Justice committee  I think that wouldn't happen because I believe that exploitation is taking place precisely because it is criminalized. When you push the industry underground and when sex workers aren't able to call the police, when sex workers don't have access to labour standards, and when they

Justice committee  I believe it will remain the same. There are a couple of reasons I believe that. One is talking with my colleagues in New Zealand and learning that both the purchase and the sale of sexual services are roughly the same. I know there is this understanding that if we decriminalize

Justice committee  Sorry, could someone repeat that in English? I didn't quite hear it.

Justice committee  Thank you. The question is with regard to how addressing poverty and addressing social housing can impact the sex industry. I think what it will do, not just for the sex industry but for work in general, is to give people more options. Giving people more options to make the choi

Justice committee  From what we know in Ottawa, overall the number of clients approaching sex workers on the streets has not gone down. I know this anecdotally. I don't have any research to back it up. But clients are displaced for periods of time while they are conducting what they call the street

Justice committee  I think that you never, ever help someone by taking away an option, and I would never want to take away the option of sex work from someone. But I would want to create more options so that everyone can make the decision whether they want to do sex work or they don't want to do se

Justice committee  Unfortunately, the relationship between the police and street-based sex workers is still extremely negative since they started arresting clients rather than sex workers. What has been told to us by sex workers is that even though the police aren't laying charges, they are still h

Justice committee  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

Justice committee  I'm sorry, I'm not understanding the question.

Justice committee  Sure, I would say that our ideals are neither. I'm sorry, can you just repeat the last part? The question was ideally would it be eradicated or....

Justice committee  Thank you. My name is Emily Symons. I'm the chair of POWER, which stands for Prostitutes of Ottawa-Gatineau Work Educate and Resist. We are a sex worker-led organization founded in 2008, and we advocate for sex workers' human rights and labour rights. We envision a world in whic