An anti-toplessness group says that public nudity is still a criminal offence in Canada and they want bare-breasted women arrested.

Caroline Faraone, spokesperson for Keep Tops On, said a Toronto lawyer has informed their organization that public nudity remains an offence under the Criminal Code of Canada.

``We have a document confirming that the attorney-general of Ontario has every legal basis to seek an appeal,'' Faraone said yesterday.

Gwen Jacob began the topless debate in 1991 when she took a summer stroll through the streets of Guelph. The Ontario Court of Appeal acquitted her last December.

After Attorney-General Charles Harnick's advisers declared there were no grounds to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, Scarborough West MPP Jim Brown went to Toronto lawyer David Brown for a second opinion.

Brown produced a 19-page report that states there are grounds to appeal the decision, pointing out Jacob was charged with an indecent act under Section 173 of the Criminal Code, rather than Section 174, which deals with public nudity.

PUBLIC NUISANCE

Opponents of the appeal court decision would like to see the issue brought up on a national level so that the attorney-general could appeal the Jacob decision on the grounds of being a public nuisance, as well as under Section 174.

Metro police Sergeant Jim Muscat said that because the Court of Appeal ruled that walking down the street topless is not an indecent act, police cannot lay charges.

``But if there is something sexual going on, we can lay a charge and perhaps get a conviction as an indecent act,'' he said.

``But in order to lay a nudity charge under (Section) 174, we have to get approval from the attorney-general.''

But in a Feb. 10 letter to then-attorney-general of Canada, Allan Rock, Harnick wrote that the ``requirement that the attorney-general consent to each charge under the nudity provisions imposes an unnecessary impediment to the effective protection of the community.''

Harnick concluded his letter by asking Rock to review Section 174 of the Criminal Code.

Harnick could not be reached for comment yesterday and Rock has been replaced by Anne McLellan as federal attorney-general after a cabinet shuffle.