B.C. legal advocates are encouraged by an Ontario judge's September 28 ruling that has stuck down a federal law forbidding living off the avails of prostitution as unconstitutional.
Justice Susan Himel’s judgment will soon be only in effect in Ontario but B.C. sex workers are hopeful that it will one day apply here.
Stephen Harper’s Conservative government is expected to appeal the judgment to the Court of Appeal for Ontario. If that court agrees with Himel’s judgment, the case could then be appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.
“It’s national legislation and the evidence they heard was from sex workers across the country,” said Pivot Legal Society staff lawyer Katrina Percy, who is working on a separate case in B.C. that aims to legalize both living off the avails of prostitution and other parts of the Criminal Code of Canada’s prostitution procurement section.
For example, Percy also wants to strike down a part of the criminal code that forbids facilitating someone else’s involvement in prostitution.
That section is intended to outlaw pimping. In reality, it keeps prostitutes from being able to organize and help each other out by directing clients to each other.
“We started our case in 2007, which is around the time that the Ontario case started,” Percy told Business in Vancouver after the Ontario judgment was released. “Unfortunately, our case has been derailed by some technical legal issues that the federal government raised. So, we’re spending a lot of time arguing about these fairly technical but important legal issues."
B.C. Attorney General Mike de Jong was at the Union of British Columbia Municipalities’ conference in Whistler and was unavailable for comment.