SCC Decision...Thoughts?

[Ms Erica Phoenix]

While I realise it's somewhat a case of 'kicking it down the road a year', I'd like to hear some other opinions on the decision by the people it affects! I'd particularly like to hear from susi and others who have been more directly involved in the fight to get the legislation struck down!

 

[uncleg]

It should be interesting......will they reach out and look at a model where it's already all legal, or will we see a unique Canadian way of handling it. Consider the possibility that any sex trade worker has to have a business license. So much for remaining anonymous. Will you be able to get a permit for an incall or will you have to work at a brothel ? Will street solicitation be made legal, but regulated to a particular area, "meat markets" if you will ? What will your right of refusal be ? Just some thoughts.............

 

[Ms Erica Phoenix]

It should be interesting......will they reach out and look at a model where it's already all legal, or will we see a unique Canadian way of handling it. Consider the possibility that any sex trade worker has to have a business license. So much for remaining anonymous. Will you be able to get a permit for an incall or will you have to work at a brothel ? Will street solicitation be made legal, but regulated to a particular area, "meat markets" if you will ? What will your right of refusal be ? Just some thoughts.............

I'm going to be following it all very closely!

 

[1nitestan]

interesting...I hope it leads to better things

 

[J.O. Henson]

I would bet they will find a way to mess up a good thing with some truly Canadian rules.

 

[retriever]

It should be interesting......will they reach out and look at a model where it's already all legal, or will we see a unique Canadian way of handling it. Consider the possibility that any sex trade worker has to have a business license. So much for remaining anonymous. Will you be able to get a permit for an incall or will you have to work at a brothel ? Will street solicitation be made legal, but regulated to a particular area, "meat markets" if you will ? What will your right of refusal be ? Just some thoughts.............

We're speculating without the facts, but, should there be a requirement to work in a brothel all the ladies have to do is form a limited partnership and open their own establishment. Continue to be their own bosses. IMO

 

[sdw]

I didn't see a quote of the decision, so here is a link to it and a quote of the conclusion. Basically Terri Jean Bedford, Amy Lebovitch and Valerie Scott WON! The court has given the government a year to write and implement new law to regulate prostitution that doesn't violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Note that the entire Court was in concurrence.

http://scc-csc.lexum.com/decisia-scc-csc/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/13389/index.do

V. Result and Remedy

[164] I would dismiss the appeals and allow the cross-appeal. Sections 210, 212(1)(j) and 213(1)(c) are declared to be inconsistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and hence are void.

[165] I have concluded that each of the challenged provisions, considered independently, suffers from constitutional infirmities that violate the Charter. That does not mean that Parliament is precluded from imposing limits on where and how prostitution may be conducted. Prohibitions on keeping a bawdy-house, living on the avails of prostitution and communication related to prostitution are intertwined. They impact on each other. Greater latitude in one measure — for example, permitting prostitutes to obtain the assistance of security personnel — might impact on the constitutionality of another measure — for example, forbidding the nuisances associated with keeping a bawdy-house. The regulation of prostitution is a complex and delicate matter. It will be for Parliament, should it choose to do so, to devise a new approach, reflecting different elements of the existing regime.

[166] This raises the question of whether the declaration of invalidity should be suspended and if so, for how long.

[167] On the one hand, immediate invalidity would leave prostitution totally unregulated while Parliament grapples with the complex and sensitive problem of how to deal with it. How prostitution is regulated is a matter of great public concern, and few countries leave it entirely unregulated. Whether immediate invalidity would pose a danger to the public or imperil the rule of law (the factors for suspension referred to in Schachter v. Canada, [1992] 2 S.C.R. 679) may be subject to debate. However, it is clear that moving abruptly from a situation where prostitution is regulated to a situation where it is entirely unregulated would be a matter of great concern to many Canadians.

[168] On the other hand, leaving the prohibitions against bawdy-houses, living on the avails of prostitution and public communication for purposes of prostitution in place in their present form leaves prostitutes at increased risk for the time of the suspension — risks which violate their constitutional right to security of the person.

