Category: Provincial (Page 2 of 2)

To an outsider, the Manitoba New Democratic Party would appear a strange beast. Unlike their federal counterparts, Manitoba’s NDP has actually governed for a large amount of time. The federal party has never held power.

So it comes as no surprise that the provincial party has a more pragmatic approach to governing, and leans more centrist than its federal cousin. This could really be seen during the years of Premier Gary Doer who often made decisions that appeared to be more in tune with federal Liberals or even Conservatives than the NDP. The Selinger government has moved back closer to the left, but some things still perplex me.

A case in point is the Manitoba NDP approach to crime. It is understandable to a point for when they came into power, Winnipeg had some crime problems that had to be looked after. Car theft and murder capital are not good titles to hold.

This brings us to last week. The Winnipeg Free Press reported that Andrew Swan, Manitoba Justice Minister, had urged the federal government to use the Nordic Model when it comes to the sex trade in Canada. It seems that the Manitoba party of the left is going down the road in lockstep with the federal party of the right.

I have voiced my opinion on this matter in two previous posts about federal Minister Peter MacKay and WInnipeg MP Joy Smith.

So now the provincial NDP are weighing in and it seems that they also fail to see what the Supreme Court was trying to say. The short version of the Court’s decision was that you could regulate but not outright ban the practice of sex work in Canada. To me at least, it appeared that they said that any outright ban on prostitution would fail when challenged in the Court.

“It should make any purchase of sex illegal, period. But we should decriminalize the victims of sexual exploitation, ” Swan was quoted as saying in the Free Press.

Now I do understand how this fits in with the NDP’s outlook that everyone should be allowed a certain amount of dignity in their life regardless of their economic abilities and that the poor and disadvantaged among us must not be allowed to be mistreated or victimized by others in our society. I share this outlook on life, and I do believe that people should be afforded dignity by their fellow citizens and by their government.

This is where the argument breaks down. How can you claim to be honouring a person’s dignity and then tell them that their personal decision to do what they choose with their body is not acceptable? You cannot give someone the right to determine their own future and then take choices away. Consenting adults have the right to make choices for and about themselves. As per Swan’s comment, yes we should decriminalize the victims of sexual exploitation, no one would think that’s a bad idea. His comment is actually meant to infer that all sex workers are victims of sexual exploitation. While many sex workers are victims, some are not, and lumping everyone together is disingenuous.

Again, from the Free Press article:

Swan said crafting a fair prostitution law is complex, but targeting demand will decrease the number of sex-trade workers who are murdered or go missing. And it will reduce the levels of coercion many young women face from pimps and sex traffickers.

This is where the proponents of the “Nordic Model” lose me. To recap, the Nordic idea is to target the customers, the johns, of the sex trade and make it illegal to pay for sexual services, but not to receive payment. This decriminalizes the sex worker but keeps the customer criminalized. The idea behind it is to reduce prostitution by drying up the demand. This does not make sense. It is already illegal to pay for sex and people still do it. The customer is already taking that risk today, decriminalizing the sex worker will not change demand.

I also do not understand why targeting demand will necessarily reduce the number of sex workers who are murdered or go missing. I do not believe that everyone who wants to pay for sex is a murderer. My feeling is that to lessen the number of prostitutes that go missing or get murdered is to have a place for them to work that would be safer. A legal brothel in my mind would be a much safer environment than the back alleys and cars that the illegal johns would still be hiding in. If parts of the industry remain illegal, then pimps and sex traffickers retain their power of coercion over their victims.

The only safer environment is a regulated legal environment.

I understand what is going on here. The NDP has traditionally been the party that most defends the rights of minorities, women, and the poor. Therefore, on the surface this seems to be the right position. Sex workers, mostly women, are often victims of sexual abuse, coercion, and outright violence up to and including rape and murder. I don’t pretend for a minute that this doesn’t happen.

Where I start to think differently is what the reasons are for the problems that women, and some men, in the sex trade face. To me a huge part of the problem is that society as a whole has a real problem with talking about and acknowledging sex. Slut shaming is almost like a national sport in much of our society. Who one has sex with, in or out of marriage, seems to be the concern of a lot of people who really shouldn’t be concerned about it at all. People assume that their attitude and feelings on the subject should be shared by everyone. There is a big ick factor when it comes to the sexual practices of others.

This is where things become illogical.

I consider myself a feminist. I believe in the equality of women, and that is how I lead my life and my personal relationships. I abhor anyone, male or female, who would put women in a secondary class or role to that of men. I don’t stand for it.

So it confuses me when people, many who claim to be staunch feminists, discount the choices of their fellow citizens who choose to do sex work. If an adult woman chooses to have sex with someone for money, without threats of violence or coercion, I find it completely disrespectful to tell her that she cannot do that to which she chooses. It is her body, her choice.

Our job as a society is to make it so that it is not her only choice. Someone can only make a choice freely when they see that it is not the only option. To do otherwise would mean that you were a victim of coercion. That is what is not acceptable, to not allow other choices. As a society we need to stop furthering policies that drive citizens into making desperate choices in the first place. All of that being said, if someone makes the choice to work in the sex industry, it is their choice and theirs alone. I am not going to pretend that I have the moral authority to tell them otherwise.

