Editorial from the National Post Sep 29, 2010
The Ontario Superior Court struck a blow for sane legislation yesterday when it struck down laws against communicating for the purposes of prostitution, living off its avails and running a “common bawdy house” — i.e., a brothel. Like it or not, the exchange of money for sexual services between consenting adults is legal in Canada. And as a general rule, if we lack the constitutional power or the intestinal fortitude to outlaw something, we should resolve to live with the consequences and not resort to erecting artificial, counterintuitive laws designed to prevent legal behaviour.
Prostitution is not a trade any parents would choose for their children. No matter where or how it’s carried out, it’s unlikely to be particularly safe or salubrious. “Any time you are alone with a john, it is dangerous,” the Crown argued in the case decided yesterday. “There is no safe haven when you are involved in prostitution. There is overwhelming evidence that johns can become violent at any moment.” That sounds alarmist, but even if it’s true, the laws struck down made the problem worse, not better. The communication law is designed to deal with street prostitution, which is widely and correctly seen as an urban menace. But it’s at cross purposes with the living off the avails and bawdy house laws, which criminalize behind-closed-doors prostitution and incentivize street prostitution.
Prostitution is not called the oldest profession for nothing; it’s not going away. Given that reality, it’s vastly preferable that prostitution be conducted in safe, controlled, monitored and legal surroundings (e.g., legalized or decriminalized brothels), potentially with paid security guards and a database of customers good and bad, rather than on sketchy street corners where prostitutes must judge their clients quickly, blindly and too often — as the Robert Pickton murders demonstrate — wrongly. “By increasing the risk of harm to street prostitutes, the communicating law is simply too high a price to pay for the alleviation of social nuisance,” Judge Susan Himel wrote in her 131-page ruling. We agree. The case seems destined to wind up in the Supreme Court. But in the meantime, the federal government must use this as an opportunity to reassess its stance on prostitution. As part of its move to crack down on so called “serious crimes,” it actually proposes to increase penalties for operating a common bawdy house. This is misguided in the extreme.
It’s time for Canada’s prostitution laws to enter the world of common sense.
