CHILLIWACK, BC: The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announces that a constitutional challenge to censorship by the Chilliwack Board of School Trustees will be heard today. This is an important case for free expression and a test of a citizen’s right to monitor and record public officials at meetings open to everyone.
The hearing will take place in Courtroom 202 of the Supreme Court of British Columbia located at 46085 Yale Rd., Chilliwack, BC, today, March 14, 2025, at 10 AM PDT.
The petitioner Lynda di Armani, is challenging both the Board’s prohibition of recording public Board meetings, and a Board decision to silence her comments at a June 2023 School Board meeting where she attempted to raise concerns about a potential conflict of interest.
Lynda di Armani is a mother and grandmother who has lived in Chilliwack, British Columbia, for the past 16 years. She worked as an educational assistant for the Chilliwack School Board with special needs students from 2007 to 2017.
On June 13, 2023, she attended a Chilliwack Board of School Trustees meeting to share her concerns regarding a potential conflict of interest at the Board. A trustee had asked the School Board to promote Pride Month, including installing a third flagpole to fly the Pride flag. That trustee was simultaneously the marketing director for a local Pride society. Ms. di Armani believed this was a conflict of interest and attempted to share her concerns with the Board during the “public participation” portion of the Board meeting.
Ms. di Armani had only started her presentation when she was repeatedly interrupted and silenced by the Board Chair Willow Reichelt and Vice-Chair Carin Bondar, claiming that her remarks were “discriminatory” and that “[t]here is no conflict of interest when you’re talking about basic human rights.” Ms. di Armani was told she could not refer to the Trustee by name or refer to the Pride flag as a special interest flag.
Despite Ms. di Armani’s attempt to comply with these requirements, the Chair terminated her remarks, silenced her mic, and muted the recording so Ms. di Armani’s response could not be heard.
A full-length video of the meeting is available here. (See 24:02 to 26:56)
On October 6, 2023, lawyers provided by the Justice Centre helped Ms. di Armani file a constitutional challenge against the Chilliwack Board of School Trustees. In that lawsuit, Ms. di Armani challenges the Chair’s and Vice-Chair’s interference and termination of her comments. She believes this is a violation of her freedom of thought, opinion, belief and expression – protected by section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Ms. di Armani also objects to the Board’s policy of prohibiting members of the public from recording public meetings. Ms. di Armani argues that the Board’s prohibition on recording violates the right of people to hear, listen to, and consider alternative perspectives, especially when the Chair mutes the Board’s recording of the meeting when members of the public are speaking in some manner disapproved of by the Chair.
Lawyer Marty Moore stated, “The pattern of censorship at Chilliwack School Board meetings is a concerning violation of the freedom of expression essential for responsible and accountable democratic governance. Ms. di Armani is asking the Court to exercise its constitutional jurisdiction to oversee and remedy the Board’s violations of Charter freedoms.”
