{"id":36106,"date":"2014-12-22T02:45:15","date_gmt":"2014-12-21T18:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=36106"},"modified":"2014-12-22T00:36:27","modified_gmt":"2014-12-21T16:36:27","slug":"wynne-says-ontario-will-abide-by-new-prostitution-law-despite-her-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/12\/22\/wynne-says-ontario-will-abide-by-new-prostitution-law-despite-her-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"Wynne says Ontario will abide by new prostitution law despite her concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kathleen<\/a>
Kathleen Wynne. Facebook photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO\u2014Premier Kathleen Wynne says Ontario will follow the rules of the new federal prostitution law, even though she\u2019s worried it may violate the Constitution and put sex workers at greater risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe position we\u2019re taking is that we\u2019ll follow the rule of law, the law that\u2019s in place,\u201d Wynne said in an interview with The Canadian Press. \u201cBut I have asked the attorney general to look at the potential of unconstitutionality and to give us some options in terms of what we might do going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wynne issued a statement the day after the new law came into effect Dec. 6, saying she was worried it would not make sex workers safer, and was openly critical of Bill C-36 in an interview this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not believe we should be in the business of passing statutes that in fact put women, put people in this area at more risk,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Asked directly if Ontario would consider not prosecuting any prostitution charges that are laid by police, similar to what used to happen with abortion charges, Wynne said she\u2019d leave that to the courts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat will be up to the judicial system, but we are going to be following the procedures that are in place as a result of the law,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for federal Justice Minister Peter MacKay said the Conservative government consulted widely on the issue before implementing the legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cPremier Wynne had a year to voice any concern she had, but waited for the day after the new law came into force,\u201d said MacKay\u2019s spokeswoman Jennifer Geary. \u201cA government\u2019s first priority is to protect its citizens, in this case protection from exploitation.\u201d<\/p>\n

A coalition of sex trade workers and their supporters called on Wynne to not enforce the law, which criminalizes paying for sex, communicating for sex or advertising sex services.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be strange, it seems to me, if the premier, having expressed grave concerns about whether the law is constitutional precisely because of the risk of harm that it poses to sex workers, would then go ahead and say \u2018we\u2019re going to enforce it in the meantime,\u201d\u2018 said Richard Elliott of the Canadian HIV\/AIDS legal Clinic. \u201cOur unanimous message is: you should not be enforcing the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Akio Maroon of Maggie\u2019s Sex Workers Action Project said many customers won\u2019t give their names or phone numbers for verification purposes now that they can be charged with buying sex, making it hard for prostitutes to pre-screen clients.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis law not only opens the door, but the window and spread the welcoming mat for all sexual predators to feast on the lives of sex workers,\u201d said Maroon. \u201cWe are calling for full decriminalization, and in the absence of that, we\u2019re calling on Ontario to not engage in actively arresting our clients or harassing our women on the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Valerie Scott of Sex Professionals of Canada said the federal Conservative government is mistaken if it thinks it can legislate an end to prostitution.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have our police run around like Keystone Cops arresting consenting adults for having sex is something right out of the 19th century,\u201d said Scott. \u201cThat would be laughable except for the catastrophic harm that it will cause.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many sex workers are university students who work out of apartments, and are not street savvy, and will be at greater risk by not being allowed to advertise, added Moon.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Peter MacKay is forcing these sex workers out on the streets and they do not have the street smarts or street skills to survive, we are putting them at risk of greater harm,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Wynne said she didn\u2019t want to comment on the advertising ban or other provisions of the new prostitution law other than to say she wants to hear the attorney general\u2019s options for the province.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to wade into the substance of it because I\u2019m not an expert, but I\u2019ve asked our experts to look at the law,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO\u2014Premier Kathleen Wynne says Ontario will follow the rules of the new federal prostitution law, even though she\u2019s worried it …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":15066,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","mauthors-keith-leslie","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}