The current legality of the sex trade is kinda odd. It's perfectly legal to hire a prostitute, but it's not legal to communicate for the purposes of making such a transaction. Which is really silly, because the law is claiming to punish one thing (prostitution), while actually punishing another (communication for the purposes of prostitution). I'm not sure how the law is really defensible. If the law determines that prostitution is not in itself an illegal act, how can the law say that communicating for those purposes is illegal? A guy pulls up to a corner and offers a working girl 50 bucks. That's illegal. Anything they do afterwards is legal, though, including him giving her the money.
What are the legalities surrounding escorts? They seem to get a lot less attention from the law, yet you would assume that they and their clients are breaking that law every time. Is it that you're actually paying for the escorting and anything else is seen as not being a business transaction?
Personally, I'm all for anything that would provide some amount of safety to the industry. Regulation of the industry could save a lot of lives both through prevention of STDs, and keeping track of these women so that you don't have another tragedy like the deaths on the Vancouver east-side.
That said, it would seem like political suicide for the Liberals to move forward with this, especially after the allegations surround Judie Sgro's stripper controversy. Liberals need to be careful that they aren't seen as being too friendly to the sex trade.
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