And a big miss

The Conservatives governing Canada had an opportunity to embrace the future, to appeal to the majority, and to give up tyrannical puritanical ideals.  All they had to do was accept that the Supreme Court of Canada and the populace at large won't accept unjust criminalization of prostitution.  They could have simply done nothing, which would have been fine, or they could have written some laws regulating prostitution like any other economic activity.  Instead they doubled down on the demonization of sex and created a brand new set of prostitution laws that might even be worse than the old.

They claim the laws are better now because simply exchanging money for sex is not illegal, but nearly any way prostitution could be reasonably conducted is still illegal and the government is intent on locking up the clients of prostitutes for ridiculous durations.  So just to be clear, the government is trying to help women involved in sex work by making sure that they are constantly breaking the law if they try to conduct business and making sure that anyone that they deal with is a criminal.  This will help stop trafficking, apparently, even though this will require people to report crimes when doing so will mean they have to admit to committing one!

You know all those stories about people who get kidnapped and are forced to cut hair for organized criminals?  No?  Probably because anyone in that situation could safely run to the police for help.  Their clients could safely run to the police to report it.  Anyone at all could run to the police to tell and the kidnappers would end up in jail in about 2 hours because the police don't put you in a concrete box for five years because you got a damn haircut.

The word 'protection' is constantly thrown about in these debates and hearing that from people who support these sorts of laws just makes me sick.  You know what I *don't* do with people I want to protect?  Throw them and their business associates in jail!  I also don't make conducting their business in perfectly normal and harmless ways illegal.  I really might ask them what sort of protection they want, and then when they reply that they just want to be left the hell alone I would go ahead and do that.  That would be the sort of protection I would recognize.

The Conservatives love to claim that they are the fiscally responsible party but I have a hard time believing that when they are so intent on spending huge amounts of money to send armed thugs to assault and imprison the most vulnerable people in society instead of spending that money on, you know, helping them. Even setting fire to the money for giggles would be a huge improvement.