Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is promising to clean up Canada’s streets and parks by giving police the power to dismantle encampments and arrest their occupants for setting up tents and shelters to live in.
“Public spaces must be safe for everyone. We will take back our streets and restore order in our communities,” Poilievre said during a campaign stop in Hamilton on Wednesday.
“We will give people that are currently trapped in these awful circumstances a pathway to a better life,” he added.
The Conservative leader is pledging to amend the Criminal Code to give police the power to arrest people for discouraging the general public from using or moving through public spaces.
The first part of his announcement, which was also included in the Conservative platform released Tuesday, pledges to target people for “setting up temporary structures, including tents.”
WATCH | Poilievre proposes more power for police, judges to address tent encampments:
Blaming past Liberal policies for a rise in homelessness, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, speaking Wednesday in Stoney Creek, Ont., said as prime minister he would clarify the law so police can arrest and charge people living in encampments while giving judges power to order people into mandatory drug treatment.
Poilievre is also promising to give police the power to dismantle encampments while ensuring the people who live in them are connected with housing, addiction treatment and mental health services. This proposal was not included in Tuesday’s platform.
“We will replace them with treatment centres full of hope and excitement for people ready to start their lives,” he said.
Poilievre’s announcement does not provide details of how he would connect homeless people with housing and treatment, nor how much that would cost. His platform says only that he will introduce “a ‘housing first’ approach to eliminating homelessness.”
The Conservative platform promises $800 million over four years to treat 50,000 Canadians for addiction.
Dismantling encampments
Poilievre also highlighted his previously announced plan to allow judges to impose mandatory drug treatment for people charged with illegally occupying public spaces, or who are found in possession of drugs for personal use.
It’s not clear how Poilievre’s plan differs from public order offences already in the Criminal Code. Police currently have the power to arrest “any person whom he finds committing [a] breach of the peace,” or who the police officer “believes is about to join in, or renew, [a] breach of the peace.”
The legal changes giving police the power to dismantle encampments have already faced opposition in the courts.
In January 2023, an Ontario Superior Court justice ruled that Waterloo Region could not use a municipal bylaw to evict people living in an encampment in Kitchener because that bylaw was deemed to be in violation of Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The judge said a lack of shelter spaces means the bylaw infringed upon Charter rights.
In response, 13 Ontario mayors wrote to Premier Doug Ford asking him to use the notwithstanding clause to override a court decision preventing municipalities from clearing homeless encampments if their shelters are full.
The notwithstanding clause, Section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, gives parliaments in Canada the power to override certain portions of the Charter for five-year terms when passing legislation.
The clause can only override certain sections of the Charter including sections 2 and 7-15, which deal with fundamental freedoms, legal rights and equality rights, but can’t be used to override democratic rights.
Once invoked, Section 33 prevents any judicial review of the legislation in question. After five years, the clause ceases to have any effect unless it’s re-enacted.
In December, Ford’s government introduced legislation making it illegal to set up “any structure, such as a tent, used as a dwelling in a public space,” but Bill 242, the Safer Municipalities Act, failed to pass the Ontario Legislature before Ford called a provincial election in February.
The week before introducing Bill 242, Ford wrote an open letter to the mayors who asked him to use the notwithstanding clause, telling them he did not expect to use the clause but was prepared to do so.
“Should the courts interfere with our shared goal of effectively addressing and clearing out encampments using these enhanced tools, with your support, our government is fully prepared to use the notwithstanding clause,” Ford wrote.
Poilievre’s announcement did not provide any detail on what his response would be to a constitutional challenge to his encampment removal law, but he has expressed a willingness to use the notwithstanding clause in other instances.
