A ban on advertising sexual services took effect Saturday as part of the federal government’s new prostitution laws — but at least one of Canada’s leading independent newspapers says it plans to defy it.
The prohibition is one of several sweeping new changes to the way prostitution is now regulated in Canada in the wake of a Supreme Court decision last year that found the old laws violated the rights of prostitutes.
But Toronto’s Now Magazine, which has long published ads promoting sexual services in the back pages of its weekly tabloid, has no plans to stop, said Alice Klein, the alternative newspaper’s editor and chief executive officer
“Now Magazine started taking sex ads because we take ads, that’s how we support ourselves and we have always refused to discriminate against sex work and sex workers,” she said in an interview.
“We are committed to free expression and we don’t believe it’s our right to say which advertisers are allowed to advertise and which advertisers aren’t.”
The Supreme Court struck down Canada’s old prostitution laws last year, ruling they deprived sex workers of the right to a safe and secure environment.
In response, the government introduced Bill C-36, which upended prostitution legislation in Canada by criminalizing the purchase of sex — but not its sale.
Through the law, the government is also cracking down on all those who profit from the sale of sex.
“We will hold those who are advertising — not the prostitute themselves, but those who are advertising these services either through papers or online — also to criminal account,” Justice Minister Peter MacKay said last July.
Klein said Now has sought advice from one of the lawyers behind the Supreme Court challenge.
“This is another area of the law which just makes the lives of sex workers really difficult and of course attacks their ability to earn a living,” she said.
“But the law does say that sex workers themselves are allowed to advertise, and our legal advisers understand that to include the publication of their ads in our publication.”
In Vancouver, sex workers are already reporting that some online advertising services are refusing to take ads for explicit sexual services, said Kerry Porth, a board member of Pivot Legal Aid Society in Vancouver and a former prostitute.
“It makes it harder to work indoors if you can’t actually advertise where you are and what you’re doing,” she said.
