oh, for fuck's sake

[the_siobhan]

First thing I read over my morning (well, ok, afternoon) cup of coffee is this nonsense.

Never let it be said that any country in the world has the patent on asshat ideas.

For other Toronto people reading this: orkillme has some links in this post to the relevant People In Charge. I intend to write some polite but firm letters outlining exactly what I think of Fantino's bloody bylaw.

Comments

[kest]

Most places in the US have some sort of loophole laws that deal with this sort of thing. Like they can't stop people from gathering on the sidewalk (unless they're standing there for too long; then they're loitering) but they can arrest them for being in the street (and pulling people from the sidewalk *into* the street so they can be arrested, well, that's just a technicality). 'Public nuisance' is another good one. So you just accept that when you go to a protest, you run a high risk of getting arrested.

Remember the WTO protests in Seattle? The 'riots'? The organizers obtained a 'parade permit' for that. So it was legal to march down the streets. Good deal, eh? But then the cops decided to change the route at the last minute, to keep the protest away from the actual meetings. This caused confusion. It caused anger. And a bunch of people decided 'fuck that' and went where they wanted to go anyway, damn the teargas and batons and handcuffs.

They've got to be kidding if they think protesters of all people are going to stop because of some silly little new laws like that.

Friday

[the_axel]

If you haven't already, take a look at the Charter
( http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/ )
and what it has to say about "Freedom of Peaceful Assembly" and "Presumed Inncoent until Proven guilty".

'Cos it looks to me like that By-Law would violate those two, and probably more.

& that in turn means that the By-Law could be challenged in court and the City would have to spend money on listening to it getting struck down 'cos the Supreme Court is very aggresively liberal in it's rulings.

Which means the City wasting more money that it doesn't have.