Well, I suppose three things would happen. The first is I'm quite convinced that the demand for prostitution would increase, both domestically and from men in other jurisdictions who will travel to Canada to take advantage of that market. We certainly see that in other jurisdictions in Europe, where buyers do move to locations where prostitution is legal. In terms of child prostitution, I think it's important to recognize that if you decriminalize the purchase of adult women for sex, it is then open to any man who is charged with purchasing a child to argue that he honestly believed that the girl was 18 years of age or older; that becomes a defence. Now with the way it is structured, even if that defence is successful, there's an [Technical difficulty—Editor] an adult, and you can be convicted of an attempt to do that, so it does have significant impacts in terms of child prostitution. The third thing that's so often overlooked in this is the effect that it has on the equality of women generally. [Technical difficulty—Editor] at the brothel, when going out to the brothel becomes just another form of entertainment for men, when billboards can openly advertise [Technical difficulty—Editor] it says something about the condition of women and in this case, Canadian women, in society. My view is that all women are harmed by an environment that does that.
On April 5th, 2022. See this statement in context.