Bubble zones: safe spaces, or censorship?
Advocates of bubble zone laws claim that they do not ban or censor speech, but simply create “safe spaces” or push protests back from building entrances.
In practice, these laws do prohibit protests. Limiting protest based on location, especially when the location is tied to the message, can amount to government censorship. The space or location is often essential to a protest’s meaning and impact. Forcing protesters away from their intended audience dilutes their message and constitutes content-based suppression.
The first bubble zone laws in Canada emerged in response to protests about abortion. The Supreme Court struck down the criminal prohibition on abortion in the 1988 case of R v. Morgentaler. In the lead-up to and aftermath of the Morgentaler decision, abortion clinics became sites of intense protest during what was a particularly contentious time in Canada’s abortion debate.
The situation became progressively more dangerous and violent. In February 1990, a Vancouver abortion clinic was broken into and vandalized, and in 1992 the Toronto Morgentaler clinic was firebombed. Physicians providing abortions became the target of violence, and in the most extreme cases, abortion doctors were shot.
Criminal acts such as blockading, arson, trespassing, firearms offences, and violence are already illegal and must be addressed through proper legal channels. Early anti-abortion protests often involved unlawful blockades and were largely stopped by the mid-1990s through private injunctions in Ontario and British Columbia. The protesters replaced the blockades with more peaceful methods of getting their message across such as picketing, prayer vigils, leafleting, and “sidewalk counselling” – all forms of protest protected under the Constitution, even if they are controversial or unwelcome. Despite the non-violent nature of these protests, governments still took steps to restrict them.
The Ontario injunction case – Dieleman
In 1994, the Ontario government asked the court for injunctions prohibiting protests in a case called Ontario (Attorney-General) v. Dieleman. By this point, the blockades and similar such tactics had ended, but picketing and sidewalk counselling continued. The government asked for injunctions to stop this conduct at 23 locations across the province, including freestanding abortion clinics, hospitals, and physicians’ homes and offices.
To obtain an injunction, the government must prove there is a serious issue in question, that irreparable harm would occur without it, and that the balance of convenience favours granting it. In the Dieleman case, Ontario argued that picketing and sidewalk counselling constituted a public nuisance, intimidated patients, and threatened access to safe abortion services. Protesters countered that the government was targeting peaceful picketing because of its anti-abortion content, thereby violating the protesters’ Charter rights.
The court partially granted the injunction, establishing 60-foot (18.2 metre) radius zones for two clinics and a 30-foot (9.1 metre) radius for a third, while also restricting picketing at four hospitals. The injunctions applied to unnamed protesters, and had no time limit. The court acknowledged that while mass picketing constitutes protected expression under the Charter, it can be limited when justified, and in this case, the limits met the test under section 1.
The Dielman decision today is not a useful precedent for bubble zone advocates, because it has largely been displaced by new case law. The court in Dieleman had misinterpreted the law to find that preventing “offensiveness” and “emotional turmoil,” or “humiliation and embarrassment” caused by speech is a pressing and substantial objective in a free and democratic society.
This has subsequently been clarified. First, the Supreme Court in Saskatchewan v. Whatcott explained that the “harm” that anti-hate legislative prohibitions seek to prevent is more than hurt feelings, humiliation or offensiveness. Then in Ward v. Quebec the court held that mere psychological, mental or emotional harm is not pressing and substantial objective for limiting speech in a free society. It is only where psychological harm is “grave” enough to force a minority group or individual to “argue for their basic humanity or social standing, as a precondition to participating in the deliberative aspects of our democracy” that speech can be limited in a free and democratic society. In Ward, the court held that a person’s “emotional serenity,” or the risk of “emotional harm” is not enough to justify limits on speech in a free society. Rather, the test must be “must be focused on the likely discriminatory effects of the expression, not on the emotional harm suffered by the person alleging discrimination.”
The Dielman decision is also unhelpful for bubble zone advocates because it was also a lower court injunction issued shortly after a period of violence. Notably, the court rejected injunctions for most hospitals, finding that “the government’s attempt to throw a protective blanket over all the named hospitals and the physicians while working at these hospitals […] demonstrates the need for judicial caution in entertaining a request from a government which has joined one side of a public debate.” Despite the court’s warning, bubble zones now repeat this one-sided approach.
