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291The Punitive Impact of Physical Distancing Laws on Homeless People is imposed for careless driving causing bodily harm or death under Ontario’s Highway  Traffic  Act.13 Homeless people have received harsh fines for violating pub- lic health acts or municipal by-laws. The Hamilton Spectator reported that the city’s police force issued $750 fines to a group of 10 homeless people who were allegedly passing around a bottle of alcohol.14 In the City of Montréal, a group of homeless youth were ticketed $1,546 each for failing to obey physical distancing measures.15 Prior to the pandemic, empirical research showed that the vast majority of municipal and transportation by-law offences in Montréal were issued to homeless people, even though they made up less than 1% of the city’s population.16 Most could not afford to pay their fines, which in many cases tallied thousands of dollars and hung over their heads for years. These financial penalties entrench people in home- lessness in several ways. They must pay money that would otherwise go toward their rent or basic necessities, such as food, clothing, and medication. Criminal justice debt adversely impacts one’s credit rat- ing, which decreases one’s prospect of securing housing, obtaining utilities, and receiving bank loans.17 As Canada approaches an inevi- table recession and an increase in unemployment, these financial pen- alties will impact homeless people more than ever. These fines raise serious legal concerns. In R v Boudreault, the Supreme Court of Canada decided that mandatory victim surcharges constitute a cruel and unusual punishment because they result in de facto indeterminate sentences for indigent persons.18 The amount of the surcharge was $100 for summary conviction offences and $200 13. City of Brampton, by-law MO 1-2020, Physical  Distancing  By-law  MO  (2020), s 12(2); Highway  Traffic  Act, RSO 1990, c H.8, ss 130(3)–(4). 14. Teviah Moro, “COVID-19: ‘Physical Distancing’ Fines of $750 Issued to Homeless People by Hamilton Police”, Hamilton Spectator (6 April 2020), online: <www. thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/2020/04/06/covid-19-hamilton-police- urged-to-not-ticket-homeless-during-pandemic.html>. 15. Ugo Giguère, “Des contraventions données aux jeunes sans-abris”, La Presse (11 April 2020), online: <https://www.lapresse.ca/covid-19/2020-04-11/des- contraventions-donnees-aux-jeunes-sans-abris>. 16. Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse, The Judiciarization  of  the  Homeless  in  Montréal:  A  Case  of  Social  Profiling.  Executive Summary  of  the  Opinion  of  the  Commission, cat 2.120-8.61.2 (Montréal: CDPDJ, 6 November 2009) at 2. 17. Catherine T Chesnay, Celine Bellot & Marie-Eve Sylvestre, “Taming Disorderly People One Ticket at a Time: The Penalization of Homelessness in Ontario and British Columbia” (2013) 55:2 Can J Corr 161 at 178-79. 18. Boudreault, supra note 6 at para 76.