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POLITICAL AND JUDICIAL MANIPULATION ON THE PROSTITUTION ISSUE

The former minority Liberal government lived and breathed for the sole objective of holding onto power. To this end, it was willing to undertake any legislation that would find favour with the two opposition parties in Parliament, the NDP and the more leftist, Bloc Québécois. Thus, when NDP MP Libby Davies (Vancouver - East) brought a motion to the House of Commons in February 2003, to review the prostitution laws in Canada, the Liberals were delighted to back her motion, which passed easily with the Liberal and the two left wing opposition parties' support.

Work began on the review in October, 2003. It quickly ended, however, after just five meetings because Parliament was prorogued due to the election being called. After the 2004 federal election, the Liberal Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler, who was also determined to change the prostitution laws, wrote to the chairman of the House of Commons Justice Committee, on November 19, 2004, requesting that the sub-committee on prostitution be re-constituted because of the "need to more adequately protect individuals in prostitution against exploitation, violence and abuse".

The sub-committee was quickly re-constituted with only one member from the Conservative party, Art Hanger (Calgary North-East), battling alone against the majority Liberal, NDP and BQ members of the Committee, who were all in favour of widening the prostitution laws. This sub-committee heard testimony from approximately 300 witnesses from January to May, 2005, including more than a hundred individuals who were prostitutes. (See Committee's Report, "The Challenge of Change: A Study of Canada's Criminal Prostitution Laws," page 3.)

However, before the Committee's report was finalized, Parliament was again dissolved, in November, 2005, with another election to take place in January, 2006.

When Parliament resumed sitting under the newly elected minority Conservative government, in February 2006, the opposition still held the majority of seats on the Justice Committee. The majority voted to resume the work of the sub-committee on prostitution. This latter re-constituted committee was to be composed this time of six members - two from the Conservative party, two from the Liberal party and one member each from the NDP and Bloc Québécois.

Although Conservative MP Art Hanger finally had the support of another Conservative on the sub-committee, the two Conservatives were, nonetheless, outnumbered by the four opposition members. The sub-committee was required to submit its report to the full Justice Committee on December 8, 2006. This report was to include all the findings of the two previous sub-committees on prostitution, which had been acquired during the life of two different Parliaments.

Prostitution Sub-Committee Rises Up Like a Phoenix

It is noteworthy, that this prostitution sub-committee kept rising up again and again like a Phoenix from the ashes of previous Parliaments in order to continue with its work to revise the prostitution law.

This process was in sharp contrast to the Committee set up in 2003 to review the issue of same-sex marriage. Although that Committee had traveled across the country visiting 12 cities, hearing testimony from 500 witnesses and dealt with over 250,000 pieces of correspondence, its report had not been finalized when Parliament recessed for the summer of 2003: the Committee was expected to finish its report when Parliament sat again that September. However, the Committee's work was pre-empted by the Minister of Justice Martin Cauchon, when he produced a draft of same-sex marriage legislation (Bill C-38) and announced that a non-binding reference was to be made to the Supreme Court of Canada to determine the constitutionality of his Bill. That is, the Liberal government did not want to hear the Committee's findings, which it understood would oppose same-sex marriage. As a result, the Liberal government did not permit the Committee to continue its work and the committee never sat again so it could not complete its report.

It seems that when the Liberals want to hear a committee report, such as the one on prostitution, they make sure the committee continues sitting, even over the life of several Parliaments, regardless of the fact that the Committee's work would, under normal circumstances, have ceased when Parliament was prorogued. However, when the Liberals don't want to hear a Committee's report, they devise ways to ignore that Committee, even though it is still technically sitting, since the Parliament which established the Committee was still in existence.

Sub-Committee on Prostitution's Final Report

To the chagrin of the opposition members on the prostitution sub-committee, the two Conservative members on the committee, Art Hanger a former Calgary policeman who had considerable experience dealing with prostitution, and Patricia Davidson (Sarnia - Lambton) refused to go along with the majority position on the committee to decriminalize prostitution. Instead, they struggled vigorously against that majority position. As a result, the chairman, regretfully, had to announce, when he submitted his report to the full Justice Committee in December 2006, that there was no consensus on the sub-committee as to what action should be taken on this issue.

This outcome was profoundly disappointing to the Liberals, NDP and BQ who had hoped to use the Committee's report as a platform to decriminalize prostitution. The lack of a consensus was also profoundly disappointing to homosexual activists. They had been relying on MP Libby Davies, a self-acknowledged lesbian, to have the committee recommend the elimination of the Criminal Code provisions prohibiting bawdy houses (places where "indecent acts" occur), as these provisions have been used by the police to conduct raids on gay bathhouses and other sexual meeting places.

According to MP Libby Davies, "Art Hanger did everything in his power to slow down the release of this report" (Xtra West Dec. 21, 2006). Long time Montreal homosexual activist Michael Hendricks stated in the same issue of Xtra West, "… Hanger and the other Conservative committee member are a constant obstacle to consensus. Working with someone like Hanger is like trying to run with an enormous black iron ball chained to your leg." Obviously, Mr. Hanger did an excellent job.

Judges to Settle Prostitution Issue

Frustrated by the Conservatives' refusal to bend to the will of left-wing activists, the latter have now decided to resort to the tried and true method of changing laws in Canada by arranging for politically appointed judges, in this case, the Ontario courts, to do the job for them. The Ontario courts have long established a reputation of ignoring legal principles and legal precedents by re-writing the law to suit their own ideology. For example, the Ontario courts ordered the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes, even though there was not a scintilla of evidence that marijuana provides medical benefits. The Ontario judges also declared that common law relationships were equivalent to legal marriages. The latter decision was handed down by former Ontario Court of Appeal Judge Louise Arbour, also formerly a member of the Supreme Court of Canada, and now High Commissioner of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Ms. Arbour, who never married, was living common law with the father of her three children at the time that she handed down the decision supporting legal benefits for common law couples. Other decisions of the ever "progressive" Ontario courts were the decision to support same-sex marriage, and more recently, the decision to redefine the family to legally recognize three-parent families (two lesbians and a sperm donor). See article "Ontario Court Legalizes Three-parent Family".

Access to Court Provided by Way of Leftist Professors

The court challenge is being undertaken by a prostitutes' association called Sex Professionals of Canada, led by long-time Toronto prostitute, Valerie Scott, as well as homosexual activists.

Unfortunately for them, they no longer have access to the taxpayers' money by way of the notorious Court Challenges Program, which was eliminated by the Conservative government in September, 2006. Therefore, their legal challenge of the prostitution law is to proceed with the assistance of the York University law faculty, at Osgoode Hall in Toronto, as professors there have agreed to prepare the court challenge on behalf of the prostitutes' association and homosexual activists. This is not the first time that law professors from Osgoode Hall have initiated left-wing legal challenges. It was a professor from that institution who brought the marijuana as medicine court challenge.

The court challenge to re-write Canada's prostitution law commenced in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in January, 2007.

The fix is in for judicial activism to arbitrarily change the prostitution laws in Canada.

P.S.

It is important, however, that we acknowledge the excellent work of MP Art Hanger on the prostitution sub-committee. He did an outstanding job under very trying circumstances. We seem always ready to criticize our MP's - but rarely do we thank them - and this is an excellent opportunity to do so.

Please write to Mr. Hanger at the following address:

Mr. Art Hanger, MP
Confederation Building, Room 530
House of Commons
Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6

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