Saturday, January 26, 2008

Canada's Anti-Camping Law

The Urban Vandweller has this to say:
"Oh, yeah, the big law suit should be very soon. Earlier in my blog, I talked about the constitutional lawsuit against the anti-camping bylaws, which is the main reason for hiding my identity. For a few years now, the numbers of the homeless on foot, have been climbing quickly. They started camping in city parks, in the larger cities, using tents or whatever to protect themselves. Well, that didn't work for the authorities and the 'establishment', so they evoked anti-camping bylaws, and an ancient 'chatteral' bylaw. Even though these folks had nowhere to go, with the city shelter's capacity already overwhelmed by 10 to 1, the cities criminalized the homeless. To make matters worse, the 'chatteral' law, allowed the police to seize bed rolls, tents and backpacks, from the helpless 'offenders'. Nice, eh, nothin' like kicking a poor soul, when their down and out.

Well, the homeless got some pro-bono lawyers, and are taking the cities, the province and the country to Supreme Court, on a Constitutional lawsuit. The anti-camping law, is apparently in contradiction to our Charter of Rights, which is kinda like the US Constitution. If the homeless win, it will set a common law premise, which will apply in all jurisdictions, throughout our country. If you need to sleep 'outdoors' in a public park, due to financial or other hardship, the authorities will be powerless to stop you, unless they provide an alternative, like a proper tent city."

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1 comment:

Ryan said...

I am not sure how I feel about this. I do not think that public loitering is a positive thing for any area and cities should have the right to regulate such issues. Taking the kids stuff is pretty messed up though.