Canada (Attorney General) v. Bedford, 2012 ONCA ... - York University

Page: 126suggests that actual face-to-face communication is not the sole tool that streetprostitutes rely on to assess the risk of harm.[314] It follows that the application judge also erred by equating this case withPHS. In PHS, the record was clear and undisputed that the risk of serious injuryor death from intravenous drug use is all but eliminated when the drugs areinjected with clean needles, in the presence of qualified health professionals:PHS Community Services Society v. Canada (Attorney General), 2010 BCCA 15,100 B.C.L.R. (4 th ) 269, at para. 25. Chief Justice McLachlin summarized the trialjudge‟s findings succinctly, at para. 133, of the Supreme Court‟s reasons: “Insitesaves lives. Its benefits have been proven.” The Minister‟s decision effectively toshut down Insite was the sole and direct cause of the s. 7 infringement, and thusits impact weighed very heavily in the gross disproportionality analysis.[315] As we explained earlier in these reasons, we accept that thecommunicating provision has some material impact on the respondents‟ securityof the person because it denies them the opportunity to have face-to-face contactwith prospective customers. This is sufficient to engage the right to security ofthe person. But when weighing the impact of the communicating provision, themost that can be said is that it is one factor, among many, that togethercontribute to the risk faced by street prostitutes.The impact of thecommunicating provision on the dangers posed to street prostitutes is simply not