For all you Perbites who voted Conservative, you may be getting what you deserve. Too bad for the rest of us.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Backbench+Smith+aims+abolish+trade/5055
416/story.html
Backbench MP Joy Smith aims to abolish sex trade
Joy Smith has already had one private bill become law. She is aiming to
do it again with a bill to make criminals out of those who pay for sex
By Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun July 5, 2011 Comments (1)
Joy Smith is that rare, backbench member of Parliament whose private
bill was not only debated, but became law.
Rarer still is the fact that Smith, a Conservative from Winnipeg, is on
track to do it again.
Because of her efforts and her first bill, Canada has mandatory minimum
sentences for human traffickers whose victims are children.
Her new bill, which will be on the order paper for the fall session,
proposes to rewrite Canada's prostitution laws. It would make criminals
out of people who buy sex, but prostitutes would not be criminalized.
"It [the bill] will target the market, plain and simple," she said in a
telephone interview from Winnipeg. "We need laws that make people
responsible for buying and selling children."
However, Smith quickly noted that the bill is not directed only at those
who buy and sell children for sex, but will target all buyers and pimps.
(Currently, prostitution is legal but it is illegal to communicate for
the purposes of buying or selling sex, running a brothel or live off the
avails of prostitution.)
If it weren't for the fact that a lottery determines which of the
hundreds of private members' are debated, one might conclude Smith's
bill is the government's stalking horse - a draft of the law it will
introduce if the Ontario Court of Appeal agrees that three key sections
of the prostitution laws are unconstitutional.
But it's fair to say that the Conservative government got lucky when
Smith pulled number four in the lottery because reforming the
prostitution laws is difficult, as a parliamentary committee found out
in 2005.
Among the few things its members agreed on is that the status quo isn't
working.
Since then, the decriminalization/legalization lobby has strengthened,
hardening its position that prostitution is both a career choice and a
legitimate business.
Among the lobbyists are: Vancouver East MP Libby Davies; the dominatrix
and two sex-trade workers who went to court in Ontario; and the Downtown
Eastside Sex Workers United Against Violence Society and Pivot Legal
Society, which have a similar case set to be heard in B.C. Supreme
Court.
They argue that decriminalization/legalization is a form of harm
reduction that won't lead to an expansion of the country's sex industry
even though that contradicts the experience of countries and states
where more brothels, more prostitution and more human trafficking have
resulted following legalization.
"Libby Davies considers it [prostitution] an industry. I consider it a
crime," said Smith, noting that Davies also voted against the child
trafficking bill even though the majority of New Democrats, including
leader Jack Layton, voted for it.
Smith sees her bill as a first step toward abolishing the sex trade and
an incentive to work with the provinces to establish a version of the
so-called "Nordic model." The Nordic model involves a public education
program aimed at making it socially unacceptable to buy any sexual
services and provision of a wide range of social services including
housing, education, detox and income support to address the reality that
poverty and desperation often drives women and children into the sex
trade.
Smith said Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson
and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews support her bill. But she's going
to be doing the heavy lifting in the House of Commons, not the ministers
and not the government.
Smith's and Harper's government will likely to be accused of bowing to
pressure from religious groups, groups such as the Canadian Federation
of University Women and organizations such as Resist Exploitation
Embrace Dignity, which Simon Fraser University criminologist and
legalizer John Lowman has derisively called "liberal feminists."
A coalition of seven women's groups argued before the Ontario Court of
Appeal argued that criminalization of prostitution is justified on the
grounds of civil liberties and human rights.
The coalition - which includes the Native Women's Association of Canada
and the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres - argued that
under international human rights laws, Canada is obliged to assist and
protect prostituted persons. Further, it said the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms guarantees liberty and security of person to everyone, but what
it does not do is "guarantee men a right to the prostitution of women or
a right to profit from the prostitution of others."
It went on to say, "The danger to women's security is a function not of
the laws constraining prostitution, but of the actions of men who demand
the sale of women's bodies ... It would be illogical and contrary to the
principles of fundamental justice to decriminalize men's prostitution of
women in order to protect women from those same men."
Smith's bill is still being written with the help of both government and
private-sector lawyers. But she's adamant that it will stand any
constitutional challenge: "We are taking meticulous care," she said.
