THE CITY'S ALREADY A PIMP, WHY ARE WE ARGUING ABOUT BROTHELS?

The Higher-End Sex Trade Gets Civic Support in Return for Revenue;
Surely the Poor Prostitutes Deserve the Same Degree of Protection

The recent controversy over Coun. Tim Louis's support of a city-owned
brothel reveals a lot, but not about Louis.

It does, rather, tell us something about ourselves, perhaps more than
we would like to know.

Louis made this now infamous comment in a recent meeting with The
Vancouver Sun editorial board:

"Many people involved in survival sex are drug-addicted, and it is a
crime that we don't have treatment on demand, so there would be many
benefits of a brothel run on a break-even basis. Generally speaking,
so long as it is, number one, break even, number two, medical services
are available, and number three, drug treatment is available on
demand, then yes, I support it."

Naturally, the comments made national and international headlines,
going at least as far as Italy. The Associated Press picked up the
story, so it made its way through many American newspapers, often
being relegated to sections that include snippets of offbeat, National
Enquirer-style stories, like ones concerning two-headed frogs or
Pamela Anderson's breast implants.

Louis thus became a source of amusement around the world, but not in
Vancouver, where his comments provoked a degree of outrage not seen
since a renegade band of COPE councillors last year voted to allow
escort services to operate in a new Yaletown live/work zone.

NPA mayoral candidate Sam Sullivan, for whom I have a considerable
amount of respect, dismissed Louis's suggestion, saying he doesn't
want to get "into the business of being a pimp."

Mayor Larry Campbell seconded Sullivan's comments, opining that we
should work toward getting people off the street rather than
facilitating the prostitution lifestyle. This is a bizarre
proclamation coming from a man who a few weeks ago suggested we ought
to at least discuss the possibility of designating a red light
district in Vancouver.

It's more bizarre still coming from a man who told The Vancouver Sun
editorial board that his greatest accomplishment as mayor was opening
the supervised injection facility for drug addicts. In the face of
many objections from those who charged an injection site would merely
facilitate addiction, Campbell responded that the site was simply a
part of the harm reduction arm of the four pillars strategy.

Believe it or not, His Worship's comments are still more bizarre, and
I will explain why in a minute. First, though, we ought to consider
the reaction of Louis's fellow COPE candidates, who tripped over each
other in their haste to distance themselves from their embattled colleague.

COPE's Ellen Woodsworth, one of the councillors who had previously
voted in favour of allowing prostitutes to work in the Yaletown
live/work zone, quickly noted that Louis's comments don't reflect COPE
policy. COPE campaign spokesman Ivan Bulic seconded that notion, and
for two days after The Sun story ran, Louis was uncharacteristically
unavailable for comment, apparently sworn to silence by the COPE machine.

COPE's David Cadman accused this newspaper of "baiting" Louis, and
here at The Sun, rumours were flying that the editorial board must
have somehow duped Louis into making the comments, since even a "loony
leftist" like Louis couldn't have made such outrageous remarks without
prompting.

Despite Cadman's astonishing lack of confidence in his comrade's
ability to handle the media, Louis, who is not only an experienced
councillor, but a lawyer who likes a good debate and wins his fair
share of them, isn't easily duped into anything unless it comes from
the pages of the Communist Manifesto. Besides, no one on the editorial
board even asked him about city-owned brothels, much less pressured
him to make his comments.

Here's what really happened. Louis arrived with other COPE candidates,
including Cadman, who, for one reason or another, seemed to be running
the show. Cadman introduced the candidates and did most of the
talking, so we addressed our questions to him.

Since The Sun's 2004 editorial series on prostitution law reform, we
have made an effort to ask politicians -- including Sam Sullivan,
Mayor Campbell, Premier Gordon Campbell, former B.C. attorney-general
Geoff Plant, provincial NDP leader Carole James and federal Justice
Minister Irwin Cotler -- about prostitution-related issues. So it was
not unusual for us to ask COPE about the matter, and editorial page
editor Fazil Mihlar asked Cadman if he supported the mayor's call for
a discussion of red light districts.

Cadman noted that the Living in Community program was set up to
discuss safety issues faced by sex trade workers. He then said the
discussion would take about a year, and, knowing that many more street
workers could die within that time, I asked Cadman -- not Louis -- if
he would support a city-owned brothel.

