title: Nan Goldin

text: In 2017, in a speech in Brazil, Goldin revealed she was recovering from opioid addiction, specifically to OxyContin, after being prescribed the drug for a painful wrist. She had sought treatment for her addiction and battled through rehab. This led to her setting up a campaign called "Prescription Addiction Intervention Now" (P.A.I.N.) pursuing social media activism directed against the Sackler family for their involvement in Purdue Pharma, manufacturers of OxyContin. Goldin has said the campaign attempts to contrast the philanthropic contributions of the Sackler family to art galleries, museums and universities with a lack of responsibility taken for the opioid crisis. Goldin became aware of the Sackler family in 2017.


title: Nan Goldin

text: In 2018, she organized a protest in the Sackler Wing's Temple of Dendur at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The protest called for museums and other cultural institutions not to accept money from the Sackler family.


title: Nan Goldin

text: Also in 2018 she was one of several artists who participated in a $100 sale organized by Magnum Photos and Aperture to raise funds for Goldin's opioid awareness group P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now)."I've started a group called P.A.I.N. to address the opioid crisis. We are a group of artists, activists and addicts that believe in direct action. We target the Sackler family, who manufactured and pushed OxyContin, through the museums and universities that carry their name. We speak for the 250,000 bodies that no longer can."In February 2019 Goldin staged a protest at the Guggenheim Museum in New York over its acceptance of funding by the Sackler family.


title: Nan Goldin

text: She also said that she would withdraw from a retrospective exhibition of her work at the National Portrait Gallery in London if they did not turn down a gift of £1 million from the Sacklers. The gallery subsequently said it would not proceed with the donation.


title: Nan Goldin

text: Two days after the National Portrait Gallery statement, the Tate group of British art galleries (Tate Modern and Tate Britain in London, Tate St Ives and Tate Liverpool) announced it would no longer accept any gifts offered by members of the Sackler family, from whom it had received £4m. Tate Modern had been planning to display its copy of Goldin's "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency" slideshow, for a year from April 15, 2019. Goldin had not discussed the show with Tate.


title: Nan Goldin

text: Goldin identified that Tate, which has received Sackler money, paid her for one of the ten copies of "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency" in 2015, when she was deeply addicted to OxyContin. She says she spent some of the money on buying black market OxyContin, as doctors would no longer prescribe her the drug.


title: Nan Goldin

text: In July 2019 Goldin and others from the group Prescription Addiction Intervention Now staged a protest in the fountain at the Louvre in Paris. The protest was to try to persuade the museum to change the name of its Sackler wing, which is made up of 12 rooms.


title: Nan Goldin

text: Some critics have accused Goldin of making heroin use appear glamorous and of pioneering a grunge style that later became popularized by youth fashion magazines such as "The Face" and "I-D". However, in a 2002 interview with "The Observer", Goldin herself called the use of "heroin chic" to sell clothes and perfumes "reprehensible and evil." Goldin admits to having a romanticized image of drug culture at a young age, but she soon saw the error in this ideal: "I had a totally romantic notion of being a junkie. I wanted to be one." Goldin's substance usage stopped after she became intrigued with the idea of memory in her work, "When people talk about the immediacy in my work, that's what its about: this need to remember and record every single thing"


title: Nan Goldin

text: Goldin's interest in drugs stemmed from a sort of rebellion against parental guidance that parallels her decision to run away from home at a young age, "I wanted to get high from a really early age. I wanted to be a junkie. That's what intrigues me. Part was the Velvet Underground and the Beats and all that stuff. But, really, I wanted to be as different from my mother as I could and define myself as far as possible from the suburban life I was brought up in."


title: Nan Goldin

text: Goldin denies the role of voyeur; she is instead a queer insider sharing the same experiences as her subjects: "I'm not crashing; this is my party. This is my family, my history." She insists her subjects have veto power over what she exhibits. In "Fantastic Tales" Liz Kotz criticizes Goldin's claim that she is just as much a part of what she is photographing rather than exploiting her subjects. Goldin's insistence on intimacy between artist and subject is an attempt to relegitimize the codes and conventions of social documentary, presumably by ridding them of their problematic enmeshment with the histories of social surveillance and coercion, says Kotz. [Her] insider status does nothing to alter the way her pictures convert her audience into voyeurs.


title: Nan Goldin

text: Goldin's "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency" critiques gender norms ("clichés" as she calls them) by highlighting the collective human desire to form connections regardless of the emotional or physical cost. Throughout "Ballad", Goldin showcases some difficult moments for both herself and her friends, especially in relation to their codependency in search of genuine connection. Her friends are a diverse cast consisting of many non-conforming  gender identities and sexualities; Goldin's photography exposes many narratives that most would turn a blind eye to, such as the  intense intimacy and pain of same sex relationships. The AIDS epidemic cost most of Goldin's friends their lives, now preserved in time through the photos that she captured of them. Throughout this period of loss, the desire for connection was further perpetuated and Goldin and her remaining friend group found it essential to remain in close contact with one another. This constant desire for intimacy and connection highlights the similarities amongst people, despite their more obvious differences, emphasizing the societally upheld "differences" between men and women.


title: Nan Goldin

text: An exhibition of Goldin's work was censored in Brazil, two months before opening, due to its sexually explicit nature. The main reason was that some of the photographs contained sexual acts performed near children. In Brazil, there is a law that prohibits the image of minors associated with pornography.


title: Nan Goldin

text: The sponsor of the exhibition, a cellphone company, claimed to be unaware of the content of Goldin's work and that there was a conflict between the work and its educational project. The curator of the Rio de Janeiro Museum of Modern Art changed the schedule to accommodate, in February 2012, the Goldin exhibition in Brazil.


title: Nan Goldin

text: Both Goldin and Diane Arbus celebrate those who live marginal lives. Stills from "Variety" are compared to Arbus' magazine work; the "Variety" series portray "the rich collision of music, club life, and art production of the Lower East Side pre and post AIDS period". Both artists ask to reexamine artists' intentionality.


title: Nan Goldin

text: One of the reasons Goldin began photographing was Michelangelo Antonioni's "Blow Up" (1966). The sexuality and glamour of the film exerted a "huge effect" on her. Referring to images shown in "Ballad," "the beaten down and beaten up personages, with their gritty, disheveled miens, which populate these early pictures, often photographed in the dark and dank, ramshackle interiors, relate physically and emotionally to the alienated and marginal character types that attracted Antonioni."


title: Nan Goldin

text: The youths in Larry Clark's "Tulsa" (1971) presented a striking contrast to any wholesome, down-home stereotype of the heartland that captured the collective American imagination. He turned the camera on himself and his lowlife amphetamine-shooting board of hanger-ons. Goldin would adopt Clark's approach to image-making.


title: Nan Goldin

text: The photographs by the character Lucy Berliner, played by actress Ally Sheedy in the 1998 film "High Art", were based on those by Goldin.


title: Nan Goldin

text: The photographs shown in the film "Working Girls" (1986) as taken by the lead character Molly, were those of Goldin.


title: Nan Goldin

text: An early documentary was made on Goldin in 1997 after her mid-career retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, titled Nan Goldin: In My Life: ART/new york No. 47, by Paul Tschinkel.


title: Nan Goldin

text: In 2022, director Laura Poitras made a documentary film about Nan Goldin, "All the Beauty and the Bloodshed", which was awarded the Golden Lion at the 79th Venice International Film Festival.


title: Nan Goldin

text: Curated by Goldin at Artists Space, "Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing" (November 16, 1989 – January 6, 1990) invited New York artists to respond to the HIV/AIDS crisis. Artists represented included David Armstrong, Tom Chesley, Dorit Cypris, Philip-Lorca DiCorcia, Jane Dickson, Darrel Ellis, Allen Frame, Peter Hujar, Greer Lankton, Siobhan Liddel, James Nares, Perico Pastor, Margo Pelletier, Clarence Elie Rivera, Vittorio Scarpati, Jo Shane, Kiki Smith, Janet Stein, Stephen Tashjian, Shellburne Thurber, Ken Tisa, and David Wojnarowicz. Goldin noted that artists' works varied in response, as "out of loss comes memory pieces, tributes to friends and lovers who have died; out of anger comes explorations of the political cause and effects of the disease."


title: Nan Goldin

text: David Wojnarowicz's essay "Post Cards from America: X-Rays from Hell" in the exhibition's catalogue criticized conservative legislation that Wojnarowicz believed would increase the spread of HIV by discouraging safe sex education. Additionally, Wojnarowicz speaks about the efficacy of making the private public via the model of outing, as he and Goldin believed empowerment begins through self-disclosure. Embracing personal identities then becomes a political statement that disrupts oppressive rules of behavior of bourgeois society – though Wojnarowicz does admit outing may lock a subject into a single frozen identity. Goldin's show, and in particular Wojnarowicz's essay, was met with criticism, leading to the National Endowment of Arts rescinding its support for the publication.


title: Nan Goldin

text: Goldin's second curated show, "From Desire: A Queer Diary" (March 29 – April 19, 1991), was held at the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery at St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY. Artists who were exhibited included David Armstrong, Eve Ashcraft, Kathryn Clark, Joyce Culver, Zoe Leonard, Simon Leung, Robert Mapplethorpe, Robert Windrum, and David Wojnarowicz.


title: Nan Goldin

text: Rencontres d'Arles festival, Arles, France. This included the work of thirteen photographers including Antoine d'Agata, David Armstrong, JH Engström, Jim Goldberg, Leigh Ledare, Boris Mikhailov, Anders Petersen and Annelies Strba.


title: Jewish religious clothing

text: Jewish religious clothing is apparel worn by Jews in connection with the practice of the Jewish religion. Jewish religious clothing has changed over time while maintaining the influences of biblical commandments and Jewish religious law regarding clothing and modesty ("tzniut"). Contemporary styles in the wider culture also have a bearing on Jewish religious clothing, although this extent is limited.


