This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
Canada: 
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A Commons committee heard a distinct recommendation on Thursday related to Bill C-36, which said that the Conservative government should prove its resolve to help “victims” of prostitution and allow them to exit sex trade by erasing the criminal records of all prostitutes convicted in the past 30 years. The innovative recommendation to erase past records was made on the fourth and last day of hearings into the anti-prostitution bill.
Quite unexpectedly, the recommendation was not made by someone who challenged the bill but in fact from a staunch supporter of the Conservative government’s abolitionist approach. Kate Quinn of the Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation alleged that the move would be a “great breath of hope” and help those whose travels, education, job applications or volunteer efforts have been adversely affected by carrying a criminal record under the anti-soliciting law passed by Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government some 30 years ago. Quinn requested the Commons justice committee MPs to provide an amnesty mechanism that would allow past convictions to be removed under Section 213 of the Criminal Code.
In her remarks, Quinn stated that to “remove this burden from their shoulders and welcome them into Canadian society.” She added that “we’d like to see a whole different approach, with the intent of this bill, to recognize vulnerabilities and exploitation.” Testifying via videoconference from Glasgow, Quinn alleged that “we would like to see us go one step further and just expunge those records.”
Summary II Convictions are not hard to get. Have these people who haven’t gotten pardons even applied? It’s not like a pardon for a manslaughter charge, for goodness sake.
As we’ve seen by the “shout outs” to the preamble from the C-36 supporters, this may also have been a “talking point” gone over in rehearsals between Conservatives and C-36 supporters. It’s a horrible bill, and it may be a minor point the Conservatives thought of to bring up in a desperate struggle to perfume it. But just like masking bad b.o. with cheap fragrance, Bill C-36 can’t be made to look good with cheap points.