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

Page: 93[226] The first device was to limit the prohibition to those who provide goods orservices to prostitutes, because they are prostitutes.This assumes that thelegislation is not intended to deprive prostitutes of the necessities, or even theluxuries, of life. It is not meant to cover every person whose livelihood dependsin some way upon payment by prostitutes – e.g. the grocer, the doctor and theshopkeeper – but only those whose “net reward is the direct and intended resultof prostitution” – the “tout, the bully or protector”: Shaw, at pp. 263-264, perViscount Simonds.[227] The second interpretive device was to equate “living on” the avails ofprostitution with living parasitically on the avails of prostitution. Lord Reid, writingseparately in Shaw, explained at p. 270: “„Living on‟ normally, I think, connotesliving parasitically.”In other words, the prohibition applies to those whoseoccupation “would not exist if the women were not prostitutes.”(b) The Grilo refinement[228] In R. v. Grilo (1991), 2 O.R. (3d) 514, this court accepted the traditionalShaw interpretation of the living on the avails offence. But Grilo raised a differentproblem: does the offence apply when the accused lives with a prostitute, and issupported wholly or in part by her earnings?