title: Jewish religious clothing

text: The Torah set forth rules for dress that, following later rabbinical tradition, were interpreted as setting Jews apart from the communities in which they lived.


title: Jewish religious clothing

text: Classical Greek and Roman sources, that often ridicule many aspects of Jewish life, do not remark on their clothing and subject it to caricature, as they do when touching on Celtic, Germanic, and Persian peoples, and mock their different modes of dress. Cultural anthropologist Eric Silverman argues that Jews in the late antiquity period used clothes and hair-styles like the people around them. At 2 Maccabees 4:12, it is said that the Maccabees slaughtered Jewish youths guilty of Hellenizing in wearing caps typical of Greek youths.


title: Jewish religious clothing

text: In the Mishnaic period, as well as in many Islamic countries until the mid-20th century, Jewish men typically wore a tunic (, ), instead of trousers. In the same countries, many different local regulations emerged to make Christian and Jewish dhimmis look distinctive in their public appearance. In 1198, the Almohad emir Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur decreed that Jews must wear a dark blue garb, with very large sleeves and a grotesquely oversized hat; his son altered the colour to yellow, a change that may have influenced Catholic ordinances some time later. German ethnographer Erich Brauer (1895–1942) noted that in Yemen of his time, Jews were not allowed to wear clothing of any color besides blue. Earlier, in Jacob Saphir's time (1859), they would wear outer garments that were "utterly black".


title: Jewish religious clothing

text: In France, during the Middle Ages, Jewish men typically wore trousers and a shirt ("chemise"), thought by Rashi to have been equivalent to the tunic worn by Jewish men of the east.


title: Jewish religious clothing

text: Many Jewish men historically wore a turban or a habit, a tunic, a tallit, and sandals in summer. Oriental Jewish men in late-Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine would wear the tarbush on their heads.


title: Jewish religious clothing

text: The "tallit" is a Jewish prayer shawl worn while reciting morning prayers as well as in the synagogue on Shabbat and holidays. In Yemen, the wearing of such garments was not unique to prayer time alone but was worn the entire day. In many Ashkenazi communities, a "tallit" is worn only after marriage. The "tallit" has special twined and knotted fringes known as "tzitzit" attached to its four corners. It is sometimes referred to as "Arba kanfot" (lit. 'four corners') although the term is more common for a "tallit katan", an undergarment with "tzitzit". According to the Biblical commandments, "tzitzit" must be attached to any four-cornered garment, and a thread with a blue dye known as "tekhelet" was originally included in the "tzitzit", although the missing blue thread does not impair the validness of the white. Jewish tradition varies with respect to burial with or without a "tallit". While all the deceased are buried in "tachrichim" (burial shrouds), some communities (Yemenite Jews) do not bury their dead in their "tallit". The Shulhan Arukh and the Tur, however, following the legal opinion of the Ramban, require burying the dead with their "tallit", and which has become the general practice amongst most religious Jews. Among others, the matter is dependent upon custom.


title: Jewish religious clothing

text: Since "tzitzit" are considered to be a time-bound commandment, only men are required to wear them. Authorities have differed as to whether women are prohibited, permitted or encouraged to wear them. Medieval authorities tended toward leniency, with more prohibitive rulings gaining in precedence since the 16th century. Conservative Judaism regards women as exempt from wearing "tzitzit", not as prohibited, and the tallit has become more common among Conservative women since the 1970s. Some progressive Jewish women choose to take on the obligations of "tzitzit" and "tefillin", and it has become common for a girl to receive a tallit when she becomes bat mitzvah.


title: Jewish religious clothing

text: A "kippah" or "yarmulke" (also called a "kappel" or "skull cap") is a thin, slightly-rounded skullcap traditionally worn at all times by Orthodox Jewish men, and sometimes by both men and women in Conservative and Reform communities. Its use is associated with demonstrating respect and reverence for God. Jews in Arab lands did not traditionally wear yarmulkes, but rather larger, rounded, brimless hats, such as the kufi or tarboush.


title: Jewish religious clothing

text: A "kittel" () is a white, knee-length, cotton robe worn by Jewish prayer leaders and some Orthodox Jews on the High Holidays. In some families, the head of the household wears a "kittel" at the Passover seder, while in other families all married men wear them. In many Ashkenazi Orthodox circles, it is customary for the groom to wear a "kittel" under the chuppah (wedding canopy).


title: Jewish religious clothing

text: Married observant Jewish women wear a scarf ( or ), snood, hat, beret, or sometimes a wig (sheitel) in order to conform with the requirement of Jewish religious law that married women cover their hair.


title: Jewish religious clothing

text: Jewish women were distinguished from others in the western regions of the Roman Empire by their custom of veiling in public. The custom of veiling was shared by Jews with others in the eastern regions. The custom petered out among Roman women, but was retained by Jewish women as a sign of their identification as Jews. The custom has been retained among Orthodox women. Evidence drawn from the Talmud shows that pious Jewish women would wear shawls over their heads when they would leave their homes, but there was no practice of fully covering the face. In the medieval era, Jewish women started veiling their faces under the influence of the Islamic societies they lived in. In some Muslim regions such as in Baghdad, Jewish women veiled their faces until the 1930s. In the more lax Kurdish regions, Jewish women did not cover their faces.


title: Jewish religious clothing

text: Based on the rabbinic traditions of the Talmud, the 12th century philosopher Maimonides forbade emulating gentile dress and apparel when those same items of clothing have immodest designs, or that they are connected somehow to an idolatrous practice, or are worn because of some superstitious practice (i. e., "the ways of an Amorite").


title: Jewish religious clothing

text: A question was posed to 15th-century Rabbi Joseph Colon (Maharik) regarding "gentile clothing" and whether or not a Jew who wears such clothing transgresses a biblical prohibition that states, "You shall not walk in their precepts" (). In a protracted responsum, Rabbi Colon wrote that any Jew who might be a practising physician is permitted to wear a physician's cape (traditionally worn by gentile physicians on account of their expertise in that particular field of science and their wanting to be recognized as such), and that the Jewish physician who wore it has not infringed upon any law in the Torah, even though Jews were not wont to wear such garments in former times. He noted that there is nothing attributed to "superstitious" practice by their wearing such a garment, while, at the same time, there isn't anything promiscuous or immodest about wearing such a cape, neither is it worn out of haughtiness. Moreover, he has understood from Maimonides ("Hilkhot Avodat Kokhavim" 11:1) that there is no commandment requiring a fellow Jew to seek out and look for clothing which would make them stand out as "different" from what is worn by gentiles, but rather, only to make sure that what a Jew might wear is not an "exclusive" gentile item of clothing. He noted that wearing a physician's cape is not an exclusive gentile custom, noting, moreover, that since the custom to wear the cape varies from place to place, and that, in France, physicians do not have it as a custom to wear such capes, it cannot therefore be an exclusive Gentile custom.


title: Jewish religious clothing

text: According to Rabbi Colon, modesty was still a criterion for wearing gentile clothing, writing: "...even if Israel made it as their custom [to wear] a certain item of clothing, while the Gentiles [would wear] something different, if the Israelite garment should not measure up to [the standard established in] Judaism or of modesty more than what the Gentiles hold as their practice, there is no prohibition whatsoever for an Israelite to wear the garment that is practised among the Gentiles, seeing that it is in [keeping with] the way of fitness and modesty just as that of Israel."


title: Jewish religious clothing

text: Rabbi Joseph Karo (1488–1575), following in the footsteps of Colon, ruled in accordance with Colon's teaching in his seminal work "Beit Yosef" on the Tur ("Yoreh De'ah" §178), and in his commentary "Kessef Mishneh" (on Maimonides' "Mishne Torah", Hilkhot "Avodat Kokhavim" 11:1), making the wearing of gentile clothing contingent upon three factors: 1) that they not be promiscuous clothing; 2) not be clothing linked to an idolatrous practice; 3) not be clothing that was worn because of some superstitious practice (or "the way of the Amorites"). Rabbi Moses Isserles (1530–1572) opines that to these strictures can be added one additional prohibition of wearing clothes that are a "custom" for them (the gentiles) to wear, that is to say, an exclusive gentile custom where the clothing is immodest. Rabbi and posek Moshe Feinstein (1895–1986) subscribed to the same strictures.


title: Rizwan Manji

text: Rizwan Manji (born October 17, 1974) is a Canadian actor. He is known best for his portrayals of Ray Butani on "Schitt's Creek", Tick Pickwick on "The Magicians", Rajiv Gidwani in the NBC Universal TV series "Outsourced", and Jamil in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) television series "Peacemaker" (2022–present) and film "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" (2023).


title: Rizwan Manji

text: Manji was born in Toronto, Ontario, to Indian parents who emigrated from Tanzania. His family is Ismaili-Muslim of Gujarati Indian descent, and he has said that his religion is very important to him. When Manji was in grade one, he and his family moved to Calgary, Alberta, where he was raised. He graduated from Crescent Heights High School.


title: Rizwan Manji

text: Manji's parents wanted him to go to university to earn a degree, but he wanted to be an actor. He attended the University of Alberta, where his sister Rishma was enrolled. The only class he enjoyed there was drama. In 1992 Manji enrolled at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City.


title: Rizwan Manji

text: During the early years of Manji's career, he played small parts in various films and television shows, with recurring roles in "Privileged", "Better Off Ted" and "24".


title: Rizwan Manji

text: From 2010 to 2011, Manji played Rajiv Gidwani on the NBC comedy "Outsourced". He initially auditioned for the role of Gupta; Parvesh Cheena got the part, but the producers cast Manji as the scheming assistant manager Rajiv.


title: Rizwan Manji

text: Manji played Ray Butani on the CBC comedy "Schitt's Creek" from 2015 to 2020, for which he was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award.