The other thing we need to do as a society is stop marginalizing those that would participate in a legal sex work system. That is really the crux of this. When it comes down to it, this is our society’s ever present practice of slut shaming. Large parts of our society see sex workers, present and past, as somehow broken people. Perhaps many are, but I’m not the judge of that. It is not my place to pass judgement on other consenting adults doing what they decide to do.

My feeling is that sex work is more dangerous because society would rather not accept that sex workers are people too. If we could accept that they are people who need protections from traffickers and murderers, then we would go after traffickers and murderers instead of pushing the industry to the fringes of our society.

But targeting traffickers and murderers directly would actually make sense.

As an aside, the Federal Government did actually start a Public Consultation on this issue from February 17 to March 17 on the Justice Department website.

http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cons/curr-cours/proscons-conspros/index.html

Sometimes you just see something coming. You see the potential for the best possible outcome, but somehow you know that the worst or something close to it is on its way.

This is the case with the current situation on Canada’s prostitution laws. Peter MacKay needs to draft new prostitution laws by next December, and it appears that he is just going to make it worse. This is all of a sudden an issue because the Supreme Court of Canada struck down large parts of Canada’s current prostitution laws back on December 20, 2013.

The three parts of the law struck down were:

1. Keeping a Common Bawdy-House
2. Living on the Avails of Prostitution
3. Communicating in a Public Place

Now, I’m no lawyer, and I will admit that the over 80 page decision was not closely read by me. However, I do understand that the crux of the SCoC’s ruling was that the three struck down areas were struck because they interfered with the “security of the person” guarantees of the Charter.

“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.”

It really isn’t that difficult of a concept. The Court basically said this: prostitution is not illegal in Canada, therefore passing laws that make it impossible to practice a legal profession fall outside the accepted provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Court deferred its decision for a year to allow Parliament to pass new laws to regulate prostitution. It was pretty obvious to me that by “regulate” the Court meant things such as where and when prostitution could be practiced. Passing an outright ban of any kind is obviously something that would go against the spirit of the decision made public on December 20.

So, where is MacKay on all of this? He has mused the last few days that the government is not looking at provisions against prostitutes; they will now concentrate on laws that target johns and pimps.

Targeting pimps I have no problem with. These reprehensible individuals are the lowest of the low in society and in practice serve no purpose whatsoever, other than to themselves. Theoretically they are there for protection but often end up being one of the most dangerous parts of the whole enterprise.

Johns? This brings us right back to where we started. If you target johns, then prostitution will still be driven into the back alleys and underground where it currently is, and which the court clearly said is a situation which causes a prostitute to have to ply her trade in more dangerous conditions. Sure, you can make the brothel, the security guard, and the communication all legal, but if the customer gets arrested on his way onto the premises, then he won’t come to the legal premises. Prostitution will again be driven into the same dangerous underground areas that the Supreme Court said were unconstitutional because it forces prostitutes to work in more dangerous conditions because of the law.

Pass a law that makes being a john illegal, and we’ll be right back at the Supreme Court in a few years. It’s just a stupid thing to do, and by all accounts it looks like Peter MacKay is about to do it.

I think the part of this that annoys me the most is that a Conservative government could possibly be the architects of a really good law. They take the actual harms that surround prostitution very seriously. If they could actually just take the SCoC’s decision to heart and really understand it, they could craft a well thought out law.

But no, the official Tory stance seems to be, all prostitution is bad and icky. Peter MacKay said, “We believe that prostitution is intrinsically degrading and harmful to vulnerable persons, especially women and we intend to protect women and protect society generally from exploitation and abuse.” He didn’t say that that it is often degrading and harmful, or even mostly. He said intrinsically, at its core, prostitution is always harmful.

Look, I’m not going to argue that prostitution is some grand enterprise that should be honoured. I’m not going to pretend that vulnerable people, many vulnerable people, are not involved. What doesn’t help is marginalizing them even more. It also doesn’t help when all forms of prostitution are lumped together. Every time this topic comes up, someone points to child prostitution, as if we do not have laws on the books that already make it illegal to have sex with a minor child or teenager. The legalization of prostitution would not change this.

In fact, it has been my belief for years that if you stopped criminalizing the behaviour of what goes on between consenting adults, then you would have more resources to go after those who would prey on children and teenagers. They would also be easier to identify as they would be the only ones looking for sex outside the accepted legal channels. Equating consenting adults to those who would have sex with minors is essentially guilt by association; the two issues actually have nothing to do with each other.

It really comes down to the rights of consenting adults to do what they want with their own bodies and their own money. If you want to help vulnerable persons, make sure that their only economic option is not prostitution. Create a society that lifts vulnerable people out of their circumstances and make sure that no one turns to prostitution as a last resort. Fact is, some people who are involved in the sex industry are there of their own volition and have decided that for them it is a way to make money. I find it ironic that we wring our hands about this transaction between two consenting adults, but add a third person and a camera crew paying both participants and you have a perfectly legal transaction.

I guess the porn industry has better lobbyists than the prostitution industry.

To Peter MacKay: if you are actually really concerned about the livelihoods of our most vulnerable citizens, then adopt policies that make them less vulnerable, so that prostitution is not seen as their only option. Prostitution should be no one’s only option, but if they choose it as an option, I am not the moral judge to tell them different.

Mr. MacKay needs to actually understand what the Court has said. So far he has not.