[169] The choice between suspending the declaration of invalidity and allowing it to take immediate effect is not an easy one. Neither alternative is without difficulty. However, considering all the interests at stake, I conclude that the declaration of invalidity should be suspended for one year.

 

[uncleg]

We're speculating without the facts, but, should there be a requirement to work in a brothel all the ladies have to do is form a limited partnership and open their own establishment. Continue to be their own bosses. IMO

Exactly, but the brothel issue is not about being their own bosses, it's about location and privacy. In Germany they have brothels. They are owned by ???? The girls pay a monthly fee for a room to work out of, like an apartment. If they owned it, then it would be like a strata, and a strata fee, if it went to the type of building used there.

Let's face it, a brothel will be a business establishment and as such open to the public by invitation, like a pub, grocery store etc.....anybody can walk in and shop, again the German model. Yes, you could set up a nightclub style of operation and charge an admission fee.....but again would that be allowed. As pointed out in the article, there are still local by-laws to contend with, which may end up with more charter challenges required.

 

[HankQuinlan]

The only good thing so far is enjoying the discomfort of the Conservatives. They will have to face the unpleasant task of creating new laws that don't violate the Charter, yet satisfy their base. I have predicted all along that they will follow the Nordic model of criminalizing johns. If they can do it, they will.

They would much rather not make a decision at all, and now they have to.

 

[rickoshadows]

The government is going to push through some legislation on this issue. Hopefully saner heads will prevail and we go with a model similar to New Zealand or Australia, both countries of which we share a similar legal history and framework.

 

[sdw]

The only good thing so far is enjoying the discomfort of the Conservatives. They will have to face the unpleasant task of creating new laws that don't violate the Charter, yet satisfy their base. I have predicted all along that they will follow the Nordic model of criminalizing johns. If they can do it, they will.

They would much rather not make a decision at all, and now they have to.

The government also has to be sure that they don't violate the Rights and Freedoms of the Johns. That actually makes it tougher for the government if they want to go to the Nordic model.

 

[HankQuinlan]

The government also has to be sure that they don't violate the Rights and Freedoms of the Johns. That actually makes it tougher for the government if they want to go to the Nordic model.

I doubt that there is anything that explicitly gives men the right to engage sex workers' services. I just can't see them going another way, given every statement they have ever made on the issue.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

You know this entire problem would go away if the ladies just stopped making us pay for it.

 

[VanessaofBC]

While I realise it's somewhat a case of 'kicking it down the road a year', I'd like to hear some other opinions on the decision by the people it affects! I'd particularly like to hear from susi and others who have been more directly involved in the fight to get the legislation struck down!

SOURCE WITH LOTS OF VIDEO: http://globalnews.ca/news/1042861/s...erNational&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=2013

Supreme Court strikes down Canada’s prostitution laws

By Staff The Canadian Press
OTTAWA – The Supreme Court of Canada has struck down the country’s prostitution laws in a unanimous 9-0 ruling, starting a clock for Parliament to reshape social policy dealing with the world’s oldest profession.

The landmark Supreme Court decision gives Parliament one-year to produce new legislation, which means prostitution-related offences will remain in the Criminal Code until Dec. 19, 2014.


READ MORE: Prostitution laws around the world

Justice Minister Peter MacKay said the government was “concerned” by the ruling, and is “exploring all possible options to ensure the criminal law continues to address the significant harms that flow from prostitution to communities, those engaged in prostitution, and vulnerable persons.”

The court struck down all three prostitution-related prohibitions – against keeping a brothel, living on the avails of prostitution and street soliciting – as violations of the constitutional guarantee to life, liberty and security of the person.

The ruling comes more than two decades after the court last upheld the anti-prostitution laws. It represents a historic victory for sex workers – mainly women – who were seeking safer working conditions.
Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, writing on behalf of the court, said Canada’s social landscape has changed since 1990.

