The New Zealand Prostitution Reform Act (PRA) of 2003 is an excellent example of how criminal law reform can "safeguard the human rights of sex workers." Prior to the enactment of the PRA, New Zealand's prostitution laws were very similar to Canada's. Prostitution itself was not criminalized, but virtually all activities associated with sex work were, such as soliciting in public, living on the avails, operating a brothel and procuring. Under this criminalization regime, New Zealand sex workers were extremely vulnerable to coercion and violence.
On December 20th 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) handed a unanimous ruling in Canada v Bedford, which struck down elements of the Criminal Code that were determined to violate the rights of sex workers by undermining their health and safety. The Supreme Court decided that its ruling would take effect in one year's time, at which point those unconstitutional parts of the law would no longer be in force.
In response, the federal government tabled a new piece of legislation (Bill C-36) in early June of 2014. The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA) received royal assent on December 6th 2014, effectively criminalizing the purchase of sexual services; communicating for the purpose of purchasing and selling sexual services; receiving a material benefit from the crimes of purchasing sexual services or communicating to obtain them; procuring a person to offer or provide sexual services for consideration; and prohibiting advertising of sexual services.
With PCEPA, the federal government reinstated provisions very similar to those already found by the SCC to be harmful to sex workers' lives, health and safety, simply by rewording some of them and re-labelling provisions with new and broader objectives. This indicates that the new prostitution laws, like the old ones, are likely in violation of sex workers' Charter rights. The government's response also creates new issues of constitutional validity with the prohibition on advertising and the blanket ban on the purchase of sexual services. This approach continues to impose danger, increased criminalization, little control over working conditions and fewer safe options for sex workers. It runs contrary to the requirement of the SCC to address these dangerous and ineffective laws and does not appear to conform to the December 2013 ruling in Canada v Bedford.
The social science evidence from Canada and throughout the world clearly indicates that this type of legislation forces sex workers into unsafe and unprotected areas restricting access to important safety strategies that can have significant and profound negative consequences on sex workers' health, security, safety, equality and human rights.
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To some people, "reconciliation" is the re-establishment of a conciliatory state. However, this is a state that many Aboriginal people assert has never existed between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. To others, "reconciliation," in the context of Indian residential schools, is similar to dealing with a situation of family violence. It is about coming to terms with events of the past in a manner that overcomes conflict and establishes a respectful and healthy relationship among people going forward. It is in the latter context that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (trc) has approached the question of reconciliation.
The closing of residential schools did not bring their story to an end. The legacy of the schools continues to this day. It is reflected in the significant educational, income, and health disparities between Aboriginal people and other Canadians—disparities that condemn many Aboriginal people to shorter, poorer, and more troubled lives. The legacy is also reflected in the intense racism some people harbour against Aboriginal people and the systemic and other forms of discrimination Aboriginal people regularly experience in Canada. Over a century of cultural genocide has left most Aboriginal languages on the verge of extinction. The disproportionate apprehension of Aboriginal children by child welfare agencies and the disproportionate imprisonment and victimization of Aboriginal people are all part of the legacy of the way that Aboriginal children were treated in residential schools.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's "Missing Children and Unmarked Burials Project" is a systematic effort to record and analyze the deaths at the schools, and the presence and condition of student cemeteries, within the regulatory context in which the schools were intended to operate.
The central goal of the Canadian residential school system was to 'Christianize' and 'civilize' Aboriginal people, a process intended to lead to their cultural assimilation into Euro-Canadian society. This policy goal was directed at all Aboriginal people and all Aboriginal cultures. It failed to take into account the development of new Aboriginal nations, and the implications of the Indian Act's definition of who was and was not a "status Indian" and the British North America Act's division of responsibility for "Indians." In the government's vision, there was no place for the Métis Nation that proclaimed itself in the Canadian Northwest in the nineteenth century. Neither was there any place for the large number of Aboriginal people who, for a variety of reasons, chose not to terminate their Treaty rights, or for those women, and their children, who lost their Indian Act status by marrying a person who did not have such status.
These individuals were classed or identified alternately as "non-status Indians," "half-breeds," or "Métis." In different times or different places, they might also identify themselves by these terms, but often they did not. Instead, they might view themselves to be members of specific First Nations, Inuit, or Euro-Canadian societies. For the sake of clarity, this chapter generally uses the term Métis to describe people of mixed descent who were not able, or chose not, to be registered as Indians under the Indian Act. It should be recognized that not all the people described by this term would have identified themselves as Métis during their lives, and that the histories of these people varied considerably, depending on time and location.
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Residential schooling in Canada's North deserves its own consideration for a number of reasons.
First, its history is more recent than that of residential schooling in the rest of the country. As late as 1900 there were only two residential schools north of the sixtieth parallel. By 1950 there were only six residential schools and one hostel in the North. is slow growth re ects the fact that while the overall goals of the Canadian govern- ment's Aboriginal policy were to assimilate, civilize, and Christianize, this policy was not applied in a uniform manner. Where there was no pressing demand for Aboriginal lands, the federal government delayed taking on the obligations that Treaties created. is was particularly true in the North. As long as there was no prospect of economic development or of the arrival of large numbers of non-Aboriginal settlers, the federal government was not prepared to negotiate with northern Aboriginal peoples. Nor was it interested in establishing reserves or residential schools—or any sort of school, for that matter. Were it not for the work of Roman Catholic and Anglican missionaries, residential schooling would have no history north of the sixtieth parallel before 1950.
By the 1930s, the federal government had come to the internal conclusion that the residential school system was failing to meet its goals. In 1936, R. A. Hoey, a former Manitoba minister of education, was appointed as Indian Affairs' superintendent of welfare and training. On coming into this position, he prepared an assessment of the residential schools. He noted that in 1935–36, spending on residential schools was $1,511,153.76. This amounted to 77.8% of the entire Indian Affairs education budget of $1,943,645.