SAFE STREETS ACT SURVIVES COURT CHALLENGE
The Ontario Court of Justice has upheld the constitutionality of an Ontario law which forbids squeegeeing and a range of speech associated with panhandling. Intervening in the case of 13 street people charged under the law, CCLA Special Counsel Frank Addario and Vanora Simpson urged the court to strike down the impugned provisions as an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of expression. They also called the law gratuitous since the Criminal Code already protects the public from assaults, threats, intimidation, and harassment by aggressive panhandlers. In the result, Justice Babe upheld the Act after finding, among other things, that the expression in question was "peripheral" to Charter values. An appeal has been filed.