Justice committee  Perhaps it would be helpful to the committee to review paragraph 165 of the Supreme Court of Canada's Bedford decision, which talks about how all prostitution provisions are interrelated and intertwined. The Supreme Court is asking us not just to look at what is criminalized, but also what is not criminalized.

Justice committee  You're right. The bill is clear that because one of the main objectives is to reduce prostitution, deter it, and discourage it, purchasing and communicating for that purpose is criminalized in all places, which is consistent with the objectives of the bill to reduce prostitution itself.

Justice committee  It's an objective test. Where children can reasonably be expected to be present is a qualified, objective test, and so the courts will look at a person in the position of the accused, whether or not that person would have known that children could reasonably be expected to be present.

Justice committee  Yes, as Mr. Piragoff has clarified, it's not about whether or not a child is actually present. To use the minister's example with regard to two teenagers in a bar, a bar is not a place where children could reasonably be expected to be present, so it's likely—

Justice committee  At 2 o'clock in the afternoon, it would be far more likely that a court would find that it met the test in that case.

Justice committee  As I understand, we did receive some submissions from non-Canadians. Those submissions were considered but were not counted in the final count.

Justice committee  You're talking about working cooperatively together whereby the only benefit received results from the sale of one's own sexual services. The answer is that Bill C-36 does not criminalize that scenario.

Justice committee  I think we have to be careful to read the bill with all of its component parts. We have a legislative exception that would apply to a person who offers, let's say, protective services. If people were working cooperatively together and they all contributed a portion towards the protective services that were provided, at a fair value, and that person wasn't at all involved in the prostitution other than acting as a body guard, Bill C-36 would not apply to that scenario.

Justice committee  Now we're getting into factual determinations that need to be made by the court.

Justice committee  As I said, if the third party who was present falls within a legislative exception and the people are working cooperatively together and the only benefit they are receiving from the others is the safety of proximity, Bill C-36 does not criminalize anyone in that scenario.

Justice committee  I think you're referring to the legislative exceptions to the material benefit offence.

Justice committee  As the minister said, those exceptions ensure that people who sell their own sexual services can develop legitimate family and business relationships, just the same as you or I. It has a number of different exceptions. I think what you're referring to is the fourth exception, which allows for some informal arrangements where services or goods are not offered to the general public, but they might be offered to a particular person, for example, a friend who is willing to provide some protective services on a weekend, let's say.

Justice committee  Thank you. Again, I would bring you back to the general principles of criminal law. Definitely one of those persons could be found a party to the advertising offence if a crown could prove knowledge of (a) the existence of the ad, and (b) the fact that the ad was in fact an ad for sexual services.

Justice committee  I don't believe Canada has jurisdiction over websites that are hosted in other countries. That said, my understanding is that websites do cooperate with authorities.

Justice committee  I would refer you to the general principles of criminal law that require proof beyond reasonable doubt. So a crown would have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that a particular advertisement was an advertisement for the sale of sexual services.