TORONTO – Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti is renewing his call to relegate brothels to the Toronto Islands Friday after the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the country’s anti-prostitution laws.
In a press releae entitled “I TOLD YOU SO, I TOLD YOU SO, I TOLD YOU SO, I TOLD YOU SO…. I guess I’m not crazy after all”, the councillor once again urged the federal government to relegate sex workers to the Toronto Islands.
“In rewriting the laws that oversee prostitution regulations, we now run the very real risk I warned everyone about, which could see the grandfathering of illegal massage parlours in the city,” he said in the press release. “Unless we agree on one designated area away from our communities, like the Toronto Island.”
The Supreme Court of Canada struck down the country’s anti-prostitution laws in a unanimous ruling Friday. The court argued the three prohibitions – against keeping a brothel, living on the avails of prostitution and soliciting – were violations of the constitution and it gave parliament one year to rewrite the laws regarding sex workers.
READ MORE: Prostitution laws around the world
Mammoliti’s Toronto Islands’ redlight district proposal was part of his platform for a failed 2010 mayoralty bid. He repeated his call in 2011.
“If you do this properly and legally you would have a designated place that would work for the city as well, not just organized crime,” he told the National Post in 2011. “Right now the only people taking advantage of this is organized crime.”
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