Trespass to Property Act of Ontario

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Trespass to Property Act of Ontario is provincial law in Ontario dealing with illegal entry into private and public property. As a provincial law, the penalties and mechanisms of enforcement are also provincial. This is important inasmuch as, under the Canadian system, criminal law (sic) is within the realm of the federal authority, so anyone violating this Act would be subject to quasi-criminal not full criminal enforcement. The Act is an attempt to put on the statute books what was formerly recognized by the common (oral) law. It is most often used by private property owners to keep un-wanted individuals off the property, although in several major cases it was used by the prov. govt itself to deal with protestors(!) There are many methods of notifying unwanted individuals that they have been banned (for future access) but the most common is a personal notice to the offender.