What Should Happen After Bedford

There are a number of options available to the Federal Government in the next year.

1. Do nothing. Unfortunately that means that 5 months before an election the Government will leave itself open to criticism from its own power base. Not that the diehard conservatives would vote for someone else, but they mint stay home.

2. Make prostitution itself illegal. This would probably not pass a Charter test but could take years to resolve.

3. So called Nordic model. Make the client the "criminal". The Hollande government in France is doing this (by the way Francois Hollande is the least popular President in French history at this time). That would fail a Charter test because it creates the same risks for sex workers.

4. Other European model. Do not criminalize, but regulate. Control where the activity can take place, ensure the health and safety of the sex workers. Periodically check status of the workers, "support staff" and customers to ensure that human trafficking is not taking place, and that those involved are not underage. Places that do this have much less visible "street trade". This would fall to the provinces and then to municipalities to regulate. But rather than just letting the matter fall to the provinces and the Government appearing to do nothing, it is possible to adopt a framework at the federal level that clearly criminalizes some activities "coercing sex work", "operating an unlicensed sex club", "abuse of a sex worker" etc. Most of this is already illegal, but our Criminal Code is full of politically expedient duplication of offences. This solution accepts that prohibition is dangerous, but that with certain minimum rules it is possible to make things safer and to reduce neighbourhood nuisance.

As I have said in other places, if they follow the Nordic model the charter will not come into it at all. All that was won on Friday will become moot. If they follow the Nordic model, then essentially the sale and purchase of sexual services will become illegal, and therefore safety of sex workers is not of concern to the courts. You don't see the court worrying about the safety of cat burglars, or armed robbers or embezzlers, because those are illegal activities. Under the Nordic model, although they only criminalize the "john" the act itself is illegal.

If they go this route the charter will be of no help whatsoever.

As I have said in other places, if they follow the Nordic model the charter will not come into it at all. All that was won on Friday will become moot. If they follow the Nordic model, then essentially the sale and purchase of sexual services will become illegal, and therefore safety of sex workers is not of concern to the courts. You don't see the court worrying about the safety of cat burglars, or armed robbers or embezzlers, because those are illegal activities. Under the Nordic model, although they only criminalize the "john" the act itself is illegal.

 

If they go this route the charter will be of no help whatsoever.

You may very well be right ... although I'm not completely convinced.

I'm not sure the cat burglar analogy works completely, because that situation does not involve a consensual transaction. In the nordic model you are criminalizing one half of a transaction; the purchase, but not the sale. If doing that puts the seller at risk then that clearly is a matter of concern and might fall afoul of the Bedford principles. Historically the court doesn't like doing things indirectly rather than directly. In other words, if criminalizing prostitution wouldn't pass charter scrutiny, why should criminalizing "parts" of it, when the intention of that partial criminalization is to prohibit the whole thing. This is, it seems to me, at the heart of the Bedford decision.

The problem with the burglar analogy, is that you criminalize burglary, there aren't people out there actually wanting to be burgled. You criminalize the purchase of sex, there are people wanting to sell that service.

I haven't had my morning coffee, so none of that might make any sense whatsoever.

Cheers,

Porthos

Not quite... the sale of sex will still be legal e.g since the laws were struck down, ladies may now work in a brothel. The Nordic model will criminalize the client as opposed to the SP. The model basically says it's ok to sell but not ok to buy, which is in and of itself ridiculous because it will only serve to maintain the status quo - the industry will be driven underground once more and the relative safety of the ladies working in it will still be compromised. I don't know if this particular law will hold water when examined through the lens of the Supreme Court ruling.

As I have said in other places, if they follow the Nordic model the charter will not come into it at all. All that was won on Friday will become moot. If they follow the Nordic model, then essentially the sale and purchase of sexual services will become illegal, and therefore safety of sex workers is not of concern to the courts. You don't see the court worrying about the safety of cat burglars, or armed robbers or embezzlers, because those are illegal activities. Under the Nordic model, although they only criminalize the "john" the act itself is illegal.

 

If they go this route the charter will be of no help whatsoever.