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

Page: 84protect the public and in that context arbitrarily and disproportionately limits theliberty and security interests of the respondents.[204] We find the legislation is most significantly overbroad in its extension to theprostitute‟s own home for her own use, a result of the 1907 amendment to thebawdy-house provisions that we described earlier. This geographic overbreadthis similar to the problem found by the Supreme Court in Heywood. There, theSupreme Court found the challenged loitering provisions overly broad in theirgeographical ambit because they applied to some public places where childrenwere not likely to be present, even though the purpose of the provision was toprotect children. Here, as the application judge found, a single person discreetlyoperating out of her own home by herself would be unlikely to cause most of thepublic health or safety problems to which the legislation is directed. Further,there was no suggestion that the broader public safety problems we identified areassociated with a single person, operating by herself, in her own premises.(5) Are the bawdy-house provisions grossly disproportionate?[205] In light of our holding that the bawdy-house provisions offend theoverbreadth principle, it is not strictly necessary to deal with grossdisproportionality as it applies to those provisions. However, because the casemay proceed further, we will briefly address this issue.