Harris washes hands of topless debate

TORONTO - Premier Mike Harris is washing his hands of the debate over Ontario's bare-breasted women.

"The law is the law," Harris said Tuesday. "The judge has ruled. We abide by the law of the land."

A Court of Appeal ruling last year said it was perfectly all right for women to bare their breasts in public, although public toplessness for business reasons remains illegal.

A group of women who want to keep women covered up arrived at the Ontario legislature Tuesday to ask the premier and Attorney General Charles Harnick to step into the topless debate.

"The majority of women find it offensive," said organizer Erika Kubassek, 53, of the Kitchener-based Moral Support Movement.

"They don't want to be confronted with another female when they're going out. They can pop up anywhere with their breasts hanging out."

Since toplessness became legal, a smattering of women have exercised their newfound rights.

Topless women have been spotted at swimming pools, on beaches, mowing their lawn and walking down the street. A trio of strippers in Toronto sat in lawn chairs outside their club wearing nothing above the waist.

And some female "squeegee kids" have offered to wash windshields partly in the buff.

Kubassek's group is offended at such activity and delivered a letter to the legislature asking for a public ban on female toplessness.

"Because female breasts are sexually enticing to men, this type of behavior is shameful and totally unacceptable to the majority of women in Ontario," the letter states.

Harris said earlier this month that he'd like the law to at least limit the right of women to doff their tops in public. But he said Tuesday the issue is a federal matter and cannot be controlled by the province.

"Clearly, our hands are tied."

Harnick said there are no grounds on which to appeal the court decision. Now, it's up to the federal government to decide if it wants to amend the Criminal Code.

"It's a determination that the federal government has to make, as to whether they believe it's a matter they should be legislating on," Harnick said.

"Quite frankly, it's their problem. If people feel strongly about this issue and want the law reviewed, it's a matter that should be taken up with the minister of justice."

Pierre Gratton, a spokesman for Anne McLellan, Canada's newly appointed justice minister, says it's unclear what can be done to amend the Criminal Code that would be constitutional.

The matter will be debated by lawyers and representatives of the federal and provincial governments at this summer's Uniform Law Conference, he said.

In the meantime, said Gratton: "one can only hope that those who like to remove their clothing and those who like to keep it on, will respect one another's wishes."

Despite the attention the issue has captured in the media, not many women in Ontario have actually been spotted without their tops.

A recent Angus Reid poll suggested most Ontarians disapprove.

Forty-five per cent of male respondents said toplessness is OK, compared to 21 per cent of females.