An open letter to Premier Dalton McGuinty and the Members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.
Dear Mr. Premier and Honourable Members:
Congratulations on your recent election to the provincial legislature. You have been given a major responsibility and like my fellow Ontarians I pray that Divine Providence will guide your deliberations.
I write this letter to all 107 of you to address an issue that is of concern to many people in this great province of ours. This issue is the presence of adult entertainment theatres in our downtowns. I do not support their elimination all together. That of course would violate freedom of speech; except of course those films which clearly are exploitative or depict criminal acts (as per the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Butler). However, the issue here is that many cities who are trying to clean up their downtowns would like to move such facilities to areas like industrial parks, so as to make our central business districts safe for families; but are unable to do so because the Ontario Film Classification Act overrides all municipal by-laws.
Municipalities should not have the power to say no, absolutely not, to so called "peep shows;" but they should be able to exercise discretion as to where they may be located. After all, they having zoning powers when it comes to the size of department stores or the types of industries they want to locate in town and where. That this is the one business where cities are completely powerless is outrageous.
Most, if not all of you, are family people. It's time to put families first. This is one way to do so. Give the power back to the cities where it belongs.
Yours Truly,
Robert Pavlacic
Hamilton, Ontario.
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