Lynn Blatta, who lives in Prince George, B.C., says, “It was wrong.
A woman in Prince George, B.C., who sunbathes in her backyard without a top on has filed a formal complaint against the RCMP. This is because she says an officer knocked on her door and told her she could be charged with a crime for not wearing a top.
Lynn Blatta’s experience shines a light on a gray area in Canadian law. The law talks about nudity on both public and private property, but it also relies on decisions from provincial courts that say there is nothing wrong with women going topless or nude in public.
Blatta says that she hasn’t worn a top in her yard since April, when the weather got warm enough to lie in her pool.
She says she started walking around her yard without a shirt on in the same month. Her fence is between four and six feet tall. Her house is in a neighborhood and is right next to a school for young children.
Blatta says that no one complained to her in April or May. But, she says, an RCMP officer came to see her on the morning of June 26.
Blatta told CBC News, “The RCMP came over and knocked on my door to tell me that I could be charged with a crime for sunbathing without a shirt on.”
“It was wrong, and I argued with the police officer who came to my door… He told me I could be charged with a crime, but I told him, “I know that’s not true.”
Blatta says the officer kept pushing the issue and bringing up the fact that Blatta’s property is right next to a school.
“I just let it go and let him go,” she said. “The next day, I tried to talk to the officer in charge or the staff sergeant about it, but they wouldn’t let me.”
Blatta says that she finally went to the RCMP with a formal complaint.
In an email to CBC News, Cpl. Jennifer Cooper, who is in charge of media relations for the Prince George RCMP, said, “As there is an open public complaint investigation related to this matter, it would be inappropriate for the Prince George RCMP to comment further on the subject.”
Courts have backed women’s right to take off their tops
The Criminal Code of Canada says that it is against the law to be naked in public without a good reason. It is also against the law to be naked on private property and let the public see you. Nudity is defined as “clothed in a way that offends public decency or order.” Because of this rule, a person doesn’t have to be totally naked in order to be charged.
But it has happened before that women were allowed to show their breasts in public. According to the website Criminal Code Help, in 1996, the Ontario Court of Appeal said a lower court made a mistake when it found a woman guilty of an indecent act because she walked down a city street and sat on her porch with her breasts out.
“No one who was offended had to keep looking at her,” the website says about the verdict. “What she did was not an act of indecency.”
The website says that a judge in B.C. agreed with this point of view when he said, “naked sunbathing is not of enough moral turpitude to be charged with doing an indecent act.”
In 2000, the Supreme Court of British Columbia also backed women’s right to show their breasts. Linda Meyer was charged with breaking a clothing law when she showed up topless at a city-run pool. However, the judge wrote that there was no evidence to support “the view that the parks could not operate in an orderly way if a woman were to bare her breasts in a way that did not break criminal laws of nudity.”
Blatta is waiting to see what happens with her complaint against the RCMP, she says.
“I called them again on Wednesday and told them that there is no clear statement about whether or not going topless is illegal.