The goal of this bylaw was to make sure there was a right and wrong place to protest. My goal in introducing that bylaw was to say that places of worship should be safe spaces and that whether you go to a gurdwara, a mandir, a church, a synagogue or a mosque, everyone should be able to pray free of violence, intimidation and harassment. I know we have a constitutionally protected right to protest in this country, but we also have a charter-protected right to religious freedom, and I think too often that right is trampled on.
There's legitimate protest, and if you want to protest the Government of India, you can protest the Government of India. If you want to protest the Government of Russia and want to protest the Government of China, you have that right. I just don't want to see anyone on their way to prayer circumvented in their efforts to do so.
In our bylaw, I thought we took the right balance; we protected the right to prayer, but if a place of worship has a banquet hall and there's a foreign government rally in that banquet hall, that would not be protected. It wouldn't restrict the right to protest. It is the basic religious freedom that is protected.