Canada’s first bubble zone law – British Columbia’s 1995 abortion clinic bubble law
At the time of the Morgentaler decision, Vancouver’s two freestanding abortion clinics, the Everywoman’s Health Centre and the Elizabeth Bagshaw Clinic, faced ongoing protests, including illegal blockades, despite court injunctions. By 1990, the protests had shifted to picketing, sidewalk counselling, prayer vigils, and graphic pamphleteering.
After the 1994 attempted murder of a gynecologist who provided abortions, Dr. Garson Romalis, British Columbia passed the Access to Abortion Services Act (1995), Canada’s first “bubble zone” law. It created 50-metre protest-free zones around clinics and 160-metre protest-free zones around providers’ homes, broadly banning any act or attempted act of disapproval related to abortion.
The legislation was challenged shortly after its passage. Maurice Lewis, charged for protesting within the zone, argued it violated his Charter rights to free expression and religion. While a trial court initially found the law unconstitutional, the BC Supreme Court reversed that decision. Lewis died before his appeal, but the matter continued in R v. Spratt, where the legislation was upheld.
In both Lewis and Spratt the BC government conceded that the law infringes freedom of expression; the courts focused on whether the law was a justified limit under section 1 of the Charter. The legal test for limits on rights is set out in R v. Oakes, requiring that a limit be prescribed by law, rationally connected to a valid public purpose, minimally impairing on the right, and proportionate. Applying the Oakes test, the government ruled the law was minimally impairing and proportionate. The courts emphasized the clinics’ history of being subject to intense protest, the vulnerability of patients, and the importance of preserving a safe, dignified environment around medical facilities.
The court found the 50-metre zone to be appropriately tailored, and declined to second-guess the legislature’s judgement. While opposition to abortion is protected expression under the Charter, the courts held that ensuring access to care outweighed the infringement in this context.
These decisions are binding only in BC and the Supreme Court of Canada never reviewed them. Civil libertarians remain concerned, arguing that the law imposes content-specific limits that conflict with the Supreme Court’s principle of content neutrality in Irwin Toy.
Politically motivated: The recent expansion of abortion bubble laws (2016–2025)
From 1995 to 2016, BC was the only province with a bubble zone law. As abortion became normalized post-Morgentaler, abortion-related protests subsided across Canada.
Starting in 2016, however, six provinces passed similar bubble zone laws in rapid succession, despite little evidence of renewed or extreme protest activity. Quebec enacted a 50-metre buffer zone in 2016, followed by Newfoundland and Labrador later that year. Ontario passed its Safe Access to Abortion Services Act in 2017, creating 50-metre bubbles around eight clinics, with the option to expand the bubbles to 150 metres.
Alberta followed in 2018, Nova Scotia in 2020, and Manitoba in 2025 – all with similar 50-metre buffer laws.
The timing suggests that politics motivated the creation of the laws rather than responses to actual threats. The wave of legislation began shortly after US President Donald Trump’s 2016 election as the abortion debate in the United States gained momentum and culminated in the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Canadian lawmakers appeared to capitalize on US developments; the new laws allowed progressive politicians to demonstrate their progressive credentials by targeting pro-life protesters, a particularly unpopular group, with minimal domestic risk.
The Quebec law recently faced a legal challenge from the Quebec Life Coalition, which argued that it violates the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. The case was argued in November of 2024, and there has not yet been a decision.
These newer laws generally mirror BC’s 1995 Access to Abortion Services Act, but were passed in vastly different contexts. Courts in Lewis and Dieleman emphasized recent violence and illegal blockades – conditions that were not present between 2016 and 2025. Given the availability of injunctions at this time, the need for new legislation was questionable and may not withstand the same constitutional scrutiny.
The first expansion of bubble zone laws: COVID-19 and the gender wars (2020-2023)
COVID-19 and bubble zones
Prior to COVID-19, governments in Canada used bubble zones solely to restrict protests at abortion clinics. But as pandemic measures including lockdowns, masking, and vaccine mandates persisted, frustration grew and some protests shifted to hospitals. A few protests disrupted access for patients and ambulances, prompting public outrage. These actions, though brief and resolvable using existing laws, sparked a legislative response.
Several provinces enacted or expanded bubble zone legislation around hospitals and other health facilities. BC’s Access to Services (COVID-19) Act created bubble zones of 20 metres around hospitals, testing and vaccination sites, schools, and other facilities. Quebec’s Bill 105 banned protests within 50 metres of health and education sites, with fines up to $6,000 and a 30-day renewable term tied to the public health emergency.
