On Thursday, July 24, feminists, victims of sexual assault, observers of the justice system and so many others had a big day awaiting the “Hockey Canada” decision (R. v. McLeod, et al.2025 ONSC 4319). The same day, we also awaited the decision of the Supreme Court in the Kloubakov case (R. c. Kloubakov2025 CSC 25), a judgment on the criminalization of two employees of an escort agency.
In this last case, the two men, accused of several offenses, including the trafficking of persons, challenged the constitutionality of articles 286.2 (benefit from a material advantage of the prostitution of others) and 286.3 (pimping), for which they were condemned. This case brought the old debate surrounding the possibility of making prostitution a “security profession” by allowing the development of an industry such as agencies and professions such as those of driver and manager.
In a unanimous judgment, the Supreme Court rejected the appeal. I was delighted to see the appellants dismissed in their attempt to pretend to be escort protectors and, for lobbyists behind them, in their attempt to make prostitution an economic activity sector like the others. The appellants pushed the audacity to the point of presenting prostitution as “a solution to the economic inequality of women” …
10 years ago now, Canada adopted a version of the Swedish model in terms of prostitution, which is increasingly called the “equality model”. Prostitution can be seen in several ways, but the way in which Canada has chosen to look at it to legislate, it is through the prism of an obstacle to equality between women and men, as a “practice which has negative consequences in particular on women and children” (preamble to the law). To work for several years alongside women and girls who are or who have been in the sex industry, I can testify to the physical and psychological consequences of a passage in prostitution, that it was a few weeks for adolescent girls or several months or years for women who have sailed between the activities of escort, dancer or masseuse in a living room. Women talk about these thousands of intercourse not desired as rape recorded by their bodies. Reports during which, while they pretend to be pleasure to ensure that it ends as quickly as possible, traumatic dissociation is put in place, leaving many years after consequences such as post-traumatic stress disorder, hypervigilance, night terrors, anxiety and so on.
The Kloubakov decision therefore confirms the validity of the Canadian legislative model, which aims to reduce the demand for prostitution by criminalizing the purchase and any attempt by “third parties who market the sale of sexual services”. Recall that Canadian law provides immunity against prosecution to people who sell, derive profits or advertise their own sexual services. The Supreme Court judged that these people could also take means to ensure their safety, as hiring staff, without fear that it is illegal. Because it is the heart of the debate surrounding Canadian law in matters of prostitution: does the Canadian abolitionist model harm women who sell their own sexual services? The Supreme Court has decided and the response is clear: Canadian law allows people who sell their own sexual services to take ways to ensure their safety. I will do without comments on the low percentage of people who sell sexual services that even have the possibility of considering these kinds of measures …
I salute the fact that the Supreme Court does not question the relevance of a legislative model which has this objective of wanting to build a world without prostitution, which sees prostitution as an integral part of the continuum of violence that men make men who seek to use them physically, emotionally or sexually.
To quote Andrea Dworkin, and with my most united thoughts for EM, “I want a 24 -hour truce during which there will be no rape”. And I allow myself to add to the words of this great author: whether this rape is priced or not.