Cambridge Mayor Silences Teens Speech. Streisand’s it to the Moon

A mayor in Cambridge, Ontario decided to censor a teens speech at a flag raising ceremony. Guess who is now talking about it.

You smell that in the air? That’s the smell of the Streisand effect going into full bloom. You can thank a Canadian mayor for the latest waft of this in the wind after being an all around dumbass.

So, what happened was that the city was having a pride flag raising ceremony. Cities across Canada, obviously, do this to offer a clear signal that the LGBTQ+ community is acceptable in the city among other things. This after the community has faced decades of hate, bigotry, and even violence for the “crime” of being true to who they are and choosing who they want to love. Contrary to what the hate mongerers want you to believe, the community is simply asking for equality, not about dictating to others how to live.

In this case, a teenager was invited to make a speech during the ceremony. In that speech, the teen referenced an incident that happens in 2025 when Adam Cooper apparently posted a hateful and transphobic picture on his Facebook page. The picture in question was wrong on so many levels, but the fact that a politician posted it was obviously an exercise in poor judgment. This especially given that when you are an elected politician, you are representing everyone in your constituency, not just who happened to vote for you. Cooper’s post was determined to have violated the council’s code of conduct and was ordered to undergo sensitivity training. The fact that someone made it that far and enjoys that much power would exercise that level of poor judgment is insane, but sadly happens far more often then it should.

Fast forward to this year and the teen in question opted to reference that incident. Obviously, the post in question was harmful and the community has every right to be upset about it. Apparently, however, the city mayor decided that mentioning this, regardless of the context in question, was going too far. Mayor Jan Liggett then had a choice. She could let the speech continue and people would forget it within a few days or she could intervene and have everyone talk about it for weeks on end. Gee, I wonder what could possibly be the right decision here? Well, since you are reading this here on Freezenet, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out which path she chose.

The mayor apparently got up and physically took away her microphone while demanding that she skip that part of the speech altogether. Yeah, really didn’t think this one through.

Of course, all of that was bad enough. She got her self into a bit of a hole. This was clearly an exercise in poor judgment. Now, as I pointed out at the top, I didn’t refer to the mayor as making a mistake. I referred to her as being a dumbass. Why? Because she managed to figuratively grab a shovel and keep digging. Oh yeah, the story just keeps getting better and better.

After the incident made national news which is already a REALLY bad sign that you got yourself into a jam, the mayor actively defended her actions by saying that removing the teens speech is… not about taking away the speech of anyone. I wish I was joking. From the CBC:

Cambridge, Ont., Mayor Jan Liggett says she was obligated to stop a teen’s speech during the city’s Pride flag raising event on Monday and stands behind her actions.

“My actions were not about silencing anyone, but of refocusing,” Liggett said in a video statement published on the Office of the Mayor City of Cambridge Facebook page Friday afternoon.

“They were about protecting the integrity of an event that was intended to unite rather than divide. We live in a time when outrage often receives more intention than understanding.”

Now, I hate to be the bearer of bad news to the mayor here, but we’re talking about a mayor who physically removed a microphone from a speaker and got the speaker to skip a portion of the speech because the mayor was upset about what was being said. We are well past talking about nuance and what is censoring someone and what isn’t. You, as the mayor, literally silenced someone. You just aren’t getting around that. That is just a thing that happened. Plain and simple.

Now, at the risk of insulting the intelligence of you, the reader, local LGBTQ+ groups were not pleased about any of this. Gee, I wonder why?

But shortly after Liggett’s statement on Friday, a local 2SLGBTQ-plus group called for her to resign.

Eric Bolton and Bryan Causarano-Bolton of Grand River Pride said they “reject” the mayor’s response.

So, naturally, the mayor decided to do what is totally appropriate in this scenario. She decided to just keep digging:

In an interview with CBC News Friday afternoon, Liggett said she stands by her decision to pull the microphone away from Mills.

“I was abrupt … but there’s no other way to adjust the mic,” Liggett told CBC News. “The mic was standing there and I had to move it towards me, away from [Mills].”

Ahh, so we’ve gone from silencing someone is not silencing someone to blaming the technology. There, that’ll make the whole thing better! The mayor went on to say how Sophie Mills didn’t mention that mentioning the 2025 incident was going to be part of the speech at all and that all of this was just a surprise necessitating the intervention. There’s just one teensie tiny little problem with that excuse:

Mills said they made the changes to their speech the day of, but that no one from the city asked to vet their speech beforehand.

“No, they did not ask to see my speech,” Mills explained. “I did end up showing it to a few people before I had edited [the speech] the day of, but there was no vetting. They didn’t look at my speech beforehand.”

Oopsies! Well that fun little excuse kind of face planted pretty hard. How can there be a surprise if nothing was checked on the cities part beforehand? At that point, at minimum, that is the cities damned fault, not Mills.

So, with that excuse going down in flames, we then get to the next excuse by the mayor:

In her 10-minute video message, Liggett said part of her responsibility is to keep the peace.

“I have a responsibility to maintain an environment that is welcoming and appropriate for all participants,” she explained, adding she felt like Mills’s comments were violating the city’s code of conduct for city events.

“To maintain a respectful and safe environment. Allowing personal attacks on individuals by looking the other way are not consistent with my responsibilities.”

Yeah, try explaining that to the LGBTQ+ groups who are now rightfully pissed off at you. We are now approaching the territory of “inclusion for me, but not for thee”. The cherry on top of all of this? The mayor decided to also do a fun little exercise in victim blaming:

Liggett said as a result of what happened at city hall, her office has been receiving “accusations, harassing calls and emails, death threats and threats to family members and staff.”

“Death threats to family members and staff is not cool, not cool at all,” Liggett said in the video. “The very people that are accusing us of not being kind are not being kind themselves.”

She also mentioned her office received emails of support, which she said shows how “polarizing” the topic is in the community.

“It reiterates why I must try to remain neutral,” Liggett said. “I have to create an environment where both sides can co-exist.”

Hey, if the office truly is receiving death threats, refer the matter to the RCMP. I have no problem with that. Considering how many twists and turns that were already made on the mayors part, though, it kind of calls into question the mayors credibility in all of this. The reality is that this is an environment of her own making at this point. The mayor made a mistake. That is not in doubt. Had she just left well enough alone, I wouldn’t even be talking about any of this. Had the mayor not kept digging, I might have chalked this whole thing up to a local spat. Now, here we are, talking about it.

The Grand River Pride of Cambridge has, in response to this, call for a boycott of the events (Facebook link).

If you don’t want to click on the Facebook link, here’s the letter in question:

I think it’s safe to say that things have kind of spiralled out of control on this one for the city. This especially when the video in question gets plastered on the evening news:

Based on the comments section on the CBC news article (which is not healthy for your sanity), it seems that the so-called “free speech warriors” from some right wing corners are defending the government censorship here. This is something that should be of no surprise to anyone paying attention given the long history of far right extremists only supporting free speech so long as they agree with said speech (which is obviously not a defence of free speech at all, but rather, an exercise in hypocrisy).

At any rate, welcome to the Streisand Effect mayor Liggett. You really only have yourself to blame for the mess you find yourself in now.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Bluesky and Facebook.