Solicitation charges on back burner

Police to focus on ‘consumer side’ after sex-trade laws struck down

Edmonton police vice unit Det. Steven Horchuk said police are no longer laying charges for communicating for the purpose of prostitution, since the charges won’t be prosecuted by the Crown.

Horchuk said Monday police will continue to focus on the “consumer side” of prostitution, in particular cases involving exploitive circumstances. In some cases, he said, charges may be laid under the Traffic Safety Act or other provisions of the Criminal Code to deal with prostitutionrelated activity.

The province is weighing its legal response to a Supreme Court ruling striking down Canada’s prostitution laws. Defence lawyers in Alberta are urging justice officials to stay charges currently before the courts.

John Walker, a psychotherapist who has worked with survivors of sexual exploitation for 12 years, said he heard about the decision a few weeks ago and fears for sex workers’ safety.

“I find it disturbing, disappointing, because it removes the only restraint on the men who are trolling for women,” he said. “It’s already an exceedingly dangerous work environment for the women. I now know that the police won’t be patrolling or doing sting operations, so it’s basically open season.”

The precise number of defendants facing prosecution for prostitution-related offences isn’t known, but the Alberta Justice and Solicitor General department said 400 charges are affected by the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling last December.

“To continue prosecuting people under these laws is really unfair and is contrary to what the Supreme Court said,” said Shannon Prithipaul, president of the Criminal Trial Lawyers’ Association, one of two groups that represent members of the defence bar in Alberta.

Although exchanging sex for money isn’t illegal, the Criminal Code has provisions against soliciting for sex, living on the earnings of prostitution and keeping a brothel.

Three Ontario sex workers took a constitutional challenge to the Supreme Court, arguing the laws force prostitution underground and violate their charter right to “life, liberty and security of the person.”

Parliament has one year from the Dec. 20 ruling to come up with new provisions.

“There are things they could do to make (prostitution) safer — and are we ever going to eliminate it?” Prithipaul asked. “Maybe face the facts and realize this is part of society.”

Regardless of what happens, Prithipaul said it doesn’t make sense to go ahead with cases against people charged under laws that are now unconstitutional.

“Is it in the best interests to continue with these prosecutions knowing what we know?” she asked.

Karen Mykietka, president of the Alberta Avenue Community League, worries how the police’s decision will impact her community, which has been making gains to deal with issues of prostitution and john activity.

“Anyone working in that industry is going to know that it’s a free-for-all and nobody is going to be enforcing anything. I’m expecting we’re probably going to see an increase in (prostitution) especially over the summer months, and that’s not what the community likes to see on their streets,” Mykietka said.

The provincial government hasn’t decided how it will handle the cases.

“The prosecution service is looking at what can be done,” Alberta Justice and Solicitor General spokesman Dan Laville said.

One of the options available to the provincial government is the so-called “Nordic model” first employed in Sweden and later adopted by Norway and Iceland.

The Nordic model makes it a crime to buy sex, but it’s not an offence to sell sexual services. The countries that use the Nordic model believe all forms of prostitution are exploitative; the law is intended to deter men from buying sex without criminalizing women involved in the sex trade.

Calgary vice investigators are no longer conducting plainclothes operations targeting street-level prostitution.

“We’ve put a stall on all those street-level stings at this point,” said Supt. Sat Parhar of the criminal operations division.

The Supreme Court ruling had some influence on that decision, but Parhar added much of Calgary’s street prostitution has moved behind closed doors since the advent of online advertising.