Toronto, May 30, 2024 – This week, the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) was granted leave to intervene at the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Kloubakov, a case challenging the constitutionality of several laws criminalizing sex work in Canada.
In 2014, Parliament passed the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA). PCEPA established Canada’s current sex work laws after the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the previous sex work laws in Canada (Attorney General) v. Bedford for violating sex workers’ Charter rights. The implementation of PCEPA not only criminalized clients, but also criminalized the exchange of sex work for consideration (such as money) for the first time in Canada.
The appellants in Kloubakov are non-sex worker third parties who are challenging only the provisions related to procuring and material benefitting from sexual services, alleging violations of the s.7 (life, liberty, and security of the person) rights of sex workers.
LEAF will be intervening to highlight the importance of taking an intersectional, substantive equality-based analysis when assessing the impact of these provisions on the security of sex workers. Moreover, LEAF will be emphasizing the importance of considering the impact of these provisions in the context of the entire PCEPA scheme and its discriminatory impact on sex workers.
“We know that the laws criminalizing sex work harm sex workers,” says Pam Hrick, Executive Director and General Counsel of LEAF. “These laws undermine sex workers’ dignity and equality rights – and overwhelmingly impact already marginalized women, trans and non-binary people, including Black, Indigenous, racialized, disabled, and migrant sex workers.”
While LEAF is glad to have the opportunity to appear at the Supreme Court in this important case, it is deeply disappointed that The Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform (CASWLR) was denied leave to intervene.
“By denying leave to the Alliance, the Court will miss an essential opportunity to hear from sex workers themselves, who are the most directly affected by the harms of this legislation,” says Hrick. “Decisions about sex workers’ rights should not be made without sex workers in the room.”
We were similarly disappointed that Pivot Legal Society, the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers — organizations planning to highlight the distinct harms facing Indigenous, racialized, and migrant sex workers — were also denied leave to intervene.
LEAF is grateful to be represented pro bono by Andrea Gonsalves, Olivia Eng, and Alexandra Heine (Stockwoods LLP) in this intervention. LEAF also thanks the expert members of the case committee that are helping to shape this intervention: Gillian Calder, Julie Kaye, Ummni Khan, and Kate Shannon.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Roxana Parsa
Staff Lawyer, LEAF
[email protected]
About the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF)
The Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) is a national not-for-profit and charity that works to advance the equality rights of women, girls, trans, and non-binary people in Canada through litigation, law reform, and public legal education. Since 1985, LEAF has intervened in more than 130 cases that have helped shape the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. To find out more, visit www.leaf.ca.
