June 25, 1997
HARRIS WON'T TOUCH TOPLESS LEGAL ISSUE
By JAMES WALLACE
Queen's Park Bureau
TORONTO -- Bare breasts are a federal problem, Premier Mike Harris said yesterday.
Harris wants the feds to take the topless issue off his hands by amending the criminal code to make it illegal for women to strip down away from the beach.
"Now that the election's over and summer's here I think they are going to have do something," Harris said.
Ontario's appeal court ruled in 1996 that women who go topless in public are not committing an indecent act.
"Clearly our hands are tied by the law," Harris said.
The federal government "may want to assess what takes place across Canada throughout the summer" before changing the law, he said.
But many people clearly have concerns over the current situation, he said.
Provincial officials are reviewing alternatives to control toplessness, including using municipal bylaws to create topless zones.
Attorney General Charles Harnick blamed the media for much of the fuss and said if people stopped reporting stories about toplessness it might go away.
However, a group of women calling themselves the Moral Support Movement descended upon Queen's Park yesterday to demand Harris and Harnick ban "toplessness of women in public."
Spokesman Erika Kubassek said female frontal nudity is a moral issue, not an issue of equality.
Breasts are "sexually enticing" to men and public displays of female "sexual organs" is "shameful and totally unacceptable," Kubassek said.
"I'm 53 years old, I've lived quite a while and I've heard men talk.
"I have a husband and I'm pretty sure breasts are a sexual organ.
"The majority of women do find it offensive.
"They don't want to be confronted with another female when they're going out, they could pop up anywhere with their breasts hanging out."
Harris said he'll keep the group's views in mind.
"We'll take a look at what it is they're proposing," he said.