Pimps, Predators and Business Managers: Constructing the 'Procurer' in Ontario Courts

Abstract

The concept of the ‘procurer’ comes from section 212 of Canada’s Criminal Code, which prohibits directing, enticing, assisting or profiting off the prostitution of another person. A contentious debate surrounds Canada’s prostitution laws, with a constitutional challenge currently before the Supreme Court. Within this climate of debate, the concept of the ‘procurer’ has moved out of the strictly legal sphere and into a broader discourse, with a range of parties laying their claims to truth on the “realities” of the industry generally and on the procurer specifically. Using a methodology of Foucauldian discourse analysis, this thesis examines Ontario Provincial Court case summaries to consider the contribution of the Canadian judiciary to discourse on the procurer. Findings suggest that the judiciary replicates many of the existing stereotypes of prostitution and its participants, such as the procurer as pimp, while (re)producing a small counter discourse of the procurer as business manager.