Ottawa busker launches human rights complaint over rule against using microphone

When it comes to buskers, I have just one rule; if I like what a street entertainer is doing, I'll toss a loonie or whatever change I have into the box, hat, guitar case or other receptacle they have.

I like performers who give me a snippet of some classical piece, or the blues guy who can sing on key and whose guitar is actually in tune. Not so crazy about the kid giving his rendition of Stairway to Heaven via his electric ax hooked up to a tinny-sounding amp.

But if you're a busker, there are plenty of rules, about where you can perform, how long, whether you need a permit, and it goes on. One rule has an Ottawa street performer headed to Ontario's Human Rights Tribunal.

Circus artist Stephanie Wheaton is complaining that the City of Ottawa's rule barring buskers in the Byward Market from using microphones or other voice-amplifying gear, discriminates against women who don't have the same lung power as men to project their voices.

[ Related: Ottawa busker alleges bylaw discriminates against female street performers ]

Wheaton, who juggles and does contortions while telling jokes, told The Canadian Press the restriction is hurting her solo act.

"To yell for 45 minutes is really, really challenging and it often causes injuries and you can lose your voice very easily," Wheaton said in an interview. "Also, yelling jokes at people is very difficult."

Meanwhile, she said, male performers have no trouble working without mics.

"I felt like I needed to do something about that so I went to the Human Rights Tribunal," Wheaton, who's stopped performing her act and now has a non-speaking role in her boyfriend's street show, told CP.

Other cities also place restrictions on using amplified sound. Toronto, for instance, bars generator, amplifiers and sound systems using on street allowances (sidewalks). So does Calgary.

Vancouver permits battery-operated amplification on city streets as long as it doesn't disturb others and is kept within guidelines of the city's noise-control bylaw. But it specifically bars electronic amplification of vocals and acoustical instruments.

Vancouver last spring also banned bagpipes and other "percussive instruments," which hardly need amplification to be annoying to some people.

[ Related: Bagpiping buskers banned from Vancouver sidewalks but mayor orders rule review ]

Street entertainers depend on city bureaucrats' approval to pursue their livelihood but are often at odds them. Last year, a group of Montreal buskers took that city to court over restrictions on scheduling, CBC News reported.

Ottawa officials wouldn't comment on Wheaton's tribunal application, which it tried unsuccessfully to get dismissed. However, tribunal vice-chairwoman Sheri Price said Wheaton must get an expert to buttress her argument, CP said.

On expert suggested Wheaton might have a tough time. While women's vocal equipment is different from men's, they can be trained to project their voices, said Dr. Brian Hands, who has worked with stage performers, including members of the Canadian Opera Company and the Stratford Festival.

"Most women who are successful in any field, be it acting or singing or pop or lawyers speaking, whatever, can speak as loudly as men," the Toronto voice specialist told CP.

[ Related: Saskatoon Fringe Festival allowing buskers again ]

Hands said the artists he works with normally perform in theatres where they're not competing with passing cars, buzzing pedestrian traffic and other ambient street noise.

"In that situation it is a problem, but I still believe that the use of breath is the most essential feature for getting sound production that is effective, powerful and sustained," Hands said.