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Reviews / Comptes Rendus
| Joe Hermer and Janet Mosher, eds. Disorderly People: Law and the Politics of Exclusion in Ontario (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2002) |
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JOE HERMER and Janet Mosher have compiled seven of the presentations from a one-day conference held in April 2000 at the University of Toronto, devoted to discussing the social and legal consequences of Ontario's Safe Streets Act, into a small but exceptionally provocative collection. Hermer and Mosher contend that although the Safe Streets Act remains one of the more visible manifestations of the Ontario government's neo-conservative agenda that assists in excluding groups from the political and geographical landscape, this particular piece of legislation is only the latest in a long list of exclusionary practices that have arisen from the current neo-conservative political climate. This collection aims to illustrate that legislation such as the Safe Streets Act, and other actions by the provincial government of Ontario, have contributed to the construction of a vast array of what the editors term "disorderly people," while at the same time serving to exclude individuals and groups defined and framed as such from public space, public discourse, and public view. |
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The Safe Streets Act, which came into effect at the end of January 2000, seeks to strictly limit, through criminalization, various acts of public begging, soliciting, or exchanging services for money. The legislation is linked in the minds of many to the crackdown on the so-called "Squeegee Kids," yet the parameters of the legislation are wide, and allow for great interpretive powers at all levels of law enforcement, from police on the street to courtrooms. Indeed, this legislation is akin to the vagrancy laws of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, notorious for their arbitrary interpretation and enforcement. Hermer and Mosher note that "the Safe Street Act is both extraordinarily detailed and at the same time vague and sweeping." (12) The Act prohibits soliciting in an "aggressive manner" and soliciting a "captive audience," (12) and the editors comment that "the very notion of a 'captive audience' works to construct the public as vulnerable victims, constantly held hostage in their travels through public by the disorder that anyone begging many embody." (13) |
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Prior to the enactment of the Safe Streets Act by the Ontario Conservative government, laws against begging remained under the jurisdiction of particular municipalities. By portraying begging or soliciting donations for services performed as potentially hostile and aggressive acts, and therefore potentially threatening to the users of streets and highways, the province has justified its involvement in an area previously understood to be the responsibility of local government. The perceived threat to provincial interest — safety of the Ontario taxpayer on roadways — has allowed for the passage of province-wide laws against begging and various forms of soliciting. |
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It is this focus on the perceived threat that Hermer and Mosher emphasize in their collection as a discussion of the construction of "disorderly people" surfaces through the various contributions. This collection stresses that the political agenda of the Ontario government, including but not limited to the passage of legislation such as the Safe Streets Act, manifests itself in part through a pervasive discourse that emphasizes the "disorder" and threat created by those who are not self- sufficient — those "disorderly people" perceived and constructed as bleeding the Ontario taxpayer dry. Residents of Ontario are increasingly categorized dichotomously as either the giver or the taker: the "Ontario taxpayer" or the "Ontario citizen," versus the "welfare cheat," the "squeegee kid/aggressive beggar," the "coddled prisoner," or the "violent youth." There are those who contribute, and those who do not. Those portrayed as not contributing are increasingly perceived as requiring legislation to curtail their demands on contributing members of society. They are constructed as requiring a "get-tough approach" to increasingly aggressive manifestations of their feelings of entitlement. "The underlying logic that has been installed in this politics of exclusion is the forging of an unquestioned linkage between the existence and control of disorderly people and the securing of safety and security." (16) |
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The collection astutely stresses that this constructed and perceived disorder has been used to justify the neo-conservative policies and legislation of the Ontario government that seek to regulate the "disorderly." Increasingly those most in need of a welfare state are excluded from social space as they are seen as promoting and contributing to this disorder. They are therefore seen as less deserving, and the Ontario taxpayer somehow less responsible for their need: "making up a disorderly set of people has come with an erosion of some of the central principles that have underpinned the democratic and equitable character of our institutions." (17) |
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The seven contributions themselves serve to illustrate the pervasiveness of the Ontario government's politics of exclusion, for the subjects of focus are diverse. The focus of this collection is far-reaching, yet this diversity is reined tightly and presented with unity of purpose. All the contributions are crafted together in a remarkably succinct presentation. |
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The first contribution presents interviews with the so-called "Squeegee Kids" whom many associate with the Safe Streets Act, and argues that squeegeeing provides much needed income for increasingly marginalized street youth whose options have been severely curtailed by the neo- conservative political climate. Mosher, in her contribution to the volume, illustrates changes in our understanding of public and private realms. She argues that, increasingly, access to public space and privacy has been usurped from the poor, effectively excluding them from society. Another contributions call on Kafka's image of the process of metamorphosis, and the concept of social death, to illustrate how the poor are increasingly constructed as unnecessary and ineffective (non)members of society. Another contributor illustrates how the act of asking strangers for money is a political act, and constitutes a form of political speech — an act the right to which must be protected. Further, a contribution questions the right of the province to have passed such legislation effectively criminalizing behavior, arguing that such jurisdiction resides in the federal realm. Another contributor argues that poverty and homelessness is criminalized as part of a wider neo-conservative political agenda. If poverty is criminalized, then the legislation proclaiming the need to control those acting criminally is more easily perceived as beneficial to the Ontario taxpayer-citizen. The final contribution discusses the climate of change surrounding Ontario's prisons and treatment of criminals, as the Ontario government argues a "get-tough" approach to its so-called "coddled prisoners." |
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Lest the desire to further marginalize those who have been constructed as "disorderly," and push them further "out of sight," threaten to push them therefore "out of mind" of the current citizen- taxpayer of Ontario, this collection should help to keep the debate surrounding at least one aspect of the neo-conservative agenda of the Ontario government alive. In keeping with the intentions of Hermer and Mosher in compiling this collection, which include "mak[ing] visible the overall geography of the neo-conservative character of the Ontario government" while provid[ing] footholds for critique and resistance both within the courtroom and out on the street," (17) proceeds from the sale of Disorderly People are being donated to the Toronto Disaster Relief Fund. |
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Joselyn C. Morley
Carleton University
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