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COMMERCIAL SEX IS STILL ILLEGAL IN CANADA, but are prostitution bans wrong?

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Earlier this week, headlines read, “Disappointment, Joy after Ontario Court Dismisses Sex Workers’ Charter Challenge.” If you saw the news and weren’t sure what to make of it, you’re not alone.

Just as the earth had thawed enough in Toronto to let the crocuses peak through in the Spring of 2021, a chilly suit was filed in a call to decriminalize prostitution. A network prostitutes and pro-prostitution agencies called Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform (CASWLR) claimed that Canada’s prostitution laws were in violation of their members’ Charter Rights.    

The CASWLR was not able to make a coherent case and came up on the loosing side of the ruling. Justice Robert. F. Goldstein couldn’t have been more direct when he declared that none of the challenged offences violate Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.[i] He underscored that prostitution can not be considered a constitutional right and justified Parliament’s prohibition of it. He went on to recognize compassionate elements of the legislation and pointed out that the Criminal Code still allows prostitutes to take “safety measures” and “seek police assistance without fear [of prosecution].”[ii]

A representative from the group lamented that loosing in court left them feeling “deeply, deeply disappointed”. Coalition of Agencies Against Sex Trafficking (COAST), that included the likes of Men Ending Trafficking and Lifeworthy, was an intervenor on the opposite side of the case. COAST Spokesman, Robert Vallée from Parents Against Child Trafficking, jubilantly called it “a fantastic” ruling.[iii]

But who is right?

Not many years ago, Canada dealt with a similar challenge in a case called Bedford versus Canada that gave way to a new strategy meant to reduce human trafficking and other forms of sex trade violence[iv]. The new legal scheme was dubbed, Protection of Communities and Exploited Person’s Act (PCEPA)[v] and more completely outlawed the sexual services industry. Oddly, anti-human trafficking groups still can’t agree if discouraging prostitution helps more people than it hurts.

Justin Trudeau once stated, “prostitution itself is a form of violence against women.” Differing remarks from his party, however, prompted one cabinet minister to declare, “making prostitution and illegal drugs more accessible to Canadians are [Liberal] priorities.”[vi] Wherever the federal Liberals actually stood on the issue, the NDP took a clear position when their member from Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke, Randall Garrison, claimed that Canada’s prostitution laws create “unnecessary harm for sex workers” and filed a 2022 motion to refer the new prostitution laws to a parliamentary committee for review. MP Garrison urged, “the PCEPA review must begin right away because lives are at risk.”[vii]

Once the PCEPA review was scheduled, Sascha Eaton, an advisor to Men Ending Trafficking and a peer leader at Lifeworthy, helped me put together a brief[viii] for the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. In a paragraph we sum up our position and explain why we couldn’t agree with Garrison’s bid to remove laws that discourage prostitution.  

Ms. Eaton became immersed in the subculture of the sex trade when she was a minor and remained in it for more than five years. There was a time when she could not speak honestly about her experiences, but it’s been a long time since she was in that place. She testifies that the sex trade is filled with young women being subjected to physical violence and emotional trauma, and that many become reliant, as she did, on illicit substances to cope. “Relatively few women who have walked in my shoes,” she confides, “Can continue claiming that prostitution is empowering, compared to the countless others who reflect on their experiences as profoundly destructive and life-altering.”

In the end, the Justice Committee came up with a list of unhelpful recommendations but stopped short of suggesting that prostitution should be decriminalized. It did say that prostitutes should be allowed to stop traffic when soliciting for sex from street corners,[ix] that restrictions on advertising prostitution services should be lifted,[x] and that Canada should soften immigration rules to welcome prostitutes from foreign countries.[xi] That last one would not play into the hands of international human trafficking cartels, would it?

In a separate case, a Newmarket, Ontario court Judge ruled in April 2021 that recruiting prostitutes and marketing them to sex buyers could be considered a legitimate enterprise. After Justice Sutherland declared sections of the Criminal Code that prohibited such activities unconstitutional, Ontario’s Attorney General Appealed. News outlets spun the story to make it sound like PCEPA was the problem and characterized pimps as hired hands instead of what they brag about, outside of the courtroom.[xii]

Crown attorneys reached out to several experts for a variety of affidavits as they prepared to argue against the bad ruling. I was asked to focus on the harms of prostitution, and I wondered if my statistics from Lifeworthy’s Parents Hope program might be helpful.

