'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
The laws governing prostitution in Canada -- not sex work itself -- are creating inequality, a lawyer told the Ontario Superior Court on Tuesday as part of a constitutional challenge.
"Sex work itself is not a source of structural inequality. However, the impugned laws are," said Pam Hrick, the executive director and general counsel for the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund, which is an intervener in the court case.
"The effects include the constant over-surveillance by police in marginalized communities, as well as barriers, including accessing and maintaining housing," she added.
"The laws have the impact of restricting the agency of sex workers."
The Supreme Court of Canada struck down the country's anti-prostitution laws in 2013 after lawyers argued provisions were disproportionate, too broad and put sex workers at risk of harm.
The Conservative government passed a new bill to replace them in December 2014.
The Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform, which includes 25 sex-worker organizations across the country, started arguing in a Toronto courtroom on Monday that the 2014 legislation fosters stigma, invites targeted violence and removes safe consent.
They also argue it violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Under the previous laws, prostitution was legal, even though nearly all related activities, such as running a brothel, pimping and communicating in a public place for the purposes of prostitution, were against the law.
The prostitution-related offences brought in under former prime minister Stephen Harper moved closer to criminalizing prostitution itself by making it against the law to pay for sexual services and for businesses to profit from it. It also made communicating to buy sexual services a criminal offence, even if those transactions take place over the internet.
The federal government maintains those new statutes do not prevent people selling sex from taking safety measures, and that they are meant to to reduce both the purchase and the sale of sexual services.
Lawyers representing transgender, Indigenous and Black sex workers argued in court Tuesday the new laws are too restrictive and disproportionately harm marginalized groups.
Studies show Indigenous, transgender, nonbinary and racialized migrant individuals are overrepresented in the sex work industry. They also show sex workers belonging to marginalized groups are excluded from other employment sectors for a variety of reasons, including discrimination, colonialism and immigration status.
The alliance says there shouldn't be any criminal laws specific to sex work, and it has dozens of recommendations to create a more regulated industry.
Michael Rosenberg, the lawyer representing the alliance, said in court Tuesday that decriminalizing sex work "is the only rational choice" to the advocacy groups involved.
He also told Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Goldstein how he thinks it should happen.
"And in a political sense, that's what they'd like to see," Rosenberg said of decriminalization.
"But that's not how it works. In this courtroom, you aren't asked to decide what Parliament must do. What you can do is you can recognize unconstitutional legislation, and you can strike it down," he said.
The federal government has not yet had an opportunity to defend its position in court.
In a written statement Tuesday, Justice Minister David Lametti's office said the minister "will always work to ensure that our criminal laws effectively meet their objectives, keep all Canadians safe, and are consistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms."
The 2014 law required that it be reviewed five years after it passed.
The House of Commons justice committee met eight times since February to review the law and made 17 recommendations, including a call to remove specific sections of the law because of the harmful effects on sex workers.
Lametti has 120 days to respond to those recommendations and is expected to do so before Oct. 20.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 4, 2022.
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a suspect in a homicide investigation after a man was slashed in downtown Toronto on Sunday.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.