WINNIPEG -- The Manitoba government has announced new legislation that would amend three current acts to "help landowners respond to concerns about trespassing on private property."
Blaine Pedersen, the minister of Agriculture and Resource Development, and Justice Minister Cameron Friesen said the proposed amendments would apply to the Petty Trespasses Act, the Occupiers Liability Act and the Animal Disease Act.
"These amendments address concerns we have heard regarding rural crime including trespassing," said Pedersen in a news release. "Farms are not only places of business; they are homes where children and families also reside. Trespassing can expose farms and food production facilities to biosecurity risks."
The province said farm trespassing is on the rise in Canada and that has led to concern from farmers about safety, not only for their family but their livestock.
The government said if people enter biosecurity areas without permission they could compromise the livestock and the food produced.
With the proposed changes to the Animal Diseases Act, it would "protect biosecurity standards" and also protect livestock.
"There is really no recourse for farm families to be able to restrict entrance into these operations. The challenge here is they could be introducing a disease without proper sanitization," Pedersen during a telephone news conference.
The province said the changes are based on recommendations from Manitoba auditor general.
"It is something that the farm community has been asking for, for a long a time and so we are stepping up this legislation."
With the Petty Trespasses Act, the province said the proposed changes would make it easier to enforce the law and it would remove any need to confront trespassers.
"Right now you have to essentially give a verbal or written warning to someone to indicate to them that they are trespassing, unless that property is fully enclosed," said Friesen during the news conference.
To prevent the confrontations, the act would make entering certain premises without permission an offence unless the person has a reason to be on the property.
Friesen said now the landowner would not have to issue that warning but he added that the powers of arrest are being taken away from those owners, noting that is for law enforcement to handle.
The changes being suggested for the Occupiers Liability Act would make sure the legal responsibility of a landowner is fair and reasonable if there is an injury when someone is on their land without permission.
"Under current legislation, owners, occupiers or tenants of premises have the same level of legal responsibility for injury or harm to criminal and non-criminal trespassers as they do to people who have permission to be on the property," the province said in the news release.
"The proposed amendments would reduce the duty of care that is owed to criminal trespassers and certain non-criminal trespassers to not creating a danger with the deliberate intent of doing harm or damage to the person or their property, and to not acting with reckless disregard of the safety of the person or their property."
"I think we can all agree that the law, until this point, has not gotten this right, in that we're affording the rights to intended criminals," said Friesen.
He used the example that if someone is unlawfully on someone else's property and they climb a fence and hurt themselves, that property owner would now not be liable for their injury.
Friesen said these changes are being proposed because of a lack of clarity regarding trespassing.
