Feds to appeal ruling on sex workers

The federal government will appeal a landmark ruling from the Ontario Court of Appeal that struck down several anti-prostitution laws, a move that sex workers say was expected.

But rather than feeling nervous about the potential for a date in front of the Supreme Court of Canada to argue the constitutionality of Canada’s prostitution laws, the sex workers who have twice successfully challenged the law to date are ready for Round 3.

“I’m not the desperate party for once. I’m sitting on the top of the hill,” said Alan Young, a noted constitutional lawyer who represented the sex workers at the Ontario Court of Appeal.

“I’m sitting with two very powerful judgments that are going to be very difficult for the government and the Supreme Court of Canada to contradict.”

The court did rule against the sex workers on one issue, deciding that it was still illegal to publicly solicit or communicate with clients in public. Young said he was prepared to not appeal that aspect of the ruling.

“That’s off the table now,” he said. “Let’s get it on in court.”

Last month, the Ontario Court of Appeal said the country’s antiprostitution rules placed unconstitutional restrictions on prostitutes’ ability to protect themselves.

The landmark decision, which was welcomed as well as attacked, allows sex workers in Ontario to hire drivers, bodyguards and work indoors in organized brothels, or “bawdy houses,” to make their work safer.

It continues to be illegal to openly solicit customers on the street, with the court seeing that as a “reasonable limit on the right to freedom of expression,” and exploitation by pimps also remains illegal.

The court gave the federal government one year to change the prostitution laws in the Criminal Code.

While the Ontario ruling only applies to that province, a decision by the Supreme Court would apply nationwide.

A second legal challenge to the prostitution laws is ongoing in B.C. A ruling there and in other provinces could create different legal standards in various provinces that the Supreme Court could prevent from happening with one ruling.

“It is important to clarify the constitutionality of the law and remove the uncertainty this decision has created,” Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said Wednesday.

The government argued it wasn’t the laws that were the problem, but sex work itself that was causing harm to sex workers.