Category Archives: Canada

Charter Challenge Launched to Strike Down Prostitution Laws

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Lincoln Clarkes The Three Graces

Charter Challenge Launched to Strike Down Prostitution LawsFor Immediate Release: August 3, 2007

VANCOUVER – Sex workers in Vancouver today initiated a charter challenge in the BC Supreme Court asking the Court to strike down the current criminal laws relating to adult prostitution.

The Charter challenge is being brought by a registered non-profit society called Sex Workers United Against Violence (SWUAV), a group of current and former female sex workers from the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. The group has been meeting since 2005 and one aspect of their mandate is to lobby for law and policy reforms to improve the lives and working conditions of women involved in sex work.

“It can’t continue like this. Working girls are dying down here. The laws are to blame and they need to be struck down,” says Sarah, a member of SWUAV. “We asked the government to do something and there has been no action. So now we’re going to Court to ask them to make the legal changes necessary to make us safer.”

The Statement of Claim, filed today in BC Supreme Court, states that the current criminal laws expose sex workers to significant harm – physical and sexual violence, lack of access to police protection, social stigma and inequality, exploitation and murder. SWUAV will argue that the current criminal laws violate the security, liberty, equality and expression rights of sex workers, as set out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Katrina Pacey is counsel for SWUAV and works for Pivot Legal LLP, a law firm that operates in conjunction with Pivot Legal Society. Joseph J. Arvay, Q.C. is co-counsel on the case and has argued many leading constitutional cases at the Supreme Court of Canada.

“We intend to call evidence that will show the harmful conditions experienced by sex workers under the current criminal laws,” said Katrina Pacey “Those laws create dangerous conditions that deny the basic human rights afforded to all Canadians under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

SWUAV’s challenge follows on the heels of another recent Charter challenge against prostitution laws, launched by law professor Alan Young in Toronto. No trial date has yet been set for either case.

The following sections of the Criminal Code will be challenged:
Sections 212(1)(a),(b),(c),(d),(e),(f),(h) and (j) and (3), and 213 of the Criminal Code of Canada

The Plaintiff will argue that these sections violate the following sections of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:
Section 7: life, liberty and security of the person
Section 15(1): equality
Section 2(b): freedom of expression

Contact:
Katrina Pacey
604.729.7849

A full statement of claim is available upon request. Please call Katrina at the number above or email her at kpacey at pivotlegal dot com.

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About Pivot Legal Society
Pivot’s mandate is to take a strategic approach to social change, using the law to address the root causes that undermine the quality of life of those most on the margins. We believe that everyone, regardless of income, benefits from a healthy and inclusive community where values such opportunity, respect and equality are strongly rooted in the law.

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Ingmar Bergman, RIP

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Waiting for Bengt Ekarot

And now it can be told: I’ve never seen any of his films.

Sorry.

But I have seen this: Whispers of the Wolf, presented by SCTV on Monster Chiller Horror Theatre. It’s more or less the same, right?

Igmar Bergman’s Whispers of the Wolf

Two sisters are depressed and have difficulty dealing with reality.

Desk Clerk – Levy; Sisters – O’Hara, Martin; Midget – extra

Count Floyd‘s a bit stunned, but gamely tries to convince us it was scary. He suspects Prickley booked Bergman.

Okay, I also saw Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. And…that other Bill and Ted movie…

Grim Reaper: A hit. You have sunk my battleship!
Dead Bill, Dead Ted: Excellent! Yes!
Dead Ted: I totally knew he would put it in the J’s, dude!
Dead Bill: Good thinking, Ted.
Grim Reaper: You must play me again.
Dead Bill: WHAT?
Grim Reaper: Um, best two out of three.
Dead Bill, Dead Ted: No way!
Grim Reaper: Yes way.

Death wins. Death always wins.

See, you thought I didn’t know my Bergman!

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overheard at the Kingston…

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Scarjo

“and she’s what? Thirty? And she’s a total has-been…” said the comfortably-upholstered blonde not that far from thirty herself, to her expensively-if-more-selectively-padded circle of friends. Once you get implants, you pretty much have to shop at Bebe because nothing else fits.

“Yes, she is. Yes, she is,” agreed the brunette chorus. “But she really used to have the body.”

“I know,” said one. “But who’d have thought it would be him who’d turn out to be the smart one? The stable one? The better one?”