Parents of individuals in the sex trade shouldn’t need support if “sex work” is a legitimate job, I reasoned, but that wasn’t our experience. Here’s what I was able to report:  

“The daughters first became involved in the sex trade between the ages of 12 and 20…the average age of entry was 15.7 years old. Twelve percent (six out of 50) tragically passed away in the past four years. Their causes of death include suicide, homicide and what is believed to be accidental drug overdose. Most of the parents in our Parents Hope program reported radical changes in the behavior of their daughters…physical injuries on the bodies of their daughters, especially bruising on the face, head, torso and legs… They also described deteriorating mental and physical health of their daughters and heavy use of alcohol and/or drugs.”

The appellate court disagreed with the lower court’s ruling and kept pimping laws in place. Had that case gone the other way, it may well have had an impact on this latest ruling. Thankfully, that didn’t happen.  

I don’t know that there could be a perfect legal approach in the quest for health and safety of communities and exploited persons when it comes to prostitution. What we have in PCEPA, however, is a compassionate approach that, as Justice Goldstein notes, protects prostitutes from “prosecution for selling or advertising their own sexual services” though he notes it is still “contrary to law.”[xiii] What is missing in the fight against commercial sexual exploitation is not appropriate legislation, it is the political will to genuinely discourage the practice of prostitution. If human rights issues remain a priority for Canada, prostitution will continue to be recognized as a criminal activity and the men who fund it will be held accountable. 

I suppose we can expect CASWLR to appeal the ruling they lost in the lower court and to find other avenues to try to legitimize their views. None of their efforts, however, will change the fact that prostitution is plagued by violence, coercion, manipulation, and sexual exploitation[xiv] or that Parliament was right in outlawing it. Anyone seeking to decriminalize prostitution in Canada is woefully ignorant or callously indifferent to the human toll that it takes on women and children.

[i] Page 3, Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform v. Attorney General 2023 ONSC 5197 COURT FILE NO.: CV-21-659594 DATE: 20230918, ONTARIO SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE

[ii] Page 4, Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform v. Attorney General 2023 ONSC 5197 COURT FILE NO.: CV-21-659594 DATE: 20230918, ONTARIO SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE

[iii] Disappointment, joy after Ontario court dismisses sex workers’ Charter challenge, Desmond Brown, CBC News, Sep 18, 2023 

[iv] Bill C-36: A Better Direction For Prostitutes?, John Cassells, July 14, 2014,

[v]  Canada’s new prostitution laws: Everything you need to know by Josh Wingrove, The Globe and Mail, July 15, 2014

[vi] Veterans Affairs Minister Julian Fantino as quoted in Justin Trudeau wary of proposal to regulate, tax prostitution, CBC News, Jan 17, 2014 

[vii] NDP MP Requests a Review of Dangerous Laws that put the Lives of Sex Workers at Risk NDP.ca/News, July 23rd, 2020

[viii] You can read our full brief here: LifeworthySIMCanada-e.pdf (ourcommons.ca)

[ix] “…amend the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act by introducing legislation to repeal sections 213 and 286.4 of the Criminal Code.” p. 38, Recommendation 3, PREVENTING HARM IN THE CANADIAN SEX INDUSTRY: A REVIEW OF THE PROTECTION OF COMMUNITIES AND EXPLOITED PERSONS ACT June 2022, Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights

[x] ibid

[xi] “…repeal sections 183 (1)(b.1). 196.1(a). 200(3)(g.1) and 203(2)(a) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, which unfairly put migrant sex workers at elevated risk of violence and danger by making them unable to report these incidents without fear of deportation.” p. 49, Recommendation 10, PREVENTING HARM IN THE CANADIAN SEX INDUSTRY: A REVIEW OF THE PROTECTION OF COMMUNITIES AND EXPLOITED PERSONS ACT June 2022, Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

NOTE: None of these targeted sections of Immigration and Refugee Protection create safety risks for newcomers. They safeguard foreign nationals and temporary residents by preventing them from ending up in Canada’s most exploitative, harmful, and largely criminal industry.

[xii] “An Ontario Superior Court judge has declared unconstitutional legal provisions that ban sex workers from being able to work safely…” Judge Rules Key Federal Sex Work Laws Unconstitutional, Toronto Star, April 22, 2021

[xiii] Page 4, Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform v. Attorney General 2023 ONSC 5197 COURT FILE NO.: CV-21-659594 DATE: 20230918, ONTARIO SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE

[xiv] “In my findings of fact I have identified violence, coercion, manipulation, and sexual exploitation as features of the commercial sex industry.” Justice Robert F. Goldstein, P. 136, Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform v. Attorney General 2023 ONSC 5197 COURT FILE NO.: CV-21-659594 DATE: 20230918, ONTARIO SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE

When Did Sex Become ‘WORK’?

