Former attorney general Michael Bryant is urging Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals to right a wrong he “failed” to do as Ontario’s top lawman.

Bryant on Monday implored his fellow Grits to repeal the Safe Streets Act that police have been using since 2000 to charge panhandlers and so-called squeegee kids.

“Let’s stop arresting the poor for being poor. It criminalizes homelessness,” he said at Queen’s Park, noting people soliciting money for charities on city sidewalks are rarely ticketed for doing essentially the same thing.

Asked why the Liberal didn’t scrap the law enacted by former Progressive Conservative premier Mike Harris during his four years as attorney general under ex-premier Dalton McGuinty, Bryant did not mince words: “I failed. I am accountable. I have no excuses.”

He noted amending the law would be “consistent” with Wynne’s policies on poverty reduction and helping the mentally ill.

Stephen Gaetz, a York University professor of education and director of the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, said the law is a “waste” of the justice system’s resources.

Gaetz estimated that it cost Toronto police almost $1 million in time to hand out $4 million in tickets between 2000 and 2010 — 99 per cent of which are never paid because homeless people cannot afford the fines that range from $60 to $500.

“That is a waste of money and a waste of services,” he said.

Mary Birdsell, of the Justice for Children and Youth Legal Clinic, said the Act is “a primitive and degrading response to homelessness.”

“It is mean, it is bullying, and it is beneath us,” she said.

Wynne said while there are no immediate plans to repeal the law, Attorney General Madeleine Meilleur would meet with Bryant and his associates. “I’m open to that discussion and I hope that the attorney general will quickly set up that meeting” she said Monday.

“For me, what’s important is that we do more to get people off the street. Whether they are being given a ticket or not, for me, is beside the point. Homelessness is our top priority.”

With files from Rob Ferguson

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