Toronto's city manager has been asked to update Toronto's anti-discrimination policy, in the wake of the controversy over the participation of the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid in the city's Gay Pride Parade.
Toronto council voted Thursday to support Ward 10 Councillor James Pasternak's request.
Pasternak had been an outspoken advocate for keeping the group, which stages protests over Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank, out of the Pride Parade. Earlier this year, city politicians were contemplating removing city funding and support for the Pride Week event because of the group's possible participation.
Pasternak and others, such as Ward 7 Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti and Mayor Rob Ford, were stymied by a city staff report indicating that the group was not violating the city's anti-discrimination policy and there was no basis to deny the parade funding because of its participation.
Pasternak maintained that the group's very name - which links Israeli treatment of Palestinians to the South African Apartheid movement - was provocative and designed to demonize Israel and Jews.
While he and other councillors debated the matter vigorously at the last meeting of Toronto's executive committee, on Thursday Pasternak simply moved his motion requesting a new policy without speaking, and council supported it without debate.
After the vote, Pasternak said he didn't see the point of prolonging the discussion.
"The key was that we really didn't want a four- or five-hour debate on the matter that's already been debated," he said. "I would rather have the city manager go to work on this to make sure that we have a relevant policy."
Pasternak said he's hoping that a new policy will be tougher in dealing with speech deemed offensive to groups in the city - and would prohibit messaging such as Queers Against Israeli Apartheid deliver.
"This is a group that is designed to demonize," he said. "We have a responsibility here and now to make sure that groups like that and others aren't given public space in which to operate. We had some holes in our current policy and we weren't able to really come to the conclusion that the term 'Israeli apartheid' violated that policy. We're hoping for a refreshed policy so that those terms are deemed to be discriminatory."