If you look out the window right now you might see buses jammed with farm girls rushing to the city with dollar signs in their eyes to make their fortune in the skin trade, or perhaps you'll see good old Joe the
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hardware guy walking out of his store with a bunch of cash while pimps in flashy suits take over to set up an industrial sized brothel.
Canada's Supreme Court struck down anti-prostitution laws in Canada Friday and that is not necessarily a bad thing, as Canada's anti-pimping legislation seemed pretty draconian.
Most citizens don't appear to be bothered much about prostitution (or even drug consumption) as long as it's not happening in front of their front doors.
In the 90s anti-prostitution marches attracted massive crowds in the east side of town, but those residents appeared to specifically oppose the presence of street prostitutes, which is something I have little patience for as well.
But in recent years street prostitutes have all but disappeared in Montreal except for stretches on St. Catherine between say Prefontaine and Pie IX.
One cop recently said that only three percent of Montreal's prostitution is of the street variety but that might rise as it now appears to be entirely legal for a sex worker to sell their wares on the street.
And while we might try to keep this stuff indoors and out of view, the principle of someone earning a living in a manner that doesn't actually victimize anybody seems hard to object to. For those who can stomach that sort of thing, the sex trade can be a pretty high paying gig, as one could earn something like $50,000 a year by working a mere 10 hours a week and possibly not even paying much tax on that.
From what I'm told Montreal police might have abused the anti-pimping legislation in order to go after prostitutes, at least according to what one prostitution-defender told me a while ago, citing the case of a young who works as an independent escort. According to the story, the escort was asked by another woman to help with tips to enter the trade and for help with management. So the escort went to meet that woman but it turned out to be a police officer, who arrested the escort and charged her under the pimping law after their discussion.