New law could target johns
Feds poised to overhaul prostitution legislation
OTTAWA — The federal government is poised to introduce legislation in the coming weeks that will overhaul Canada’s prostitution laws — possibly targeting the pimps and johns as criminals while leaving the prostitutes themselves free from criminal prosecution.
Justice Minister Peter MacKay has been exploring various options since the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Canada’s prostitution laws last December, giving the government a year to come up with a new law.
Among the alternatives being examined is a Canadian version of the “Nordic model” — an approach first used in Sweden which then spread to Norway and Iceland — in which police target prostitutes’ customers, pimps and sex-trade traffickers.
Earlier this month, MacKay said his bill will be drafted to find the “right balance” to a “complex” issue.
Two things have become apparent: the government will not decriminalize or legalize prostitution, as some other countries such as New Zealand and the Netherlands have done; and the governing Tories appear to be contemplating the Nordic model.
“We’ve looked at a lot of different options and a lot of different models,” MacKay said. “The Nordic model is one. I can assure you of this: it will be a Canadian solution.
“We know that there is tremendous violence and vulnerability associated with prostitution,” he added. “Prostitutes are predominantly victims. They have very much, in some cases, run out of options before entering this particular pursuit.”
Edmonton city councillor Scott McKeen, a member of the city’s police commission, expressed frustration over the proposed legislation. “You cannot create the perfect law to deal with an issue as complex as this,” he said.
“My frustration is that a lot of the prostitution and the crime that revolves around it has to do with addiction, and that’s a bigger issue that we have to deal with. Some people want justice dealt against these people, but to me it is almost like victimizing people who have already been victimized by life.
“Prostitution is sad and pathetic and full of victims and run by a few sociopathic bullies who exploit these people, and they are the ones we really want to get at.”
Kate Quinn, executive director of the non-profit Edmonton-based Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation, was pleased that government is considering the issue.
“I think it is very encouraging that government is looking at services that focus on vulnerable persons, and laws that focus on the exploitation and profiteering,” Quinn said.
She agreed that there are other root causes that have to be addressed, including women’s equality issues. “All of this contributes to vulnerability. We all need income to survive, and many people may not have options other than to be exploited.”
MacKay said there will be “support mechanisms outside the legislation in order to help people to transition out of the sex trade.”
His choice of words — and the goals — are similar to a proposal Manitoba Conservative MP Joy Smith has been circulating.
She has written a report, The Tipping Point, that argues Canada must make the elimination of prostitution its goal through future legislation, and that a form of the Nordic model is the best solution. “The most effective route to tackling prostitution and sex trafficking is to address the demand for commercial sex by targeting the buyers of sex,” she writes. “As a nation, we must ensure pimps and predators remain strongly sanctioned and prostituted women and girls are not criminalized.”
Smith argues that in addition to punishing those who buy sex, any new regime must also include “exit” programs to give prostitutes the things they need to get out of the sex trade: food, shelter, drug rehabilitation, counselling and education.
She is calling for a national education program to make Canadians realize that prostitution is a form of violence against women. “Our country has to recognize that this is Canada’s oldest oppression — not profession,” Smith said. “It’s nothing but violence against women. Plain and simple. No matter how you paint it. We have to target the johns, the traffickers, the people who buy sex and go after trying to make money off of innocent victims.”
Smith said more than 90 per cent of prostitutes are “lured” into the sex trade and become victims who are “held captive by beatings” and “have no place to go.”