In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court has struck down the laws around prostitution that related to keeping a bawdy house, living off the avails, and communication for the purposes of prostitution (ruling here). They have given Parliament a year to come up with a new legislative regime before the laws are struck down entirely. Justice Minister Peter MacKay said that he’s disappointed by the finding that the existing laws were unconstitutional, while other Conservatives like Shelly Glover continue to say that these women are now without the “protection” that those laws offered – though the whole point of the ruling was that the laws were not protecting them, but were rather putting them in harm’s way. Part of the debate now moves to the question of how this will affect First Nations women in the sex trade in particular, but it would seem that harm reduction is a good step, particularly if the criminalization made them afraid to go to the police. Emmett Macfarlane writes about the significance of the finding and the way in which the Justices framed their concerns. David Akin looks at how the ruling will affect the various factions of the Conservative base, though it is likely to be more wailing and gnashing of teeth around supposed “judicial activism.” Brenda Cossman worries that the discussion will move toward how to criminalise prostitution rather than how to best regulate a decriminalised environment. Carissima Mathen points out that this court decision is in part because Parliament was negligent over the past three decades when they left these laws in place when they knew that a more comprehensive framework was needed. Andrew Coyne writes about just how very reasonable the decisions is, and how regulation and licensing may be the best choice going forward.

Conservative MP Joy Smith says that the year the Court gives Parliament is plenty of time to implement the “Nordic Model,” which criminalises johns rather than prostitutes. I have a hard time seeing how that would be found constitutional under the same grounds of the Bedford decision given that the Nordic Model simply forces prostitution underground. (I wrote about Smith and this debate a few years ago here and here). Here are a couple of studies that show that claims of Nordic Model success are dubious because there simply is no evidence to prove that.

Aaron Wherry compares Harper’s statements in his year-ender interview on Global against the statements he made in the House. If you need a refresher on the players in the ClusterDuff affair and where they are now, then Jordan Press has you covered.

The cancellation of those close-combat vehicles could be signalling a smaller, leaner Canadian Forces going forward. The defence companies who bid for those contracts are demanding compensation considering that they shelled out millions as part of the process, since they had to have prototypes that could be blown up in tests as demonstrations of their durability.

A Federal Court judge has slammed CSIS for misleading the court when it obtained a secret warrant to conduct surveillance activities and then turned around and asked foreign allies to spy on Canadians abroad using the warrant as cover. In particular, they had never asked the court to for approval for foreign involvement, and deliberately kept the court in the dark.

One of the committees created in the wake of the Idle No More protests last January has completed its work on recommending a reformed process for resolving First Nations land claims.

David Akin notes the theme of Justin Trudeau as being the big threat that Conservatives are fundraising against.

Michael Chong went on The Agenda to talk about the Reform Act, but made a few completely wrong assumptions. He felt that the 15 percent floor for a leadership review would avoid protracted leadership crises such as Chretien-Martin or the Stockwell Day debacle. What he misses is that in other Westminster systems, the crises are short because the caucus selected the leader and can replace him or her in a single day. With our system of party membership selecting the leader, it not only protects that leader but forces months-long leadership contests in the wake, which draws out those crises even further.

Roland Paris writes about how John Baird’s tough talk about “principled” foreign policy rings pretty hollow in places like Bahrain, where he’s said boo about human rights and democracy in that country despite repressive crackdowns. In a separate piece, Paris argues that the government’s “economic diplomacy” agenda is strong because its other foreign policy objectives are so weak.

Energy economist Andrew Leach writes about the three kinds of protectionist foes to the Northern Gateway pipeline, and the validity of their arguments.

Kevin Milligan writes about the problem that pension undersavers pose for governments.

Laura Stone has lunch with John Baird, and finds that he doesn’t seek the validation of “elites” (err, he kind of is one of those “elites” at this point), Iran’s nuclear ambitions scare him, and he has absolutely no leadership ambitions of his own.

And Chris Alexander held a photo op to give Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus their new ePassports. Because apparently Canadian citizenship is a big joke. Also, Alexander declares Claus to be an elf, which makes me wonder if that means he is exempt from human rights protections.