“These appeals and the cross-appeal are not about whether prostitution should be legal or not,” she wrote. “They are about whether the laws Parliament has enacted on how prostitution may be carried out pass constitutional muster.

“I conclude that they do not.”

In the 1990 reference, the Supreme Court upheld a ban on street solicitation, but the two women justices on the court at that time dissented.
This time, all six male Supreme Court justices sided with their three female colleagues.

The decision upheld last year’s Ontario Court of Appeal ruling that said the law banning brothels exposed sex workers to added danger by forcing them onto the streets.

“The harms identified by the courts below are grossly disproportionate to the deterrence of community disruption that is the object of the law,” McLachlin wrote.

“Parliament has the power to regulate against nuisances, but not at the cost of the health, safety and lives of prostitutes.”

Sex-trade workers argued that much has changed since the high court last considered prostitution, including the horrific serial killings of prostitutes by Robert Pickton in British Columbia.

The Supreme Court appeared to acknowledge the Pickton case in the ruling, saying: “A law that prevents street prostitutes from resorting to a safe haven such as Grandma’s House while a suspected serial killer prowls the streets, is a law that has lost sight of its purpose.”

The court also struck down the law that makes living off the avails of prostitution illegal, rejecting the Ontario government’s argument that it is designed “to target the commercialization of prostitution and to promote the values of dignity and equality.”

As for communication for the purposes of prostitution, the high court noted that the law is not intended to eliminate prostitution, but to take it out of public view so it will not be seen as a nuisance.

In weighing that balance, the high court concluded “that the harm imposed by the prohibition on communicating in public was grossly disproportionate to the provision’s object of removing the nuisance of prostitution from the streets.”

Parliament could ask the Supreme Court for an extension on the effect of the ruling, if it has tabled legislation but can’t meet the one-year deadline.

The ruling advised Parliament it needs to reshape the legal framework around prostitution.

“That does not mean that Parliament is precluded from imposing limits on where and how prostitution may be conducted,” it said.

“Greater latitude in one measure – for example, permitting prostitutes to obtain the assistance of security personnel – might impact on the constitutionality of another measure – for example, forbidding the nuisances associated with keeping a bawdy-house.

“The regulation of prostitution is a complex and delicate matter. It will be for Parliament, should it choose to do so, to devise a new approach, reflecting different elements of the existing regime.”

READ MORE: Who is Terri-Jean Bedford, the dominatrix fighting Canada’s prostitution laws

The three principals in the case are retired dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford, Vancouver sex worker Amy Lebovitch and former prostitute Valerie Scott, of Toronto.

Their lawyer, Toronto law professor Alan Young, hailed the ruling as “a resounding victory for the rule of law, and a victory for liberty and security of the person and finally a long overdue recognition that sex workers are deserving of equal protection of the law.”

Bedford, clad in her trademark long black leather coat, cracked her whip, and mugged for cameras in the vast granite foyer of the Supreme Court.

“Now, the government must tell all consenting Canadians, all consenting adults, what we can and cannot do in the privacy of our home, for money or not, and they must write laws that are fair,” said Bedford.

Young said all those affected by the law should come forward to consult with the government in the coming year.

Scott said politicians don’t understand “how sex work, works” and should consult meaningfully with those in the trade in the coming year. “They won’t be able to write a half-decent law. It will fail,” she said.

Don Hutchinson, vice president of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, represents a group that opposes the decriminalization of prostitution, saying it will lead to increased human trafficking and victimization of people.

He said his group has the ear of the Harper government.

“Yes, there have been conversations with the Justice Department and with others in the government.”

The Ontario Appeal Court not only struck down the bawdy house law, but also modified a law against living on the avails of the sex trade to specifically preclude exploitation.

The federal and Ontario governments appealed those two parts of the decision, arguing among other things that Ottawa was justified in the way it dealt with a “complex social problem.”

The Ontario court decisions had been on hold pending the Supreme Court ruling.

