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

Page: 71sufficient to establish indecency without also considering that the performanceswere similar to prostitution.[164] There is nothing in Supreme Court‟s reasons in Mara to indicate that itadopted the views of this court about the purpose of the prostitution provisions.This is not surprising, given that this court relied on the reasons of Lamer J. inthe Prostitution Reference. Justice Lamer was speaking only for himself in thatcase, and his opinion about the objectives of the prostitution provisions wasrejected by the other members of the Supreme Court.[165] Having concluded that this court‟s decision in Mara is not controlling, weare left to assess whether the legislative history of the challenged provisionsreflects a broad, overall objective of discouraging, and even eradicating,prostitution. As we will explain, we are not persuaded that it does. On thecontrary, if anything can be gleaned from the history of the treatment ofprostitution in Canada, it is that acts of prostitution associated with publicnuisance and the exploitation of prostitutes by pimps are to be prohibited, butprostitution itself is tolerated.[166] The clearest expression of this approach is found in the dissenting reasonsof Wilson J. (L'Heureux-Dubé J. concurring) in the Prostitution Reference, atpp. 1216-1217:While it is an undeniable fact that many people find theidea of exchanging sex for money offensive and