Crossing the line? Proposed protest bylaws threaten advocacy, climate activists say

Flames engulf an empty stroller as Gillian Graham sat beside it, her right hand glued to the brick pathway in front of Parliament Hill.

“I want the government to look in the eyes of the children that they’re burning to the f***ing ground,” Graham screamed, her voice echoing through the wintery air of Canada’s capital.

It was 2024 and the 24 year old climate activist — a member of Last Generation Canada — had made herself difficult to ignore. She is one of many demonstrators worldwide taking what could be considered extreme measures to advocate for environmental change. 

The group, which says traditional activism has failed, uses non-violent protest to force government action.

“I have tried everything. I’ve tried the marches, petitions. I’ve written to my MPs. I’ve gone vegetarian. I voted and nothing has worked,” said Graham, who began advocating with Last Generation in 2023.

For organizations such as Last Generation Canada, non-violent civil disobedience remains one of the most hopeful ways to push for climate action. 

However, several Canadian cities, including Ottawa, have introduced or are considering  vulnerable social infrastructure bylaws, also referred to as “bubble-zone bylaws,” which could make it more challenging for public protests to take place in certain areas. 

The city of Vaughan, north of Toronto, adopted a bubble bylaw last year. It restricts public demonstrations within 100 metres of places considered “vulnerable,” including schools, religious and cultural centres, child-care centres and hospitals. It carries a fine up to $100,000 for violations.

Other cities such as Toronto, Brampton, Oakville and Calgary have passed their own versions. 

Last October, Ottawa City Council voted to explore the feasibility of a bubble bylaw. Councillors will also consider alternative approaches to prevent harassment and hate speech at special events and demonstrations, they said. 

Rideau-Vanier Coun. Stéphanie Plante is one of 22 councillors in favour of the bylaw.

“So, there’s a couple issues sort of at interplay here,” said Plante. “Obviously, we see a lot of protests in my ward. I believe the right to protest is very important, but I’ve also seen the way it can intimidate people.”

Climate activists fear the bylaws could be used to curtail protests. And the Canadian Civil Liberties Association recently began a constitutional challenge to Vaughan’s bylaw. 

“Vaughan’s bylaw punitively prohibits an extremely wide range of peaceful protests,” Anaïs Bussières McNicoll, director of the CCLA’s fundamental freedoms program, said when the challenge started this past June 24.  

Some people in Ottawa’s climate-activism community agree protests are an essential form of public discourse that are about visibility, not intimidation.

“A lot of these bylaws are set up around the idea that disruption is not acceptable in certain public spaces,” said Veronika Kratz, a post-doctoral scholar at Queen’s University.  “But disruption is at the core of what a public demonstration is.”

Kratz is also a volunteer at Fridays For Future Ottawa, a local youth climate organization inspired by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. The group organizes family-friendly demonstrations that aim to serve as “community-building spaces,” Kratz says.

But despite Fridays for Future’s approachable style of protest, Kratz praises the efforts of more aggressive advocacy, saying she believes the climate crisis justifies them.

“I don’t think there’s a line. We’re dealing with life and death here. That’s the long and short of it, right?” said Kratz.

This urgency is backed by recent climate data. According to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2024 was the first year that global temperatures exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, with the 10 years from 2014-2023 estimated to be the warmest in recorded history.

‘Devastating’ impacts have already been seen, the United Nations says, with reductions in ice sheets, sea ice, and glaciers, along with a record 32.6 million people being displaced because of climate hazards in 2022.

Graham’s stroller burning demonstration isn’t an isolated occurrence. In August, 2023, local Last Generation Canada member Kaleb Suedfeld was arrested after splashing pink paint on a Tom Thomson painting in the National Gallery of Canada.

In November 2024, two Greenpeace Canada activists were arrested for mischief and intimidation after installing a replica oil pumpjack in the driveway of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s Ottawa home, an act meant to “symbolize the costs of climate inaction.”

In March 2025, Graham was once again arrested for spraying pink paint on the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, while demanding a “climate disaster protection agency.”

These demonstrations are a part of a growing effort among activists worldwide to bring climate action to the forefront.

In January 2024, for example, two activists from the French climate organization Riposte Alimentaire threw soup at Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa at Paris’ Louvre museum.

One year later, demonstrators from climate group JustStopOil spray-painted “1.5 is dead” on the grave of evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin inside London’s Westminster Abbey.

For councillors like Plante, the debate surrounding protests isn’t just political, it’s personal.

“I was raised in a very union, protest-heavy family,” said Plante. “So, I get it. I get the whole, ‘We’ve got to make a lot of noise to get our point across’ stance’.”

Still, she says public safety must be considered.

Ecology Ottawa executive director William van Geest says he isn’t confident “such a bylaw wouldn’t be applied selectively.”

In the November, 2024, the police quickly arrested the Greenpeace Canada activists outside Stornaway.

“It’s concerning to compare how quickly Ottawa Police leap into action to arrest peaceful climate protestors with how they allowed anti-vaccination protesters to occupy downtown Ottawa and harass residents,” van Geest said. 

He said he questions the difference in police response to climate activists versus other groups.

“They are trying to make it as hard as possible for activists to express their rights to have safe, non-violent public protests,” added Tara Seucharan, a mobilization campaigner with climate advocacy group Greenpeace Canada.

“Just having a blanket statement of ‘You can’t be within X number of metres from a building,’ then what’s the point? If it’s a very busy building and I need to be three blocks over, then how is this getting my point across?”

Seucharan said bubble bylaws defeat the purpose of the right to freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression.

“If you aren’t doing your job properly, then people have a right to express their disapproval,” said Seucharan. “So then you’re basically telling us that you’re denying us a way to our speech, our right to critique government, our right to critique the politicians and the ones who make these laws.”

Seucharan says she wishes she didn’t have to partake in climate advocacy in the first place.

“It’s unfortunate we have to do this,” she says. “No one wants to be outside at -22°C doing a protest. Nobody gets up and is like, ‘Oh yeah, this is my life goal and dream to do this’.”

She encourages aspiring activists to stand up to those in power.

“It might seem sometimes that you’re a shout in the void, but all those shouts together really truly become loud. And you might think that you’re not doing that much as one person, but through this work, I have realized that one person legitimately makes a difference.”

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