The Homeless protests Ottawa's Mayor Larry O'Brien disrespect for human rights

by Jane Scharf

Ottawa City Hall-Homeless Action Strike 2007 is organized the first annual Begathon on Elgin Street between Somerset and Laurier both sides of the street for August 15, 2007. Participants were asked to congregate at the strike site at the Human Rights Monument before setting up (strikers sleep out at the site 5 days a week).

The event was organized to challenge Mayor Larry O'Brien's contention supported by Councillor Eli El-Chantiry that all panhandling and squeegee is illegal under the Safe Streets Act.

We are inviting a lawyer to assure the panhandlers and squeegee kids that panhandling and squeegee is in fact legal.

The Safe Streets Act prohibits soliciting of cars on a roadway but they may solicit the car from the sidewalk or medium. And it prohibits soliciting of persons waiting at transit stops, waiting or using a pay phone or ATM machine. And it prohibits aggressive actions that are in fact covered by other laws such as intimidation and soliciting while intoxicated.

In Ottawa it was common up until very recently for panhandlers to get tickets for soliciting near a bus stop, pay phone and ATM machine making all panhandling illegal under this expansive interpretation of the act.

On July 23, the Homeless Action Strike made delegations to the Police Services Board meeting. During that presentation they commended the department for respecting there right to protest this year at city hall and for stopping the police violence against the homeless once the protest began that had resurged following Mayor O?Brien?s bid for the public to treat the homeless like pigeons and seagulls.

The group also raised the issue of the over zealous application of the Safe Streets Act.

The protestors do not expect any tickets by police or bylaw because they intend to conduct the panhandling and squeegee operations in a legal manner. And they believe that O'Brien and El-Chantiry are not capable of making the police act illegally. The group also believes that these two individuals are suffering from WMPD, which is" white, middleclass, paranoid, dilutions" you know the one about all poor people are criminals and are out to get their money. El-Chantiry's statements on 580 CRFA about dozens of "aggressive" panhandlers and squeegee kids on Elgin Street and protestors climbing up to O'Brien's second story window appear to be incredible fantasies.

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