Where did I get this crazy idea? Why, from none other than
Larry-I-oppose-a-brothel-because-it-might-facilitate-prostitution-Ca
mpbell. After an extensive discussion of prostitution at an editorial
board meeting last year, Campbell mused that maybe it's time the city
take over an abandoned building and set up a brothel for street
prostitutes. So it was Larry, not Louis, who first advanced the proposal.

But Cadman was having none of it, saying it's not appropriate for the
city to live off the avails of prostitution, though I reminded Cadman
that we already do so, since body rub parlours are licensed by the
city. (Sorry, Sam, but you're already a pimp.) Cadman responded that
the fees merely cover licensing costs, which is hard to believe since
the fees, at nearly $8,000 annually, are far higher than those of
other businesses.

In any case, Mihlar then asked Cadman if he would support a
not-for-profit brothel. Cadman wasn't too keen on that either --
perhaps aware of how it would play out in the news the next day -- but
Louis piped up and offered his support for the proposal.

So Louis was never pressured into anything. And when you think about
it, what's so outrageous about considering the idea?

After all, it's not just hypocritical to go about happily licensing
escort agencies and massage parlours while ridiculing anyone who dares
to discuss a city-run brothel.

Indeed, it's downright illogical, since the twin motivations for
supporting a municipal brothel -- to protect vulnerable people engaged
in dangerous behaviours and to shield the community from witnessing
those behaviours -- are precisely the same motivations for permitting
body rub parlours and supervised injection sites.

Here's what we know: About 80 per cent of prostitution occurs indoors
- -- in massage parlours, escort agencies, hotels, motels and private
homes. Only 20 per cent of prostitutes work the street, yet nearly
every one of the more than 100 prostitutes murdered in B.C. in the
past two decades -- and the vast majority who have been assaulted --
have been street workers.

It's clear, then, that one of the best ways to protect prostitutes is
to get them off the street. The police learned this the hard way:
After two high-profile massage parlour murders in Vancouver and
Toronto in the 1970s, police began shutting down the parlours by
enforcing bawdy house laws.

Inevitably, prostitutes flooded the streets, raising the ire of the
community and placing prostitutes in greater danger. So the police
largely ceased enforcing the law against massage parlours, and
municipalities began quietly licensing them, thereby solving both
problems at once.

However, the most disadvantaged prostitutes -- those with addictions
and/or mental illness -- were unable to gain employment in massage
parlours (or anywhere else), so they remained on the street, and in
danger.

And it is these very people who could benefit from a city-owned
brothel, which makes the hypocrisy of brothel opponents who license
escort agencies particularly galling: They seem to have no problem
supporting the work of relatively high-functioning escorts, but
immediately ridicule the idea of offering identical support to
low-functioning street prostitutes, the people who need it the most.

People who spend about five seconds a year thinking about prostitution
always tell me that we need exit strategies for such desperate people,
that we need to get them out of prostitution, not keep them in it. But
I have spent a lot of time on the street, and I can tell you that
addicted or mentally ill prostitutes will not -- cannot -- leave the
street tomorrow, regardless of what supports are available.

And the longer they remain on the street, the greater the dangers they
face, and the harder it is for them to get off the street.

A city-owned brothel could provide some protection for such people,
and one with adequate treatment and counselling facilities could
represent a viable exit strategy, a point of first contact with social
services and the first step toward getting off the street.

Or perhaps there's a better way. Perhaps someone knows of a way to
protect prostitutes on the street right now, not six months or a year
from now. I haven't heard anyone offer the solution, but I'm certainly
ready to listen to all suggestions.

And that's really what it's all about, isn't it? Before he decided to
play politics, Larry Campbell even said as much, insisting that the
Living in Community program must consider all suggestions, that
everything must be on the table.

Yet the mere mention of a city-owned brothel sends everyone scurrying
for cover. As long as we're afraid of even discussing novel solutions
to an ancient problem, as long as we censor our thoughts out of fear
that they may be deemed outrageous, we will inevitably lapse into
proposing "solutions" that have already failed, which is precisely
what we've been doing for decades.

L'affaire Louis therefore reveals that we are a part of the problem,
that as we continue to fear ideas, people will continue to die on the
street. And that is the real outrage.