The social purity movement became much less prominent after
World War I but had little effect on the extent of prostitution, but there was now less public concern. Throughout enforcement was heavily gendered, with only a few men prosecuted under the avails and procurement laws. In 1947, it became an offence to transport a woman to a bawdy house. That report stated that prostitution was widespread in Canada, particularly in cities. Although empirical evidence was lacking, it concluded that economic necessity was a major motivation for many women. Public opinion was ambivalent. Most people opposed further criminalization, but there was support for actions to alleviate public nuisance associated with it. In the report, three strategies were considered; criminalization, decriminalization, and regulation. Further criminalization would prohibit all forms of prostitution but was felt to be impossible to enforce, had little public support, and represented the imposition of moral views through the criminal law. The Committee did not fully support decriminalisation either, on the grounds that it found little evidence that all of the harms would be alleviated. The Committee also rejected regulation by the state. Instead, the Committee put forward recommendations having elements of all three approaches. For the first time, recommendations addressed underlying economic and social issues, whose alleviation might improve the situation. The Committee recommended addressing social inequalities between genders, assisting women and youth in need, and funding of community groups involved with prostitution. While the Committee (with one dissension) did not support complete decriminalisation, it suggested thorough revision of the criminal law, with tougher penalties for street prostitution because of the harm of disturbance and nuisance. It suggested a new offence of interfering or attempting to interfere, on more than one occasion, with pedestrian or vehicular traffic for the purposes of offering to engage in prostitution or of employing the services of a prostitute but not the mere offer or acceptance without disturbance. This was to be balanced by easing restrictions on other activities. Bawdy house provisions were to be amended to allow up to two workers on a premise as out was illogical to permit prostitution but make it illegal to perform it anywhere. The committee thought that a maximum of two persons would be unlikely to be associated with public nuisance and would allow a worker to use their own home. It also proposed that prostitution establishments be permitted to be licensed and operated by provincial or territorial governments, like other businesses. The Committee recommended repeal of the offences of procuring and living on the avails of prostitution, limiting this to the use of force, threats or other coercive or threatening behaviour. The Committee concluded its report as follows:
C-36 (2014) in
Montreal, September 2015 Following a declaration by the Supreme Court in December 2013 that certain key provisions in the existing law were unconstitutional,
Peter MacKay introduced Bill C-36, the
Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act in June 2014. The bill was approved by the Senate on November 4, 2014, and came into effect on December 6, 2014. Unlike previous legislation, C-36 primarily targets those who buy sex, and seeks to reduce the demand for prostitution—a term which was widely replaced with the euphemism "sexual services for consideration". Bill C-36 made it illegal to "[obtain] sexual services for consideration", receive "material benefits" from sexual services performed by another person, and to "knowingly advertise an offer to provide sexual services for consideration" by another person. Individual sex workers are given a form of immunity for advertising or receiving consideration from "their own" sexual services. The previous prohibition on communicating in public places for the purposes of such services was loosened, and now only applies to communications conducted at or near
day care facilities,
schools, and
playgrounds, and when one interrupts pedestrian or vehicular traffic to perform such communications. Supporters of Bill C-36 argued that the bill would help improve safety for sex workers. Those against the law argued that the law restricts the ability for sex workers to safely search for clients and conduct their business. Emily Symons, chairperson of POWER, an advocacy group for prostitutes in the
Ottawa region, argued that C-36 "not only reintroduces laws deemed unconstitutional in a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court only one year ago — it actually makes them worse." == References ==