 

[VanessaofBC]

Brothel boss ready to pounce on Canada if Supreme Court strikes prostitution law

Brothel boss ready to pounce on Canada if Supreme Court strikes prostitution law
By Mike Blanchfield The Associated Press

​

OTTAWA – Before she became a part-time prostitute late last year, 24-year-old Krissy Summers was looking up at a mountainous $25,000 student loan from the University of Michigan.

Seventeen weeks later, she was debt-free. And drug-free, disease-free and bruise-free – not to mention free to leave the world’s oldest profession whenever she felt ready to go back to school, this time for a master’s degree.


“All my money is going to my student loans and furthering my education,” Summers says from North America’s most infamous – and legal – chain of brothels, the Bunny Ranch in northern Nevada.

“None of my money is going towards drugs. I don’t even smoke cigarettes. I barely even have a glass of wine.”

Summers’s employer, Bunny Ranch founder Dennis Hof, says women like Summers, one of the 500 “independent contractors” that staff his six legal brothels in Nevada, are the living embodiment of the merits of legalized prostitution.

Hof, who is keen to expand his brothel business into Canada, said he’ll be watching Thursday when the Supreme Court of Canada hears arguments on whether the country’s prostitution law is unconstitutional and ought to be struck down.

“We’re watching closely because the second we see it’s going to be legalized, like it should be, the Bunny Ranch will be there, and we’ll be there in force.”

Last year, the Ontario Court of Appeal struck down a section of the law that forbids brothels, so justices from Canada’s top court will consider a raft of arguments from more than a dozen intervener groups that will determine the future of the country’s prostitution law.

The lower Ontario court upheld a ban on communication for the purposes of prostitution, which effectively makes street prostitution illegal.

Three Canadian sex workers and their activist lawyer, Osgoode Hall law professor Alan Young, are driving the court challenge for legalization: retired dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford, former prostitute Valerie Scott and Vancouver sex worker Amy Lebovitch.

They have no shortage of female allies, including university professors who argue Canada’s prostitution laws are archaic, and health advocates who say the stigma of criminalization exposes women to HIV and other diseases.

Another coalition of women’s groups opposes them: The Women’s Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution argues that men are the main benefactors of the sex industry – as pimps, customers and brothel owners.

They argue that the law should be changed to make it illegal to be a pimp or a customer, but not an actual prostitute. The sex industry in Canada, they say, has victimized young women, many of them underage, forcing them into a life of drug addiction, physical and sexual abuse, and essentially slavery in an illegal industry from which they are unable to break free.

The coalition is made up of seven organizations that work on the streets and behind bars with women at the bottom of society’s pecking order. It includes the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres, the Native Women’s Association of Canada, and the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies.

Diane Matte, head of a Quebec group dedicated to ending sexual exploitation, says the coalition’s proposal is based on the so-called “Nordic model” of prostitution legislation adopted in Sweden, Norway and Iceland, which criminalizes pimps and johns but protects prostitutes from prosecution.

Hof scoffs at the idea. In practice, he says, it simply won’t work.

“You’re tying to curtail a natural urge of a man. Give me a break.”

In a recent press conference, Matte took the unusual step of accusing Young, the lawyer challenging the law, of essentially being a shill for the sex industry, and not a civil libertarian or a human rights activist.

Young declined to comment for this story.

Matte says that the fact that a large operation like the Bunny Ranch is declaring its desire to come to Canada should be cause for alarm.

“So we have to be clear, the industry is just waiting to expand.”

Hof says his business will help protect Canadian women, and put the dangerous pimps and their criminal bosses out of business, while also ridding the industry of underage, drug-addicted, abused girls.

As well as lowering the crime rate, Hof says legalized prostitution would be an economic winner in Canada. In parts of Nevada, prostitution is licensed – and taxed. Last year, Hof says he paid $500,000 in taxes, making him the No. 1 taxpayer in his county.

“By not allowing legal brothels, what you’re doing is you’re enabling the criminal element to thrive. You’re enabling girls to be exploited,” he says.