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You might have heard it said that ‘sex work’ is real work.

I heard it most recently at a sex trafficking prevention event commemorating World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, July 30th, proclaimed by the United Nations. Presenters included officers from a Greater Toronto Area regional police service who spoke about their dealings with traffickers and a Victim Services worker who spoke about teaching school-age kids to evade traffickers. One would presume that such events are helpful and, as they purportedly prevent human trafficking, potentially lifesaving. They might not be.

‘Sex work’ does not refer specifically to sexual services (or prostitution) which is prohibited under the Canadian Criminal Code. It is a broader term that also includes legal adult entertainment, such as exotic dancing (or stripping). While the anti-human trafficking community has helped to remove stigma from victims of exploitation, especially in prostitution, the ‘sex worker movement’ presses further, to validate prostitution or as a legitimate profession.

The sex worker movement got underway in the 1970s, diligently working to shape language and narrative. One of the early activists contended the word ‘prostitute’ was tarnished and, in response, coined the term ‘sex work’ as a more inviting default.[i].  Pro-sex work activist, Elena Jeffreys writes, “The term ‘sex work’, and the history of the term, has a huge impact on the way the sex worker movement fights today.”[ii] That term had already been adopted by the World Health Organization well before the anti-human trafficking movement took root in Canada.[iii]

Photo Credit: Teen Vogue,”Why Sex Work is Real Work” article by Dr. T. Mofokeng, April 26, 2019.

There is much disorder in the sex trade and it’s common for entertainers, providing legal acts, to also engage patrons in illegal acts for extra money. Many times, the crossing of legal boundaries is quite intentional. But the boundaries are sometimes unclear to the participants. Take lap dancing for example. Is that merely exotic dancing?

A 1997 Supreme Court ruling said that the sexual contact involved in lap dancing qualifies it as prostitution. Though prostitution wasn’t technically illegal that the time, the court noted that this activity would not be considered tolerable by Canadian societal standards because “It degrades and dehumanizes women; it desensitizes sexuality and is incompatible with the dignity and equality of each human being”[iv]. But just two years later, the Supreme Court also ruled that a similar prostitution incident in the other Canadian society of Quebec was acceptable[v]. It seemed we needed a stronger legal scheme to know where to draw the line.

Fast forward to 2014 when the federal government finally made prostitution a straight-out criminal offence. Peter MacKay, our federal justice minister at the time, stated that discouraging the demand for prostitution will protect vulnerable Canadians from “prostitution’s implicit harms”[vi] including the commercial sexual exploitation of children and the human trafficking of adults. His government even thought of adding limited immunity for prostitutes on the assumption that they are exploited persons. That didn’t mean prostitution is halfway legal. It meant to discourage the purchase of sexual services, thereby decreasing the demand for prostituted women and girls, and the money that can be made by third parties. The government did not take issue with erotic arts that don’t actually involve prostitution. 

Proponents of legalized prostitution seemed to pay no heed. They carried on tagging the new crime as “sex work” and continued to lump it together with legal sex trade activities, promoting it all as a legitimate and liberating career option.

We all want health and prosperity for Canada’s young women, but some of us need to pull our heads out of the clouds. I’ve met the women and girls who have spent time in the sex trade; hundreds of them. In each case I’ve observed carnage. Extreme anxiety and depression are the norm. Chronic medical conditions and addiction issues are common. Full recovery takes many years if it is ever achieved. One in 10 young women associated with my SIM agency, Lifeworthy,[vii] has passed away.

John Cassells Speaking trafficking of minors at Queen's Park, Toronto, 2018
John Cassells with MPP Laurie Scott, combatting child sex trafficking, Queen’s Park, Toronto, 2018.

Since I began looking at the phenomenon of sex trafficking in Canada, fifteen years ago, I’ve observed that the stigma attached to prostitution has been waning among young people. One 2015 study[viii] agrees that Canadians have become significantly more accepting of it since the 1990s. It follows then, that more young people would consider it an option. As I continue to meet young women who have not yet exited the sex trade, I repeatedly hear them say:

“It’s not a moral issue for me, it’s a job,” or, “Everyone’s doing it.”

It’s often not until after they exit that they’ll admit,

“It’s not a job, it’s abuse.” or “Nobody should do it.”

A young woman, I’ll call Kara, went further to express the anger she felt toward herself for becoming a trafficking victim. “I knew better,” she admitted, “I went to the human trafficking presentations at my high school, but I still got caught in sex trafficking.” She went onto explain that, when she chose to enter “sex work”, she felt empowered and safe because she was educated about sex trafficking and knew how to spot traffickers.

