National Post, April 2, 2009

Canadian nudity laws may be in need of an update
A reflection on an article by By: Daniela Syrovy

A couple of years ago, I wrote to the National Post a letter regarding the excessively prudish and stuffy attitude of many North Americans towards nudity and particularly towards “family change rooms” in public swimming pools.  An extract of my letter was published in the National Post of April 2, 2009 (above).

As it happens, the rather archaic Canadian Laws pertaining to public nudity are currently being challenged in front of the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario.

As it currently stands the law is so broad and far-reaching that it could make a criminal of anyone who happens to walk naked from their bathroom to their bedroom and may have forgotten to close their blinds.  Even in the relative intimacy and seclusion of a private property, perfectly natural nudity can be characterized as being a “criminal act”!

I will surely try to provide more news about this legal challenge as it progresses through the Canadian legal system in the coming months.

In the mean time, I could not ignore Syrovy’s article and particularly enjoyed the involuntarily humorous caption under the small photographs illustrating the article (above).  As a passionate naturalist myself – albeit a non-qualified one – I felt the importance of submitting the following comments:

Appeler un chat … un chat …

Watch out for all these seditious and subversive “naturalists” out there.  They often disguise themselves as benign natural historians, life scientists, wildlife experts, biologists, botanists, zoologists, ornithologists, entomologists or even ecologists … while threatening the very foundation of our priggish society on their salacious tandems …