From the Vancouver Sun, July 6th.
You know, I really wish those pushing this court challenge had not opened this can o'worms. The "Nordic Model" would be a total nightmare for the hobby.
If Harper whips the vote, this will go through.
From TFA: "Smith said Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews support her bill."
"Backbench MP aims to abolish sex trade
Joy Smith has already had one private bill become law. She is aiming to do it again with a bill to make criminals out of those who pay for sex
By Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun July 6, 2011
Joy Smith is that rare, backbench member of Parliament whose private bill was not only debated, but became law.
Rarer still is the fact that Smith, a Conservative from Winnipeg, is on track to do it again.
Because of her efforts and her first bill, Canada has mandatory minimum sentences for human traffickers whose victims are children.
Her new bill, which will be on the order paper for the fall session, proposes to rewrite Canada's prostitution laws. It would make criminals out of people who buy sex, but prostitutes would not be criminalized. "It [the bill] will target the market, plain and simple," she said in a telephone interview from Winnipeg. "We need laws that make people responsible for buying and selling children."
However, Smith quickly noted that the bill is not directed only at those who buy and sell children for sex, but will target all buyers and pimps.
(Currently, prostitution is legal but it is illegal to communicate for the purposes of buying or selling sex, running a brothel or live off the avails of prostitution.)
If it weren't for the fact that a lottery determines which of the hundreds of private members' are debated, one might conclude Smith's bill is the government's stalking horse -a draft of the law it will introduce if the Ontario Court of Appeal agrees that three key sections of the prostitution laws are unconstitutional.
But it's fair to say that the Conservative government got lucky when Smith pulled number four in the lottery because reforming the prostitution laws is difficult, as a parliamentary committee found out in 2005.
Among the few things its members agreed on is that the status quo isn't working.
Since then, the decriminalization/legalization lobby has strengthened, hardening its position that prostitution is both a career choice and a legitimate business.
Among the lobbyists are: Vancouver East MP Libby Davies; the dominatrix and two sex-trade workers who went to court in Ontario; and the Downtown Eastside Sex Workers United Against Violence Society and Pivot Legal Society, which have a similar case set to be heard in B.C. Supreme Court.
They argue that decriminalization/legalization is a form of harm reduction that won't lead to an expansion of the country's sex industry even though that contradicts the experience of countries and states where more brothels, more prostitution and more human trafficking have resulted following legalization.
"Libby Davies considers it [prostitution] an industry. I consider it a crime," said Smith, noting that Davies also voted against the child trafficking bill even though the majority of New Democrats, including leader Jack Layton, voted for it.
Smith sees her bill as a first step toward abolishing the sex trade and an incentive to work with the provinces to establish a version of the so-called "Nordic model." The Nordic model involves a public education program aimed at making it socially unacceptable to buy any sexual services and provision of a wide range of social services including housing, education, detox and income support to address the reality that poverty and desperation often drives women and children into the sex trade.
Smith said Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews support her bill. But she's going to be doing the heavy lifting in the House of Commons, not the ministers and not the government.
Smith's and Harper's government will likely to be accused of bowing to pressure from religious groups, groups such as the Canadian Federation of University Women and organizations such as Resist Exploitation Embrace Dignity, which Simon Fraser University criminologist and legalizer John Lowman has derisively called "liberal feminists."
A coalition of seven women's groups argued before the Ontario Court of Appeal argued that criminalization of prostitution is justified on the grounds of civil liberties and human rights.
The coalition - which includes the Native Women's Association of Canada and the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres - argued that under international human rights laws, Canada is obliged to assist and protect prostituted persons. Further, it said the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees liberty and security of person to everyone, but what it does not do is "guarantee men a right to the prostitution of women or a right to profit from the prostitution of others."
It went on to say, "The danger to women's security is a function not of the laws constraining prostitution, but of the actions of men who demand the sale of women's bodies ... It would be illogical and contrary to the principles of fundamental justice to decriminalize men's prostitution of women in order to protect women from those same men."
Smith's bill is still being written with the help of both government and private-sector lawyers. But she's adamant that it will stand any constitutional challenge: "We are taking meticulous care," she said.
Still, Smith will need all of that, a broad spectrum of support and maybe even more in order to get this bill enacted into law.
dbramham@vancouversun.com
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Backbench+aims+abolish+trade/5056661/story.html#ixzz1SPPuNnGT
You know, I really wish those pushing this court challenge had not opened this can o'worms. The "Nordic Model" would be a total nightmare for the hobby.
