OTTAWA—The federal Conservative government will try to abolish the sex trade by targeting “johns” who purchase sex and anyone else who profits from or advertises the sexual services of others, all the while trying to persuade prostitutes to quit selling their bodies.

A bill tabled Wednesday to overhaul Canada’s prostitution laws views the sex trade as an illicit activity practiced by women who have no options. “The bill . . . recognizes that the vast majority of those that sell sexual services do not do so by choice. We view the vast majority of those involved in selling sexual services as victims,” said Justice Minister Peter MacKay.

It sets a high penalty for an offender who pays for sexual services — up to five years in jail, or 10 years in the case of prostitutes under age 18. Fines could range from $1,000 to $4,000, with more severe penalties levied in cases where the exchange happens in public places, in parks or near schools.

Despite the government’s claim it wants to protect vulnerable women and target only at those who profit from victimizing them, the Conservative bill takes aim at prostitutes, too, depending on where and how they practice their trade.

The bill criminalizes the act of selling sex in public places or places “where children could reasonably be expected to be present,” in MacKay’s words. It bans the advertisement of sex for sale online, as well as targeting anyone who receives a “material benefit” as a result of an “exploitive relationship” with prostitutes, he said.

He said the aim is not to arrest physicians or cab drivers who might interact with prostitutes. However, when asked about drivers or bodyguards hired by prostitutes for personal security reasons, MacKay said the test for a court would be the existence of an exploitative relationship.

The Supreme Court of Canada had overturned the law against “living on the avails” of prostitution because it was too broad and did not allow prostitutes to voluntarily hire bodyguards, drivers or receptionists who could help them in setting safe working conditions.

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Inspired by similar laws in Scandinavian countries known as the Nordic model, MacKay called his approach “a Canadian model.”

He says it amounts to a “substantive and comprehensive plan” that addresses not only “community protection, but protection of vulnerable people,” and that it recognizes “the inherent dangers associated with prostitution, including many of the other real challenges in the country, including poverty, violence, addiction, mental health.”

MacKay said his legislation is accompanied by “programming aimed at helping women exit — predominantly women — exit prostitution.”

“This will not be a legislative response that will answer all the ills associated with prostitution,” said MacKay. “If there were a perfect black and white, simple answer, after thousands of years, I think it would have been discovered.”

But prostitutes and their legal advocates were aghast, saying the bill is actually worse than what existed before the high court struck down communications and brothel laws.

“I’m devastated and heartbroken,” said Caroline Newcastle, a 25-year-old escort who works as a prostitute in Ottawa while she does doctoral studies. “It’s essentially full re-criminalization,” she said, pointing to the provisions that will ban her from advertising on a website her services or communicating online with clients regarding safe sex practices or fees for service.

However, the text of the bill appears to provide an exemption or immunity from liability for those who advertise or derive material benefit from the provision of their own sexual services.

Newcastle is not looking for programs to help her “exit” the trade, saying it is her choice and the government’s approach was patronizing. “It’s making the assumption that sex work is bad. And it’s not necessarily bad.

“We all need to pay rent . . . . We all do things to make ends meet when it comes to finances, and limiting where and how we can work does nothing to help us as sex workers. Limiting the circumstances under which we can work, how we can communicate about our work, how we can attract clients . . . . I have no idea how a public place is going to be defined . . . . Is the Internet considered a public place?

“It is recriminalizing the communicating (of prostitution services),” said Newcastle, who said she represents a group called POWER (Prostitutes of Ottawa-Gatineau, Work, Educate, Resist).

Valerie Scott, a sex worker who was one of the original three prostitutes behind the Bedford challenge to the Canadian laws and got back into the trade after the Supreme Court ruling, said the bill would further drive prostitution into dark corners to practice their trade. “This is a huge gift to sexual predators.”

“We’re allowed to work indoors but not tell anyone. Clients are going to be terrified to identify themselves to us, thinking we’re the police, so we’re going to have to accept calls and book clients from blocked numbers.” As for advertising, she said prostitutes will have to pay huge fees to websites hosted out of the country “like the girls in Sweden do.”

Katrina Pacey, of Vancouver’s Pivot Legal Society, predicted the worst outcome.

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“We will see more missing and murdered women in my view as a result of this legislation,” she said.

NDP justice critic Françoise Boivin said she is still reviewing the 35-page bill as to whether it will meet the concerns raised by the Supreme Court about vulnerable prostitutes and those who would harm them.

“I cannot tell you if it will make it more safe. They’ll find ways to do it, but elsewhere. Will they have as much protection? Will they have time to review the person that could be the client?”

MacKay tabled the bill Wednesday, nearly six months after the Supreme Court of Canada struck down as unconstitutional three other criminal laws first brought in by the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney.

The high court’s Bedford ruling said Canada’s laws against communicating for the purposes of buying or selling sex, keeping or attending a brothel, and living on the avails of prostitution were overly broad. By barring women from being able to work at safe houses indoors or hiring drivers or bodyguards, the laws forced them onto streets or into furtive exchanges that prevented them from screening for “bad dates,” the court said. By creating conditions that risked the health and safety of vulnerable women, the laws were declared a breach of their right to security of the person under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“Parliament has the power to regulate against nuisances, but not at the cost of the health, safety and lives of prostitutes,” the court said.

A report released Tuesday by a coalition of Canadian prostitutes warned the Conservative government that proposals to target the clients will drive the trade only further underground and increase the danger the women face, and would eventually be found unconstitutional.

The Vancouver-based Pivot Legal Society, along with a group from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside called Sex Workers United Against Violence, cited research results showing that this was the impact after Vancouver police adopted new guidelines that were effectively a Nordic model of law enforcement.

They said when police target clients or places where prostitutes work, “the presence of law enforcement makes it harder to earn an income and forces sex workers to take clients or agree to riskier services that they would otherwise refuse due to safety concerns.”

In the Commons, MacKay was challenged about why the Justice Department did not release a public opinion poll it commissioned of 3,000 Canadians, and instead released only its online consultations.

La Presse newspaper cited a Jan. 13 memo written by Justice Department officials to MacKay that said the opinion poll results that don’t reflect the current policies of the government “may necessitate explanations.”

MacKay told the Commons the poll “will be released in due course.” The Conservatives have required public opinion polls commissioned by the government to be released within six months, or by July in this case.

Instead, MacKay’s department has pointed to the results of online consultations that elicited more than 30,000 responses. It suggests 56 per cent of respondents supported criminal penalties for the purchase of sex, while 66 per cent believed the sellers of sexual services should not be subject to the criminal law.

With files from Alex Boutilier

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