Nova Scotia’s Protecting Access to Health Services Act and Saskatchewan’s The Public Health (Safe Access to Hospitals) Amendment Act (both enacted in 2021) created a 50-metre bubble around hospitals and health facilities. Alberta expanded the powers under its Critical Infrastructure Defence Act to include hospitals, imposing fines up to $25,000 and jail time for obstructing access.
The protest-related disruptions were concerning – but Criminal law already covered that conduct. The rapid legislative response appeared more political than practical, driven by a polarized environment and the desire of provincial governments to be seen as taking strong action against a vocal minority opposed to vaccine mandates and lockdowns.
School bubble zones
During and following the COVID-19 pandemic, some provinces introduced bubble zones around schools. In 2020, Calgary passed the School Safe Zones Bylaw Amendment that restricts “advocacy messaging” on large signs within 150 metres of schools during school hours – the largest buffer zone noted in this paper.[1]
In May 2024, BC enacted a 20-metre bubble zone around all K–12 schools, prompted by protests against sexual orientation and gender identity education. The law bans disruption, intimidation, or interference on school days from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m. and during extracurricular school activities.
In 2025, the Western Standard reported that the BC government used its school bubble law to restrict a book launch by author, activist, and former teacher Jim McMurtry, whose publication challenges mainstream views on residential schools. The Abbotsford School District warned McMurtry that the event could be seen as a “protest.” Police enforced the 20-metre rule, and McMurtry moved to the sidewalk opposite the school. Despite this, education officials evacuated the school for “emotional safety.” Using police and evacuations to shield students from books, even controversial ones, raises serious free expression concerns.
The current crisis – municipal overreach (2023–2025)
Beginning in 2023, bubble zone laws took a dangerous new turn. Municipalities began applying them to a wide range of topics and locations. Calgary led this expansion in 2023 by passing the country’s first and broadest municipal bubble zone, the Safe and Inclusive Access Bylaw.
Prompted by heated protests over drag queen story times at libraries and access to recreation centre change rooms on the basis of gender self-identification, Calgary banned “specified protests” within 100 metres of city facilities including libraries, recreation centers, and art spaces. Violations can result in fines of up to $10,000, one year in jail, or both. The Calgary bubble zone is double the size of earlier bubble zones for abortion clinics.
The Calgary bylaw puts the government in charge of deciding which protests are permitted and which are prohibited based on the content. The “specified protests” it prohibits are defined as an “expression of objection or disapproval” about certain topics, determined by the government. The list includes “an idea or action related to race, religious beliefs, colour, gender, gender identity, gender expression, physical disability, mental disability, age, ancestry, place of origin, marital status, source of income, family status or sexual orientation by any means, including graphic, verbal, or written means.” This overly broad scope captures nearly every major public issue. It technically bans both sides of debates on transgender competition in sports, drug policy, or even protests over foreign issues like mandatory hijab in Iran and foreign wars, while still allowing protests on taxes or climate change. When government decides which topics are off-limits, free expression is no longer protected. The law is explicitly aimed at eliminating speech based on messages the city doesn’t like and is designed to protect emotional rather than physical safety of residents.
Another problem with the Calgary bubble zone law is that it is wildly over-inclusive. The definition of “specified protest” does not even require a gathering of people. Any “expression of objection or disapproval” would be breaking the Calgary bylaw. An additional problem is that the law has no intent requirement. It does not require the speaker to intend to express disagreement or disapproval. This will inevitably result in too much speech being captured and subjected to state sanction.
It is also worth distinguishing between abortion clinics and libraries and community centres. Even if courts in Dieleman, Lewis, and Spratt accepted the argument that abortion clinics need special protection as medical facilities with uniquely vulnerable patients, this argument does not hold for libraries and recreation facilities. Libraries and community centres are public forums meant for debate and idea exchange. Restricting speech in these spaces undercuts their very purpose and risks enforcing emotional comfort at the expense of democratic freedoms.
The Canadian Constitution Foundation launched a legal challenge against the Calgary bylaw that was heard in February 2025. The court has not yet issued a decision in that case.
Copycat bylaws: The Israel-Hamas war catalyst
After Calgary passed its municipal bubble zone bylaw, other cities began following suit. But these new laws are being driven by a different political issue, revealing a core danger of content-based restrictions: once you make one exception, others inevitably follow.