title: Rizwan Manji

text: In 2019, he starred in the NBC comedy "Perfect Harmony" as Reverend Jax, a missionary who runs a church. The show, which starred Bradley Whitford, was cancelled after one season.


title: Rizwan Manji

text: Manji has also appeared in a GEICO commercial as a customer in the checkout aisle who wins the "auction," and in commercials for Kmart, LendingTree, National Car Rental, and The UPS Store.


title: Rizwan Manji

text: Manji co-hosts a podcast titled "The Brighter Side of News"https://www.rukusavenueradio.com/host-the-brighter-side-of-news.


title: Rizwan Manji

text: Manji lives in Studio City, California, with his wife and three children. He has spoken openly about issues facing South Asian and Muslim actors in Hollywood.


title: Expedia

text: Expedia Inc. is an online travel agency owned by Expedia Group, an American online travel shopping company based in Seattle. The website and mobile app can be used to book airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals, cruise ships, and vacation packages.


title: Expedia

text: In December 2010, listings for AMR Corporation, the parent company of American Airlines and American Eagle Airlines, were suspended by Expedia due to a dispute over how American's fares and schedules appeared in the site's search results AMR and Expedia reached an agreement in April 2011, allowing tickets to once again be sold through the aggregate site.


title: Expedia

text: Starting the 2018-21 cycle, Expedia Group became the first-ever global sponsor of the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Super Cup as Expedia extends to another season until 2024 and Hotels.com will end the sponsorship after 2021-22 season.


title: Expedia

text: Expedia's revenue dwindled from $12 billion in 2019 to $5.2 billion in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Expedia

text: According to the Travel Market Report, from January to December 2020 the U.S. Department of Transportation received 14,604 complaints about Expedia and other online travel agencies (OTAs) from customers trying to get refunds for canceled flights. As the source notes: "On social media, customers complained of excessively long call times and being unable to get through to a representative, leading to travelers being unable to make any changes to their travel plans or start refunds. Some people said they could not get a hold of someone for as much as 24 hours and one person said they called over 30 times."


title: Expedia

text: Starting the pandemic-hit 2020-21 season, Expedia struck the deal with the 2020 English champions, Liverpool F.C. as a global sponsor of the website in 3 seasons until 2023.


title: Expedia

text: In February 2019, TechCrunch reported that the Expedia mobile app in the iOS App Store was using session-replay functionality from Israeli firm Glassbox, to record users' activities and send the data to Expedia servers without users' informed consent, compromising users' privacy and contravening the rules of the iOS App Store.


title: Expedia

text: On 12 February 2020, the United Nations published a database of all business enterprises involved in certain specified activities related to the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Golan Heights. Expedia and its parent company, Expedia Group, have been listed on the database in light of its involvement in activities related to "the provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements".


title: Expedia

text: Expedia was involved in a number of lawsuits including class action lawsuits during the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular for refusing refunds for flights canceled over the coronavirus outbreak.


title: Expedia

text: In August 2016, Buckeye Tree Lodge and Sequoia Village Inn, LLC filed a class-action lawsuit in California accusing the company and its partners of "brazen deceit" by coordinating with internet search engines and social media institutions to return false results on lodging entities in favor of those affiliated with their websites, in violation of the Lanham Act. The lawsuit was settled in April 2021, after the company promised not to engage in false advertising.


title: Dexter (season 8)

text: The eighth season of the Showtime drama series "Dexter" premiered on June 30, 2013, and concluded on September 22 of the same year. The season follows Dexter Morgan, who is forced to deal with his past when he comes across Dr. Evelyn Vogel, an expert on psychiatry who returns to Miami. Nicknamed the "Psychopath Whisperer", she claims to have structured the code for him alongside Harry. This season also deals with a new serial killer in Miami who removes pieces of the victims' brains, and with Debra, who is trying to deal with her actions in the previous season. Originally serving as the final season, "Dexter" returned as a limited series in 2021, titled "".


title: Dexter (season 8)

text: On March 1, 2013, Jennifer Carpenter reported on her Twitter that Michael C. Hall would be directing the second episode of season 8, which was his directing debut.


title: Dexter (season 8)

text: On May 9, 2013, the official Dexter Facebook fanpage posted a behind the scenes photo of a clapper showing that episode 6 of season 8 would be directed by John Dahl.


title: Dexter (season 8)

text: According to Metacritic, the early response to Season 8 was mostly positive, the first two episodes of the season received a score of 71 out of 100. With a few episodes left in the season, "Rolling Stone" opined that "Dexter" is still "cleverly written and has a core cast of characters we care for", concluding that "everyone's favorite serial killer still has some gas left in his tank".


title: Dexter (season 8)

text: However, as the season went on, reception dropped drastically. The post-season reception was extremely negative. IGN gave the season as a whole a 5.5, citing poor writing and the ending as two of the reasons for its poor quality. "The A.V. Club" gave the season as a whole a D−.


title: Dexter (season 8)

text: The series finale met a mixed and polarized response, although the majority opinion was negative. Mary McNamara of the "Los Angeles Times" praised Carpenter's performance as worthy of an Emmy nomination and argued that "the parting scenes between Dexter and Deb, possibly the most powerful sibling bond television has ever seen, gave the show the send-off it deserved". Mike Hale of "The New York Times" said he "bought the ending", and fans "may or may not think that Dexter's final resting place is the one he deserves. But it works". "Entertainment Weekly" championed the series finale as "the best "Dexter" episode in years. ... It was also one of the strangest episodes in the show's history ... It's like watching a different series, one that was more compelling than the show it served to close."


title: Dexter (season 8)

text: Other responses to the finale were scathingly negative. Joshua Alston of "The A.V. Club" gave the episode an "F" and argued that the writers botched "the landing" by choosing ambiguity to avoid the conflict of "whether or not [fans] wanted Dexter to get away with it." Frazier Moore of the Associated Press called the ending sappy, sloppy, and a "cop-out". Richard Lawson of "The Atlantic Monthly" described the finale as an "unbelievably unsatisfying end [which] ruins all that came before it", including Dexter's universally acclaimed seasons 1–4.


title: Dexter (season 8)

text: Showtime president David Nevins praised the series finale, defending it against fan backlash by saying: "The fundamental design of where they ended Dexter was really well conceived. He had to sacrifice the one person who was closest to him in the world, and he had to leave. That was where it was headed for a very long time." Nevins also said there were never any discussions to kill off Dexter, and they didn't just keep the character alive for a potential spinoff series, which as of January 2014 they were discussing making. In October 2020, it was announced that "Dexter" would return with a 10-episode limited series starring Michael C. Hall reprising his role with Clyde Phillips as showrunner.


title: Nigel Planer

text: Nigel George Planer (born 22 February 1953) is a British actor, comedian, musician, novelist and playwright. He played Neil in the BBC comedy "The Young Ones" and Ralph Filthy in "Filthy Rich & Catflap". He has appeared in many West End musicals, including original casts of "Evita", "Chicago", "We Will Rock You", "Wicked", and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". He has also appeared in "Hairspray". He won a BRIT award in 1984 and has been nominated for Olivier, TMA, WhatsOnStage and BAFTA awards.


title: Nigel Planer

text: Planer's father's Hungarian-Romanian family left Nazi Germany in 1933 and settled in Mortlake, London. He established a medical equipment company, which pioneered technology in controlled-rate freezers, IVF and stem cells. Nigel, who has two brothers, was born in Westminster, London. He attended King's House School in Richmond and Westminster School in central London, where he wrote a satirical play about the school with fellow pupil Stephen Poliakoff. Having failed to gain a place on a drama course at university, he instead began a degree course in African and Asian Studies at the University of Sussex but dropped out and went travelling. After becoming ill, he applied and was accepted to study acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, where he met and began working with Peter Richardson.


title: Nigel Planer

text: Planer was a founding member of the London Comedy Store and original member of The Comic Strip – pioneers of the alternative comedy movement in the United Kingdom. Planer appeared with Peter Richardson as part of the double act "The Outer Limits". Planer and Richardson also wrote the "That's Life!" parody on "Not the Nine O'Clock News". Over the next 20 years he went on to star in film, theatre and television. With Christopher Douglas, he created the spoof actor character "Nicholas Craig", who appears in book, radio, TV and articles as well as live; most recently at the Royal Festival Hall, London, in Stewart Lee's "At Last the 1984 show". Planer is also the author of several books, plays, radio plays, and TV scripts as well as a small volume of poetry. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree from Edinburgh Napier University in June 2011.


title: Nigel Planer

text: Planer is best known for his role as Neil, the hippie housemate in the BBC comedy "The Young Ones", which ran for two series broadcast in 1982 and 1984. He has starred in "The Comic Strip Presents...", a series of short films sporadically broadcast from 1982 onwards, as various odd outsiders.


title: Nigel Planer

text: In 2003, Planer played Professor Dumbledore in a Harry Potter parody, "Harry Potter and the Secret Chamber Pot of Azerbaijan". He appeared on a BBC4 programme in the guise of Nicholas Craig in 2007, in which he was interviewed by Mark Lawson.


title: Nigel Planer

text: Planer guest-starred in "The Pale Horse", a 2010 episode of "Agatha Christie's Marple". In 2011's "The Hunt for Tony Blair", he played Peter Mandelson.


title: Nigel Planer

text: Planer's guest appearances include programmes such as "The Bill", "French and Saunders", "Jonathan Creek", "Blackadder III", "The Last Detective", "The Paul Merton Show", "The Lenny Henry Show", "Death in Paradise" and Gary Wilmot's "Songs from the Shows". He also guest-starred in an episode of "This is Jinsy" entitled "Nameworm", and in the BBC series "Boomers". Planer played Matt LeBlanc's lawyer in the TV series "Episodes".


