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Queer Ontario Responds to the Tory Omnibus Crime Bill

December 6th, 2011 Comments off

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Tory’s Tough on Crime Bill may be Tough on Consensual Sex, says Queer Ontario

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The Harper government’s harsh and ideologically motivated “tough on crime” omnibus legislation, Bill C-10 (The Safe Streets and Communities Act), contains a new provision that may be tough on consensual sex if the police and the courts decide to use it to keep sex strictly confined to the bedrooms of the nation.  An amendment to s. 173.(1) of the Criminal Code (indecent acts) will make it possible for anyone who “willfully does an indecent act in a public place in the presence of one or more persons” to be found guilty of an indictable offence and be sentenced to imprisonment for a term of not more than two years.  This marks a significant change from the current s. 173.(1) which designates “indecent act” as a summary conviction offence for which the maximum penalty is imprisonment for not more than six months.  The amendment will give a Crown prosecutor the discretion to determine whether to proceed with a case against someone charged with the offence as a summary conviction offence or an indictable offence.
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“The problem with the ‘indecent act’ section of the Criminal Code, all along, has been its vagueness as to just what constitutes an ‘indecent act’ because that term is not defined in the Criminal Code,” says Richard Hudler, of Queer Ontario. “It is left completely to the police, in terms of laying charges, and to the courts, in terms of a finding of guilt, to determine whether a place is ‘public’ and whether an act committed in that place is ‘indecent’”.
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What constitutes a “public place” is equally vague.  S. 150 of the Criminal Code defines it as including “any place to which the public have access as of right or by invitation, express or implied.”  People of any gender could be charged and convicted of an “indecent act” for engaging in consenting sexual acts on a beach, in a park, in a parked car, at a sex party or in a bathhouse. Historically, police have laid indecent act charges during raids on bathhouses and sex clubs and against people having sex in secluded places in parks late at night.  Even a sex party with invitations and advertising could be argued to be a public place and could be raided by the police, with indecent act charges being laid against the participants they find having sex. Queer liberation groups have long called for the abolition of the “indecent act” offence because of the way in which it has been used to target and repress consensual sex and to enforce morality.
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“Now, the Harper government, in a gesture clearly aimed at catering to its social conservative constituency and their anti-sex morality agenda, is about to make a vague and odious law even more severe,” Richard Hudler states.  “It is appalling and deplorable that adults engaging in consensual sex could potentially be sent to prison for up to two years. This amendment to s.173.(1) must be defeated.”
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Contact:
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Richard Hudler
info@queerontario.org
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Download: Queer Ontario Omnibus Crime Bill Statement
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Queer Ontario Urges Harper to Reverse New Regulations to Bawdy House Laws

August 6th, 2010 Comments off

Queer Ontario is fundamentally opposed to the regulatory changes to the bawdyhouse laws that were secretly passed by the Conservative government on July 13, 2010, and the undemocratic process that was used to pass them.

By designating bawdyhouses as ‘criminal organizations’ and by designating their operation as a ‘serious offence’ under the law, the Harper government has once again demonstrated that it is incapable of passing provisions that are publicly accountable. In advancing their tough-on-crime agenda above any nuanced understanding of organized crime in Canada; above any consideration for the lived realities of sex professionals; and above polls demonstrating the statistical drop in crime and the low priority crime-fighting has among Canadians, the Conservative government has made yet another unwarranted decision. Unfortunately, these measures are only exacerbated by the fact that the regulation was passed behind closed doors, without any opportunity for informed debate from either fellow MPs or the stakeholders who were to be affected by these amendments.
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