“A pimp doesn’t want to spend money for sexually transmitted diseases. It cost money. He doesn’t want to keep girls off of drugs. The opposite. He wants them on drugs.”

Hof says Summers is typical of the women who staff his brothels. She came to him of her own free will in December 2012, and is free to leave when ever she wants. Like his other women, she has a weekly medical test to make sure she’s healthy.

Drugs, he says, aren’t allowed because he’s running a legal business and drugs are illegal.

Bad, abusive johns are also out. Summers says she’s free to refuse doing business – at the Bunny Ranch they call it “partying” – with anyone she chooses, something Hof says he wholeheartedly supports.

Summers says she’s refused customers on a couple of occasions.

“If there’s something they want to do that I’m not comfortable doing, then I have to decline them,” she says.

“If there’s something I won’t do, there will be another girl that will do it. My boundaries are completely different than another girl’s boundaries.”

Hof says he’s sure he could open a viable business in Canada. He’s not concerned that people might have a different attitudes towards buying legalized sex north of the 49th parallel than they would in the relative anonymity of Nevada, with its proximity to Las Vegas.

“I look at Canadians as being conservative a but in private a lot of Canadian customers are in here,” says Hof.

“Take the morality out of it and think logically – we can stop the exploitation of women, we can stop criminals, we can stop money going into an underground society as opposed to back into society.”

Matte says she sees it differently. She’s hoping that morality does play a role in the final outcome of the legal challenge.

To her, the idea that a guy and his buddies can go out on a Friday night and buy a woman or girl for their sexual pleasure, and then discard her when they’re done, is reprehensible.

“Ultimately, it’s the idea that women are buyable, and some category of women should be kept buyable,” she says. “Prostitution is not sexual freedom for women. It’s a group of women being put at the service of men’s sexuality.”

Matte says the women she represents are tired of being portrayed as “being against sex.”

“We love sex,” she says. “But we love sex when we decide that we can say no, and we can say yes to whoever we want.”

 

[Cock Throppled]

Congratulations to Susi and the ladies in Ontario and their lawyers for all their hard work.

Now the Conservatives will try to fuck this up as only they can.

 

[dchoye]

While I am happy that I no longer feel Im pooning illegally, I really dont want Canada to turn into the North American sex trading country equivalent to Thailand.

 

[sdw]

I doubt that there is anything that explicitly gives men the right to engage sex workers' services. I just can't see them going another way, given every statement they have ever made on the issue.

The countries that have used the "Nordic model" don't have Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Nordic model only works if the police attempt to entrap or raid to catch the John. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects Canadians from that. Somewhere in the first 1000 Johns caught, there will be one who has the money to take the violation of his Rights and Freedoms to the Supreme Court. Then, the government of the day will have yet another avenue of regulation of prostitution closed off. So, attempting the Nordic model in Canada is actually going to result in no regulation of prostitution.

The politics of it may have played differently if the entire Supreme Court hadn't agreed with today's decision. Even the Harper government appointments to the Supreme Court were in agreement. However, the judicial landscape is now clear and politicians are going to have to respect everyone's Rights and Freedoms with any new law.

 

[papillion]

The government also has to be sure that they don't violate the Rights and Freedoms of the Johns. That actually makes it tougher for the government if they want to go to the Nordic model.

I'd like to see a lawyer or constitutional experts comment on this, is criminalising the buying of sex a violation of Canadian Human Rights?

 

[brown25]

Joy Smith: Canada must target the buyers of sex

http://www.straight.com/news/553441/joy-smith-canada-must-target-buyers-sex

"Prostitution must be eliminated because it dehumanizes and degrades humans and reduces them to a commodity to be bought and sold. Legalizing prostitution is a direct attack on the fundamental rights and freedoms of women, girls and vulnerable people. In the same regard, continuing to criminalize the women and vulnerable populations being prostituted creates barriers that prevent them from escaping prostitution and entrenches inequality.

Let’s be clear: those who advocate either approach ignore mounting empirical evidence and will find themselves on the wrong side of history and women’s equality."

Ugh.