The Trespass to Property Act of Ontario is a provincial law in Ontario, Canada dealing with illegal entry into private and public property. As a provincial law, the penalties and mechanisms of enforcement are also provincial. This is an important distinction; under the Canadian system, criminal law is within the realm of federal authority and anyone violating this statute would be subject to quasi-criminal (not full criminal) enforcement. The Act is an attempt to codify what was formerly recognized by the common law. It is most often used by private-property owners to keep unwanted individuals off their property. There are many methods of notifying unwanted individuals that they have been banned (for future access), but the most common is a personal notice to the offender.
Famous quotes containing the words trespass, property and/or act:
“Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke-warm hearts can argue down or mask your passions—tell me, what trespass is it that man should have them?... If nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of love and desire are entangled with the piece—must the whole web be rent in drawing them out?”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“... whatever men do or know or experience can make sense only to the extent that it can be spoken about. There may be truths beyond speech, and they may be of great relevance to man in the singular, that is, to man in so far as he is not a political being, whatever else he may be. Men in the plural, that is, men in so far as they live and move and act in this world, can experience meaningfulness only because they can talk with and make sense to each other and to themselves.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)