TORONTO — The Ontario government is pushing Craigslist to remove prostitution-related ads from its Canadian websites sooner rather than later.
The province first asked the San Francisco-based company in September to remove the ads under its erotic services section to help fight human trafficking and child exploitation.
Craigslist agreed to pull the prostitution ads in the United States in early September after complaints from 17 states, but so far has not removed the ads in Canada.
The company asked for a meeting with Ontario officials, but the provincial government wrote back saying there's no need for Craigslist to wait for the meeting before removing the ads.
The Canadian Press obtained a copy of an Oct. 20 letter to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster from three Ontario cabinet ministers expressing disappointment that "Craigslist has ignored the interests of Ontarians."
Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the federal government have all joined Ontario in writing to Craigslist to ask that the prostitution ads be removed from its Canadian websites.
There are hundreds of prostitution ads listed every day on Craigslist for cities right across Canada.
The bizzare thing is that to my understanding in Canada the Supreme Court has ruled that what goes on in private between two adults...including cash for sex...is legal. It is illegal to operate a 'bawdy house' (brothel) to publicly solilicit (streetwalking) or to live of the proceeds of someone else's prostitution (pimping). However the phenomenon of an individual adult woman offering incall or outcall services is not prohibited. And that is of course pretty much what the craigslist adult services section is about.
Maybe what is going on here is lobbying by the local 'free' newspapers that are seeing ad revenue disappear.