Earlier this month, Ottawa City Council directed staff to draft a bylaw that would create buffer zones of up to 80 metres to limit demonstrations around sites and facilities considered “vulnerable public infrastructure”, such as schools, hospitals and places of worship.

The motion is the brainchild of Mayor Mark Sutcliffe, who feels it would prevent potential harassment and hate speech directed towards students, worshippers, or patients.

Whatever wording or parameters staff end up putting in the bylaw, it would exclude City Hall, Parliament Hill and embassies. It would also exclude picket lines outside schools and hospitals during labour disputes.

Calls for the motion is really a reaction to recent pro-Palestinian demonstrations directed towards synagogues and other Jewish institutions on both sides of the border.

I have no issue with that aspect of the bylaw, as long as those people who are against the war in Gaza can still demonstrate outside the Israeli embassy, or on Parliament Hill.

In fact, there should be only two concerns with the bylaw. The first is whether or not it limits the ability of people to protest outside abortion clinics by restricting the demonstrators to outside an 80-metre bubble. Perhaps the aspect of the motion that covers hospitals also covers public health clinics including abortion clinics and safe needle injection sites. If it doesn’t it should.

The second concern is in regards to whether or not the portion of the eventual bylaw that covers schools will include colleges and universities. If it does it shouldn’t.

Student demonstrations at universities and colleges have a long and storied history going back to the anti-Vietnam War movement in the United States in the 60s and early 70s. Student demonstrations have also occurred in Canada over the years, especially in Québec, where demonstrations took place against tuition fee increases at universities in 1996 and 2012.

More recently pro-Palestinian demonstrations have taken place on campuses across Canada including McGill University, the University of Toronto and Queen’s University.

The right to exercise free speech and to demonstrate peacefully should be inalienable on any campus of higher learning. When those demonstrations cross the line and become violent, the authorities have the ability to step in and restore order. Being offended or feeling threatened because you don’t agree with the people demonstrating is no reason to curtail the right to protest or to impose an arbitrary bubble.