The copycat bylaws respond to protests over the Israel-Hamas war, a war that began after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre of 1,200 people in Israel and the kidnapping of 250 others. In the immediate aftermath of what was the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, some groups held public demonstrations in support of Hamas.
Since then, protests have continued. Many are legitimate expressions of opposition to war or solidarity with the civilians of Gaza, who have suffered immensely. But others have crossed into open antisemitism. In Toronto, protesters occupied the Avenue Road bridge in the heart of Toronto’s Jewish community. National Post columnist Tristin Hopper pointed out that this bridge is nowhere near any logical protest site related to Israel, but it is within a five-minute drive of more than a dozen synagogues. And disturbingly, Jewish businesses, schools, and places of worship have been targeted with violence.
This vile, dangerous, and violent antisemitism in many cases violates criminal law. Arson, gun violence, and vandalism are all criminal offences, and police have the authority to arrest people for breaches of the peace, mischief, taking part in a riot, harassment, intimidation, firearms offences, and arson. It is illegal to blockade roads, and in Canada there are criminal prohibitions on hate speech.
However, while there are existing legal tools to deal with protests that devolve into criminality, laws cannot reach into people’s minds or eliminate hatred. Antisemitism must be confronted forcefully by society, not silenced through overbroad legislation. Using bubble zones or anti-protest laws to control hateful demonstrations risks much more than it solves. It expands state power to censor, makes martyrs of bigots, and endangers free expression across the board.
Vaughan’s response
In March 2024, the Beth Avraham Yoseph synagogue in Thornhill, a community in the Toronto suburb of Vaughan, hosted the Great Israeli Real Estate Event, showcasing properties in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The event sparked outrage from opponents of Israeli settlements and led to a planned protest. This, in turn, drew criticism from those who saw protesting at a place of worship as inappropriate and antisemitic. Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters and pro-Israel counter-protesters converged outside the synagogue on the day of the event, with protests becoming heated and resulting in four arrests.
In response to the Thornhill protests, City of Vaughan mayor Steven Del Duca introduced the Protecting Vulnerable Social Infrastructure By-law.[2] The City passed the bylaw in June 2024. It forbids “nuisance demonstrations” within 100 metres of childcare centres, congregate care facilities, hospitals, schools, and places of worship. Nuisance demonstrations are defined as one or more persons “protesting against something or expressing views on any issue, in any manner, whether it is intended or not, that is likely, on an objective standard, to cause a reasonable person to be intimidated, meaning that they are either concerned for their safety or security, or they are unable to access” the location. The fine for violating the bylaw is up to $100,000.
The bylaw also allows the deputy city manager, community services to order the closure of “any highway, including roadway, boulevard, sidewalk, trail or pathway, the closure of any public place, including facility, park, or parking lot… where necessary to ensure the health, safety, and well-being of any Person.” The threshold for reasonable intimidation is not specified in the bylaw, though it explicitly states that protests do not need to include hate speech or incitements of violence to be understood as intimidating.
The City of Vaughan used its new law in March 2025 to close sidewalks and roads ahead of a planned demonstration near the same synagogue that had hosted the Great Israeli Real Estate Show one year prior. Reporting is unclear about what the motive behind the 2025 planned protest, but CityNews cited unconfirmed reports that it was again connected to a real estate event. Video from the event showed police standing at a checkpoint, deciding who could go into and out of the zone. That’s the stuff of authoritarian police states. It is very difficult to see how Vaughan’s bubble zone is a justified limit on expression in a free and democratic society. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is currently challenging Vaughan’s bylaw.
The contagion spreads: Brampton, Oakville, and Toronto
With Vaughn, the fire was lit. Various Ontario cities began proposing and implementing their own bubble zone bylaws. Between November 2024 and May 2025, bubble zone laws were implemented in Brampton, Oakville, and Toronto.
The Brampton bylaw of November 2024 prohibits “nuisance demonstrations” within 100 metres of places of worship. “Nuisance demonstration” means one or more persons, publicly and in person, protesting something or expressing views on any issue, in any manner, whether it is intended or not, that is likely, on an objective standard, to cause a reasonable person to be intimidated, meaning that they are either concerned for their safety or security, or they are unable to access any place of worship.
