09-27-2019, 07:33 PM
(09-27-2019, 02:26 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:(09-27-2019, 07:50 AM)ijmorlan Wrote: I’m not a lawyer. It may well be that the Charter has been poorly written and/or interpreted such that bylaw is effectively toothless, although I do not know.
I’m just pointing out that it is crazy if somebody who is being ticketed for an offence cannot be forced to make a choice between identifying themselves or being arrested. Imagine it’s your house that is unliveable because of somebody blasting music just outside the window (or committing some other bylaw infraction). Are you really OK with the perpetrator giving a false name, then coming back the next day secure in the knowledge that the name they gave was bogus?
Just because it’s in the Charter doesn’t necessarily mean it makes sense.
I am okay with this on account of, I understand that the alternative is not desirable.
At the end of the day, it's a bylaw infraction, the police do have an option in the case of a serious crime, which is to detain the person, until they can ensure appearance in court.
I really think the police, and our court, have much better things to do than deal with the kids on Ezra and whatever by-law infractions are given to them.
And for those that do go to court to fight the charge, they'll successfully do so by stating the obvious: everyone was doing it. It's not a "why me" scenario, but rather point out that they were simply going with the "flow of traffic" -- which then makes the charge unreasonable.
It seems to me that Waterloo is more interested in making some coin rather than actually dealing with the issue. Ticket as many offenders as possible, hoping that 50% of them were honest with their details, free cash for city coffers.