Canada invokes many beautiful images to people around the world. Some recognize it immediately for its rugged and beautiful landscape. Others know it for the friendly demeanor of our neighbors to the North (or West, for us Buffalonians) and maple syrup.
Now, Canada will be known as the icy land with the friendliest brothels on the planet.
The Ontario Court of Appeals made a sweeping decision on Monday to legalize brothels, calling the restrictions on prostitution dangerous handcuffs on an already dangerous profession.
Although the ruling will not take effect until a year from now, prostitution advocates are chalking it up as a big win for women involved in the sex trade. Before this, prostitution was already legal in Canada, but there were stifling laws limiting it.
Previously, it was illegal for anyone to make his or her money off the profits from prostitution.
This was intended to prevent people from pimping out prostitutes and exploiting them for personal gain, but it had a side effect of making it impossible for the prostitutes to hire bodyguards.
In conjunction with having the right to be protected, Ontario's highest court also gave prostitutes the right to do their deeds indoors. Without somewhere to actually complete the transaction, it makes it exponentially more difficult and dangerous to be a prostitute.
Not every part of the ruling makes hooking easier. The court also upheld a ban on public solicitation of sex services. While some advocates decried it, this aspect of the law is good. Even if you want it to be legal, there's no doubt you want people talking loudly on the neighborhood street corner about how much certain "services" cost.
With the Great White North moving forward on making prostitution safer, a question is raised for us Americans: Why aren't we moving forward to legalize prostitution?
It's a question worth asking, but one with an answer unlikely to come out any time soon. Even if there were a couple of senators brave enough to come forward with legislation on the national level to decriminalize prostitution, they would be blasted in their next elections for being the person that tried to legalize turning tricks.
The same would go for anyone who voted for a measure like that.
Certainly it is a debate worth having, but one that we are pretty much indifferent about. Most of us, if forced to make a stand, would stand on the side of legalization for many of the reasons stated, and some of our editorial board didn't think that legalizing prostitution would send a good message to kids, but almost everyone really didn't care one way or the other.
Maybe that's the way it would turn out on Capitol Hill. Maybe someone would put the legislation out there and it would just be forgotten about after a little debate. At least after that, though, we could say that we actually had a serious debate about an issue that people are concerned about.
So we say good luck to Canada. We're all glad that you're doing what you have to do to ensure the safety of the oldest profession on earth.
