The only crossing of Rainbow in Westlock, Alta., About 75 kilometers northwest Edmonton, has been painted white.
Approximately 35 kilometers west, in the city of Barde, four flags of the municipal flag posts have been removed. Soon two pedestrian crossings will be said again: one for pride, another that supports people with disabilities.
This occurs after the residents of each city voted in favor of the neutrality laws that only allow white pedestrian crossings, and for national, provincial or municipal flags to fly on the flag of the city.
“Our hope was to see if people also wanted the city to be neutral and basically a blank,” said Stephanie Bakker, spokesman for the Westlock neutrality team, a citizen group. He was among those who requested the city statute.
“A place where everyone can feel comfortable and welcome as they are.”
It has been almost a year since a plebiscite forced the statute of neutrality in Westlock. Several months later, the citizens of Barde did the same.
The cities are part of a swell in some Canadian communities, pressing the laws against pedestrian crossings and decorative restrictions in some flags.
The ascent occurs when other municipalities add more color every year, including Edmonton, which added 20 decorative fixed crosses and alleys only in 2024.
“Turning the pedestrian crossings into causes, that is not the way to follow,” said Ard Doornbos, spokesman for Barrhead Neutrity, another citizen group.
Pedestrian crossings are mainly used to regulate and guide traffic, and should not support any political, social, religious or commercial entity, he said.
“It was a slightly unique experience in life,” said Doornbos about the statute of incoming neutrality of his city, adding that decorative pedestrian crossings were creating division.
“We have the same goal of making Barrahead a city where everyone loves to live.”
But some people who talked to CBC News feel that the core of the problem is not neutrality.
“It is to keep it as it is,” said Westlock Mayor Jon Kramer, adding that he believes that the new laws will do more damage than well.
Neutrality extends
Residents in Westlock and Barde can still fly their own flags in private property. Freedom of expression in public spaces, as through protests and demonstrations, is still protected by the Charter of Canadian rights and freedoms.
Barrahead residents can still recognize the 2SLGBTQ+ community with the pride month and the city will have a continuation of the indigenous day, said a spokesman from the city of Barde to CBC News in an email.
However, the impulse of neutrality is growing in Alberta: another group is working to bring similar changes in Leduc, a city south of Edmonton.
“It is not the place of any government to raise someone over others through the statutes and political,” said Shirley Thompson, with Leduc’s neutrality.
Leduc has a rater arc crossing. The group, said Thompson, aims to start requesting this year.
Active radio10:39Alberta’s growing impulse for neutral public spaces
Neutrality groups, organizations that request municipal councils to eliminate painting or ideological flags of pedestrian crossings, are appearing throughout the country. In two Alberta communities, the groups are behind the laws to maintain white pedestrian crossings and allow only national, provincial and city flags in municipal property buildings. The reporter Liam Harrap is here more about the emergence of neutrality groups.
Bakker, from the Westlock neutrality team, believes that more groups like yours appear because people are less afraid to face something they don’t agree with.
“In recent years, it has been social suicide to say that you don’t agree,” he said.
“They are more willing to risk it.”
Other communities in Canada are seeing similar revolts, including Mint, Ontario, a city at approximately 120 kilometers west of Toronto.
Last year, Minto residents presented a request for neutral public spaces to the City Council with more than 900 firms, about 10 percent of the community of the community.
The Council denied the petition and had no vote, because it is not legally required in Ontario. They also said that a referendum could be expensive. (The city of Westlock paid almost $ 20,000 in its plebiscite).
The problem became controversial. During a council meeting, a resident described the situation as “like war.”
Subsequently, the Council approved a motion that prohibits the councilors and city staff about human rights.
The municipality of Norwich, in southern Ontario, prohibited non -governmental flags in their buildings in 2023, after they stole or destroyed multiple pride flags in homes and businesses. According to the reports, some houses were shot.
