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Supreme Court Of Canada Throws Out All Remaining Restrictions On Prostitution

farmerart
The Supreme Court of Canada has finally ruled on an important prostitution case. Prostitution itself is not illegal in Canada. What has been illegal has been soliciting for the purpose of prostitution, brothels, and living off the avails of prostitution. In a very crafty manoeuvre prostitutes have argued under Canada's Charter of Freedom and Rights that the various levels of governments in Canada with the current laws have been infringing on prostitutes' rights to engage in what is perfectly legal behaviour. The Supreme Court has agreed with this position in a 9-0 ruling.

The Court well knows that this is a very contentious issue with Canada's current Conservative government and, as a result, has given the federal government one year to respond with legislation if the government so chooses before the Court's decision is implemented.

This is a real slap in the face of the current Conservative government, a government that has an agenda of the typical right wing zealot: pro-family, anti-crime, anti-prostitution, etc. What is really choice is the fact that the Conservative government has appointed a majority of the judges on the current Supreme Court.

Harper's Conservative government is right in the midst of a sleazy corruption scandal involving some prominent Conservative senators. The government's popularity is in the dumpster. The Liberal party has a fresh new leader and is soaring in public opinion polls with an election not far off.

It will be very interesting to see what Harper does with this radioactive hot potato that the Supreme Court has dumped in his lap.

31 comments

Latest

Alucard
•
11 years ago
See my Thread Art.
SlickSpic
•
11 years ago
Great info, Monsieur Art.
mikeya02
•
11 years ago
Pro-family, anti-crime, anti -prostitution makes one a right wing zealot? Are you kidding?
joker44
•
11 years ago
Oh, Can-a-da. We love your relative sanity and envy you.

mikeya02 - You, bethcha!
Estafador
•
11 years ago
So prostitution in all forms and fashion is officially legal now...in Canada? Sounds good. So what does this mean? Organized prostitution? Legality of street hookers? Or simply allowing bordello's in the accepted regions of canada?
joker44
•
11 years ago
Esta- implementation of ruling is delayed one year to allow time for Canadian parliament or other civil authorities implement regulations.

So the answer is not yet known:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/2…
jackslash
•
11 years ago
Prostitution is illegal practically everywhere in the USA. Does that make as safer or happier? Has it eliminated prostitution?

Dougster
•
11 years ago
Brothels coming to Canada! Wonder how they'll compare to the ones in Nevada?
crazyjoe
•
11 years ago
Great thread
bvino
•
11 years ago
Canadian brothels will have to bring their eh game.
rockstar666
•
11 years ago
@mikey. I agree. Liberals are also pro family even if they're pro-choice. And liberals are anti-crime too. But I think only a liberal would say that prostitution is an unconstitutional infringement of our right to privacy as I believe myself.

How can a free country criminalize behavior that is otherwise legal? Sex is legal, so is golf. Do we put people in jail to charge to play a round of golf?
crazyjoe
•
11 years ago
Put the ball in the hole
sofaking87
•
11 years ago
Give the canucks a year and they'll have a new law in place. I'm sure it'll be very similar to the swedish one. Theirs is so strict that prostitution has shifted to germany!
goodsouthernboy
•
11 years ago
Lol bvino
bigman226
•
11 years ago
The powers that be know how easy it would be to corrupt some hardliner with a foot fetish. Plus such laws may actually empower women. We should dread the thought!
jester214
•
11 years ago
Even a lot of liberals are anti-prostitution.
zipman68
•
11 years ago
@jester -- a person who really embraced either social liberalism or libertarianism should not be against prostitution. Such a person would say that the government (through the legal system) should only intervene in people's affairs if one person (or group of people) are actually infringing upon the rights of another (person or group). There are clear cases of this (any sort of violence, theft, etc) and fuzzier cases (e.g., if a strip club next to me was playing loud music at 3am I'd want the police to shut that down; if they kept everything inside the club...well, I'd be inside the club too!).

