Following a court ruling from Ontario that found the Criminal Code prohibitions on sex work are unconstitutional, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association called on B.C. to abide by the ruling and reform employment law accordingly.
“This is an activity that is licensed by many municipalities and advertised widely in newspapers and on street corners,” said BCCLA board member Megan Vis-Dunbar. “Given the de facto legality of sex work in many forms in Canadian communities, it is only right that we offer the same workplace protections from exploitation and unnecessary danger that we offer all workers in British Columbia, and B.C. should be proactive on this issue now.”
Sex worker advocacy organizations have proposed a number of different models of regulation
of the sex trade, and the BCCLA is calling on the provincial government to examine those
models for implementation in provincial law.
“We call on the government of BC to immediately recognize their responsibility to create
workplace safety standards and employment standards tailored to sex trade workers,” said
Jason Gratl, who represented the BCCLA in the Sex Workers United Against Violence Charter
challenge. “Striking down the criminal prohibition on the sex trade removes but one obstacle to ensuring a safe working environment for workers. Much work remains to be done.”
Many cities in Canada license body rub and massage parlours with extravagant license fees,
recognizing that activity that would be caught by the criminal law may take place there. For the workers in these licensed establishments, there are no health and safety or workplace protections because their work, until this recent decision, has been illegal. Media outlets like newspapers regularly advertise sex work and functionally “live on the avails of prostitution”, but actual sex workers are not permitted to do so.
The federal government has already announced its intention to appeal the ruling, and the
BCCLA will investigate intervening in that hearing.
Read the Ontario Superior Court of Justice’s decision
Read the BCCLA’s letter to the Ministry of Labour and the Premier
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Megan Vis-Dunbar, Board Member, 604-728-4852
Jason Gratl, Vice-President, 604-317-1919
David Eby, Executive Director, 778-865-7997