On May 12, 2025, Oakville adopted a bylaw similar to Calgary’s that bans “specified protests” 20 metres from the entrances of places of worship, hospitals, schools, daycares, and libraries. Specified protests means advising or attempting to persuade someone not to enter a protected location, or physically interfering with someone entering such a location, or following someone or intimidating them as they access a protected location. The Oakville bylaw even prohibits doing or saying, “anything that could reasonably be expected to cause concern for a person’s physical or mental safety.” If there is no right not to be offended, it is difficult to see how a bylaw that prohibits speech that interferes with “mental safety” could be upheld.
On May 22, Toronto passed a bubble zone bylaw covering places of worship, schools, and daycares after heated debate and multiple delays, finally passing amid intense public pressure linked to Gaza-related protests.
Unlike the Calgary bylaw, Toronto bubble zones only apply on request. The original proposal required facilities to show that their facility had been the site of a demonstration in the last 90 days, but council removed that requirement. Now, any of Toronto’s 3,000 eligible institutions can request a zone if they “reasonably believe” a protest might occur involving “acts of discouragement” toward entry. Council also expanded the zone from the proposed 20 metres to 50 metres, and extended its duration from the proposed six months to one year. Many amendments contradicted advice from the city solicitor, whose leaked memo is likely to feature in future legal challenges.
Once it is in place, the Toronto law creates a 50-metre “bubble” around the facility where demonstrators cannot “discourage” attendance, repeatedly ask passersby to stay away, block access, or voice disapproval of someone based on protected human rights grounds. Penalties can reach $5,000 and enforcement falls to Toronto police and emergency management.
Because peaceful protest inherently involves disapproval and discouragement, the bylaw effectively hands private actors the power to veto street-level expression and assembly at approximately 3,000 different locations in the city.
Federal proposal
During the federal election campaign in early 2025, the Liberal platform made a commitment to “introduce legislation to make it a criminal offence to intentionally and willfully obstruct access to any place of worship, schools, and community centres. And make it a criminal offence to intentionally and willfully intimidate or threaten those attending services at these locations.”
In June of 2025, federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser announced that the Liberal government would be introducing this legislation, citing “extraordinary discrimination – antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hate.” Fraser confirmed the federal plan to keep this election promise, but did not give a timeline.
Lessons and recommendations
If freedom of expression is the lifeblood of democracy, then bubble zones are its slow suffocation: silent, polite, and increasingly permanent.
What began as narrow legal tools in response to real violence have now metastasized into sweeping speech bans, justified by the vague language of “safety,” “inclusion,” and “mental security.” But rights are not preserved by comfort, and they do not grow stronger by silence.
Proponents of bubble zones believe they are protecting the vulnerable. In truth, they are building a new architecture of censorship, where fear, offense, and subjective mental wellbeing become the legal standard. They empower governments and institutions to silence expression they dislike, without requiring evidence of harm, and often without democratic scrutiny.
Minorities and vulnerable groups should be especially cautious. History teaches that exceptional restrictions imposed to protect us can one day be used to silence us. The rights we give away in the name of safety may not be there when we need them most. And it is most often the speech of minority groups with unpopular opinions that will be censored. This is easily seen by how progressive politicians supported bubble zones in 2023, but began opposing them in 2025, all because of the shifting political winds.
The true antidote to hateful or offensive speech is more speech, not less. Protest is messy. It is loud. It is uncomfortable. That is precisely what makes it effective. If we care about liberty, then we must defend it even when it is inconvenient, even when it stings, and especially when others are too afraid to do so.
To better preserve liberty, governments and civil society should oppose new bubble zones. It is imperative to protect the public square and to maintain spaces where controversial ideas can be expressed and debated. As a society we must resist the rhetoric of safety and recognize that subjective offense doesn’t justify speech restrictions. And we need to challenge existing laws. Some of these challenges are already underway in Quebec and Calgary.
The lesson is this: once the state begins picking which ideas may be heard and where they may be spoken, the people are no longer sovereign. And if protest is pushed out of sight, its power to force people to take notice, and therefore to transform, dies with it.
About the author
Christine Van Geyn is a Canadian lawyer and bestselling author. She is the litigation director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, a legal charity that fights for fundamental freedoms in Canada. She is also host of the nationally broadcast television program Canadian Justice, and co-host of the podcast Not Reserving Judgment. She is the author of two books, with a third forthcoming in the fall of 2025.
[1] Other than the 500-foot bubble around physicians’ homes in Dieleman.
[2] Parts of Thornhill are in Vaughan.
