Stephen Smysnuik
Elizabeth May is bringing public nudity back to Parliament
Elizabeth May is bringing public nudity back to Parliament
Photo: Pexels
The Topline
- For the second time in four years, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has sponsored a House of Commons petition asking Parliament to legalize “non-sexual” public nudity
- The petition asks to amend Section 174 of the Criminal Code so nakedness “does not, in itself, constitute indecent conduct.”
- May’s petition has collected more than 1,100 signatures as of Nov. 9, exceeding the 500 required to qualify for certification and eventual presentation to the House of Commons.
- May previously said sponsoring the petition isn’t endorsing public nudity, but that she backs citizens’ right to get direct answers from their government.
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Switch sides,
back and forth
The laws are antiquated
This all started with the Doukhobors.
Canada’s nudity offence was added to the Criminal Code in 1931, aimed at the Sons of Freedom Doukhobors, a religious minority in B.C. who stripped down to their birthday suits to protest state authority.
The penalty at the time was three years in prison, and hundreds were convicted of “parading” naked.
Seems like Parliament took the hint that might be too strict, so as part of the 1953-54 revision of the Criminal Code (CCC), it dropped the parading language and defined “nude” as being “so clad as to offend against public decency or order.”
In other words, our public nudity law was written to suppress a protest, then rewritten around a feeling, and that feeling still helps decide who’s a criminal today.
Section 174 of the CCC, which governs public nudity in this fine country, includes even your own backyard if passersby can see you.
That said, the law is routinely ignored. Prosecutions are rare since it’s something few of us actively care about in 2026, anyway.
Take the fact that thousands of cyclists across the country participate in the World Naked Bike Ride every summer, which lawyer Kyla Lee says is technically illegal but police “look the other way.”
And that’s no small point. If everyone expects a law to go unenforced — except when someone complains — then it’s a bad law.
The Supreme Court seems to have moved on, too. Its 2005 Labaye decision said criminal indecency must rest on actual harm or a significant risk of harm, not on disapproval.
The federal government’s last response to a nudity petition mirrors that logic, saying the harm “must be of a degree that is incompatible with the proper functioning of society” and “not all acts of public nudity are criminal.”
If harm is the test, then the CCC should say so, instead of leaving adults to guess whether their bodies offend someone.
The principle isn’t a naturist one. Without harm to others, then governments have no business policing how adults present their bodies.
If it ain’t broke, don’t strip it
Nudists already have most of what they want, without needing Parliament’s help.
Section 174 of the Criminal Code (CCC) — AKA the nudity law — literally says you can’t be prosecuted without consent from the attorney general, not to mention the law is rarely enforced anyway.
Not only that, it has survived a constitutional challenge. An Ontario judge who ruled on a Charter challenge from a naturist upheld Section 174, ruling that “some modicum of clothing when in public is a reasonable limit.”
Like it or not, that’s a reminder that “public decency” is still a line our courts will enforce.
So it makes you wonder, why are we spending valuable parliamentary time on this?
Public support on this issue has its limits, too. In the Federation of Canadian Naturists’ own 2024 survey , support for others’ right to swim or sunbathe nude was highest for designated beaches (70 per cent) and resorts (66 per cent), followed distantly by backyards (48 per cent).
And the constituency is small. In the same survey, six per cent of Canadians had visited a naturist or nude beach, only 10 per cent would consider it, while just two per cent had been to a naturist club or resort.
Considering that any new law would apply everywhere, there’s simply too much grey area for something that serves a minority of people. “Non-sexual” is easy to say but hard to police.
When the law has actually been used, it’s for cases like Brian Coldin’s, who would turn up nude at drive-thru windows. The judge said going to a pickup window without pants “expresses little meaning about naturism.”
Nudity may be non-sexual, but it isn’t always harmless. Section 174 is the backstop for that.
The line between naturism and exhibitionism comes down to intent –– exactly the kind of judgment call the petitioners say is the problem with today’s law. It cuts both ways.
And even Elizabeth May, who’s sponsoring the petition, has said she doesn’t support the push. So what are we doing here?
The status quo isn’t tidy, but it seems to be working just fine.
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