title: Nigel Planer

text: Leading roles on television include "Shine on Harvey Moon", "Filthy Rich and Catflap", "The Grimleys", "King and Castle", "Bonjour La Classe" and "Roll Over Beethoven". He also starred in Michael Palin's "Number 27", Simon Gray's "Two Lumps of Ice", Emma Tennant's "Frankenstein's Baby", and "Blackeyes" by Dennis Potter.


title: Nigel Planer

text: His first break in the theatre was understudying David Essex as Che Guevara in the original West End run of "Evita".


title: Nigel Planer

text: In 1990, he replaced Michael Gambon in Alan Ayckbourn's "Man of the Moment" in the West End. Leading roles followed in other productions at the Bush Theatre, the Lyric Theatre, the Traverse, the Young Vic, the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Regent's Park Open-Air Theatre, Chichester Festival Theatre, Plymouth Drum and the Hampstead Theatre.


title: Nigel Planer

text: Planer was in the original cast for the 1997 London revival of "Chicago" as Amos Hart. He was a member of the original West End cast of Ben Elton's Queen musical "We Will Rock You" as Pop.


title: Nigel Planer

text: From 10 to 15 July 2006 he played the part of the narrator in "The Rocky Horror Show", taking on the role in Manchester and Bromley. He then starred as The Wizard in the original West End production of "Wicked" alongside Idina Menzel. The show opened at the Apollo Victoria Theatre on 27 September 2006. Planer ended his run on 7 June 2008 and was replaced by Desmond Barrit.


title: Nigel Planer

text: He took over the role of Wilbur from Ian Talbot in the West End production of "Hairspray" on 2 February 2009.


title: Nigel Planer

text: In 2010, Planer returned to the role of the Narrator in the UK Tour of "The Rocky Horror Show", playing in Cambridge and Northampton, before also reprising the role of Wilbur in Manchester and Leeds. He also featured in "Doctor Who: Live" touring the UK, as Vorgenson The Inter-Galactic Showman, before appearing in Pantomime as Captain Hook at the Lyceum Theatre in Sheffield.


title: Nigel Planer

text: Planer went on to star as Grandpa Joe in the original production of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", which opened in London's West End in 2013.


title: Nigel Planer

text: From September 2018 to November 2018, Planer toured with Ade Edmondson in a play that they wrote together called "Vulcan 7".


title: Nigel Planer

text: Planer has appeared in films, including "Flood", "Virgin Territory", "Bright Young Things", "Hogfather", "The Colour of Magic", "The Wind in the Willows", "The Land Girls", "Clockwork Mice", "Carry On Columbus", "Brazil", "The Supergrass", "I Give It a Year", "The Apple Picker" and "Yellowbeard".


title: Nigel Planer

text: Planer played Den Dennis, one of the four members of the 1980s spoof rock band "Bad News", which made two albums produced by Brian May. The band performed at the Hammersmith Apollo as well as the Donington and Reading Rock Festivals.


title: Nigel Planer

text: As Neil from "The Young Ones", Planer gained a number two hit single in 1984 in the form of "Hole in My Shoe" (originally a hit for 1960s band Traffic). A cover of Tomorrow's "My White Bicycle" was a less successful follow up, only reaching No.97 in the charts. After that, an album was produced, entitled "Neil's Heavy Concept Album". Planer also took Neil's stage act on the road in that year as Neil in the "Bad Karma in The UK" tour. This culminated in a month-long run at St. Mary's Hall at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. "The Young Ones" also appeared on Cliff Richard's 1986 charity rerecording of "Living Doll", which spent three weeks at number one in the UK. He has a silver and a gold disc and has a Brit award from his musical career. In 2015 he started a new music project called Rainsmoke with Chris Wade (Dodson and Fogg) and Roger Planer.


title: Nigel Planer

text: In 2017 he recorded two songs for the album "Wit & Whimsy – Songs by Alexander S. Bermange" (one solo and one featuring all of the album's 23 artists), which reached No. 1 in the iTunes comedy album chart.


title: Nigel Planer

text: In 2021, Planer released several of his own musical projects. "Five Songs Left" and "Four Songs More", collaborations with Chris Wade, are Nick Drake-inspired folk songs that he wrote in 1971, when we was eighteen. He also released two singles written more recently, "City in the Summer", a jazz song about the hot summer of COVID-19, and "Love Strikes". He also wrote lyrics for "Commit No Nuisance", a music collaboration with Neil Avery. Described as a "labour of love", "Talk it Out", one of the songs from the album, aims to encourage male mental health awareness. He has also written lyrics for Matts Lindblom.


title: Nigel Planer

text: Planer was the initial main reader for the first unabridged audiobook editions of many of Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" novels. He also appeared in the television adaptations of "Terry Pratchett's Hogfather" and "The Colour of Magic", and performed as a voice artist in the games "Discworld 2" and "Discworld Noir". Discworld Audiobooks narrated by Planer include (with number in parentheses indicating order of the book in the Discworld series):


title: Nigel Planer

text: Other voice roles include the narrator of "Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids" (and the audiobook narrator for "Fearsome Tales for Fiendish Kids"), the title character of "Romuald the Reindeer", and Dr. Marmalade in an episode of "SpongeBob SquarePants" (alongside "Young Ones" co-stars Christopher Ryan and Rik Mayall). Planer has also been the narrator of many of BBC Four's "Britannia" series of documentaries, including "Prog Rock Britannia", "Blues Britannia" and "Heavy Metal Britannia". In addition he voiced Frodo in "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil" from the 1992 radio series "Tales from the Perilous Realm". He was a narrator in a direct-to-video version of Val Biro's "Gumdrop" book series in 1994. He also narrated two short surreal monologues on the album "In A Strange Slumber", by Dodson and Fogg, Chris Wade's progressive folk rock project. He narrated as a thirty-something Adrian Mole in the radio adaptation of "Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years".


title: Nigel Planer

text: In 2018, he voiced the character of Henry Davenant Hythe in the Big Finish Productions original production, "Jeremiah Bourne in Time", which he also wrote. Planer also narrated an audiobook written by Chris Wade called "Raymond's Room", released by Wisdom Twins Books.


title: Nigel Planer

text: Planer has written books, stage plays, TV shows, radio plays and newspaper articles as well as penning 105 episodes of "The New Magic Roundabout".


title: Cuba Gooding Sr.

text: Cuba Gooding (April 27, 1944 – April 20, 2017) was an American singer. He was the most successful lead singer of the soul group The Main Ingredient, replacing former lead singer Donald McPherson who was diagnosed with leukemia in 1971. According to "Billboard", as the lead vocalist he scored five top 10 hits, most notably, "Everybody Plays the Fool" (1972), peaking at No. 2 for three weeks, and peaking at No. 3 on "Billboard"′s all-genre Hot-100 list. "Just Don't Want to Be Lonely" (1974), "Happiness Is Just Around the Bend" and "Rolling Down a Mountainside" were also top 10 hits on "Billboard" charts. He also recorded as a solo artist with hits of his own.


title: Cuba Gooding Sr.

text: Born in Harlem, New York City, Gooding was a son of Dudley MacDonald Gooding (1890–1955) and his wife Addie Alston. The elder Gooding was a native of Barbados who fled the island in 1936 to Cuba, and met and married a woman there. When she was murdered because of their affiliation with Pan Africanist leader Marcus Garvey, Dudley Gooding promised his wife on her deathbed that he would name his first son Cuba. His father died when Cuba was 11 years old. Gooding's father was a taxi driver in Manhattan.


title: Cuba Gooding Sr.

text: Gooding Sr. joined The Main Ingredient as a back-up vocalist. He became the lead singer after lead singer Donald McPherson died of leukemia in 1971. The 1973 album "Afrodisiac" featured several songs co-written by Stevie Wonder. Gooding left The Main Ingredient in either 1977 or 1978. He had a brief solo career on Motown Records during the late 1970s and early 1980s making two albums; the first was titled "The 1st Cuba Gooding Album". His biggest international success was Brian Auger's "Happiness Is Just Around the Bend" in 1983, which has in recent times been sampled by several R&B artists, as well as hitting the charts again as a remix by UK Hardcore Rave group Altern-8 in 1991. In 1980, Gooding returned to The Main Ingredient and made two more albums for RCA Victor. In 1991, samples from the song also featured prominently in Bizarre Inc's single "Playing With Knives". Gooding released a single called "Politics" in September 2007. He was also developing a film project called "Everybody Plays the Fool: The Cuba Gooding Story". The film highlights three generations of the Gooding Family: Dudley "Cuba" Gooding, Cuba Gooding Sr., Cuba Gooding Jr. and Omar Gooding.


title: Cuba Gooding Sr.

text: On the "Boat Trip" DVD trivia track, it was stated that he was going to appear in the 2003 romantic-comedy "The Fighting Temptations", which stars his son Cuba Gooding Jr., but he is not in the movie.


title: Cuba Gooding Sr.

text: Gooding appeared on the "Beach Music Super Collaboration" CD, performing the Charles Wallert composition, "Meant To Be In Love". This led to the duo's project, “Never Give Up” (Bluewater Recordings), which debuted at the 2009 presidential inauguration.


title: Cuba Gooding Sr.

text: Gooding moved from the Bronx to southern California in the 1970s. Gooding and his wife, singer Shirley Gooding (née Sullivan) had four children: actors Cuba Gooding Jr., Omar Gooding, actress April Gooding and musician Tommy Gooding. Gooding Sr. later became a minor actor himself. Gooding Sr. separated from his wife in 1974. In 1995, the Goodings remarried.


title: Cuba Gooding Sr.

text: In 2011, he had a residence in Rosarito Beach, Mexico where he performed at least one charity concert. He also was a resident in Flagler Beach, Florida.


title: Cuba Gooding Sr.

text: On April 20, 2017, one week before his 73rd birthday, Gooding was found dead in his vehicle while parked on a street in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles. CPR was performed by the fire department but they were unable to revive him. An autopsy determined he died of natural causes.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Current laws passed by the Parliament of Canada in 2014 make it illegal to purchase or advertise sexual services and illegal to live on the material benefits from sex work. The law officially enacted criminal penalties for "Purchasing sexual services and communicating in any place for that purpose."


