After failing to go a movement earlier this month asking for the however clause to take care of encampments, 13 of Ontario’s 29 large metropolis mayors are asking Ford instantly — at his behest
EDITOR’S NOTE: This text initially appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media web site dedicated to protecting provincial politics at Queen’s Park.
A dozen Ontario mayors have taken Premier Doug Ford up on his invitation to ask him to go laws to maneuver homeless folks out of encampments and to guard it from Constitution challenges through the use of the however clause.
On Thursday, the mayors of Barrie, Brampton, Brantford, Cambridge, Oakville, Oshawa, Pickering, St. Catharines, Sudbury, Guelph, Chatham-Kent, Clarington, and Windsor despatched a letter to Premier Ford formally asking the province to take motion aimed toward disbanding homeless encampments and forcing a number of the folks dwelling there into involuntary psychological well being therapy.
“We’ve heard your invitation for a transparent request for provincial motion to assist municipalities with points associated to psychological well being, dependancy, and homeless encampments,” the mayors wrote to Ford in a letter on Thursday.
“We ask to your quick consideration to this matter and stay up for working with the Authorities of Ontario to appreciate constructive modifications to very complicated points.”
The mayors are requesting that the laws include a number of measures aimed toward cracking down on encampments, all of which have been proposed earlier this month in a movement thought of by the Ontario Huge Metropolis Mayors (OBCM) caucus.
That authentic movement didn’t go. As a substitute, the 29 OBCM mayors determined to water it down significantly and stripped out all point out of the however clause.
Cambridge Mayor Janice Liggett advised The Trillium that taking out the however clause from the OCBM movement was the one solution to attain a consensus after six hours of debate, but it surely left her and lots of different mayors feeling that it had “not gone far sufficient.”
Municipalities, the mayor mentioned, “have been left to take care of this disaster with out enough assets, authorized authority or help,” and are “caught in a entice” the place they do not have the means to take care of encampments in a method that may fulfill the courts.
Liggett pointed to the 2023 Ontario Superior Courtroom resolution that forbade the Area of Waterloo from evicting a homeless encampment after figuring out the municipal bylaw violated the inhabitants’ Constitution rights to life and safety of the particular person.
The premier additionally warned earlier this week that the precedent set by this case makes it onerous for municipalities to disband encampments, however Liggett notes its extra sophisticated that.
“The decide in that case did not truly shut the door (to encampment evictions) fully, ” Liggett mentioned, including that the decide discovered that if municipalities can present sufficient housing, then encampments could be pointless.
“The issue is that, as lower-tier municipalities, we don’t present housing,” Liggett added. “So we’re being held ransom by the encampments with out having the ability to present housing.”
“I do not suppose it units a nasty precedent. This is the reason the however clause is within the structure,” she mentioned
Of their letter, the mayors are as soon as once more calling for extra involuntary psychological well being therapy for Ontarians with extreme psychological sickness and dependancy points, though the language has been softened considerably for the reason that authentic OBCM movement.
The mayors have dropped the decision for the event of a brand new “obligatory therapy program that expands the scope of and strengthens the system of obligatory … psychological well being and addictions therapy.” This time they need to merely “strengthen the present system” of obligatory therapy and “to increase service to deal with those that have extreme and debilitating addictions.”
The mayors are additionally calling on the Progressive Conservatives to amend the Trespass to Property Act to permit folks to be despatched to jail for “repetitive acts of trespass” and to permit law enforcement officials “to arrest an individual who commits repetitive acts of trespass” who they beforehand warned to depart.
The mayors are calling on the premier to make use of the however clause “the place obligatory” to guard the laws from constitutional challenges which have hampered previous efforts to evict encampment dwellers.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Affiliation (CCLA) has criticized the decision for “the creation of recent ‘repetitive trespass’ provisions” saying that they’re meant to “criminalize unhoused folks and folks dwelling in poverty, who’re already among the many most weak members of our society.”
“The however clause was by no means supposed for use — and may by no means be used — to weaken or hurt authorized protections for marginalized and weak communities,” mentioned CCLA director Harini Sivalingam.
The letter provides that the modifications to the Trespass to Property Act ought to permit arresting officers to ship the circumstances to the brand new “Drug and Diversion Courtroom system,” which the mayors are asking the PC authorities to create and implement “all through your complete province” as a manner “to permit a significant give attention to rehabilitation versus incarceration.”
The province can be as soon as once more requested to grow to be an intervener in any courtroom case that “restricts the flexibility of municipalities to manage and prohibit encampments” and argue to the courtroom that it ought to “not be dictating homelessness coverage.”
Lastly, the mayors are asking for the province to enact laws that may prohibit public drug use “in the identical method because the open consumption of alcohol.”
Requested if the federal government will go laws with these requested measures whereas invoking the however clause, Premier Ford’s workplace mentioned it “will discover each authorized software accessible to the province to clear encampments and restore security to public areas.”
“We’re inspecting which extra instruments the province can present to assist municipalities successfully handle these ongoing challenges,” mentioned a Ford spokesperson with out elaborating on what these extra instruments are.
Ford precipitated an uproar in 2022 when his authorities used the however clause in a invoice to forestall training staff from occurring strike. Somewhat than utilizing the Constitution’s override provision to reintroduce laws {that a} courtroom had discovered violated Constitution rights, the federal government used it pre-emptively, earlier than any courtroom might weigh in. The province, dealing with threats from labour of a normal strike, repealed the laws.
At Queen’s Park on Thursday, opposition politicians all agreed that Ford’s efforts could be higher spent constructing extra houses, which they argued is the one actual “resolution to encampments.”
“The housing does not exist, so you’ll simply find yourself transferring the encampments with out fixing the issue,” Official Opposition Chief Marit Stiles advised reporters at Queen’s Park.
Liberal Housing critic Adil Shamji argued that if the federal government solves “the housing and homelessness disaster, the encampments will get taken care of.” He known as on the province to heed different requests from municipal leaders that the PCs have up to now ignored, together with the flexibility to “defray the price of infrastructure and residential constructing away from the cities and again onto the province.”
Inexperienced Occasion Chief Mike Schreiner mentioned “taking the constitutional rights away from folks experiencing homelessness” will not assist them discover anyplace to stay apart from encampments.
Correction: The 2023 courtroom case was heard by the Ontario Superior Courtroom, not the Supreme Courtroom. This story has additionally been up to date to right a quote that used the mistaken gender for the decide within the case.
