{"id":9271,"date":"2014-07-13T22:27:06","date_gmt":"2014-07-14T05:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=9271"},"modified":"2014-07-17T09:55:38","modified_gmt":"2014-07-17T16:55:38","slug":"politically-speaking-prostitution-debate-rages-on-in-ottawa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2014\/07\/13\/politically-speaking-prostitution-debate-rages-on-in-ottawa\/","title":{"rendered":"Politically Speaking<\/em>: Prostitution debate rages on in Ottawa"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve decided for the summer issue that instead of politics, let\u2019s talk about sex.<\/p>\n

Okay, not really, but the politics of doing the nasty, and paying for it, are on everyone in Ottawa\u2019s mind these days as we approach the hearing for Peter MacKay\u2019s excitingly named \u201cProstitution Bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t been following, a number of months ago the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Canada may have changed a little bit since our laws surrounding prostitution were drafted way back when. We were based on the British model, which did not regulate the actual paying of actual money for actual sex, just the many facets that it brought with it.<\/p>\n

What was illegal was operating a brothel, soliciting on the street, and a number of other things your grandma would be concerned to hear about you doing. Since the court case, though, those laws have been struck down and the Supreme Court has told Parliament to get on changing the laws around the oldest of professions.<\/p>\n

Debate swelled in political and academic circles over the best way to tackle prostitution, and which of the existing models to duplicate or adapt. Few were surprised when MacKay and the Tories proposed the \u201cNordic model,\u201d which criminalizes the purchase of sex, but not the sale.<\/p>\n

Scary talk about morality and Canadian values abounds, with MacKay warning that if his government\u2019s bill doesn\u2019t pass, \u201cprostitution will be decriminalized in Canada.\u201d Let\u2019s ignore the fact that it already is. Even opponents to the bill are scapegoating and debating the idea of the bill, rather than its content.<\/p>\n

Famous conservative pundit Tom Flanagan claims that the Nordic model is based on \u201cradical feminism,\u201d which somehow makes it a less valid opinion.<\/p>\n

For what it\u2019s worth, I don\u2019t believe that the Prostitution Bill and its proposed Nordic model are the best option. Let\u2019s not punish either side of a voluntary interaction between two adults in a free market. I know that will never fly with the Tories, so I am hoping we could all drop the rhetoric and approach sex work reform like grownups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve decided for the summer issue that instead of politics, let\u2019s talk about sex. Okay, not really, but the politics of doing the nasty, and paying for it, are on everyone in Ottawa\u2019s mind these days as we approach the hearing for Peter MacKay\u2019s excitingly named \u201cProstitution Bill.\u201d If you haven\u2019t been following, a number […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,128],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-july-16-2014"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9272,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9271\/revisions\/9272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}