Mayor Jim Palmer told CBC that a minister visited him during the stressful situation “to make sure he was not going to fly my brain.”
Since then, Norwich has decided to create a community flag post, where the flags that represent several causes and ideas, including pride, could fly for an established period.
The commitment reduced the temperature of the boiling to the tibia, said Palmer, to whom he is going better mentally.
Reaction against neutrality
The votes of the Neutrality Regulation in Westlock and Barde last year were narrow races.
In Westlock, 51 percent of voters were in favor. In Barde, 57 percent supported, although one third of the eligible voters voted.
Active radio8:10Voters in Barde have approved a statute that prohibits crucial pride
There will be no decorative pedestrian crossings in the city of Barde, and there are no flags in municipal property buildings, except Canadian, provincial or city flags. Residents have voted in favor of a statute of neutrality that would avoid pedestrian flags and crosses that recognize the 2SLGBTQ+community. Westlock did the same earlier this year. Janis Irwin is the MLA for Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood. She is strange and native to Barde.
The results devastated some people in the 2SLGBTQ+community.
“We are suffering at this time,” said Alana Hennessey, a Bardead resident.
“I definitely give me doubts in my mind that this is where I want to call home.”
Shaylin Lussier, who helped paint Rainbow raques in Westlock, finds his city much less cozy now.
“They thought that a couple of colors would be the most possibly offensive to exist,” he said.
Lussier has suffered abuse since the neutrality problem entered the center of attention. He received messages from strangers, including one that was a threat to his safety, he said.
The messenger suggested that in the past, “Freaks as you would have been taken out and … given a tuning,” he recalled.
Other types of pedestrian crossings and flags do not raise one group over another; People stand out after being invisible for so long, said Shelley Craig, Social Work Professor at Toronto University and Canadian research president in gender young people and minority.
Young people who are 2SLGBTQ+ have up to six times more likely to try to commit suicide than their peers, due to discrimination, stigma and rejection, according to Craig’s investigation.
Several spokesmen of neutral groups told CBC that they are not aimed at 2SLGBTQ groups.
Craig does not agree, arguing that these conversations are only happening in communities with rainbow crossings or pride flags in municipal flags.
In Barde, others are also unhappy for changes.
Criss Schafffrick, a disability defender in Barrhead, said she received a young man in a wheelchair with an intellectual disability.
According to Schaffic, the child wrote that eliminating the crossing of disabled pedestrians would make them feel “disconnected and unwanted” and that the community is not defending people with disabilities.
The city of Barde has also eliminated the flag of Treaty 6, which represents an alliance of the first sovereign national governments. Bughead is in the territory of Treaty 6.
“Talk about going back 15 to 20 years; that is not reconciliation,” said Robin Berard, a guardian of indigenous knowledge in Barde. She teaches community workshops on indigenous culture and history.
“Why do they go to the flag? The flag has not done anything to anyone,” he said.
In a statement, the Confederation of the Six First Nation Treaty told CBC that the statute does not recognize that it is not a special interest group.
He also described eliminating the flag of Treaty 6 as an error and a step back.
“We hope that this misunderstanding is corrected before it becomes an unfortunate precedent,” the statement said.
The legion flags, the County and Red Ensign, the last of which was the Canadian de facto flag from 1865 to 1965, has also been eliminated from the assignments of flags in Barde.
Westlock, 11 months after the plebiscite
The city of Westlock still aims to make its community inclusive.
Last summer, the city designated June as a month of pride, the first for the municipality. There are plans to build an accessible recreation patio this year for children with mobility or development challenges.
Ultimately, the premise that a city is neutral is defective, said Mayor Kramer.
The company is inclined, he said, pointing to taxes as an example. Some organizations are subject to taxes, while others, such as churches, are not.
Some people in the Westlock 2SLGBTQ+ community are scared and feel not loved, said Lussier resident. But she believes that the new laws will be challenged.
“Someone is going to rekindle the fight, and it will be incredible,” said Lussier.
