The city may have passed its anti-protesting bylaws quickly and quietly, but it did so legally, lawyers for the municipality said Wednesday.
"All the circumstances complied fully with the city's requirements and municipal regulations," Tom Barlow of Fasken, Martineau, DuMoulin told court.
"There's nothing wrong with a city acting as a government and passing bylaws to address existing situations."
Two teams of lawyers are arguing over Brantford's bylaws and the city's effort to get a long-term injunction against native protesters. They're back in court this week after a year of court-ordered negotiations failed.
While lawyers representing natives and the Haudenosaunee Development Institute have argued that Brantford's two bylaws that deal with protests by Floyd and Ruby Montour and others from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, are illegal, unconstitutional and racist, Brantford's team of lawyers disagreed.
In May 2008, city councillors came out of an in camera meeting to pass the two bylaws without discussion.
Barlow said the behaviour of the councillors wasn't strange.
"It's not unusual for a bylaw to be enacted quickly and without discussion when the support for it is unanimous," the lawyer said.
"It's not unusual for bylaws to be introduced and enacted at the same meeting after a closed door session. In a cross examination of (city clerk Darryl) Lee, five such examples were identified."
Barlow also noted that the media were invited into the meeting once it became public.
But the bylaws came as a surprise to those most involved in the protests, Floyd and Ruby Montour.
There was debate over whether Brantford had played fast and loose with the wording about what the meeting was going to be about, downplaying what really was going to occur.
But Barlow said all the processes and procedures were followed.
He explored numerous sets of case law that applied to how the bylaws were passed, fighting against the notion that the laws should be quashed.
Justice Harrison Arrell weighed in when Barlow noted that there is no evidence of anyone who didn't appear at the council meeting who would have shown up if the wording of the agenda was different.
"I would have thought that some people might have shown up," said the judge.
The case will continue Thursday and Friday.
Arrell is then expected to reserve judgment on the questions of quashing the bylaws and delivering an interlocutory --or second stage --injunction to the city that will specifically order the Montours, Clive Garlow, Charlie Green, David Martin, Marry Green, Hazel Hill and Aaron Detlor to steer clear of 10 city development sites.