EDMONTON, Alberta (LifeSiteNews) –– A Canadian pro-life group, with the help of a top constitutional law group, is suing Edmonton after city officials denied the group the ability to rent a booth for an upcoming summer exhibition.
On Tuesday, the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) announced that its lawyers had served Explore Edmonton Corporation, a corporation owned by the City of Edmonton, with a lawsuit on behalf of Edmonton Prolife.
“Public spaces are important forums for people to express a wide range of ideas,” said Darren Leung, counsel for Edmonton Prolife in a press release sent to LifeSiteNews.
“Governments are custodians of public spaces and must comply with the Charter when managing these public spaces. Government bodies like the Explore Edmonton Corporation are legally required to be neutral and have no right to censor content that they dislike or disagree with.”
The lawsuit, which was filed June 4 in the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta, claims that Explore Edmonton Corporation has violated the Charter rights of Edmonton Prolife for disallowing the group to have a booth at the upcoming KDays exhibition, which is a large event held annually in late July.
“Edmonton Prolife applied for a KDays booth on February 8, 2024. On May 14, 2024, it received a vague notice that its application had been rejected because it had not met vendor criteria or because of a lack of available space,” noted the JCCF in its press release.
“Two years earlier, in January 2022, Edmonton Prolife applied for a KDays booth. On July 5, 2022, Explore Edmonton told Edmonton Prolife that it could have a booth at KDays to present its materials. However, eight days later, Explore Edmonton unilaterally canceled the organization’s booking without any explanation.”
Edmonton Prolife is a “non-profit organization bringing awareness, support and resources to those facing unplanned pregnancies and end-of-life situations.” In 2023, Edmonton Prolife did not apply for a space at KDays.
Explore Edmonton Corporation is wholly owned by the City of Edmonton and is tasked with promoting tourism and managing the city’s various venues.
Second denial of pro-life booth space since COVID
Lori Buhiire, Office Administrator for Edmonton Prolife, told LifeSiteNews that it has had a booth at KDays “since the early 1980s” and that the last year the group had a booth was in 2019, as there were no events in 2020 or 2021 due to COVID.
However, that all changed after COVID.
“EPL was denied a booth in 2022. I think we did not apply in 2023, and of course, we were denied a booth again this year,” she said.
Buhiire said that upon applying for a booth rental this year, they were told, “Thank you for your vendor application. It has been reviewed by our vendor selection committee and we cannot offer you a license this year as a result of either (i) your application not meeting certain vendor criteria outlined in the K-Days Handbook or (ii) availability of space.”
“Please note that vendor licenses for K-Days are highly competitive, and we receive more applications than we can accommodate. Thank you for your interest,” the response concluded.
As noted by the JCCF, internal email exchanges between Explore Edmonton personnel from 2022 “obtained through a freedom of information request” show that the corporation “looked for ways to exclude Edmonton Prolife from KDays.”
“These email exchanges disclosed that Explore Edmonton disliked their prolife message and believed that it made guests feel unsafe, despite a lack of any supporting evidence. Explore Edmonton also stated that recent US court rulings on abortion were a factor in its decision to exclude Edmonton Prolife from KDays, without citing any evidence of tangible security risks,” noted the JCCF.
Edmonton Prolife’s lawsuit notes the JCCF “seeks relief for Explore Edmonton’s violation of its section 2(b) Charter right to ‘freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication’.”
In 2017, a comparable situation occurred when the then-organization that runs KDays, Edmonton Northlands, tried to cancel Edmonton Prolife’s booth. At that time as well, the JCCF intervened on behalf of the pro-life group, which led to Northland allowing the booth to be displayed.
‘Shame’ on Edmonton for ‘discriminating against this group’
Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) Director of Communications Pete Baklinski praised Edmonton Prolife, which has no affiliation with CLC, for going after the City of Edmonton.
“Shame on the @CityofEdmonton for discriminating against this group because of its pro-life beliefs. Bravo to @EdmontonProlife for defending its Charter right to freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression in the public square,” wrote Baklinski on X Tuesday.
A pro-life group in Alberta is suing an organization owned by the City of Edmonton to promote tourism for not allowing it to display a booth at the KDays exhibition.
Edmonton Prolife, a non-profit organization bringing awareness, support and resources to those facing unplanned… pic.twitter.com/JW0jtcLGun
— Pro-life Canadian Man (@PeteBaklinski) June 18, 2024
“Pro-life advocates are a voice for the voiceless preborn and must never be silenced. Thank you @JCCFCanada for taking this important speech rights case.”
According to CLC, abortion has killed over four million preborn babies in Canada alone since its legalization in 1969, which is roughly equivalent to the total population of the province of Alberta.
Of interesting note is that prominent anti-woke Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, who is from a town near Edmonton, recently made a strong pro-life statement after observing that abortion is “hands down” the number one cause of death of children.