Safer Communities bill passes through committee
Posted Mar 5, 2010 By Rosalyn Stevens
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Tweet ThisEMC News - After an unexpected call back to the province's committee on regulations and private member bills, the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods (SCAN) bill was approved after an all party clause-by-clause review last week.
Ottawa Centre MPP Yasir Naqvi worked with residents in the Hintonburg community since 2007 to create the bill. Modeled on similar legislation in other provinces, SCAN would create an intermediary step for communities to work through the municipality to close properties habitually used for criminal activity.
Naqvi said he was informed just two days before the meeting last week that the bill would be reconsidered by the committee. In a previous meeting, designated for a clause-by-clause review, NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo ran out the clock on discussion, effectively blocking the bill from proceeding further.
"The committee where it was stalled...last time around had some time, so they called SCAN back again with another private member's bill," Naqvi said.
While the NDP and PC members of the committee voted against the bill, the majority of Liberal members allowed it to proceed in just 11 minutes.
Cheryl Parrott, a member of the Hintonburg Community Association's security committee, said she was thrilled to hear the unexpected news, and will focus efforts on moving the bill into the legislature for a third reading.
"We're just so pleased," she said. "There still has to be a third reading, which means it still needs to come back to the house."
She said the next chapter in this process would include persuading all house leaders to accept the bill back into the house.
Naqvi said he doesn't expect the bill to rise during the next session of the legislature, but said that provides time to work with other parties and sort out any misunderstandings. He said the opposition members were concerned about the potential unintended consequences of the bill, while others stated concerns about creating another level of bureaucracy.
"My response is that it's creating a complementary system at the municipal level," he said. "I think what's important is the tools that we give to municipalities."
"In practice, things can happen, but in law and policy we can take all the steps we can so that (problems don't) happen," he added, noting that consultation prior to last week's meeting resulted in a number of amendments to reflect the concerns of other members.
He said he would continue working with all MPs to indicate the benefits of the legislation, which would give communities the power to make their neighbourhood safer. Any community in Ontario with problem properties, such as crack houses or buildings used for prostitution, would be the target of this legislation.
Parrott said it's a different level of legal action, as opposed to the criminal law that targets individuals. Often, she said, when police act on concerns, they remove the offenders but not the problem.
"Before you knew it, there was somebody else in there with a different face, but the same illegal activity," she said.
Naqvi said he's happy the bill was successful at this level, but noted there is still much work to be done before it could be approved as law.
"It's coming along, and I'm quite optimistic," he said, "but there's quite a bit of work to do with this."
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