The Montreal Gazette
By Stephen Maher, Postmedia News
Terri-Jean Bedford brought her trademark riding crop Wednesday for her appearance before the Senate justice committee considering C-36, the new prostitution law.
The retired dominatrix seemed to make the Tories nervous. They should be nervous.
Bedford used to run an upscale “dungeon” in the Toronto suburb of Thornhill, called the Bondage Bungalow, where clients paid to have women hit them with riding crops.
In 1994, York Regional Police shut her down, seized two moving vans full of equipment and charged her with “keeping a common bawdy house.”
She fought them all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which last year ruled unanimously in her favour, finding that our prostitution laws violated the charter rights of sex workers to “security of the person,” since the laws made it more difficult for them to protect themselves.
The Conservatives, who must motivate social conservatives if they are to have any chance in next year’s election, introduced a new law modelled on Sweden’s, which makes it illegal to buy sex.
At committee, witnesses have been divided on the wisdom of that.
Social conservatives, shelter workers and former sex workers argue that sex work is inherently exploitive, degrading and violent. They say that by targeting clients — “perverts” as Justice Minister Peter MacKay called them — the law will reduce demand for paid sex, which will cut down on the amount of exploitation, degradation and violence in the world.
Sex workers and their advocates argue that the new law will be as much of a threat to safety as the old law, since they won’t be able to, for instance, hire security.
Bedford told the senators that many in the industry are happy in their work.
“Senators, please, please don’t allow Parliament to force Canadian women to have sex only for free,” she said.
And she warned that if they ignore her pleas, she will name politicians who go to sex workers.
“I’m going to make you guys forget about Mike Duffy,” she said. “I have got more information and more proof on politicians in this country than you can shake a stick at. I promise.”
At times she used her crop as a gavel, smacking the table to emphasize her point. When a senator interrupted her, she refused to stop talking.
The chairman, Sen. Bob Runciman, told her to pipe down or he would throw her out.
“You’ve given lots of other people lots of time,” she said. “I have 30 years of your abusive laws, so I should be allowed at least an extra five minutes to talk about it. You pat everybody else on the back, but when you know I’ve got a bombshell to deliver, you want to try to avoid me at all costs.”
Runciman had her ejected.
Outside, a reporter asked if she really did have the names of politicians who hire sex workers. …