I'll start with the first one, how many. It is really difficult to say because a lot of people transition in and out of sex work. We have sex workers who will do sex work when their oven breaks down and they need a new oven, or they might do sex work just at the end of the month when they have bills to pay. So it's very difficult to say.
I will say that we are extremely involved in the sex industry in Ottawa. We have numerous members who are working indoors and they're active on the boards and in “sex worker only” spaces. We have street-based workers, people who do outreach at different drop-in centres in the Ottawa area, so we are very knowledgeable about the sex industry in Ottawa.
I'm not sure what research you were referring to, but when I looked at the research in the factums filed in the Bedford case that showed the average age of entry into prostitution was 13, I actually looked it up in a little bit more detail, and that was research on underage sex workers, so the sex workers who are underage entered at age 13.
Underage prostitution absolutely happens, and I think it happens because of social issues, lack of support for underage workers, poverty, and drug use. These are all social issues that need to be addressed in addition to sex work. As I mentioned at the beginning, we don't want anyone to do sex work when they don't want to do that, and this is where sex work intersects with other issues.
I think often the number of people working in sex work underage is grossly overrepresented.