Volume 88 | Issue 6 | obiter-dicta.ca
The Definitive Source for Osgoode News since 1928
Monday, November 17, 2014
Parliament proceeds
with criminalizing
sex work
ê The Supreme Court ruled sex work isn’t a crime in Canada; did Parliament lose the memo?
erin garbett › staff writer
O
n nov. 4, the Senate approved Bill C-36
with no amendments on its third reading. By the end of the year, the Protection
of Communities and Exploited Persons
Act [PCEPA] will inevitably receive royal assent (if
it hasn’t already by the time of this article’s publication), squeaking in before the deadline set by the
Supreme Court after it struck down Canada’s previous prostitution laws last year. In their ruling, the
Supreme Court specified that while Parliament was
free to “[impose] limits on where and how prostitution may be conducted,” they must ensure that the
new legislation does not inflict risks on sex workers.
Somewhere along the line, this message must have
been lost because, rather than take the advice of the
Supreme Court and create provisions that protect sex
workers, Parliament’s new bill will almost certainly
make sex work more dangerous.
The Supreme Court’s 9-0 decision states, “…it is
not a crime to sell sex in Canada.” And indeed, the
sale and purchase of sex in Canada wasn’t; however,
the Criminal Code included provisions (such as the
inability to have a consistent place of business, to be
an employee or to employ staff as a sex worker, or to
communicate about the sale of sex in public) that created risks for sex workers. Rather than go the route
of decriminalization, Parliament has chosen to follow
the “Nordic model” implemented in Sweden in 1999,
criminalizing the act of purchasing sex, essentially
making one side of a once legal transaction illegal.
While the sale of sex services is not itself criminalized, obvious–to everyone except the powers that be–
is that there cannot be a sale without a purchase.
» see bill c-36, page 14
In this Issue ...
editorial
Celebrity Abuse Scandals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
news
Trinity Western Approval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
opinion
Articling Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
arts & culture
Jurisfoodence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
sports
Maple Leafs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13