In mid-September 2026, Westlock, Alta., resident Benita Pedersen — a DJ and children’s entertainer — sat through multi-day hearings before the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal over a homemade flyer she distributed in June 2023 opposing a proposed town rainbow crosswalk that included progressive-pride and transgender colours.

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms is funding her defence. JCCF materials say resident Laurie Hodge filed a complaint on 19 June 2023 alleging discrimination on gender, gender identity, and gender expression; the Commission Director referred the matter to the Tribunal on 7 October 2025 under section 3 of the Alberta Human Rights Act — the publications provision that can target speech “likely” to expose protected groups to hatred or contempt. Witness blocks were scheduled across mid- and late September into early October 2026.

A political flyer about a town crosswalk should be answered at the council table — not with an administrative speech trial.
What section 3 does: Rebel News notes the provision has produced only one other completed hearing in roughly two decades (a Red Deer pastor case later mauled by the courts), and that equivalent federal hate-speech tribunal wording was repealed under Harper in 2013. Pedersen’s flyer urged residents to contact officials and “Cancel the rainbow crosswalk,” and raised fertility and child-safety concerns about gender transition — JCCF frames that as democratic debate; the complainant frames it as discriminatory publication.

Parallel to the hearing, Rebel News launched a permanent Scrap Section 3 campaign: a Highway 2 billboard between Calgary and Edmonton timed for UCP convention traffic, a petition/delegation push for the party’s November convention, and continued day-by-day coverage of Pedersen’s case. Premier Danielle Smith has previously said hate-speech enforcement belongs in the Criminal Code, not human-rights tribunals — a political opening campaigners are trying to force into UCP policy.

Bottom line: This is a free-expression docket with a citizen defendant, a constitutional-defence shop, and a parallel repeal campaign. Watch the Tribunal record for findings (or a settlement), and whether Scrap Section 3 becomes a live UCP convention fight rather than a press-release slogan.