By: Jennifer Koshan
PDF Version: Teaching Bedford: Reflections on the Supreme Court’s Most Recent Charter Decision
Case Commented On: Canada (Attorney General) v Bedford, 2013 SCC 72
Much commentary has already been written on the Supreme Court’s decision in Bedford and the implications the case has for the regulation of prostitution in Canada. My interest in this post is to reflect on how to approach Bedford when teaching constitutional law next term. I think Bedford brings some clarity to the case law on section 7 of the Charter, and as Sonia Lawrence has noted here, the decision helps dispel some of the problematic thinking around “choice” and causation in constitutional cases, though I would have liked to see the Court go further here. The Court also could have done more by way of taking a contextual approach in its consideration of the prostitution laws. The evidence presented in the case clearly provided a compelling enough picture of the harms of these laws for the Court to find a violation of section 7, but it is disappointing to see no explicit references to the gendered and racialized nature of prostitution nor to the rich and diverse literature in this area, some of which was cited in the submissions of interveners (see e.g. here, here and here). Finally, the case can also be seen as an example of the relative success that section 7 claims have had of late at the Supreme Court, especially in comparison to the lack of success of section 15 claims.