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: It is the first time in Canadian history that the exchange of sexual services for money is made illegal. The Canadian Department of Justice claims that the new legal framework "reflects a significant paradigm shift away from the treatment of prostitution as 'nuisance', as found by the Supreme Court of Canada in "Bedford", toward treatment of prostitution as a form of sexual exploitation". Many sex workers' rights organizations, however, argue that the new law entrenches and maintains harm against sex workers since sex workers are still committing a crime, albeit there is an immunity from arrest for material benefits and advertising.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: The new laws came in response to the "Canada (AG) v Bedford" ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada, which found to be unconstitutional the laws prohibiting brothels, public communication for the purpose of prostitution and living on the profits of prostitution. The ruling gave Parliament of Canada 12 months to rewrite the prostitution laws with a stay of effect so that the current laws remain in force. Amending legislation came into effect on December 6, 2014, which made the purchase of sexual services illegal.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: There has long been a general agreement that the status quo of prostitution in Canada was problematic, but there has been little consensus on what should be done. There is an ideological disagreement between those who want to see prostitution eliminated (prohibitionism), generally because they view it either as an exploitative or unacceptable part of society, and those advocating decriminalisation because they view sex workers as having agency and prostitution as a transaction; they also believe prohibition encourages the exploitation of sex workers by denying them legal and regulatory protections. The term "sex work" is used interchangeably with "prostitution" in this article, in accordance with the World Health Organisation (WHO 2001; WHO 2005) and the United Nations (UN 2006; UNAIDS 2002). The Conservative majority Government of Canada, however, was committed to a prohibitionist position, as was laid out in its new legislation introduced in 2014.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: While the act of exchanging sex for money has been legal for most of Canada's history, the prohibition of the activities surrounding the sex trade has made it difficult to practise prostitution without breaking any law. This is the first time that the exchange of sexual services for money is made illegal.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Canada inherited laws from the United Kingdom. The first recorded laws dealing with prostitution were in Nova Scotia in 1759. Following Canadian Confederation in 1867, the laws were consolidated in the Criminal Code in 1892. These dealt principally with pimping, procuring, operating brothels and soliciting. Most amendments to date have dealt with the latter; originally classified as a "vagrancy" offence, this was amended to "soliciting" in 1972, and "communicating" in 1985. Since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms became law, the constitutionality of Canada's prostitution laws have been challenged on a number of occasions, successfully so in 2013, leading to a new legislative approach introduced in 2014.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: On March 26, 2012, the Ontario Court of Appeal struck down part of two provisions, subject to appeal, and the declaration is not in effect. An appeal was lodged with the Supreme Court of Canada on April 25, 2012, including an extension of the stay in effect. Lawyers for the respondents pointed out that the last minute appeal left them little time to respond.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: The activities related to sex work that are prohibited by law include operating a premises (sexual services establishment or brothel) where such activities take place, being found in such an establishment, procuring for such purposes, and communicating such services (soliciting) in a public place, making it difficult to engage in prostitution without breaking any law. Automobiles are considered public spaces if they can be seen. On the other hand, working as an independent sex worker and private communication for such purposes (telephone, internet, e-mail, etc.) is legal. This ambivalence can cause confusion, leading one judge to refer to the laws as 'Alice-in-Wonderland', and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to call the situation "bizarre":


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: We find ourselves in an anomalous, some would say bizarre, situation where almost everything related to prostitution has been regulated by the criminal law except the transaction itself. The appellants' argument then, more precisely stated, is that in criminalizing so many activities surrounding the act itself, Parliament has made prostitution "de facto" illegal if not "de jure" illegal., per Dickson CJ at page 44


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: The legal situation has also been challenged in the rulings of two courts in Ontario in "Bedford v. Canada"—the respondents/appellants are sex worker activists Terri-Jean Bedford, Amy Lebovitch, and Valerie Scott—which described the laws as 'ancient' and emphasised that the purpose of the laws was not to eradicate prostitution but to mitigate harms emanating from it: "We are satisfied that the challenged provisions are not aimed at eradicating prostitution, but only some of the consequences associated with it, such as disruption of neighbourhoods and the exploitation of vulnerable women by pimps." OCA at 169


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: In a dissenting opinion (2:3) regarding the potential harm of the laws, the appellate justices wrote:


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: The 1985 addition of the communicating provision to the existing bawdy-house and living on the avails provisions created an almost perfect storm of danger for prostitutes. Prostitutes were first driven to the streets, and then denied the one defence, communication, that allowed them to evaluate prospective clients in real time. OCA at 364


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: 'Prostitution' is not defined in Canadian statute law, but is based on case law which deems that three elements are necessary to establish that prostitution is taking place: (i) provision of sexual services, (ii) the indiscriminate nature of the act (soliciting rather than choosing clients), and (iii) the necessity for some form of payment.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: On October 25, 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada granted leave to appeal and cross-appeal the Ontario Court of Appeal Bedford decision. The court also granted the motion to stay the Ontario Court of Appeal decision until judgement is passed, meaning that the Criminal Code sections at stake were still in force in Ontario. Chief Justice Beverley McLachlan wrote:


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: These appeals and the cross-appeal are not about whether prostitution should be legal or not. They are about whether the laws Parliament has enacted on how prostitution may be carried out pass constitutional muster. I conclude that they do not. I would therefore make a suspended declaration of invalidity, returning the question of how to deal with prostitution to Parliament.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: In a decision dated December 20, 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the laws in question. They delayed the enforcement of their decision for one year—also applicable to the Ontario sections—to give the government a chance to write new laws. Following the announcement of the decision, Valerie Scott stated in the media that, regardless of the decision, sex workers must be involved in the process of constructing the new legislation: "The thing here is politicians, though they may know us as clients, they do not understand how sex work works. They won't be able to write a half-decent law. It will fail. That's why you must bring sex workers to the table in a meaningful way."


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: In response, Peter MacKay, the Minister of Justice, introduced amending legislation, C-36, the ""Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act"" on June 4, 2014, which received first reading. It came into effect on December 6, 2014. The act is criticized by sex workers who believe that it is worse for their safety than the previous law because it forces the sex industry further underground.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Bill C-36, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, introduced by Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper, received Royal Assent on November 6, 2014. The legislation was opposed by all opposition parties, including the Liberals, who declared that the legislation was unconstitutional and did not follow the guidelines set out in "Bedford v. Canada". Justin Trudeau promised to further reform Bill C-36 during his 2015 federal election campaign. As of 2021, there has been no reformation of the Bill.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: The Bill treats sex work as a form of exploitation and sexual inequality (the Criminal Code only addresses women and girls in this legislation). Since the Bill was enacted in 2014, only 9% of sex workers accused of prostitution were female, in-comparison, police-reports show an increase from 53% to 81% for male sex workers. Unfortunately, given the language of the Bill, it is unclear if transgender sex workers are addressed under the law. There has been very limited research on transgender people in the sex-trade industry. Bill C-36 claims to protect the dignity and equality of all Canadians by prohibiting the purchasing of sexual services. Bill C-36 was heavily influenced by the Nordic model approach to prostitution.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: The Nordic Model offers an asymmetrical solution to sex work: if it is illegal to buy, then less harm will be caused to the sex worker due to a lack of clients. In Canada, Bill C-36 criminalizes the purchasing of sex while decriminalizing the selling of sexual services. The Criminal Code identifies the operation of bawdy-houses as an offence, which prohibits sex workers from operating indoors. It also declares sexual service advertising a criminal offence, as well as procuring and communicating. The Bill also outlines the different offences that are connected to human trafficking. Overall, the model seeks the abolition of prostitution by targeting demand.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Prostitution legislation in Canada has been criticized by sex workers, for it reinforces violence against them and undermines access to social systems. Bill C-36 has prohibited the use of indoor prostitution, yet this has merely displaced sex work rather than reduce it; whilst making it more difficult for sex workers to control their environments. A survey was produced by Nanos Research for the London Abused Women's Centre, conducted in London, Ontario. The survey asked over 1,000 Canadians, 18 years or older, questions over the telephone and online regarding their opinions on Bill C-36. The poll results include:


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: The passage of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 allowed for the provision of challenging the constitutionality of laws governing prostitution in Canada in addition to interpretative case law. Other legal proceedings have dealt with ultra vires issues (whether a jurisdiction, such as a Provincial Government or municipality, has the powers to legislate on the matter).


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: In 1990, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the law which bans public solicitation of prostitution, arguing that the law had the goal to abolish prostitution, which was a valid goal. Reference re ss. 193 and 195.1 of Criminal Code, (the Prostitution Reference), [1990] 1 S.C.R. 1123 is a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on the right to freedom of expression under section 2(b) of the "Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms", and on prostitution. The Court held that, although the Criminal Code provision that prohibited communication for the purpose of engaging in prostitution was in violation of the right to freedom of expression, it could be justified under section 1 of the "Charter" and so it was upheld. The majority found, with a 5:2 split and both women dissenting, that the purpose of eliminating prostitution was a valid goal, and that the provision was rationally connected and proportional to that goal. Accordingly, the provision was upheld.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: In 2010, a decision of the Ontario Superior Court in "Bedford v. Canada" held that the key provisions of the Criminal Code dealing with prostitution (Keeping a bawdy house; Living off the avails; Soliciting or Communicating for the purpose) were invalid, but a stay of effect was put in place. This was appealed by the crown resulting in a decision by the Ontario Court of Appeal on March 26, 2012.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: That court upheld the lower court's ruling on bawdy houses, modified the ruling on living on the avails to make exploitation a criminal offence, but reversed the decision on soliciting, holding that the effect on communities justified the limitation. Two of the five judges dissented from the last ruling, stating that the law on solicitation was not justifiable. The court continued a stay of effect of a further twelve months on the first provision, and thirty days on the second.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Both parties had up to sixty days to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court of Canada and on April 25, the federal government stated it would do so.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Meanwhile, a related challenge was mounted in British Columbia in 2007, but did not proceed due to a procedural motion by the Attorney General of Canada seeking dismissal on the grounds of lack of standing by the litigants. This was upheld by the BC Supreme Court in 2008, but successfully appealed in 2010. The Attorney General then appealed this decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada who released their decision on September 21, 2012. They dismissed the appeal enabling the case to once again proceed in the court of first instance.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics report "Street Prostitution in Canada" (1993) stated that police activity is mainly directed at the street level. Over 10,000 prostitution-related incidents were reported in 1992; 95% communicating offences and 5% bawdy-house and pimping offences.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: In 1997, they reported a sharp increase in the number of prostitution-related incidents recorded by police for 1995, following two years of decline. Since these are police figures they are just as likely to reflect enforcement rather than actual activity. The report also stated that in the period 1991–1995, 63 known prostitutes were murdered (5% of all women killed in Canada).


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Separate reports have not been published since, but included in "Crime Statistics in Canada". Data from the 2007 report show 5,679 offences in 2006 (17/100,000 population), and 4,724 in 2007 (14). This translates into a change of −17.6% between 2006 and 2007, and −27.6% between 1998 and 2007.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: The exact number of people in sex work is not known, since this cannot be collected reliably. Estimates vary widely, and should be interpreted with caution.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: About 10% to 33% of all prostitutes have been estimated to work primarily outside, and are thus more visible.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: According to some estimates, most sex workers are young women (average 22–25), who began working between 16 and 20, most are single, and estimates of the number of prostitutes who have children suggest this is between 30 and 70%. In some field studies, 62% of prostitutes in Vancouver, 50% in Toronto, and 69% in Montréal claimed that they worked for themselves, while the presence and influence of pimps was more extensive in the Maritimes and on the Prairies. Drug use has been found to vary substantially by region and gender: it is highest in the Atlantic provinces, lowest in Québec, and appears to be a problem for the men more than the women. However, all these figures need to be interpreted with caution and compared to the general population.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: This is much lower than in the United States, where in 1994, 18% of men stated they had paid for sex and 15% in 2004. However, these polls cannot be directly compared because the questions asked in each were not identical.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Nearly all law enforcement of the anti-prostitution laws concerns the people involved in street prostitution, with the other forms of prostitution being virtually ignored. The enforcement generally focuses on the prostitutes, and not on their customers.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: More than 90% of prosecutions are under section 213 (communicating). Consequently, it has become the target of criticism that, while designed to prevent public nuisance, it ignores public safety. In practice, the communication law has not altered the extent of street-based sex work, but merely displaced it, often to more dangerous locations.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: The STAR project showed that relocation to poorly-lit, underpopulated areas reduced unwelcome attention by police and residents but increased the likelihood of 'bad dates'.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: While sex work exists in all cities, one that has received a large amount of publicity is Vancouver due to poor socio-economic conditions in the Downtown Eastside, and the murder of a large number of women working in the sex trade, a disproportionate number of whom were aboriginal. "Body rub parlours" may be establishments in which sex work takes place, which would be illegal under bawdy house and communicating laws. Vancouver's milder climate may favour street prostitution. However sex workers and their support services in Vancouver have been very organised and vocal in responding to media criticisms.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: The murders of 60+ sex workers, most of whom were Indigenous, from the downtown eastside of Vancouver in the 1990s and subsequent trials focussed national attention on the safety of sex workers under current legislation, which eventually led to court cases challenging the constitutionality of those laws. These trials did not focus on the overrepresentation of Indigenous women and girls in street sex and trafficking trade which has been largely attributed to three main root causes: gender inequality, a subordinate place in settler-colonial society, and targeted violence; thus when paired with the racism aimed at the Indigenous population by the settler-colonial society, a violent attitude towards the bodies of Indigenous street workers is accepted. In 2011, a public inquiry into missing and murdered women again drew attention to the interaction between safety and legislation. It is most likely that Pickton was able to kill those women specifically because they'd been displaced from the Downtown core in the "stroll" bounded by Helmcken Street north Seymour to Nelson, east to Richards and south to Helmcken Street to the industrial area in the Downtown Eastside.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: In 2012, a young Victoria man was convicted on charges relating to the prostitution of a child online. He was sentenced to three years in prison.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: A study was reported as showing that 26% of Vancouver's female sex workers were infected with HIV, and that Vancouver's overall prevalence of HIV was about 1.21%, six times higher than the national rate. Dr. Patricia Daly, chief medical health officer for Vancouver Coastal Health, was quoted as saying "Our message has always been that you should assume sex trade workers are HIV positive". This remark was criticised as offensive and inaccurate. Subsequent correspondence showed this figure to be misleading. The data actually represented injectable drug users attending health services. With more health related problems in middle age groups


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Saskatchewan's HIV problems have received some publicity when health authorities blamed injectable drug users (IDU) and street sex workers in 2009. However HIV is uncommon amongst sex workers unless they are also IDUs and the Regina Street Workers Advocacy Project was critical of statements that demonised one group.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Child prostitution is illegal, but there are community concerns that it is a growing problem. While expansive claims have been made as to its extent, expert reports conclude that such estimates cannot be relied upon. For instance, a 2002 report of the Justice Institute of British Columbia states that "Because of the illicit nature of commercial sexual exploitation, there is no way to accurately measure the number of children and youth being commercially sexually exploited. Estimates of the number of commercially sexually exploited children and youth in Canada vary greatly."


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: The Criminal Code was amended in 1988 to include child sexual abuse, and linking juvenile prostitution to the “procuring” section. In 1995, the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Working Group on Prostitution stated that these provisions “have been ineffective in bringing customers and pimps of youths involved in prostitution to justice.” They reported that charges under these provisions were rare, and that juvenile prostitutes and their clients continued to be charged under the general summary conviction offence prohibiting street prostitution, as with adults. Enforcement problems resulted from the reluctance of youths to testify against pimps, and the difficulty of apprehending clients.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: The 1996 amendments addressed the Working Group report. Bill C-27 included a new indictable offence of “aggravated” procuring. This applied to pimps who coerce juveniles into prostitution through violence or intimidation, with a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison, and a maximum of 14 years. Bill C-27 extended some procedural safeguards to juvenile witnesses appearing in court, entitling them to testify outside the courtroom behind a screen (or on video). Publication bans could protect the identity of complainants or witnesses under the age of 18. The addition of an offence for obtaining or attempting to obtain the sexual services of a person whom the offender believed to be under 18 was intended to make enforcement of s. 212(4) easier; s. 212(5) then added that evidence that a person was represented to the accused as being under 18 was proof of that belief, in the absence of evidence to the contrary. It was intended that undercover agents rather than minors themselves would be used to detect such offences. C-27 was given Assent in April 1997.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: The provinces then expressed concerns that convictions would be difficult to obtain because the Crown had to prove the belief of the accused as to the age of the young person, while the working group were unsure about the constitutionality.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: In June 1998, C-51 was introduced, changing “attempts to obtain” to “communicates with any person for the purpose of obtaining” to simplify prosecution by removing any need to prove belief of age. Electronic surveillance was also explicitly allowed, and this was assented in March 1999.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: In June 1999, provincial and territorial leaders declared child prostitution abuse rather than a crime and agreed to harmonise child welfare legislation. Several provinces and municipalities appointed task forces to implement the child as victim concept. Alberta led the way in this, followed by British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Ontario (June 2002).


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Media reports claim that Vancouver has about 500 street prostitutes under the age of 17, while some have claimed that many more children may be involved in indoor prostitution. Such numbers, however, should be treated with extreme caution (see above).


