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Safe Streets Act challenged in Ontario court, groups call for change
A provincial statute known as the Safe Streets Act will undergo a constitutional challenge in Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice.
The act prohibits “aggressive” panhandling, makes it illegal to solicit money from a “captive audience,” and bans the disposal of “certain dangerous things” in public spaces.
The law also gives police the authority to arrest people without a warrant under certain conditions.
The challenge stems from a 2017 case launched by the Fair Change legal clinic and scheduled to be presented in court Tuesday.
They say that this law infringes on the rights of the most vulnerable people in society, including their freedom of expression and their right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishments.
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The courts say that the infringement is justified when it comes to public safety.
Advocates argue that panhandling is a means of survival and the debts from the fines will accumulate leading to more difficulties accessing assistance and support.
They cite a 2011 research paper that examined the number of times The Toronto Police Service issued citations under the act between 2000 and 2010.
In those ten years, 67,388 tickets were issued, which totalled nearly $4 million.
Of that $4 million, a meagre $8,086.56 was collected, Fair Change said.
First-time offenders can be hit with a $500 fine, and continued offences will see that fine double to $1000 — and in some cases, land rule breakers in jail.
But Fair Change maintains that the punishments violate several charter rights and does so by design.
“The Safe Streets Act is cruel,” wrote Chris Hummel, one of the initiators of the court case, in an online statement. “By design, it targets the most vulnerable population in our society for doing one of the most desperate acts imaginable – begging for spare change. It heaps fines on people with nothing to give, and jails people who already suffer disproportionately from mental illness, trauma, addiction, and stigma.”
According to the act, solicitation in an aggressive manner is defined as solicitation that causes a reasonable person to be concerned for his or her safety or security and includes:
- Threatening the person solicited with physical harm;
- Obstructing the path of the person solicited;
- Using abusive language during the solicitation;
- Proceeding behind, alongside or ahead of the person solicited;
- Soliciting while intoxicated by alcohol or drugs; and
- Continuing to solicit a person in a persistent manner after the person has responded negatively to the solicitation.
It also prohibits the solicitation of a “captive audience,” which is defined as a person who may be stuck using a payphone or toilet, waiting for a taxi or bus, getting in or out of a vehicle or waiting for an ATM, among other things.
The act also contains a section that goes after those who dispose of things like condoms, hypodermic needles or broken glass in public spaces.
Finally, the act gives police the authority to arrest those who have been warned not to engage in soliciting and make arrests in cases they need to establish the identity of people they think may have already been warned in prior instances.
The act first received royal assent in 1999, under Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government.
The case will be in front of the courts until Thursday.
– With files from Simone Gavros
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