Bill C-36 Enacted Today as Canada Remembers Tragic Violence Against Women

Canada’s controversial Bill C-36, which focuses on prostitution, takes effect today – which is recognized as Canada’s ‘Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women’. This is a time when Canadians reflect upon the École Polytechnique Massacre which took place on December 6, 1989 in which a 25-year-old male entered the university campus, separated female students from male, and killed 14 women before committing suicide.

Though the federal government claims the new law, officially dubbed the ‘Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act’, will provide safer conditions for sex workers, critics of the new bill say the bill will accomplish the exact opposite by endangering sex workers. Anyone convicted under the law can also be entered into the Sex Offender Registry database.

“The deeply flawed and misleadingly named Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act not only reintroduces laws deemed unconstitutional in a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court only one year ago — it actually makes them worse.

“These new measures will absolutely put sex workers in Canada at greater risk of violence, and that is totally unacceptable.” – Emily Symons, Chair of POWER Ottawa

In an earlier statement Emily Symons, chair of the non-profit organization Prostitutes of Ottawa-Gatineau Work Educate & Resist (POWER), commented on the failure of the government to take the concerns of sex workers into account:

“Bill C-36 was truly a missed opportunity for this government to work with sex workers and their allies to develop an appropriate legislative response to Bedford. Instead, they chose to reproduce the harms of
previous prostitution laws that we are confident will not stand up to a constitutional challenge.” – Emily Symons, Chair of POWER Ottawa

The law can be read in it’s entirety on the Library of Parliament website by clicking here.

Our focus, as advocates of women’s and sex worker’s rights should now be on asking local governments to challenge this bill in court and to not spend provincial funding on enforcement of the law which endangers the lives of sex workers. See our article on how you can appeal to Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne to do just that by clicking here.

As the new law comes into effect, there are already signs that it will falter, as a number of politicians, unions, and agencies begin to publicly oppose the bill.

The Vancouver Police Department has already reaffirmed that it has no plans to crack down on the sex industry, citing a their sex-work enforcement guidelines published in 2013.

“Sex work involving consenting adults is not an enforcement priority for the VPD.” – Vancouver PD sex-work enforcement guidelines

Meanwhile, 25 of Toronto’s 44 city councillors have signed a letter asking Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne to publicly oppose the bill.

As City Councillors, we work to promote measures that increase public safety and that materially improve the living conditions of marginalized residents. In particular, we are united in our efforts to end violence against women. To that end, we strive to identify and correct situtations that, however inadvertently, create conditions that are unsafe for any woman. We fear that Bill C-36 has introduced such unsafe conditions into Canadian society, bringing foreseeable detriment an real danger to some of the most vulnerable women we represent. – Letter to Kathleen Wynne from Toronto City Counsellors

Please take a moment to support sex workers by writing a letter to Premier Kathleen Wynne. Click here for more information about how to do that.