Oxford County Pride launches human rights complaint after Norwich, Ont., bans interest group flags

The head of a southwestern Ontario Pride committee has filed a human rights complaint against the township of Norwich, charging its ban on flying interest group flags on its property and refusal to recognize June as Pride month amount to discrimination.

Tammy Murray, president of Oxford County Pride, said she launched the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) complaint against the township, Mayor Jim Palmer, and Councillors John Scholten and Adrian Couwenberg. These three members of the five-person council voted Tuesday in favour of only flying civic flags on township property and against recognizing Pride month.

"I don't think I've been given a choice," Murray said about turning to the OHRC. "People from marginalized communities are feeling hurt, revictimized, excluded, and they don't feel like their voices are being heard."

Murray said Oxford Pride is seeking:

At this week's council meeting, members voted 3-2 to only fly Canadian, provincial and municipal flags. The only other banners allowed to be installed on township streetlight poles are ones promoting downtown businesses or for downtown beautification. 

The initial bylaw, put forth by Scholten in March, wanted only government flags to be flown. Last week, it was amended to ban all flags by interest groups, including the Progress Pride flag. At the council meeting, the motion was amended again with removal of the words "Progress Pride flags."

The motion followed a series of thefts and vandalism of Pride flags last summer, after the township approved its business improvement association to fly such flags. 

Murray initially filed the OHRC complaint earlier this week, but says she'll amend it to include mention of $50,000 in damages.

Scholten wouldn't comment except to say he was made aware of the human rights complaint through CBC's phone call. Palmer and Couwenberg have not yet responded to CBC's request for comment. 

According to Toronto-based human rights lawyer Raj Anand, Murray's complaint would have to show that the LGBTQ+ community in Norwich is being treated differently, either intentionally or by the effect on them by an apparently neutral bylaw.

Scholten's reasoning was that civic flags best represent all groups of people and allow everyone to co-exist in harmony, regardless of their identity or beliefs. He said accommodating Pride flags will only inspire other communities to request their own.

Anand, former chief commissioner of the OHRC, said the township's decision could be a violation of the provincial human rights code, even if it doesn't explicitly exclude a certain group. 

"By banning all flags of interest groups as a means of saying, 'We don't allow flags of any interest group and therefore you're not being discriminated against,' is more of a subtle human rights discrimination argument, but the municipality can still be found to have breached the human rights code," Anand said. 

"I do understand that flying multiple different flags can be time consuming and costly to staff within townships, but in lieu of that, they could've developed a [rainbow] crosswalk or some compromise," Murray said.