Report on prostitution slammed for adopting language of activists 

This story was updated June 28.

Parliament’s Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights is facing criticism from some anti-prostitution groups for issuing a self-contradictory and ultimately troubling report contending that Canada’s current prostitution-fighting law does more harm than good.

In the second of 17 recommendations supported by the committee’s Liberal and NDP majority, the report, made public June 22, concludes that the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA) “causes serious harm to those engaged in sex work by making the work more dangerous.”

Although the committee stopped short of calling for the law’s repeal, its report embraced the “sex-positive” and “harm-reduction” language of activists who want to completely decriminalize prostitution. For example, the report describes prostituted persons as “sex workers” and it terms prostitution as an “industry.”

NDP members of the committee issued a supplementary report calling for decriminalization of prostitution, while Conservative members issued a dissenting report underlining their support of the current law.

Although it doesn’t call for any specific amendments to be made to the existing law, the report presumes that the government will move in this direction, and so urges that extensive consultation and study be undertaken before Parliament acts.

The existing law, which was enacted in 2014 under a Conservative government, frames prostitution as a form of violence against women and youth, and it criminalizes both those who purchase commercialized sexual services and those who profit from it, such as pimps and bawdy-house keepers. On the other hand, the law gives prostituted persons immunity from prosecution and encourages them to exit prostitution.

Any change to adopt, for example, a harm-reduction model that would treat sex between consenting adults as a non-criminal act would contradict a position taken by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops in a November 2021 pastoral letter.

That letter, entitled “For Freedom Christ Has Set Us Free,” called the 2014 law “a positive step forward and an example to other countries of how both to protect the victims and to hold the buyers accountable.”

The pastoral letter applauded the law for focusing on the demand for paid sex, which the bishops said is the “underlying cause of trafficking.”

“Canada’s legislation recognizes that prostitution is by its nature exploitative and violent,” the letter said, “that it objectifies the human body by commodifying sexual activity, and that it has a disproportionately negative effect on women and children ... Prostitution is violent and exploitative. Stopping the demand for buying sex is the only way to prevent more crimes and the harm caused to the victims of prostitution.”

Similarly, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver’s Anti-Human Trafficking Committee submitted a brief to the Justice Committee in February calling for the law to be maintained “because it targets serious social problems directly or indirectly associated with the prostitution of (mostly) women and youth, while at the same time recognizing and balancing the rights of those who are involved in it as prostituted persons.”

The archdiocesan committee has not commented on the new report, but six feminist anti-prostitution groups, including the Aboriginal Women’s Action Network and the London Abused Women's Centre, issued a joint press release on June 23 condemning the report.

“Our experience and the one of thousands and thousands of women here and around the world is that women end up in prostitution by a lack of choice in their lives,” the release said. “Reducing the work of the state to preventing harm in such a narrow and blindfolded manner is dangerous for equality for all women.”

Hilla Kerner, a member of Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter, is quoted in the release as saying, "While the report aims to prevent the harm in the Canadian sex industry, it utterly fails to recognize the sex industry as inherently harmful, exploitive and a violent social phenomenon.”

The Conservatives’ dissenting report says the current law “confirms to Canadians, and particularly women and girls, that they are valuable and worthy of protection.” The Conservatives called on the Liberal government to acknowledge that the current law “is a crucial tool that protects women and girls and criminalizes exploiters and traffickers.”

What’s confusing some observers is that, at the same time as the committee’s report denigrates the current law, it also calls for that law to be more consistently applied throughout Canada. This recommendation appears to take aim at such jurisdictions as the City of Vancouver, which has ignored the 2014 law by refusing to prosecute persons who buy sex as long as the prostitute consents.

Glendyne Gerrard, director of the Mississauga-based Defend Dignity organization, which supports the 2014 law, said in an interview with The B.C. Catholic that she is anxious to see how the government will respond to the report. On one hand, she is grateful that the Justice Committee heard and recognized her group’s concerns and that it did make some positive recommendations, such as one calling for the elimination of Section 213 of the Criminal Code, which criminalizes public solicitation.

On the other hand, the majority of the committee “imply that PCEPA causes harm to sex workers ... We don’t believe there is harm caused by the law. Rather, the harm is caused by those who traffic or exploit, or those who purchase. And so we would continue to stand for that, to address demand.”

Gerrard said her organization also rejects the language that the committee uses to describe prostitution. “We don’t see it as legitimate work,” she said.

“Yes, it is definitely disappointing. But the fact they didn’t recommend repealing ... still gives us hope. And we will continue to do all that we can to influence parliamentarians to really understand what’s at stake here.”

Under the House of Commons’ Standing Orders, the government has 120 days to file a “comprehensive response” to the Justice Committee’s report.

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