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Approximately 50% to 80% of the child sex trade in British Columbia is carried on in massage parlours, karaoke bars, and "trick pads"; only 20% to 50% of the trade is visible above ground with children being openly solicited on the streets. In smaller BC communities, the sexual exploitation of children is even less visible. It occurs in private homes, back alleys and parks, at public docks and truck stops, and on fishing boats.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Some adolescents in care had advertised sex for sale on Craigslist when the erotic services category was still available. Craigslist removed this category on December 18, 2010.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: In certain areas of BC, aboriginal youth, who constitute 3–5% of the general population, account for the majority of minors working in the sex trade. Estimates of the number of aboriginal sexually exploited youth in BC range from 14% to 60%, a problem blamed on the residential schools.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Alberta's Child Welfare Act (1997) added the purchase of sex from someone under 18 as child abuse, with fines up to $2,000 and/or six months in jail in addition to Criminal Code penalties.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: The Protection of Children Involved in Prostitution Act (February 1999) provided that a child wanting to exit prostitution may access community support programs, but if not could be apprehended by police. They could then be confined for up to 72 hours in a protective safe house, where they can receive emergency care, treatment, assessment and planning. Customers and pimps can be charged with child sexual abuse and fined up to $25,000, 2 years jail or both.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: However, in July 2000, the law was ruled unconstitutional. The Provincial Court determined that it did not respect a child's legal rights because it lacked the "procedural safeguards" to allow youth the right to answer allegations or seek judicial appeal. But in December the Court of Queen's Bench quashed this. Nevertheless, the government had already introduced amendments ensuring that when a child is confined they be informed in writing as to why they were being confined, its duration, court dates and the right to legal representation. The child is also given an opportunity to contact Legal Aid and that they may request court review of the confinement.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Amendments were also made to enable children to receive additional care and support, including extending the confinement period for up to five days and allowing for authorities to apply for a maximum of two additional confinement periods of up to 21 days each.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: In Winnipeg, evidence was given at a 2008 inquest that hundreds of children, some as young as eight years old, are selling sex to adult men for money, drugs and even food and shelter. It is estimated that 70% of the underage prostitutes are Aboriginal, more than 70% are wards of Child and Family Services, and more than 80% get involved after running away from their placements.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Ontario's child welfare legislation goes further than Alberta's by allowing the province to sue pimps and others who sexually exploit children for profit, in order to recover the costs of treatment and services required by their victims.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: The numbers involved are disputed. According to Police statistics only 5% of those charged with prostitution activities are youth and over 80% of them are young women. Others claim higher figures.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: A 2006 ECPAT report states that while according to Statistics Canada, between 10 and 15 per cent of people involved in street prostitution are under 18, this figure is viewed by most child advocates as a gross underestimate. On the other hand, doubt has been raised by UNICEF regarding ECPAT's methods.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Most child-prostitutes do not work on the streets, but behind closed doors: "You can't have children standing on the corner because they will be spotted immediately. So what pimps and recruiters do is keep them off-street," said Raven Bowen, from Vancouver.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: A 2002 British Columbia Government report stated that some children end up in prostitution after running away from home, where they may have been victims of physical and/or sexual abuse. The report cited as causes of commercial sexual exploitation of children factors such as social isolation; low self-esteem; a dysfunctional family where violence and substance misuse were common; neglect; early sexual abuse or other traumatizing experience; dropping out of school; hidden disabilities, including Fetal Alcohol Syndrome—factors which pushed children into prostitution. Many children had a history of provincial care in a foster or group home, or living on their own, but some youth from well-functioning families had left home after a traumatic event becoming at risk of sexual exploitation once on the street. Some children came from families where prostitution was practised by other members, or from communities where prostitution was common.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: They found that some children were preyed upon by pimps who may slowly gain their trust, befriend them and provide them with food, accommodation and clothes before hooking them on drugs and alcohol and forcing them into sexual service. However, only a small proportion were found to be controlled in this manner, and older girls frequently introduced younger ones into the trade. Some pimps were considered as boyfriends, the report found. Pimps may use romantic techniques to seduce young girls. Where pimps appeared to be involved in recruitment, they worked in areas where young people congregate such as food courts in malls, community centres and schools, preferring unsupervised venues including fast food restaurants and bus stops but also supervised locations including drop-in


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: programs, group homes, juvenile detention centres, youth shelters and treatment centres. Runaway children are easily spotted by pimps at the bus and train stations of major Canadian cities.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: In the early 1990s, pressure was building for action on the sexual exploitation of foreign children by Canadian tourists travelling abroad, even though the extent was unknown, leading to the introduction of a number of private member's bills.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: C-27 (1996) amended s. 7 of the Criminal Code to address this. s. 7(4.1) extended its extraterritorial provisions to 11 sexual and sex-related offences against minors (but does not specify purchase of sex), and applies Canadian law to foreign jurisdictions.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Following enactment of C-27 in 1997, the Department of Justice was involved in the development of the United Nations’ Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, and Canada became a signatory in November 2001 (in force as of January 2002). At the same time C-15 simplified such prosecutions which had previously distinguished between prostitution and other forms of sexual abuse.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: In 2009, Joy Smith introduced Bill C-268, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (minimum sentence for offences involving trafficking of persons under the age of eighteen years). This Bill amended Section 279.01 of Canada’s Criminal Code to create a new offence for child trafficking with a five-year mandatory penalty. Bill C-268 has received broad support from stakeholders concerned with human trafficking including law enforcement, victims’ services, First Nations representatives, and religious and secular non-governmental organizations. MP Joy Smith worked with her colleagues across party lines to gain support for the legislation. On September 30, 2009, Bill C-268 received near unanimous support from Conservative, Liberal and NDP parties and was passed by the House of Commons, although opposed by the Bloc Québécois. On June 29, 2010, Bill C-268 was granted Royal Assent and became law. The successful passage of a Private Members Bill is rare and it is only the 15th time in the history of the Canada that a Private Members Bill amended the Criminal Code.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Policy development around sex work in Canada is complex, divided across areas of jurisdictions and agencies. Issues that policy making bodies need to deal with include which jurisdiction should exercise powers, and which powers. There is debate on how far a government can go in terms of intruding into private lives, and even whether prostitution is actually a problem or merely part of larger problems.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: While the outdoor scene is the most visible and the one most likely to lead to complaints, there is an opinion that actions against them merely move the problem around rather than solve it, and that what harms there are in prostitution derive from public attitudes and inconsistent laws. The legal status has been described as "quasi-legal"


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Debate comes from feminists, civil libertarians, politicians and law and order officials. The debates range over morality, constitutional rights and freedoms, and the fact that it is one of the few areas of consensual sexual activity that is still subject to legal control.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Various government committees and task forces have made many recommendations, very few of which have been implemented. The most recent was the 2006 report of the parliamentary subcommittee on solicitation which split on ideological party lines, with recommendations for decriminalisation from the majority opposition parties, and for eradication by the minority government members.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: The former majority Conservative government supported the prohibition of prostitution. Responding to the 2006 report, Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated "In terms of legalization of prostitution I can just tell you that obviously that's something that this government doesn't favour". Justice Minister Rob Nicholson also stated: "We are not in the business of legalizing brothels, and we have no intention of changing any of the laws relating to prostitution in this country.”


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Such a move would likely be met with opposition from prohibitionist feminists organizations who are opposed to prostitution, which they consider to be a form of exploitation of women and of male dominance (see Feminist views on prostitution). They point out that in Sweden, Norway and Iceland it is illegal to pay for sex (the client commits a crime, but not the prostitute) and argue that countries with a high commitment to gender equality don't tolerate prostitution. On the other hand, other feminists and women's groups see the laws prohibiting sex work as oppressive of the labour of women and argue for their repeal as a basic human rights issue.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: In October 2011, Conservative MP Joy Smith stated she was preparing legislation that would prohibit the purchase of sex. In response, Vancouver lawyer, Katrina Pacey of PIVOT has outlined the legal arguments against such an approach.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: In September 2012, following the decision by the Supreme Court of Canada to allow sex workers in British Columbia to proceed with a constitutional challenge to the laws, the Justice Minister repeated the government's opposition to any change in the status quo.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Most public opinion polls, which were first introduced in 1984, demonstrate a lack of understanding of the law, which could influence responses. The polls have also been frequently cited misleadingly.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: A 2006 opinion poll showed that 68% of Canadians consider prostitution to be "immoral" (76% of women and 59% of men). In 2009, an online survey of a representative national sample of 1,003 Canadian adults conducted by Angus Reid Public Opinion showed that prostitution was considered "morally acceptable" by 42% of Canadians, but there were differences by age and gender. Young people were the most critical of prostitution: only 36% of those aged 18–34 considered prostitution "morally acceptable", compared to 45% of those aged 35–54, and 44% of those older than 55. Twenty-nine percent of women saw prostitution as acceptable, compared to 56% of men. 60% of respondents supported allowing indoor work. Only 16% supported the "status quo", 25% supported prohibition, while 50% supported decriminalisation.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: In 2012, 21% of respondents to an Ipsos Reid poll (1,004 adults between March 30 and April 1) strongly agreed and 44% somewhat agreed that prostitution in brothels should be legal, while 20% strongly disagreed and 15% somewhat disagreed (65 for, 35 against). 75 per cent of men and 56 per cent of women agreed. All age groups and all regions agreed, although there was regional variation


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Following introduction of amending legislation in June 2014, an Angus Reid poll (1,007 adults between June 6 and 7) showed that 45% thought buying sex should be legal, 45% that it should be illegal, and 11% were undecided. 51% believed selling sex should be legal.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: As in other countries, debates around human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation often dominate the larger debate on prostitution. These debates tend to be highly emotive and controversial, examples of which occurred following the Supreme Court's 2013 decision regarding the unconstitutional nature of Canada's prostitution laws. A psychotherapist stated: "I find it disturbing, disappointing, because it removes the only restraint on the men who are trolling for women," he said. "It's already an exceedingly dangerous work environment for the women. I now know that the police won't be patrolling or doing sting operations, so it's basically open season", while Karen Mykietka, president of the Alberta Avenue Community League, said to the media:


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Anyone working in that industry is going to know that it’s a free-for-all and nobody is going to be enforcing anything. I’m expecting we’re probably going to see an increase in (prostitution) especially over the summer months, and that’s not what the community likes to see on their streets.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Shortly following the decision of the Supreme Court, the police of at least 30 centres across Canada commenced a two-day investigation into human trafficking and sexual exploitation named Operation Northern Spotlight. The operation occurred on January 22 and 23, 2014, and focused on the hotel and motel establishments located on major arteries, as well as sex work venues. According to the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP), 180 police personnel interviewed 333 women, and identified 25 suspected human traffickers.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: According to press reports, one arrest and two suspected human traffickers were identified in Ontario; police in York arrested and laid charges against a male individual and the names of two alleged human traffickers from Windsor were revealed as a result of the two-day blitz. The NSWP reported that police in the Peel and Durham regions of Ontario interviewed 53 women between 16 and 45 years old, and reported: "Many of the women appear to be making their own decisions to participate for financial gain. Part or all of the proceeds from the sexual encounters were kept by their adult male controller or pimp." In the two regions, nine men were arrested and face 83 charges related to human trafficking, firearm offences, drug possession and child pornography. In Edmonton, police vice unit Detective Steven Horchuk stated that police will continue to focus on the clients of prostitution, in particular cases involving exploitive circumstances, but would no longer press charges related to communicating for the purpose of prostitution due to the Supreme Court's decision.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: At the same time a number of movements arose either advocating the eradication of sex work as exploitation, or for better protection of workers and decriminalization based on human rights. A 1983 committee recommended both stronger sanctions to deal with the visible spectrum of sex work, but also wider reforms. In 1983 the law was made technically gender neutral and provisions for prosecuting communication were widened in 1985, while special provisions for minors were enacted in 1988. None of this abated debate and currently the laws are under challenge in two cases based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Several national women's groups, such as the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centers and the Native Women's Association of Canada, several provincial groups, including le Centre d'aide et de lutte contre les aggressions a charactere sexuelles local groups, including La Cles, Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter, Exploited Voices Educating, University Women's Club, The Aboriginal Women's Action Network The Asian Women's Coalition Ending Prostitution, and the Vancouver Collective Against Sexual Exploitation, are advocating an abolitionist approach to policy. The Servants Anonymous Society is a nonprofit women's organization that provides aid to young women in exiting the sex industry.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: In contrast, numerous sex-worker run and organized groups across the country continue to argue for full decriminalization of sex work in Canada, arguing that making it illegal to purchase sex creates harm to sex workers. Such organizations have often been in the forefront of court challenges to the laws criminalizing aspects of sex work. Organizations run by sex workers and advocating decriminalization include Sex Professionals of Canada (SPOC), which is run by Valerie Scott and Amy Lebovith; Pace (Vancouver); Peers (Victoria); Maggie's (Toronto); Stella (Montreal). In face of the repression, sex workers have been organizing themselves to advocate for their rights, mostly since the 80s. The HIV-AIDS epidemic opened the door to harm reduction programs which contributed to the funding of sex workers’ organizing, thus shifting the conversation from a solely moralized perspective. Many authors and organizations argue that sex is here to stay and cannot be wiped out. Therefore, they suggest to decriminalize sex work and create a legal system that supports the health and safety of sex workers.


title: Prostitution in Canada

text: Yet, Canadian policies do not include measures to improve the safety and rights of sex workers, despite many organization advocating that sex workers are workers and human beings that should be entitled to the same rights as others. Risky environments and sex work harms have been shown to amplify each other, and research has shown that the vulnerabilities and violence experienced by sex workers differ based on the environment in which sex work is conducted. Studies have shown that the creation of indoor spaces for sex work has been linked to increased safety, specifically, reduced violence and sexual assault, reduced health risks, and improved relationships with police.


title: Marine life

text: Marine life, sea life, or ocean life is the plants, animals and other organisms that live in the salt water of seas or oceans, or the brackish water of coastal estuaries. At a fundamental level, marine life affects the nature of the planet. Marine organisms, mostly microorganisms, produce oxygen and sequester carbon. Marine life in part shape and protect shorelines, and some marine organisms even help create new land (e.g. coral building reefs).


title: Marine life

text: Most life forms evolved initially in marine habitats. By volume, oceans provide about 90% of the living space on the planet. The earliest vertebrates appeared in the form of fish, which live exclusively in water. Some of these evolved into amphibians, which spend portions of their lives in water and portions on land. One group of amphibians evolved into reptiles and mammals and a few subsets of each returned to the ocean as sea snakes, sea turtles, seals, manatees, and whales. Plant forms such as kelp and other algae grow in the water and are the basis for some underwater ecosystems. Plankton forms the general foundation of the ocean food chain, particularly phytoplankton which are key primary producers.


title: Marine life

text: Marine invertebrates exhibit a wide range of modifications to survive in poorly oxygenated waters, including breathing tubes as in mollusc siphons. Fish have gills instead of lungs, although some species of fish, such as the lungfish, have both. Marine mammals ( e.g. dolphins, whales, otters, and seals) need to surface periodically to breathe air.


title: Marine life

text: More than 200,000 marine species have been documented, and perhaps two million marine species are yet to be documented. Marine species range in size from the microscopic like phytoplankton, which can be as small as 0.02 micrometres, to huge cetaceans like the blue whale – the largest known animal, reaching in length. Marine microorganisms, including protists and bacteria and their associated viruses, have been variously estimated as constituting about 70% or about 90% of the total marine biomass. Marine life is studied scientifically in both marine biology and in biological oceanography. The term "marine" comes from the Latin "mare", meaning "sea" or "ocean".


title: Marine life

text: There is no life without water. It has been described as the "universal solvent" for its ability to dissolve many substances, and as the "solvent of life". Water is the only common substance to exist as a solid, liquid, and gas under conditions normal to life on Earth. The Nobel Prize winner Albert Szent-Györgyi referred to water as the "mater und matrix": the mother and womb of life.


title: Marine life

text: The abundance of surface water on Earth is a unique feature in the Solar System. Earth's hydrosphere consists chiefly of the oceans, but technically includes all water surfaces in the world, including inland seas, lakes, rivers, and underground waters down to a depth of The deepest underwater location is Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, having a depth of .


title: Marine life

text: Conventionally the planet is divided into five separate oceans, but these oceans all connect into a single world ocean. The mass of this world ocean is 1.35 metric tons, or about 1/4400 of Earth's total mass. The world ocean covers an area of with a mean depth of , resulting in an estimated volume of . If all of Earth's crustal surface was at the same elevation as a smooth sphere, the depth of the resulting world ocean would be about .


title: Marine life

text: About 97.5% of the water on Earth is saline; the remaining 2.5% is fresh water. Most fresh water – about 69% – is present as ice in ice caps and glaciers. The average salinity of Earth's oceans is about of salt per kilogram of seawater (3.5% salt). Most of the salt in the ocean comes from the weathering and erosion of rocks on land. Some salts are released from volcanic activity or extracted from cool igneous rocks.


title: Marine life

text: The oceans are also a reservoir of dissolved atmospheric gases, which are essential for the survival of many aquatic life forms. Sea water has an important influence on the world's climate, with the oceans acting as a large heat reservoir. Shifts in the oceanic temperature distribution can cause significant weather shifts, such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation.


title: Marine life

text: Altogether the ocean occupies 71 percent of the world surface, averaging nearly in depth. By volume, the ocean provides about 90 percent of the living space on the planet. The science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke has pointed out it would be more appropriate to refer to planet Earth as planet Ocean.


title: Marine life

text: However water is found elsewhere in the solar system. Europa, one of the moons orbiting Jupiter, is slightly smaller than the Earth's moon. There is a strong possibility a large saltwater ocean exists beneath its ice surface. It has been estimated the outer crust of solid ice is about 10–30 km (6–19 mi) thick and the liquid ocean underneath is about 100 km (60 mi) deep. This would make Europa's ocean over twice the volume of the Earth's ocean. There has been speculation Europa's ocean could support life, and could be capable of supporting multicellular microorganisms if hydrothermal vents are active on the ocean floor. Enceladus, a small icy moon of Saturn, also has what appears to be an underground ocean which actively vents warm water from the moon's surface.


title: Marine life

text: The Earth is about 4.54 billion years old. The earliest undisputed evidence of life on Earth dates from at least 3.5 billion years ago, during the Eoarchean Era after a geological crust started to solidify following the earlier molten Hadean Eon. Microbial mat fossils have been found in 3.48 billion-year-old sandstone in Western Australia. Other early physical evidence of a biogenic substance is graphite in 3.7 billion-year-old metasedimentary rocks discovered in Western Greenland as well as "remains of biotic life" found in 4.1 billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia. According to one of the researchers, "If life arose relatively quickly on Earth … then it could be common in the universe."


title: Marine life

text: Highly energetic chemistry is thought to have produced a self-replicating molecule around 4 billion years ago, and half a billion years later the last common ancestor of all life existed. The current scientific consensus is that the complex biochemistry that makes up life came from simpler chemical reactions. The beginning of life may have included self-replicating molecules such as RNA and the assembly of simple cells. In 2016 scientists reported a set of 355 genes from the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) of all life, including microorganisms, living on Earth.


title: Marine life

text: Current species are a stage in the process of evolution, with their diversity the product of a long series of speciation and extinction events. The common descent of organisms was first deduced from four simple facts about organisms: First, they have geographic distributions that cannot be explained by local adaptation. Second, the diversity of life is not a set of unique organisms, but organisms that share morphological similarities. Third, vestigial traits with no clear purpose resemble functional ancestral traits and finally, that organisms can be classified using these similarities into a hierarchy of nested groups—similar to a family tree. However, modern research has suggested that, due to horizontal gene transfer, this "tree of life" may be more complicated than a simple branching tree since some genes have spread independently between distantly related species.


title: Marine life

text: Past species have also left records of their evolutionary history. Fossils, along with the comparative anatomy of present-day organisms, constitute the morphological, or anatomical, record. By comparing the anatomies of both modern and extinct species, paleontologists can infer the lineages of those species. However, this approach is most successful for organisms that had hard body parts, such as shells, bones or teeth. Further, as prokaryotes such as bacteria and archaea share a limited set of common morphologies, their fossils do not provide information on their ancestry.


title: Marine life

text: More recently, evidence for common descent has come from the study of biochemical similarities between organisms. For example, all living cells use the same basic set of nucleotides and amino acids. The development of molecular genetics has revealed the record of evolution left in organisms' genomes: dating when species diverged through the molecular clock produced by mutations. For example, these DNA sequence comparisons have revealed that humans and chimpanzees share 98% of their genomes and analysing the few areas where they differ helps shed light on when the common ancestor of these species existed.


title: Marine life

text: Prokaryotes inhabited the Earth from approximately 3–4 billion years ago. No obvious changes in morphology or cellular organisation occurred in these organisms over the next few billion years. The eukaryotic cells emerged between 1.6 and 2.7 billion years ago. The next major change in cell structure came when bacteria were engulfed by eukaryotic cells, in a cooperative association called endosymbiosis. The engulfed bacteria and the host cell then underwent coevolution, with the bacteria evolving into either mitochondria or hydrogenosomes. Another engulfment of cyanobacterial-like organisms led to the formation of chloroplasts in algae and plants.