CALGARY, Alberta, April 28, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) — Freedom of speech on university campuses has been again upheld by the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench with the settlement in a lawsuit by pro-life activist Nicholas McLeod of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform and Calgary's Mount Royal University (MRU) resulting in a written apology from the university's president.
“As the President of Mount Royal University, and on its behalf, I write to sincerely apologize for the treatment you experienced while you were distributing flyers on campus on February 19, 2013,” wrote Dr. David Docherty.
“We acknowledge that out campus community officers acted hastily, and in doing so inappropriately curtailed your freedom of expression, used unnecessary force to unlawfully detain and search you, and seized some of your personal items. We recognize and regret that those actions breached your rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and that this has negatively impacted you.”
Following MRU's failure to apologize or reach any kind of settlement outside the courts, McLeod sued the school for unnecessary use of force, unlawful detention, and violation of his Charter rights because of the treatment he was subjected to by security guards who objected to the pro-life literature he was distributing on campus.
McLeod’s peaceful activity on campus turned ugly when a security guard ordered him to stop distributing pro-life literature, which he claimed was “offensive.”
When McLeod refused, citing previous Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench rulings upholding free speech on university campuses, more guards showed up and proceeded to throw him to the ground, hand-cuff him and lock him up, still cuffed, in a small room for several hours.
“It's good that Mount Royal made the decision to respect freedom of religion and expression. Hopefully other universities will follow suit. It was unfortunate that they did not do so from the beginning, forcing McLeod, with no reasonable alternative, into a lengthy, time-and-energy-consuming legal action,” said John Carpay, Calgary lawyer and president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, who represented McLeod.
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In his letter of apology, Dr. Docherty stated that a new security manager has taken over supervision of the school's guards, and that “supplemental training will be conducted to ensure that community officers understand the interaction between the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and their duties in maintaining a safe campus environment.”
Docherty concluded that his school takes “matters of free expression seriously” and that “this incident has emphasized our need to continuously assess and improve the implementation of our policies, but we will strive to do so. Once again, we reiterate our most sincere apologies.”
“Taxpayer-funded universities ought to be safe places for free expression. Dr. Docherty should be commended for his leadership in this regard,” Carpay said.
Nicholas McLeod told LifeSiteNews that he was extremely happy with the way the court action was settled and the apology offered by the university.
“They made the settlement offer and we accepted it because they said unreservedly that what happened was wrong and they would make sure that it didn't happen again,” said McLeod.
Another very positive result of this situation, McLeod said, is that the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform will now be able to send interns to hold their Choice Chain project inside the hallways of Mount Royal University's buildings.
“It's fantastic!” McLeod said. “The access that we now have to university campuses in Alberta is beyond precedent. The hard work of John Carpay and the JCCF is contributing so much to the pro-life movement that we now have unprecedented access to these areas to reach students and convert them to the pro-life view, which we do every time we are on those campuses.”