Still, Smith will need all of that, a broad spectrum of support and
maybe even more in order to get this bill enacted into law.
dbramham@vancouversun.com
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Backbench+Smith+aims+abolish+trade/5055
416/story.html
Backbench MP Joy Smith aims to abolish sex trade
Joy Smith has already had one private bill become law. She is aiming to
do it again with a bill to make criminals out of those who pay for sex
By Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun July 5, 2011 Comments (1)
Joy Smith is that rare, backbench member of Parliament whose private
bill was not only debated, but became law.
Rarer still is the fact that Smith, a Conservative from Winnipeg, is on
track to do it again.
Because of her efforts and her first bill, Canada has mandatory minimum
sentences for human traffickers whose victims are children.
Her new bill, which will be on the order paper for the fall session,
proposes to rewrite Canada's prostitution laws. It would make criminals
out of people who buy sex, but prostitutes would not be criminalized.
"It [the bill] will target the market, plain and simple," she said in a
telephone interview from Winnipeg. "We need laws that make people
responsible for buying and selling children."
However, Smith quickly noted that the bill is not directed only at those
who buy and sell children for sex, but will target all buyers and pimps.
(Currently, prostitution is legal but it is illegal to communicate for
the purposes of buying or selling sex, running a brothel or live off the
avails of prostitution.)
If it weren't for the fact that a lottery determines which of the
hundreds of private members' are debated, one might conclude Smith's
bill is the government's stalking horse - a draft of the law it will
introduce if the Ontario Court of Appeal agrees that three key sections
of the prostitution laws are unconstitutional.
But it's fair to say that the Conservative government got lucky when
Smith pulled number four in the lottery because reforming the
prostitution laws is difficult, as a parliamentary committee found out
in 2005.
Among the few things its members agreed on is that the status quo isn't
working.
Since then, the decriminalization/legalization lobby has strengthened,
hardening its position that prostitution is both a career choice and a
legitimate business.
Among the lobbyists are: Vancouver East MP Libby Davies; the dominatrix
and two sex-trade workers who went to court in Ontario; and the Downtown
Eastside Sex Workers United Against Violence Society and Pivot Legal
Society, which have a similar case set to be heard in B.C. Supreme
Court.
They argue that decriminalization/legalization is a form of harm
reduction that won't lead to an expansion of the country's sex industry
even though that contradicts the experience of countries and states
where more brothels, more prostitution and more human trafficking have
resulted following legalization.
"Libby Davies considers it [prostitution] an industry. I consider it a
crime," said Smith, noting that Davies also voted against the child
trafficking bill even though the majority of New Democrats, including
leader Jack Layton, voted for it.
Smith sees her bill as a first step toward abolishing the sex trade and
an incentive to work with the provinces to establish a version of the
so-called "Nordic model." The Nordic model involves a public education
program aimed at making it socially unacceptable to buy any sexual
services and provision of a wide range of social services including
housing, education, detox and income support to address the reality that
poverty and desperation often drives women and children into the sex
trade.
Smith said Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson
and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews support her bill. But she's going
to be doing the heavy lifting in the House of Commons, not the ministers
and not the government.
Smith's and Harper's government will likely to be accused of bowing to
pressure from religious groups, groups such as the Canadian Federation
of University Women and organizations such as Resist Exploitation
Embrace Dignity, which Simon Fraser University criminologist and
legalizer John Lowman has derisively called "liberal feminists."
A coalition of seven women's groups argued before the Ontario Court of
Appeal argued that criminalization of prostitution is justified on the
grounds of civil liberties and human rights.
The coalition - which includes the Native Women's Association of Canada
and the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres - argued that
under international human rights laws, Canada is obliged to assist and
protect prostituted persons. Further, it said the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms guarantees liberty and security of person to everyone, but what
it does not do is "guarantee men a right to the prostitution of women or
a right to profit from the prostitution of others."
It went on to say, "The danger to women's security is a function not of
the laws constraining prostitution, but of the actions of men who demand
the sale of women's bodies ... It would be illogical and contrary to the
principles of fundamental justice to decriminalize men's prostitution of
women in order to protect women from those same men."
Smith's bill is still being written with the help of both government and
private-sector lawyers. But she's adamant that it will stand any
constitutional challenge: "We are taking meticulous care," she said.
Still, Smith will need all of that, a broad spectrum of support and
maybe even more in order to get this bill enacted into law.
dbramham@vancouversun.com
:fear:
