C36 = CONtempt for women and CONtempt for the law.

Last week Justice Minister Peter MacKay, channeling all the prurient lunacy of General Jack D. Ripper and the worst pearl-clutching clichés of a Victorian schoolmarm, presented Bill C36 in the House of Commons.

The language Petey used and repeated for emphasis was quite revealing.

Harper and MacKay's new bill - C36 The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, the latest CPC government crap legislation and named the opposite of what it actually does - offers in one venal and meretricious piece of legal flimflam the worst of Con bias, prejudice and hatred.

It is a loathsome pottage of spitefulness (directed at the Supreme Court of Canada), class prejudice, racism, misogyny and fundamentalist religiosity.

The reaction on Twitter ranged from pithy excoriations by sex workers, lawyers, non-abolitionist feminists, charter experts and human rights advocates, to PMO-issued speaking points barked by CPC trained seals and fatuous accolades by anti-prostitution organizations.

This perspective was odd and interesting, with a focus on the utilitarian and economic aspects of sex work which allows a detached evaluation of the Nordic and New Zealand models. However its breezy conclusion: 
«..because the government regulates the activities of industries in which workers are put at risk, but also because machines have replaced much of the dangerous work that was previously done by workers the current state of technology is such that machines will soon be capable of providing the same services currently provided by sex workers. You don’t have to be an economist to predict that while governments have failed to reduce participation in the sex trades, technology is very likely to succeed» 
doesn't address the very basic human needs this service industry meets - and that machinery would likely not.

The last decades have seen an expanded commercial development of dolls that replicate some aspect of human bodies; though some are crafted to resemble in minute details all physical details of known porn actors, they are essentially very expensive, static silicone sex toys.  There's a niche market for (mostly) men whose sexual proclivities are geared towards the forcible penetration of beautifully crafted, inert objets d'art with compliant orifices.  It's worth glancing at the NSFW websites of Real Doll, Doll Story and Fantasy Sex Dolls to get a sense of which traits are valued and deemed desirable.

This segues aptly into the most lucid, trenchant and fierce deconstruction of sex work that I have read.

«What is prostitution? Are women selling a service, or are they selling themselves, as a commodity?

Many supporters of the Nordic model, both in feminist and family-values circles, say it’s the latter. Prostitution, they say, is a commodity sale. It is inherently objectifying and exploitative, they argue. It is itself a harm, even if all the associated harms can be eliminated. A woman who believes she is freely choosing her job has to be wrong about that, they argue. She is a victim whether she knows it or not.

Conservative MP Joy Smith is one of the strongest voices on this side of the debate, who says she recognizes “prostitution as an industry that is inherently harmful to women and girls and therefore must be eliminated.” She favours the Nordic model.

If you believe that selling sex means selling women, you believe that a woman’s value equals her capacity to have sex.

Framing this as a gender-equality argument is ironic, because that same notion underpins many of the world’s most sexist ideas — including the idea, still in place in some parts of the world, that rape is a property crime.

We in Canada don’t generally talk about rape that way any more, but we still use that language when we talk about prostitution. We use phrases like “selling her body” or even “selling herself” — rather than “selling sex.”

To assume that prostitution commodifies women, we have to also think a certain way about heterosexual sex. We have to think of it as male access to a woman’s body — not as something a woman does with her body. This is the "why buy the cow when you’re getting the milk for free" way of seeing women’s sexuality. Again, not exactly a gender-equality argument.»

(I interrupt Kate Heartfield's thoughtful prose with a crude example that illustrates how a married woman, in this case a politician's wife, is subjected to that very degradation that so incensed MacKay. Juxtapose this with the passage here in which Rob Ford attempts to traffick Renata. Also, if sex-workers were to publish clients' names, all would see that putative "family-values" rightwing Con men make up the majority of their lists.) 

«There is another way of looking at sex: that a woman’s value as a human being has nothing to do with whom she chooses to have sex with or how often or what conditions she imposes on that choice. If this is our assumption, then a woman who sells sex is not selling herself. She isn’t turning herself into a commodity, and neither is anyone else. Sex is merely the service she sells.»

Registered and practical nurses, athletes, child care workers, lawyers, therapists, morticians: all provide professional services that sometimes require that they engage in a particular activity that some people might find repellant and disgusting. The specific *ickiness* of a task does not detract from the knowledge, respect and dignity they bring to their jobs

What is most disappointing to me in this whole debate is the participation of abolitionist feminists who give credence to Andrea Dworkin's pragmatic and ideological analysis of women's bodies as pornographed and fetishized commodities.  Believing this construct to be so deeply embedded in all institutions that it cannot be uprooted, they think that in order to limit the horrific harm that's done to women who are trafficked or trapped by poverty and many vulnerabilities in the "sex trade", they are obliged to align themselves with punitive and sex-phobic Reformatory Evangelical conservative legislation.

Whatever their expertise, critics of C36 agree that it will NOT keep women safe; it will probably endanger them MORE than the old law did.

And, just in case you know people who still don't get why C36 is so MASSIVELY WRONG, direct them to Tabatha Southey's splendid slam dunk.

ADDED: Money for sex, sex for money is a personal reflection on sex work that I posted in March this year.

MORE: Joyce Arthur deconstructs the toxic misogynist religious ideology at the core of C36.

Coming soon: CON revisionist history, with a dump of tarsands on the side.

The stunning artifact above is featured in Vodou, a magnificent exhition that will close at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, on February 23, 2014.

I have seen it twice and I hope to see it again and again before it leaves town.  Ça vaut vraiment le déplacement. Here's one review.  Entrance to the CMC is free on Thursdays after 5pm, and that includes Vodou.

If CPC Harper government is dumbing down the Canadian Museum of Civilization, it might also turn its laser-like gaze to other cultural institutions that it can defile and degrade to please its political base.

New Democrat and Liberal critics are saying, however, that the museum’s renaming is part of a larger, very deliberate effort by the Harper government to put a Conservative stamp on every symbol of the country. Since Harper came to power, lavish attention and money have been splashed on everything to do with the monarchy and the military in particular.
NDP heritage critic Andrew Cash said the Conservatives are throwing money at the museum while they cutting federal library and archive budgets — “robbing Peter to pay Paul” — and paying more attention to displays of history than the preservation of it.
Cash also pointed out that Moore has not been reticent about his displeasure over cultural exhibits in Ottawa, such as last year’s sex education exhibit at the science museum. He said it is hard to believe that the minister wouldn’t actively try to shape this museum according to Conservatives’ likes and dislikes.

The source for the cash flow that will turn the crank of Reformatory Can-CON History has been revealed.

Canada's 150th birthday is being brought to you by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
The federal Museum of Civilization has announced it is teaming up with the oil industry lobby group as an official sponsor of its exhibits to mark 150 years since Confederation in 2015.
The $1-million, five-year sponsorship is the largest ever for the Museum of Civilization.
Dave Collyer, president of the petroleum producers' lobby group, says the goal of the exercise is to promote his industry by engaging and communicating with the public.
The president and CEO of the taxpayer-funded museum, Mark O'Neill, says such sponsorships are going to become more common in future as flat government funding fails to keep up with the rising costs of exhibitions.
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and Imperial Oil ran into controversy in 2011 when they sponsored exhibits at the federal Museum of Science and Technology and documents later showed they had exerted pressure to alter exhibit content they felt treated the industry too harshly.

The change of focus, from civilization to history is viewed with concern by some.  And now it's obvious why.

On necessary forensics and foraging for survival

*Guilt* is a Eurocentric concept, as is rapacious greed - though officially denounced by christian missionaries who cajoled and coerced Indigenous folks into subjugation to the "Great White Father".

Former Crown attorney Rupert Ross developed insightful perspectives for understanding, and helpful analytical instruments for navigating the profound differences between the First Nations peoples' beliefs system and that which our ancestors bequeathed us.

