Justice committee  I can answer the question with respect to the New Zealand model. The Prostitution Law Review Committee recognized, when it reviewed the success of the plan, that exploitative working conditions were long-standing in the industry and that decriminalization made no significant di

Justice committee  Sorry, I just have one comment.

Justice committee  Obviously, $20 million is a start. I would imagine that after this bill is passed my clients will be advocating for more money to be spent, as they have done throughout. So I would expect more money to be requested and sought for the social programs, the living wages that they've

Justice committee  Well, and every premium payment they make means they have to service another man to pay for those payments.

Justice committee  They're typically independent contractors. They're the entertainers. When you look at the sorts of boards on the association, you'll see there are classifications for entertainers, classifications for employees who are bar staff, bouncers—those are staff—and then you have clients

Justice committee  They will be independent contractors. Some who work in managed brothels—if they were to take it to court and to challenge it—will be able to convince either the employment standards branch or the court that there's so much control over the work that they've done that they are a

Justice committee  We fought for years to get away from the “coffee, tea, or me” world, and decriminalization of the buying of sex can take us back into that world.

Justice committee  Well there are two aspects to that. First of all, in B.C. at least, massage parlours, steam baths, and escort agencies are already included in coverage as part of the leisure industry. Their base rate is 50 cents per $100 in assessable payroll to a maximum wage per worker of $77,

Justice committee  That's right.

Justice committee  They don't have any. They don't have minimum wage. They don't have overtime. They don't have employee sick benefits, or anything like that. In Germany prostitution is legalized, so they do have the ability to register and become employees. But so far it's been taken up by very f

Justice committee  Thank you for your concerns about that. I will just point out the infirmity with the Bedford case, particularly with respect to my clients, Asian women. As I said in my opening statement, there was a complete dearth of evidence as it related to Asian women and prostitution and

Justice committee  It's one of an independent contractor, to the extent that.... Well, there are two issues. With escort agencies they're the agents, so there can actually be service providers to the women who are in prostitution, because they manage it from that. That is one of the concerns we h

Justice committee  I will. I'm sorry. I would say that the current schemes, and in particular the occupational health and safety schemes, are not adequate, and human rights laws are not adequate to protect women in prostitution. I would be happy to answer questions about those, too. Thank you.

Justice committee  Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you today. I'm a lawyer and a partner with the Foy Allison Law Group in West Vancouver, B.C. I have 19 years of experience in the field of employment law and human rights law. I have advised a number of women's groups sinc