Canadian Lawyer

32 M a y 2 0 1 4 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m have communities deal with disruptions caused by open solicitation. Young's job was about to become expo- nentially more difficult. The media pressed him for solutions to the question of how sex work could be successfully decriminalized and regulated. In addition, his supporters took sharply varying views on the form new legislation should take. This growing schism came to a head one afternoon, when Young arrived for a meeting of approxi- mately 20 leaders of sex worker organiza- tions. Walking into the room, Young felt acutely conscious of being the only male in a decidedly chilly room. He came under par- ticular attack for not paying sufficient heed to the problems of survival sex workers. In response, Young was typically frank. He said the Charter challenge had not been designed to solve every problem in the sex work industry. It was instead focused on creating safe havens for prostitutes to work with the protection of hired staff. "I was very clear from day one that anyone who sees a constitutional challenge as a panacea for a social problem is an idiot," he says. "We have to create social service nets for survival sex workers. But that is not a legal problem. It's a social service problem." The experience had a souring effect on Young. "Suddenly, they smelled success and every- body started to want a piece of it," he says. "Everyone wanted to tell me what to do." Young then compounded his problems by committing a cardinal error of com- munications; one that can easily sneak up on any public figure who has become used to dealing with sympathetic journal- ists. Unwisely, Young took at face value an approach from a National Film Board crew that was preparing a documentary on the sex trade. Taking them into his confidence, Young allowed them to film him at home, talking expansively about his mission, and during legal strategy sessions. On the night the documentary aired, he and Laura were stupefied and scandalized. They felt it had been edited to make Young appear as a glib, one-dimensional, stick fig- ure who was shilling for the sex work indus- try. The real stars of the film were actually Trisha Baptie — a reformed Canadian sex worker who was contemptuous of the trade she once plied — and a series of Swedish academics, legislators, and sex workers who spoke enthusiastically about that country's attempt to eliminate the sex trade with a law aggressively prosecuting johns. Laura witnessed her husband being shaken to the core: "He was not expecting the Order of Canada, but to have his life's work charac- terized that way was devastating," she says. Young ultimately sought and obtained more than 40,000 pages of e-mails and script discussions held between the film's writers and producers. He wrote a 20-page rebuttal to the NFB exposing the film as nothing more than "deceitful character assassination." The incident had the effect of eroding what little zest Young still had for the case. He arrived in Ottawa for the final act — before the Supreme Court of Canada — feeling insulted and unappreciated. In private, Young had actually come close to abandoning the appeal altogether and letting someone else complete his work. "In the last six months, it went from utopia to dystopia for me," he says. "There was a very concerted effort to discredit me and the case; to question my motives and create the impression that I'm a guy perpetuating TO RO N TO I B A R R I E I H A M I LTO N 1-866 - 685-3311 I w w w. mcleishor lando.com A Noticeable Difference ™ I KITCHENER Proud Member cleishOrlando_CL_May_14.indd 1 14-04-14 9:59 AM

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