He illuminates, in a coherent and easily understandable fashion, the complex set of values, principles, goals, and practices of an aboriginal justice system. Citing the efforts of Ontario’s Hollow Water community to deal with sexual abuse, Ross concludes that such a system can be practical and effective. Ross’s work gives insight into the skillful blending of aboriginal and Western thought that is guiding the development of contemporary native institutions, pointing out, along the way, native precedents for many issues the Canadian justice system is currently grappling with. Ross’s work can be interpreted as an illustration of the results that can be achieved through thoughtful interpretation of traditional aboriginal teachings, and as a critique of the European legal system as a major contributor to the continued social disorder of Western society [my emphasis].

On Friday evening I had the privilege of attending a gathering in honour of a group of Innu who traveled to Ottawa to meet with Chief Theresa. It was an amazing opportunity for hearing about the significance of Idle No More from the folks stoking, in the best possible way, a powerful and pacific surge of activist fervour. 

As I stood in line to welcome this group of weary travelers from Sept-Îles, I looked into the eyes, and held the hands of the descendants of people whose great kindness had allowed my ancestors to survive.

During the evening I sat with women from Uashat/Maliotenam who generously explained their views and posed difficult questions to me. 

Evelyne St-Onge and her sister Marcelle observed that in the past, many companies had exploited the raw resources found on Uasha/Maliotenam lands, then claimed they had lost money, and thus refused to give the people their legal share of the profits. 

Devious corporate accounting practices may have diverted and/or hidden evidence of revenues. Thorough forensics accounting investigation would allow a determination of how the Innu were cheated of their rightful share.

The Globe and Mail** Jeffrey Simpson's smug, High-Church morality - the typically self-righteous and abused standard for judging and condemning First Nations peoples actions - is very much on display here.  Imagining it read aloud, I can hear the scornful, yet plummy tones of the Entitled Class:

Much of the rhetoric surrounding Chief Spence is of the usual dreamy, flamboyant variety, a mixture of anti-capitalism and anti-colonialism, blended with the mythology (blasted by the reality of what one actually sees on too many reserves) about environmental protection and the aboriginals’ sacred link to their lands.

To this is then added a desire to protect “traditional” ways, which in some cases means hunting, fishing and trapping, noble ventures that can lead economically to something only slightly better than subsistence. Without a wage economy beyond these “traditional” ways, the path lies clear to dependence on money from somewhere else, namely government, which, in turn, leads to the lassitude and pathologies that plague too many aboriginal communities.

Of course, there are some communities that offer the antithesis of dependency. They benefit from participating directly in the exploitation of natural resources near their communities, which should be the driving thrust of all public policy.

Ah yes, the "the driving thrust of all public policy" which, in the crudest and also the most *refined* manner, has always ensured that those with religious and political power were those who controlled deadly weapons and the biological equipment necessary for compliance and punishment - in brutal economical, political and physical ways.  Rape and plunder in all its manifestations.

One-percenters didn't earn their wealth through ethical means, nor was it divinely bestowed upon them - though various theological constructs seemingly support their familial corporate mythology - and their unrelenting opportunism.

They got rich the old-fashioned way: by lying, cheating, grifting, stealing and exploiting.  Just as "old money" was founded on the labour of people forced into slavery, systemic genocide and ethnocide enabled the robber barons of the "New World" to establish their empires and maintain it.

It takes political and legal collusion - supported by religious ideology - to create and perpetuate systems that deprive human beings of rights the wealthy flaunt so very freely, and that deplete the material resources which would justly be theirs to enjoy.  

To paraphrase Mark Steyn, it must be CONvenient to have an ideological imperative that obliges all your greed and ill-gotten gains.

More about Innu traditions, here.

Excellent additional reading resources; The treaty relationship must evolve, What is the Idle No More Movement ... Really?, First Nations: The Long Shadow of Assimilation.

Photograph of Evelyne St-Onge from here. 

**corrected earlier version said NatPo. Funny how rightwing Globe has become... merci for spotting that, AZ!