On Friday, August 21 2026, I was ticketed at Meech Lake, in Gatineau Park just outside Ottawa, for an offence described on the ticket as ‘behaving in a shocking manner’ (my translation of : “se conduire de façon choquante”). My name is hardly a household word, sometimes even in my own house, so this incident would be of limited significance if it only applied to me. However, for several reasons, it applies to us all.
First, some details. On the day in question, at approximately 2 p.m., I was sitting at a small beach on Meech Lake traditionally associated with skinny-dipping. I was sitting on the life-preserver I use when kayaking, naked, happily drying in the sun and eating a peanut-butter sandwich. As a retired seventy-seven-year-old, I was reflecting on how fortunate I am to be able to swim at all, clothed or unclothed, on a beautiful late-summer day.
My relaxation came to an abrupt end when a man appeared at my side and began to speak. I had to retrieve my hearing aids. My initial impulse, upon meeting any stranger, is to make them aware of my satirical novel, The Tyranny of Good Intentions (2025), whose title is not without relevance to the experience I was about to have. The man was wearing a park ranger’s uniform and his interests did not prove to be literary. I was required to don clothes and agree to remain that way in future. I was also informed that I would be ticketed.
The ticket left me mystified about who might have been ‘shocked’ on a deserted beach occupied only by the enforcement officer. Or why? My sitting position would have concealed my genitals, easily concealed as they are (although male vanity makes this painful to disclose). The National Capital Commission (NCC) has jurisdiction over Gatineau Park and its website yielded the relevant law (Law on the National Capital Commission). After some searching, I found the English language version of Regulation #1044 (18), which reads: No person shall use any blasphemous or indecent language, or behave in an offensive manner, upon any property of the Commission.
These requirements are clearly subjective. If anyone should be embarrassed, it is the drafter of the regulation and, ultimately, Parliament, which is ultimately responsible for all legislation and regulations. The wording gives the NCC wide discretion to fabricate enforcement practices that have no clear basis in the law. In the absence of signs or other lake-side warnings, this situation can only leave beach-goers mystified about what they may or may not do.
Who knows what the NCC, in its wisdom, might decide tomorrow is shocking or offensive? Political T-shirts? Anti-government slogans? Furthermore, if the courts are ever faced with the need to determine guilt or innocence in response to a citizen’s decision to contest a charge such as “offensive action,” what are they to do? What evidence would be admissible and how is it to be weighed? There may be other laws that could apply to nudity in the park, but if they are not stated on notices of infraction the court cannot arbitrarily apply them. Thus, the court is left in the same position as the NCC, fabricating rationalizations in the absence of clear regulations.
And speaking of embarrassment, let’s not forget the taxpayer. Taxpayers are now funding the NCC to hire enforcement officers, furnish them with uniforms, and pay them for trooping about Gatineau Park to issue, in my case, a ticket on a deserted beach. I wonder how this contributes to “Canada Strong.” Or Canada anything that we would want it to be.
The Government is currently engaged in a process called the Red Tape Review, launched by the President of the Treasury Board in July, 2025. The Review website lists 65 federal departments and bodies described as “portfolio partners,” each of which has provided a report on progress in removing “outdated and overly-complicated regulations that raise costs, reduce productivity and stifle economic growth.” Initial results of this review have now been made public: 500 issues being addressed, including 31 legislative revisions contained in Bill S-7, the Cutting Red Tape for All Canadians Act, tabled in the Senate on October 7, 2026.
Starting approximately twenty years ago, a parliamentary committee (the Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations) began calling for attention to issues relating to animal control by the NCC that are very similar to those illustrated by my ticket. Change is needed, according to the Committee, to correct “overly broad and uncertain definition(s and) …discrepancy between the English and French versions,” and, most importantly, ”unfettered discretion delegated to the National Capital Commission” for, in this case, the establishing of off-leash areas for dogs.
Given the predominantly economic focus of the Red Tape Review, it is not surprising that sunbathing, clothed or unclothed, appears to have received little attention thus far. Nor does the October 7 legislation offer relief for dogs. However, over 450 departmental proposals remain to be addressed. In Ottawa at least, where there is a process, there is hope.
In the meantime, I pled guilty and paid the $159.00 fine in order to avoid the hassle of going to court. Also, a court appearance would, in my opinion, inflict a frivolous imposition upon the time of the court. However, this creates, somewhere, a record of my offence. “Shocking” or “offensive” behaviour could be almost anything. I, for one, am shocked when I think about what this record suggests I could have been doing. I want people to know I wasn’t doing it, whatever it is.
