| The City of Calgary should spend money helping the homeless rather than enforcing an unfair bylaw that targets aggressive panhandlers, says the Alberta Coalition Against Poverty.
Coalition co-chair Donna McPhee calls Calgary’s panhandling bylaw an example of "poor bashing" and says the bylaw should be scrapped.
The city’s panhandling bylaw, which has been in place since 1999, prohibits people from panhandling within 10 metres of banks, bank machines, transit stops and pedestrian walkways. It also bans panhandling between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. every day. The bylaw has been enforced more than 100 times, says Lorna Wallace, co-ordinator of bylaw and policy development for the City of Calgary.
City council is considering an amendment to the bylaw that would allow police or bylaw officers to give out $50 tickets for a first offence and $100 for a second.
Currently panhandlers charged under the bylaw have to make a court appearance and a judge determines the appropriate penalty. Under the proposed amendment a panhandler could choose to pay the fine or fight it in court.
McPhee says money spent enforcing the bylaw would be better spent providing affordable housing and addiction and mental-health programs to homeless Calgarians.
"The problem comes from cuts to the social safety net," says McPhee. "That’s why they’re out there."
McPhee says the bylaw discriminates against poor people to ensure that middle and upper class Calgarians don’t have be confronted with homeless panhandlers.
"The business community started the push against the homeless community. They didn’t want to trip over them on their doorsteps. The rich want the downtown core back so they can play," says McPhee.
In other jurisdictions, anti-poverty groups have launched court challenges against similar panhandling bylaws claiming that they’re contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Both Winnipeg and Vancouver’s city councils decided to change their bylaws to make them less restrictive on panhandlers before the cases ended up in court. However, there’s never been a court challenge of Calgary’s bylaw.
Arthur Schafer, director of the University of Manitoba’s Centre For Professional and Applied Ethics, wrote a report for the Caledon Institute of Social Policy in 1998 about panhandling bylaws that were cropping up across Canada.
Schafer is opposed to municipalities creating panhandling bylaws that restrict people from asking the public for money. He says panhandling bylaws "sweep the problem under the carpet."
"Making the most desperate of the poor inconspicuous is not the right solution," he says. "Anyone should be able to say to anyone else I’m in trouble and I need help."
"The law is a very blunt and crude instrument and there are better ways of dealing with (panhandling) that respect people’s civil liberties," he says.
City aldermen Joe Ceci and Bob Hawkesworth stated their opposition to the bylaw amendment at a council meeting on January 12.
"The issue of panhandling and poverty on our streets is not going to go away because of a $50 fine," said Hawkesworth.
However, other aldermen said the bylaw is necessary to prevent Calgarians from being harassed and intimidated by panhandlers who won’t take no for an answer. They stressed the bylaw only prohibits aggressive panhandling, not panhandling in general.
Council will hold a final vote on the proposal on January 26. |
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