Young women like Kara need to hear that prostitution is profoundly harmful. They also need to know that there’s no realistic way for a young woman to safeguard herself from human trafficking once entering the sex trade.

I asked the Victim Services worker, at the human trafficking prevention event, if she warns students of the dangers and harms of prostitution. Her reply?

“We don’t get into that. They can choose sex work if they want.”  

The Ontario Government admits to having a “growing problem of child sexual exploitation” and created an “Anti-Human Trafficking Strategy” to address the issue[ix]. The strategy completely ignores the federal moratorium on buying sex, making no effort to lower the demand for young female bodies. It does target traffickers, but without interrupting the flow of money from buyer to pimp, there are even more incidents of human trafficking than ever before.  Alas, it provides one defence against victimization: awareness, including so-called prevention efforts that won’t tell vulnerable young people that ‘sex work’ is not work. How does that work out for for girls like Kara?   

[i] Elena Jeffreys, Sex Work is Work in Research for Sex Work, Issue 14, Sept. 2015

[ii] Ibid

[iii] Carol Leigh, Inventing Sex Work in Whores and Other Feminists, Routledge, 1997, p. 230

[iv] (R. v. Mara) https://publications.gc.ca/collections

[v] Therese Blais-Pelletier was charged with operating a bawdy house in Joliette, Que. In 1992. When the case eventually ended up before the Country’s top court of Canada, lap dances were ruled to be legal. Lap dancing legal, top court says | CBC News

[vi] Peter MacKay on Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act in the House of Commons on June 11th, 2014. https://openparliament.ca/debates/2014/6/11/peter-mackay-4/only/

[vii] Visit www.lifeworthy.ca for information about the Parents Hope and Daughter’s Help programs.

[viii] Study: “Acceptance of Prostitution and Its Social Determinants in Canada”in International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Cao, Lu & Mei, October 2015
[ix] Ontario’s anti-human trafficking strategy 2020-2025
https://www.ontario.ca/page/ontarios-anti-human-trafficking-strategy-2020-2025

About Legalizing Prostitution

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There’s been some chatter from Ottawa suggesting that Federal Justice Minister, David Lametti, would support changes to Canada’s prostitution laws, and that Liberal MP Hedy Fry is providing an enthusiastic push to legitimize such activities.[i] This would be an unpopular move with the majority of Canadians voters, according to a recent Nanos Research poll.[ii] Still, NDP Justice critic, Randall Garrison argues that decriminalization would bring safety to prostitutes and filed a motion in July requesting a parliamentary committee look into the matter.[iii]

Hedy Fry, Vancouver Pride 2017 Credit: InkedKenny/Xtra

Prostitution is illegal in Canada because it’s harmful to those who participate in it. That harm falls primarily on the women and girls who provide sexual services. Though prostitution is never safe, the debate about how to reduce its human cost rages on. To help you reinforce your perspective on the matter, I offer a brief rebuttal of three popular fallacies you’re likely to hear in discussions about making prostitution safer and ending the human trafficking that is associated with it.

Various Western countries have changed their legal approaches to prostitution in recent decades, providing us with an opportunity to learn from their experiences. The body of evidence internationally, demonstrates that legalization and decriminalization increase the volume of sex trade activities, and with it, human trafficking and other forms of violence. One researcher who studied the decriminalization of prostitution in Rhode Island concludes, “If prostitution is not recriminalized, the commercial sex industry, and consequently sex trafficking will continue to increase.”[iv] 

Canada’s pre-2014 prostitution laws didn’t actually make prostitution illegal but made it more difficult for prostitutes (or ‘the prostituted’) and generally gave a free pass to their male buyers. Those laws were eventually hit with a charter challenge called Bedford versus Canada.[v] The attorney who launched the challenge, Alan Young, admitted to the Supreme Court that no country that legalized prostitution has successfully reduced the violence. Still, Young won his case. But within a year, the Harper Conservatives replaced the old laws with more helpful legislation; a version of the ‘Nordic’ or ‘Equality’ model. It outlawed the purchase of sexual services while making limited concessions for prostitutes, because they are assumed to be exploited persons. We can be thankful that Canada did not, instead, legalize or decriminalize prostitution because that would have only played into the hands of human traffickers and expanded exploitation, as we have observed in other countries.[vi]

