Justice committee  Thank you to the members of the committee for inviting us to speak about Bill C-5. I'm the co-executive director of the HIV Legal Network and I'm presenting today on behalf of my organization and the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation. Today I'm going to focus my remarks on the se

Justice committee  Yes, and I thank you for that question. What I said before is that when you characterize everything as abusive and if you characterize all sex work as a form of exploitation, there's no distinction to be made between sex work and abuse of labour practices or trafficking. The leg

Justice committee  Absolutely: We know that subsection 213(1.1) is a new provision that was introduced under PCEPA that criminalizes public communication in places near children—schoolyards, day cares and parks. There's also the section 213 that was not struck down under the Bedford decision, which

Justice committee  Thank you, Randall, for that question. When you criminalize communication in the purchase of sex, people aren't able to negotiate the terms of the transaction in a clear and concise way to say what they're willing to do and for safer sex measures. That impedes that communicatio

Justice committee  As you know, in the Supreme Court of Canada decision, the court struck down three provisions: living on the avails of prostitution, common bawdy house, and communication. The PCEPA actually reinscribes those very same provisions, adds the prohibition on purchasing and a prohibit

Justice committee  Yes. Thank you for the question. I want to quote the Supreme Court of Canada in Bedford. It's a case we intervened in almost 10 years ago. The Supreme Court said at the time that a law that prevents sex workers from taking basic safety precautions is “a law that has lost sight

Justice committee  Thank you for having me here today. I'm a lawyer and co-executive director of the HIV Legal Network, an organization which has worked alongside sex workers since our inception almost three decades ago to advocate for laws and policies that uphold their human rights. I want to ta