If Harper whips the vote, this will go through.
From TFA: "Smith said Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews support her bill."
"Backbench MP aims to abolish sex trade
Joy Smith has already had one private bill become law. She is aiming to do it again with a bill to make criminals out of those who pay for sex
By Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun July 6, 2011
Joy Smith is that rare, backbench member of Parliament whose private bill was not only debated, but became law.
Rarer still is the fact that Smith, a Conservative from Winnipeg, is on track to do it again.
Because of her efforts and her first bill, Canada has mandatory minimum sentences for human traffickers whose victims are children.
Her new bill, which will be on the order paper for the fall session, proposes to rewrite Canada's prostitution laws. It would make criminals out of people who buy sex, but prostitutes would not be criminalized. "It [the bill] will target the market, plain and simple," she said in a telephone interview from Winnipeg. "We need laws that make people responsible for buying and selling children."
However, Smith quickly noted that the bill is not directed only at those who buy and sell children for sex, but will target all buyers and pimps.
(Currently, prostitution is legal but it is illegal to communicate for the purposes of buying or selling sex, running a brothel or live off the avails of prostitution.)
If it weren't for the fact that a lottery determines which of the hundreds of private members' are debated, one might conclude Smith's bill is the government's stalking horse -a draft of the law it will introduce if the Ontario Court of Appeal agrees that three key sections of the prostitution laws are unconstitutional.
But it's fair to say that the Conservative government got lucky when Smith pulled number four in the lottery because reforming the prostitution laws is difficult, as a parliamentary committee found out in 2005.
Among the few things its members agreed on is that the status quo isn't working.
Since then, the decriminalization/legalization lobby has strengthened, hardening its position that prostitution is both a career choice and a legitimate business.
Among the lobbyists are: Vancouver East MP Libby Davies; the dominatrix and two sex-trade workers who went to court in Ontario; and the Downtown Eastside Sex Workers United Against Violence Society and Pivot Legal Society, which have a similar case set to be heard in B.C. Supreme Court.
They argue that decriminalization/legalization is a form of harm reduction that won't lead to an expansion of the country's sex industry even though that contradicts the experience of countries and states where more brothels, more prostitution and more human trafficking have resulted following legalization.
"Libby Davies considers it [prostitution] an industry. I consider it a crime," said Smith, noting that Davies also voted against the child trafficking bill even though the majority of New Democrats, including leader Jack Layton, voted for it.
Smith sees her bill as a first step toward abolishing the sex trade and an incentive to work with the provinces to establish a version of the so-called "Nordic model." The Nordic model involves a public education program aimed at making it socially unacceptable to buy any sexual services and provision of a wide range of social services including housing, education, detox and income support to address the reality that poverty and desperation often drives women and children into the sex trade.
Smith said Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews support her bill. But she's going to be doing the heavy lifting in the House of Commons, not the ministers and not the government.
Smith's and Harper's government will likely to be accused of bowing to pressure from religious groups, groups such as the Canadian Federation of University Women and organizations such as Resist Exploitation Embrace Dignity, which Simon Fraser University criminologist and legalizer John Lowman has derisively called "liberal feminists."
A coalition of seven women's groups argued before the Ontario Court of Appeal argued that criminalization of prostitution is justified on the grounds of civil liberties and human rights.
The coalition - which includes the Native Women's Association of Canada and the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres - argued that under international human rights laws, Canada is obliged to assist and protect prostituted persons. Further, it said the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees liberty and security of person to everyone, but what it does not do is "guarantee men a right to the prostitution of women or a right to profit from the prostitution of others."
It went on to say, "The danger to women's security is a function not of the laws constraining prostitution, but of the actions of men who demand the sale of women's bodies ... It would be illogical and contrary to the principles of fundamental justice to decriminalize men's prostitution of women in order to protect women from those same men."
Smith's bill is still being written with the help of both government and private-sector lawyers. But she's adamant that it will stand any constitutional challenge: "We are taking meticulous care," she said.
Still, Smith will need all of that, a broad spectrum of support and maybe even more in order to get this bill enacted into law.
dbramham@vancouversun.com
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Backbench+aims+abolish+trade/5056661/story.html#ixzz1SPPuNnGT