Canada’s human trafficking laws are important for prosecuting offenders and helping to raise awareness about this hideous crime, but they don’t stop human trafficking from occurring. As long as we bank on the theory that we’ll end human trafficking by arresting pimps, we’ll continue failing to protect vulnerable women and girls. This is best evidenced in Ontario where the number of charges for buying sex is negligent, but the resources poured into human trafficking prosecutions are massive. Just last year, the then head of the Toronto Police Human Trafficking Unit, Nunzio Tramontozzi told CBC news: “[human trafficking is] really at an epidemic proportion now in Toronto…and across Canada.” While he was reluctant to laying charges for the purchase of sexual services, his team was arresting one or more pimps per week, on average. What was the result? “We have victims as young as 12 years old being forced into the sex trade…we’re not keeping up.”[vii]  

Det. Sgt. Nunzio Tramontozzi Credit: CBC

Thankfully, our current prostitution laws have great potential for combatting human trafficking. I’ll explain how that works. To understand ‘the game’, you need to know the players. Many traffickers, or ‘pimps’, operate in a subculture where achievement is gauged largely by notoriety. Avoiding prosecution does nothing to build the infamy that is the quintessential measure of success. Therefore, the risk of arrest can be as much an enticement as a deterrent. Contrast that with the typical sex buyer, or “john”, who cultivates the opposite persona. To protect his good and decent reputation, he is likely to avoid arrest at all costs; even if it means resorting to self-control.

Pimps may more easily draw our contempt, but if men will stop buying sex, there will be no human trafficking of young women in prostitution. Like any other industry that operates on the principal of supply and demand, if the money stops, the sex trade will grind to a halt. You cannot stop the violence of the sex trade and allow men to fund it. We have a choice to make:  We can protect the girls, or we can protect the men who pay for access to their bodies.

As long as one remains in the darkness of the sex trade, perceptions are skewed: Laws are cruel, police officers are the enemy and one will eventually surrender to the recurring abuse that is part and parcel of the industry. Those who become immersed in this subculture quickly experience an identity shift that causes them to view the world through an entirely different lens. Studies show the impact of prostitution to include extreme mental health difficulties. The damage is so troubling that even those who help rehabilitate these women are adversely affected.[viii] The things that expose a woman to, and keep her enmeshed in, this underworld should rightfully evoke compassion and a desire to understand. But she must not be the one to guide us on matters of justice while she remains captive to that altered mindset.

There are, however, many who, exit the sex trade and regain their place in society. And they achieve this while managing debilitating anxiety, mood disorders and, often, addictions. These are the sex trade ‘survivors’ who only begin to heal once they have exited prostitution and cut ties with those who remain involved in it. They will be first to tell you that ‘sex work’ is an illegitimate term because it’s meant to deny the inevitability of exploitative relationships and ongoing violence. While some prefer not to recount the atrocities they’ve endured, others confront their past, speaking on behalf of those who cannot yet grasp the truth about their experiences. 

In conclusion, Canada’s 2014 legislative approach[ix] to prostitution provides this country’s very first offering of meaningful protection from commercial sexual exploitation. The rationale for discouraging prostitution is well founded and we must stay the course. Should the current Liberal government remove prohibitions on buying sex, it will be a callous betrayal of those for whom they claim to advocate.

[i] Liberals lay groundwork for amending law that criminalizes the sale of sex in Canada, NOW Magazine, July 2, 2020   Liberals lay groundwork for amending law that criminalizes the sale of sex in Canada – NOW Magazine (nowtoronto.com)

[ii] Poll: Majority of Canadians do not want legal prostitution: PowerPoint Presentation (myftpupload.com)

[iii] NDP Report: NDP MP requests a review of dangerous laws that put the lives of sex workers at risk « Canada’s NDP

[iv] Sex Trafficking and Decriminalized Prostitution in Rhode Island, 2009, Melanie Shapiro University of Rhode Island: Sex Trafficking and Decriminalized Prostitution in Rhode Island (uri.edu)

[v] Wikipedia provides a good overview of Bedford v Canada:  Canada (AG) v Bedford – Wikipedia

[vi] Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking? byCho, Seo-Young, Dreher, Axel and Neumayer, Eric, Does, January 16, 2012   Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking? | Together Against Trafficking in Human Beings (europa.eu)

[vii] CBC News Article, Luring of girls into sex trade reaching ‘epidemic’ level, police say | CBC News May 10, 2019

[viii] Symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Mental Health in Women Who Escaped Prostitution and Helping Activists in Shelters (nih.gov) Young-Eun Jung, Jeong-Min Song, Jihye Chong, Ho-Jun Seo, and Jeong-Ho Chae Yonsei Medical Journal. 2008, Jun 30

[ix] Canada’s new prostitution laws: Everything you need to know by Josh Wingrove. JULY 15, 2014 in The Globe and Mail