Maybe Canada needs a face mask law?

In looking at the G20 protests in Toronto today, I've been doing some thinking, and I'm convinced that Canada needs to make it a Criminal Code offence to cover ones face in order to obscure one's identity.

I know this idea has been debated in the context of extremist Islam, where it's been proposed that Canada should ban the burka and any other religious face covering, as has been proposed in other nations. However, I don't think we need to go that far. Of course I firmly believe in religious rights, and think that Muslim women should be allowed the right to wear whatever they want, should they so choose... no matter how wrong I may believe they are in their faith.

However, I do agree that for the purposes of verifying their identitiy in the context of Government interaction, such as voting, getting a drivers license, etc., I believe that it should be mandatory to submit to a visual verification of their identity. Of course, there should be provisions made for this, such as ensuring that it's a woman doing the ID verification, along with privacy to do so, but these are reasonable compromises in my opinion.

Now, on to the other motivation for my proposal... that's right, you guessed it, to ensure that the illegal and criminal activities of protesters can be properly prosecuted. I think we should be making it as difficult as possible for people to be able to break our laws with impunity, simply because they've got a $1.00 piece of cloth in front of their faces. It would also cover the matter of protesters who have gas masks, which are worn for the express purpose of resisting the authority of our police services. Were we to make it illegal to obscure one's face for the purposes of avoiding identification, we can kill both birds with one single stone... the issues surrounding religious veils, AND around illegal protest tactics.

Such a law would easily survive a Charter challenge, as there is nothing within the Charter that guarentees the right to hide one's true identity. Such a law would not deny anyone's freedom of speech, nor their freedom of association, and therefore could not be struck down under those provisions of the Charter. Such a law would, however, give our police the tools they need to guarentee the rights of ALL OF US.

You see, the laws that were written to ensure our rights and freedoms have been blatantly abused by these protesters for too long now. In asserting their "rights", they have in fact denied many of us our own rights. With their blockades, their marches, their outlandish law-breaking tactics, they have many a time impeeded the rest of our rights, such as our own freedom of mobility, our ability to associate with those whom we choose to, and our right to say what we want to say... all in the name of their own "rights". Which, ironicly, is in many case the exact opposite of what they claim they're doing.

So to make a long story short, I think it's time that Canada considered a ban on tactics designed to obscure one's identity. It would serve as a deterance for some, knowing that they will be less likely to avoid the consequences of their actions. It would also ensure that the rights of the rest of us are protected, as those who choose to break the laws of our society will be properly prosecuted. For the vast majority of Candadians, I'd say about 99.9999% of us, such a law would be a WIN-WIN situation.

Plus it would be a thorn in the side of the extremist left... which then makes it a WIN-WIN-WIN situtation in my books.