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:
“Respect the child. Wait and see the new product of Nature. Nature loves analogies, but not repetitions. Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Strange and predatory and truly dangerous, car thieves and muggers—they seem to jeopardize all our cherished concepts, even our self-esteem, our property rights, our powers of love, our laws and pleasures. The only relationship we seem to have with them is scorn or bewilderment, but they belong somewhere on the dark prairies of a country that is in the throes of self-discovery.”
—John Cheever (1912–1982)
“Just as a waterfall grows slower and more lightly suspended as it plunges down, so the great man of action tends to act with greater calmness than his tempestuous desires prior to the deed would lead one to expect.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)