‘We’ve got to suppose otherwise to save lots of peoples’ lives,’ Guthrie mentioned after becoming a member of different mayors in asking the provincial authorities to make use of the however clause to defend them from courtroom challenges
Metropolis councils ought to have the authority to take down homeless encampments with out dealing with authorized repercussions, believes Mayor Cam Guthrie.
On Thursday, he joined a refrain of Ontario mayors calling on the provincial authorities to guard municipalities that take away encampments from courtroom challenges underneath the Canadian Constitution of Rights and Freedoms by utilizing the however clause to defend them.
“My job as the mayor is to try to keep our community a safe and welcoming place for everyone,” he advised GuelphToday about his choice to signal the letter. “It is time for us to have the ability at the local level to have our municipal bylaws upheld and recognized for the bylaws that they are, that does provide the empathy and compassion alongside the balance of public order.”
The letter requests that the provincial authorities intervene in any courtroom case that “restricts the ability of municipalities to regulate and prohibit encampments,” stating “courts should not be dictating homelessness policy.”
An instance of that being the 2023 Ontario Superior Courtroom choice that forbade the Area of Waterloo from evicting residents of a homeless encampment after figuring out the municipal bylaw violated the inhabitants’ Constitution rights to life and safety of the individual.
Guelph council handed its personal bylaw to limit encampment places in August. It got here into impact on Oct. 1 and the primary batch of violation notices had been handed out earlier this week with a Nov. 13 deadline.
Along with Guthrie, the letter is signed by the mayors of Barrie, Brampton, Brantford, Cambridge, Oakville, Oshawa, Pickering, St. Catharines, Sudbury, Windsor and others.
“Many mayors, both large, medium and small across the province, are wanting to make sure that the government knows that we are in favour of (the notwithstanding clause) being used,” Guthrie mentioned.
The mayors’ letter additional calls on the provincial authorities to determine a drug diversion courtroom Ontario-wide to “ensure the necessary resources to allow a meaningful focus on rehabilitation as opposed to incarceration.”
Together with that comes a request to strengthen the prevailing system of necessary community-based and residential psychological well being care.
“The drugs of today are not the drugs of even five years ago – the toxicity, the consequences and the results of behavioural issues … requires us to fight like hell to be able to save these individuals,” mentioned Guthrie.
“We’ve got to suppose otherwise to save lots of folks’s lives. And the folks I hear from probably the most are dad and mom and households which can be begging elected officers to save lots of their son to save lots of their daughter from slowly dying.
“I will not stand by anymore. As a father myself … I would want every tool to be able to save my child,” he continued. “We have to have interventions for the reality of the drugs of today. …They require a new way of handling them and it’s time the government really thinks very seriously about the involuntary treatment position so that we can save more lives.”
Such a system would require further funding for therapy providers, mentioned Guthrie, who acknowledged there’s not sufficient therapy house for prepared individuals at the moment, not to mention those that are compelled to attend.
Moreover, the mayors’ letter requested the provincial authorities to amend the Trespass to Property Act to incorporate potential jail time for repeat offenders and to particularly enable police to arrest anybody who repeatedly trespasses after having been by police to not.
Lastly, the mayors need the province to enact laws clearly prohibiting open and public drug use in the identical method that open alcohol consumption is unlawful.
Every of the mayors’ requested provincial actions had been proposed earlier this month in a movement thought-about by the Ontario Huge Metropolis Mayors group.
That authentic movement didn’t go. As a substitute, the 29 large metropolis mayors determined to tone down the wording and take away all point out of the however clause and didn’t embrace a name for necessary therapy applications.
In response, Premiere Doug Ford urged the mayors to “have the backbone” to place their needs in writing.
“I’ve an concept: why do not the large metropolis mayors truly put in writing that they need the province to vary the homeless program, ensure that we transfer the homeless alongside, and why do not they put in, ‘Use the however clause,’ or one thing like that,” Ford mentioned throughout a information convention on Tuesday.
“That is what they need to be doing. Relatively than simply form of going as much as the sting. Let’s have a look at if they’ve the spine to do it in the event that they actually need the homeless scenario to enhance.”
– with recordsdata from Alan S. Hale of The Trillium, a Village Media web site dedicated to protecting provincial politics at Queen’s Park
