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

Page: 62record and her explicit findings of fact provide a full explanation of how shearrived at the conclusions she did. Far from preventing appellate review, herreasons facilitate it.[139] The third processing error is advanced by counsel for the Attorney Generalof Ontario. She submits that the application judge erred in making any definitivefinding as to the effect of the challenged provisions on the physical safety ofprostitutes.Counsel argues that the evidence demonstrated that prostitutionpresents intractable social problems for which there is no single, clear, andeffective solution. She submits that the application judge should have declined toenter into this policy thicket and should have simply acknowledged that theconflicting evidence provided a reasonable basis for the policy choices reflectedin the relevant Criminal Code provisions.[140] The approach urged by counsel for the Attorney General of Ontario isappropriate in division of power cases where a government is defending itsauthority to enact legislation, in some aspects of a government claim thatlegislation is justified under s. 1 of the Charter, and in cases where thegovernment is answering a claim that its legislation is inconsistent with certainprinciples of fundamental justice under s. 7. In those contexts, it may be enough,at least in respect of parts of the claims, that the government demonstrate arational basis for its legislative choices: Constitutional Law of Canada, at para.