Bedford ruling applied to all prostitutes, including those previously protected under section 212(4). In other words, the fact that purchasing sex from adults is now explicitly illegal does not change the fact that prostitutes may still legally sell sex for money in Canada, and so deserve safety and protection. It is untenable to suggest that because purchasing sex would be made explicitly illegal, prostitutes deserve lesser protections under the Charter. Whether selling sex is legal is critical from a constitutional standpoint. It means that sex trade work remains a “risky – but legal” vocation, and the government cannot add to the danger of that work in an unconstitutional way. The Court said:[59] Here, the applicants argue that the prohibitions on bawdy-houses, living on the avails of prostitution, and communicating in public for the purposes of prostitution, heighten the risks they face in prostitution — itself a legal activity. The application judge found that the evidence supported this proposition and the Court of Appeal agreed. [60] For reasons set out below, I am of the same view. The prohibitions at issue do not merely impose conditions on how prostitutes operate. They go a critical step further, by imposing dangerous conditions on prostitution; they prevent people engaged in a risky — but legal — activity from taking steps to protect themselves from the risks.5 The constitutionality of Bill C-36 will therefore still turn on whether the new offences create dangerous conditions for prostitutes engaged in a legal activity (selling sex for money), and so represent a violation of section 7 of the Charter.
