The Honorable Member of Parliament Arnold Viersen has been under fire since asking NDP MP Laurel Collins if prostitution is an area of work she has considered.  The comments arose out of a parliamentary debate regarding the tragic murder of 22-year-old Marylene Levesque in a Quebec City hotel room.  As you might expect, Viersen was immediately interrupted by a chorus of heckling.  But let me suggest that the daring query wasn’t offside.

Levesque’s alleged killer is a 51-year-old medium-risk parolee who had been given permission by a case worker to visit a prostitute.  The case is shocking on a variety of levels, and anytime the Parole Board is party to violence in the community, Public Safety Canada and the Minister responsible, MP Bill Blair in this case, must provide answers.

              Marylene Levesque (22)

Viersen, being a long time advocate against sexual violence and human trafficking, wasn’t about to sit this one out.  Climate change activist Collins, in contrast, was clearly out of her depth on the discussion, but she jumped in, regardless.  Diverting blame, she went on the offensive by attacking 2014 Bill C-36; legislation that actually made it a crime for the Parole Board to permit an offender to see a prostitute.  Ironically, Collins condemned the very thing that should have prevented Levesque’s violent death.  It didn’t because laws were broken!  She claimed Bill C-36 criminalized women in prostitution and prevented them from taking precautions.  In fact, the opposite is true.  The Harper Conservatives have been the only government to pass legislation to protect exploited persons from criminal responsibility.

Collins, didn’t stop there.  She went on to repeat the old but dangerous mantra, “Sex work is work.” It argues that normalizing sex industry activities, and removing the stigma from who participate in it, will somehow keep “sex workers” from harm.  It won’t, and that’s why it’s dangerous, but that’s the narrative.  And if she really believes it -that women should be able to navigate a career in prostitution without loss of dignity or social status, she shouldn’t have a problem with Viersen’s question.  From her view, the question must be considered on par with asking if she had ever thought of studying medicine.  Anyone finding Viersen’s question inappropriate, in that context, must grapple with their own contempt for women in the sex industry.  The MPs who did, Collins included, have called into question their own ability to speak to the issue.

If Viersen was smart to ask the question, then what was his blunder?  Though he outfoxed his opponents across the isle, he caved to pressure for an apology.  In doing so, he forfeited a golden opportunity to call out those who had just displayed such ignorance and hypocrisy.  The bright point in this story, however, is that Arnold Viersen didn’t hesitate to run the gauntlet to acknowledge a precious life lost and, perhaps, prevent the next one from being taken.  For that, he has earned my respect.