OTTAWA – As the Ontario Superior Court reaches a landmark decision to strike down a ban on brothels and bawdy houses, one sex workers’ rights activist says the ruling doesn’t go far enough.

Chris Bruckert, a criminology professor at the University of Ottawa and chair of POWER (Prostitutes of Ottawa-Gatineau, Work, Educate, and Resist, said she was “profoundly disappointed” the ban against soliciting to sell sex was upheld.

“I think (the ruling) fails to recognize that street-based workers are indeed the ones who are not only the most vulnerable to criminalization but specifically also the most vulnerable, disproportionally the most vulnerable, to violence,” she said.

Bruckert said many street-based workers won’t have the means to move indoors and won’t benefit from the ruling that will improve safety conditions for many sex workers. By allowing prostitutes to work out of organized brothels or their own homes Bruckert says it will open up possibilities for sex workers to implement security measures.

“They’ll be able to hire security bouncers, they’ll be able to work in their own homes without fear of arrest. It means they’ll be able to be more clear and transparent with their clients. All of those things mean that they will be safer, much safer,” she said.

Still, Bruckert says she does question the court’s request for a rewrite to laws that make it illegal to live off of the proceeds of prostitution to ensure that exploitation of sex workers is illegal.

“I believe exploitation is against the law, I think the Criminal Code covers it for workers in general, for women, for men, so I question why we need a sex work specific law, why we can’t simply rely on the generic laws,” she said, adding it is a positive move that sex workers will now be able to support partners and children without criminalizing them.

She said ultimately she would like to see Canada adopt a system similar to the one in New Zealand where prostitution is decriminalized but not legalized.