By Laragh Dooley
A community safety group is pushing for Ontario to follow the lead of several other provinces and pass tough legislation that will hold landowners accountable for criminal activities taking place on their property.
“It takes just one crack house in the neighbourhood to threaten the entire community’s safety,” says Stephanie Strudwick, chair of Concerned Citizens for Safer Neighbourhoods. “This is another tool to keep residents safe by giving landowners more power but also more responsibility.”
Strudwick is leading the charge to have Ontario implement the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act (SCAN), a program already implemented in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Yukon.
She says the act would give provincial Justice Departments the power to seek out and shut down buildings that are being used for activities such as prostitution or drug activity.
SCAN would not be formally affiliated with provincial or local police, but SCAN employees often contact and have close relationships with the local police. Instead, retired police officers and surveillance experts are hired by the province to form a SCAN unit.
The program encourages residents to report suspicious activity or file complaints about residences to the unit.
The complaint is kept confidential and the identity of those who file it cannot, at any time, be revealed.
If the SCAN team believe “on a balance of probabilities” that illegal activity is taking place, the property owner will immediately be informed of the situation.
In most cases, the property owner will then evict the tenants.
If the land owner refuses to evict, or if illegal activity continues, a court order can shut down the residence for 90 days or permanently.
Ralph Neumann, who owns and rents out residential buildings in Centretown, says he would love to see legislation such as SCAN implemented by the Ontario government.
“The current tenant’s act protects everyone, even the criminal,” says Neumann.
“If a landlord believes, for valid reasons, that people are selling cocaine from his property, he should be able to easily kick that person out. Right now, it is not that easy.”
Neumann also says if landlords are told by the unit about criminal activity taking place on their property and do not evict the tenants, than shutting down the residence is fair game.
“If they turn a blind eye to the crime and simply collect the [rent] cheque then they are as much responsible as the criminals,” says Neumann.
The current legislation does not hold land owners responsible, in any form, for criminal activity taking place on their property.
“The police might spend an entire year making a case against criminals, and even if the landlord was aware of what was going on in the house but did nothing, he gets off scott-free,” says Strudwick.
“He is free to rent the apartment the next day, no repercussions.”
Not everyone disagrees with current legislation.
Dan McIntyre, spokesperson for the Federation of Metro Tenants’ Associations, says the current legislation is working; there is no need to make it easier to evict people, even when criminal activity is taking place.
“My fear is that this would lead to a whole bunch of quickie evictions without due cause,” says McIntyre. “Landlords now have a right to inspect properties and to gatekeep the property before renting.”
Pamela Connolly, chair of the Dalhousie Community Association Safety Committee, says it took police 18 months to shut down a drug house near Elm Street.
She says if Ontario had SCAN in place, the tenant could have been evicted much sooner.
“The police are human and can only work on so much at one time,” says Strudwick. “This is an additional tool, not to replace the police but to help the police deal with criminal activity at the neighbourhood level.”
Strudwick and her group plan to state their case to Ontario’s attorney general in December.