Thank you.
I had 41 seconds on my clock.
I think it's important to acknowledge we're all here today because we all agree that protecting victims and survivors of violence is important. It is very clear, however, that we disagree on the best route to take in terms of ending violence against women and girls, particularly indigenous women and girls.
I think it is also important to recognize, whether we are talking about the New Zealand model or the Nordic model, that we are talking about the regulation of prostitution. PCEPA also assumes to target prostitution or full-service sex work. While the DOJ attempts to target other kinds of sex work, we have heard very little about the impact of PCEPA on other kinds of sex work, like stripping.
I speak today from lived experience, having worked in various parts of Canada and in some states. I have experience as an escort in an agency, as an independent and as a stripper.
I think a personal story is helpful to understand my experiences as a sex worker.
When I first started speaking out about my experiences as a sex worker, I took a lot of risk in doing so. The first risk is that now I'm out forever as someone who has done sex work. There is no taking that back.
The second risk is that oftentimes people have used my sex work experiences to silence me. I have had semi-nude and nude photos and my sex-working identity linked to my real identity by those who do not agree with me. This is often called being outed or the outing of the sex worker. The risks are very real. They are a loss of privacy, safety and security. I live in fear today that these images can and will be used against me to further target my privacy, safety and security.
When this outing happened, I called the police. I had little to no recourse and no charges were laid. The police did not know how handle this complaint, nor did they have any knowledge about the harms it had caused me. I felt very alone and isolated.
Today, I am a lawyer. I contrast that with a recent experience I had as a lawyer.
I was in the middle of a bail hearing. In that bail hearing I received an email from an individual who had been saving my selfies—there was nothing sexual about them—over the course of about two years. They sent them to me, along with a very sexually explicit email. I felt violated. I continued to do my job as a defence lawyer, but by the end of the hearing I sat around near the end of court waiting for a guard to appear. I asked if I could speak to him. We went to the room to discuss privately and I immediately broke down crying. I showed him the email and he took it very seriously. He took detailed notes and let me know that the police would follow up with me. They did. I had to hire my own investigator. I hired one who works with sex workers because I had a sense this might be a former client. We couldn't find any other identifying information other than that the person likely lived in the States.
The only difference between those two events is that I was a lawyer. Suddenly resources were whipped up and I was believed, with all the harms affirmed and acknowledged.
I share this story to contrast how, for those who may identify as a current or former sex worker, the idea of justice is very much out of reach. PCEPA also contributes to this.
With this being said, I'd like to draw your attention to the part of my brief under the heading of “Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis“. I think similar discussions are happening here today about data and who benefits and who doesn't benefit, but Bedford was clear that the analysis into charter infringement does not consider how many people are saved by a likely charter non-compliant bill or law. How much a population benefits is of no concern to the charter analysis, nor how well a law achieves its objectives.
It seems from the comments from the government branch tasked with proposing and drafting this legislative response to Bedford...at all material times knew or ought to have known that the legislation was or is not compliant with the spirit and intent of Bedford. It also appears that this committee is imputing that this data and ancillary benefits matter to how well PCEPA achieves its objectives and how much a population benefits. Bedford made it clear that this does not matter in a section 7 charter analysis.
Thank you.