“She’s so overweight now. She’ just…have you seen her? She’s trying for a comeback, but she’s just…over. She can’t do work. It’s sad, really. Ever since the baby…He’s got it together, he really does. What a shock.”

And I’m sitting there, staring into my Martini and occasionally pretending to read my book, but the fact is that trying to figure out who they’re talking about is far more compelling than reading about Michel Mauvais, his accurst offspring Charles Le Sorcier, and their various intrigues in the deserted and time-haunted Castle of No Name.

And I’m thinking Affleck? Nah! Because the fact is that not only can it not be said that Jennifer Garner has let herself go, but it must be said that Ben has had it going on for quite some time and being visibly relatively together shouldn’t be cause for shock among a table of pub-going strangers, even after Gigli, or so ya’d think.

But the blonde is going on…

It appears, it doth, that her boyfriend/husband/whatever works in the film business, and this star, whoever she is or once was (it’s the movies that got small!) was up here filming something, and that, while she was filming this movie for which she was paid several million dollars, some jewelry went missing from her wardrobe. Oh, not diamonds, says the blonde, nothing like that. Only about four thousand dollar’s worth. But gone it was, and not merely misplaced, but stolen. And found in the star’s possession.
And at this point I rule that nice Jennifer Garner out entirely.

“Yeah,” says a brunette. “Who’d have thought the one with his shit together would turn out to be K.Fed.”

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quiet riot: a Canadian mob scene

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Police Horse in Vancouver

So there I was, down at English Bay, waiting for the fireworks. But I was not alone: no indeed, 200,000 of my closest strangers and several of my friends were there with me.

And they were ready for us.

The three cops.

Actually, there were a great many more than three, although a wholly insufficient number to deal with the number of people celebrating their Welfare Wednesday en plein air. Most of them, indeed, were involved in traffic-denials and bicyclist harrassment and had no free hands, what with all the pointing and waving and whistling and “hey buddy, you can’t go there”-ing they were doing, to be involved in any riot-quelling activities.

Which brings us to the three cops.

The riot police.

The specialists.

You could tell they were riot police because of the quarterstaffs they carried in sheaths attached to their saddles.

Well, I guess technically it’s the SIX cops then, if you take Brigadier’s Law into account.

The Yanko-Belgian (half Quarter Horse, half Belgian).

The Anglo-Percheron (sometimes known as the Heavy Irish Hunter).

The Freisian (aka “those ones that Martha Stewart has, you know, that match the trim on the house”).

And their associated humans.

All were dressed in proper riot gear, the modern equivalent of military plate: it’s the first time I ever saw horses with plexiglas faceguards, reinforced LED-accented tack, teensy poll helmets nestled behind the ears, shin and knee pads like an NHL goalie and, as mentioned above, quarterstaffs. Plus Tasers, guns, handcuffs, snaffles, the usual. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a broadsword, but alas I was disappointed.

And you know, they DID have a mob to deal with, much to the visible consternation of their human partners. Ooohh, those boys were not happy: they were livid, faces like slabs of meat ripped from the flank of a charging bull.

Yes, the entire time they were on duty they were surrounded by a mob six to twelve deep. A mob of Canadians. A mob with one thing, and one thing only, on its mind.

“Can I pet your horse?”

pic o’ the day: notice!

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Notice!

So this one time I was down at the Heather, and, in fact, I’ve been there more than just the one time; I’m there all the damn time, in fact, I was there today, only this one time? That was not this time. It was a completely different time. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

What? I only had two drinks!

So this time, I was down at the Heather and so were quite a number of other people, it being, I think, a Friday, and don’t we all need a good, stiff drink of a Friday? Indeed we do, and particularly myself. And one of these other people, a loquacious and somewhat recovering-fratboy-type fellow of a certain girth and a certain volume, was telling another, a much more discreet and forgettable straight man type in a hat, that he loved living on the Downtown EastSide, and why? Why, because he could take pictures of the junkies tweaking in the alley and post them to his blog.

And, as he said this, I wrote it down.

Cuz that’s how I roll, yo.

And, as I wrote it down, the manageress discreetly elbowed said frat-alum and pointed in my direction for, lo, she knows my evil, gossip-recording shenanigans from way back, and is generally the sharpest knife in the drawer to boot.

And fratboy, looking straight at me, said, “OH! Well I guess I better be careful! Big Brother is watching!”

And I said, still writing and without looking up, “Yes, but at least he’s not taking pictures and uploading them to his blog.”

Which got, it must be said, a fair round of applause, if no free drinks.

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