Safe Streets Act
Ontario law
The Safe Streets Act, 1999 (French: Loi de 1999 sur la sécurité dans les rues; SSA) is a statute in the province of Ontario, Canada. The act prohibits aggressive solicitation of persons in certain public places. It also prohibits the disposal of "certain dangerous things" such as used condoms, hypodermic needles and broken glass in outdoor public places. It also amends the Highway Traffic Act to regulate certain activities on roadways. The act was enacted by the Progressive Conservative government of Mike Harris and received royal assent on December 14, 1999.
The act was created in response to what was seen as the growing problem of squeegee kids on the streets. By 1999, it was very common to see squeegee kids on some of the busiest intersections where they would solicit motorists for spare change.
The act was initially affirmed by the Ontario Court of Appeal on a constitutional challenge after the Ontario Superior Court also upheld its validity in 2005. The Supreme Court of Canada denied an application for review in 2007.
In 2004, the province of British Columbia passed its own version of the Safe Streets Act, substantially a word-for-word copy of the Ontario version.
The public source identifies “Safe Streets Act” as ontario law. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Safe, Streets and Ontario.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Safe Streets Act”, the useful work is to connect “ontario law” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7398505. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1999, 2005, 2007 and 2004.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Safe Streets Act”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Safe Streets Act primary sources, Safe Streets Act archive and Safe research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Safe Streets Act”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Safe Streets Act” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.