Prostitution doesn't infringe upon anybody's rights. As long as there is no human trafficking or coercion and everybody is 18+ years old the government should keep it nose out of our crotches (unless they'd like to send a HAWT redhead govt employee to blow me...I could live with that).
jester214
•
11 years ago
I'll skip a discussion on "should" or "should not" in regard to political philosophies and reiterate my point that lots of people who would normally be identified (even self identify) as liberal are anti-prostitution.
DoctorPhil
•
11 years ago

pffftt. in the words of Al Capone:


“Do I do business with Canadian racketeers? I don't even know what street Canada is on.”
Tyres
•
11 years ago
"I don't even know what street Canada is on."

That was probably the syphilis talking.
crazyjoe
•
11 years ago
Dr Phil...lol
mausercat
•
11 years ago
The Court delayed implementation to let Parliament kick it around. Right now there is vagueness in the existing statute. For example, no one can give me a straight answer on what "keeping a common bawdy house" means, or "living off the avails of prostitution." At one point the statute prohibited "solicitation for the purpose of prostitution". In 1985 that was changed to "communication for the purpose of prostitution" which seems a downright violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Remember, in Canada all criminal law is federal. Provinces and municipalities do not have the authority to make something criminal, but civil offenses can bring fines, so long as the purpose of the fine is raising revenue. Their Lordships on the Supreme Court have muddied the waters by this opinion.
sharkhunter
•
11 years ago
I'm not against prostitution but I can imagine a scenario where it could infringe on me or my well being. If prostitutes started walking down my street routinely and there was no way to stop it, that would likely lead to a lot more traffic including a number of unwanted visitors possibly lowering property values if it persisted. Almostt anywhere else I would not care.

I also would be concerned if the prostitutes were ugly. Restrict the ugly prostitutes to the low life neigborhoods. Of course I wouldn't want too many restrictions. Everyone has a different idea of pretty versus ugly or at least some do.
mausercat
•
11 years ago
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
ilbbaicnl
•
11 years ago
Saw something about this on the BBC. I think what the court said was, it's a violation of constitutionally-protected individual rights for the government to ban prostitution simply on the basis of morally disapproving of it. Laws regarding prostitution have to demonstrably protect the health and safety of those involved. Whereas evidence indicates current laws actually work against the health and safety of those involved.

Smart court.
mikeya02
•
11 years ago
^^^ Not really. Legalizing it will do nothing about pimps. They are the ones who get the most jail time. They will have a field day, and
probably make things worse, cuz guess what... Now their shit is legal!
Keep the laws. As evidenced by this site, anyone can pay a girl for sex without fear. Unless he's an idiot.
jester214
•
11 years ago
Personally I think if it's done correctly legalization can seriously cut down on the number of pimps.
motorhead
•
11 years ago
"Put the ball in the hole"


Or the puck in the net????
georgmicrodong
•
11 years ago
Slavery and exploitation are illegal in almost every other field of commerce, and *that* has been pretty successful. Don't see why it wouldn't be *just* as successful with prostitution.
ATACdawg
•
11 years ago
Yes, Motorhead, but be really careful where you put that stick, eh. Think I'll go grab me a Moosehead now, eh.
zipman68
•
11 years ago
Sharkhunter is right. I think streetwalking should be illegal. Alternatively you could have specific zones like Switzerland where there are "luv shacks" available.

Otherwise, let folks do what they're gonna do anyways. The government could actually do something 'bout pimping by passing some maximum amount the "organizer of a bawdy house" can take. But for most people if I was into whoring and had a choice between a clean $300-$1K and <$150 with a streetwalker (no idea what a typical streetwalker costs) I'd go clean. I suspect costs will work themselves out based upon the appeal of the prostitute.

Plus it would allow strippers to arrange ITC (if the management were cool with it) or OTC without fear of Johnny Law.

There will still be issue. But I don't see how legalization can make it worse.
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