Background[ edit ] There has long been a general agreement that the status quo of prostitution in Canada was problematic, but there has been little consensus on what should be done. While the act of exchanging sex for money has been legal for most of Canada's history, the prohibition of the activities surrounding the sex trade has made it difficult to practise prostitution without breaking any law. The first recorded laws dealing with prostitution were in Nova Scotia in Following Canadian Confederation in , the laws were consolidated in the Criminal Code in These dealt principally with pimping, procuring, operating brothels and soliciting.
Most amendments to date have dealt with the latter; originally classified as a vagrancy offence, this was amended to soliciting in , and communicating in Since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms became law, the constitutionality of Canada's prostitution laws have been challenged on a number of occasions, successfully so in , leading to a new legislative approach introduced in Before the provisions were struck down, the Criminal Code made the following unlawful: [7] owning, managing, leasing, occupying, or being found in a bawdy house, as defined in Section Section declared invalid by the Ontario Court of Appeal, March This does not specify for any particular purpose, such as sexual exploitation On March 26, , the Ontario Court of Appeal struck down part of two provisions, subject to appeal, and the declaration is not in effect.
Lawyers for the respondents pointed out that the last minute appeal left them little time to respond. Automobiles are considered public spaces if they can be seen. On the other hand, working as an independent sex worker and private communication for such purposes telephone, internet, e-mail, etc.
This ambivalence can cause confusion [13] [14] leading to one judge referring to the laws as 'Alice-in-Wonderland' [15] and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court referred to the situation as "bizarre": We find ourselves in an anomalous, some would say bizarre, situation where almost everything related to prostitution has been regulated by the criminal law except the transaction itself.
The appellants' argument then, more precisely stated, is that in criminalizing so many activities surrounding the act itself, Parliament has made prostitution de facto illegal if not de jure illegal.
