Ontario: Calling the Cops

Conveniently, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty also lives in Ottawa (thanks guys!) meaning that I could do both the Prime Minister and the Premier at once. While I photographed the Prime Minister`s house with relative ease, the Premier proved to be a little more elusive.

I never actually received an official response from the Ontario government, which is not necessarily a bad thing. That way, if I get in trouble over photographing the Premier`s home, I have a line of defense: "Well, I told you about weeks ago! It`s your own fault if you choose not to get back to me." Not sure how well that would hold up, but at least I can pass the blame a little bit. So, I went through my usual process and located the Land Titles office and looked up his name. If you`re unfamiliar with the McGuinty`s in Ottawa, I can tell you that there are quite a few of them. I had previously found out the general neighbourhood of where he lived, so that helped narrow down the numerous addresses that came up under his name (he has a son named Dalton McGuinty, and I think his father as well, although I could be wrong about that). I found an address that seemed to fit, and off I went.

For obvious reasons, I prefer there to be nobody home when I photograph someone`s house who isn`t necessarily expecting me. When I arrived at the home, there were no cars in the driveway, so I started to set up my camera and prepared to shoot. After I took the first photograph, a car unfortunately pulled up beside me, then into the driveway. A little bit nervously, I jumped down off the roof of the car where I was taking the photograph (gives me more height, despite making me incredibly conspicous) and waited for them to get out of the car. First words out of the woman`s mouth was, understandly, "Uh, what are you doing?" I introduced myself to the people who turned out to be Premier McGuinty`s parents. I told them all about the project and how I found the address of their house, and they seemed to be more calm after that. Still a little distrustful, but definitely more relaxed. I asked them if they would mind telling me where their son lived. They told me that he lived right close by but they weren`t sure of the address off hand and would have to go inside and get it. So, I waited outside, and Premier McGuinty`s father came out and told me that I would have to go throught he OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) to photograph the house and that they wouldn`t give me the address. I was worried that would happen.

They also recommended that I go to his constituency office just a couple blocks away, so I did just that. They told me that they would contact the Premier`s Office in Toronto for me immediately to ask them about the project, and then get back to me. So, in the meantime I went back to the Land Titles office and tried a different strategy, I looked under the wife`s name. That got me the address I needed.

The next day, as I was waiting to take a picture, I actually got a phone call from the OPP. It seems that somebody (I think it was the constituency office) called the cops on me and filed a report regarding my project. I had always assumed that I would have a run-in with the authorities at some point over my trip, but it made me pretty nervous. Fearing the worst (see: arrest, jail time, destroyed cameras, car impoundment, criminal record, trial by jury), I tried to defend myself by saying that as long as I`m standing on public property, I was pretty sure that I could photograph whatever I wanted. The officer then calmed me a bit by saying that I had done nothing illegal at all and that he was just wanting to confirm some information so that he could close the report, pretty much as soon as he had opened it. From then on, we had a pleasant conversation about my project which he seemed genuinely interested in, and just asked me some questions about where I went to school, etc. He actually even phone my faculty advisor at NSCAD University to confirm the information.

The plus side to all this was that when I went to take the actual photograph of Premier McGuinty`s house, I was now armed with the name and phone number of an OPP officer who knew and "authorized" me to take the photograph, if anyone was to come out and harass me. All in all, it worked out well. The photograph was taken without a hitch, and developed, and the next day, it was off to Québec. And the score is 8 for 9.

Disclaimer: I am in Québec right now, and their keyboards work differently than English ones, so if there were punctuation errors, I apologize. This will probably apply to the Québec entry as well.

Further disclaimer: For those of you in Halifax, I received a phone call from the Halifax Daily News and they are going to do a feature on me regarding my "Power Houses: Halifax Regional Municipality`s City Council" project. It will be in the newspaper on Friday, 4 August. Look for it!