Manitoba Residents Challenge Ban on Recording Municipal Council Meetings

File photo of a judge's gavel. BCFC/Shutterstock

Four residents of a rural Manitoba community have filed a court application challenging a municipal policy that prohibits the public from recording council meetings.

The issue began after a Springfield resident was told to stop recording a public meeting of the Rural Municipality Council (RM Council) of Springfield on Feb. 4. At the time, Mayor Patrick Therrien said only “media” were allowed to record and that all media must obtain approval from the council’s chief administrative officer 48 hours in advance.

“According to the mayor’s interpretation, members of the public are not considered ‘media’ and therefore cannot record public meetings at all,” said the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) in a news release on June 26.

The centre, which is representing the four applicants in the legal action, said its constitutional lawyer Darren Leung sent a “warning letter“ to Therrien and his council members on March 20, advising them that “there is no bylaw or resolution currently prohibiting recording of public meetings” and that the mayor has no authority to enforce such restrictions under Manitoba’s Municipal Act.

The JCCF said Leung’s letter also warned the RM Council of potential violations of Charter rights, particularly the freedom of expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication, protected by section 2(b) of the Charter.

The letter noted that Springfield resident Karen Insley attended the Feb. 4 RM Council meeting and used her cellphone to record the proceeding of a delegation in the council chambers.

“Ms. Insley was sitting quietly with her phone pointed at council to record the proceeding. At some point, Mayor Therrien asked whether she was recording and asked her to stop. He stated that it was against the new bylaw rules of procedure, 24-10,” Leung said in the letter.

The letter noted that the council’s chief administrative officer then said audio recordings of the meeting would be posted within two days, “notwithstanding unforeseen circumstances,” and that “Mayor Therrien then added that it was fine for people watching remotely to record the Zoom broadcast.”

The JCCF’s news release did not indicate whether the council responded to Leung’s letter but said “Despite the legal warning, the Council continued with its blanket ban on recordings at meetings.”

‘Transparency and Openness’

In a video posted on YouTube on June 26, Leung said the JCCF has brought forward the case because the four applicants “think this is an important issue” and “want to improve transparency and openness in town council meetings.”

“One of the main issues we’re dealing with here is that recording itself has been found to be an expressive activity and of course we’re living in a day and age of the citizen journalist where people can just pull out their phones and start recording things,” Leung said.

“So it’s quite concerning to us that many town councils think that they could just ban recording altogether because they just don’t want people to see them.”

Leung added that the new bylaw, which was passed in December 2024, doesn’t say anything about what the public has to do to record meetings and doesn’t say that the public is not allowed to record.

Daniel Page, a computer science professor and one of the four applicants of the legal action, expressed concern over the council’s “attempt to censor public expression,” said the JCCF news release.

The notice of application, filed with Manitoba’s Court of King’s Bench on June 20, argues two main points. One is that the mayor “acted outside the scope of his authority” when he prohibited members of the public from recording at open public meetings of the council without a duly passed bylaw. The second point is that even if such a bylaw exists, it would “unjustifiably” violate the applicants’ rights and freedoms guaranteed by section 2(b) of the Charter.

The filing also said Page finds the quality of the live Zoom footage to be “not easily accessible” as it contains issues such as “speakers being muted or not picked up by the microphone or is otherwise of poor quality.” The other three applicants find that both the Zoom video broadcast and audio recordings provided by the council are “difficult to understand,” with issues such as speakers often being excluded from the video footage and the audio not always capturing what the speakers are saying.

In the case of Page, as he is involved in providing news updates to residents of RM Springfield through his social media account, he requires “accurate and understandable audio/video recordings” of the council meetings. 

In an email statement to The Epoch Times, RM Council’s chief administrative officer Colleen Draper said she “cannot comment on lawsuits currently in litigation.”

The hearing is set to take place on Aug. 20, according to the notice of application.