The lawyer who effectively ended Thompson’s youth curfew believes a similar law in Flin Flon is both discriminatory and unconstitutional.
But Ron Dearman also says the curfew will remain in effect unless someone decides to contest it in court.
“If no one ever challenges, then it wouldn’t be set aside,” said Dearman, a former Flin Flon lawyer now practising in Thompson.
Dearman was hired to file a constitutional challenge against Thompson’s youth curfew in 2007. Thompson city council then revoked the curfew rather than paying the legal fees to defend it.
Dearman is confident Thompson would have lost the case and feels the same way about the Flin Flon curfew should it be challenged.
He said a challenge could be launched by an individual on his or her own, or if someone charged with breaking the curfew pleads not guilty on the grounds the bylaw is unconstitutional.
Dearman believes the Flin Flon curfew unfairly targets young people. He is troubled by comments out of city hall that the bylaw will address situations in which youth are out late for unclear purposes.
“How would [police] know?” he said. “If someone’s walking home because they don’t have a parent who has a car, how would they know where he’s coming from unless they stop and detain him?”
Dearman agreed police could also ask the youth what he or she is doing, but “if the person isn’t doing anything wrong, why are the police stopping them in the first place?”
He questions the rationale for the curfew, including Mayor Cal Huntley’s statement about “a perception out there that there’s some hazard in walking around Flin Flon at certain periods in the evening,” which the mayor conceded is “not necessarily the way that it is.”
“It just seems to be a crazy proposition that you would say it’s a perception, not a real problem you could back up with facts and figures,” Dearman said.
Since making the “perception” comment, Huntley has told the Winnipeg Free Press there has been “a slight increase in vandalism and break-ins” and that the curfew is “another tool [for RCMP] to manage the behaviour of youth who shouldn’t be out at this time.”
But Dearman said the police already have a wide range of powers at their disposal if they have cause to believe an individual has done something wrong.
As it stands, police and social services can also apprehend children under the age of 12 who are left unsupervised either at home or in public, he said.
Dearman said far more crime is committed by adults than by youth and that a curfew represents the wrong direction for Flin Flon.
He suggested the city instead take an approach of engaging youth and offering them more programming to keep them occupied and out of trouble.
Yet Flin Flon is one of a number of communities across Canada to enact a curfew. Dearman agreed it’s rare for people to challenge the constitutionality of a curfew as happened in Thompson.
In the case of Thompson, the complainants approached the Public Law Interest Centre, which represents individuals and groups in legal matters of broad public interest, which then hired Dearman to file the court challenge.
