Law360 Canada ( October 16, 2026, 12:52 PM EDT) -- Appeal by the Crown from the order quashing the respondents’ convictions for receiving a material benefit from sexual services, procuring and advertising sexual services, and ordering new trials. AK had worked independently and for agencies before approaching AM for help attracting clients. The Crown alleged that the respondents used their positions as drug suppliers to control AK and maintain her sex work for their benefit. The respondents denied holding a position of trust and maintained that AK had substance abuse issues before meeting them and independently engaged in sex work. They sought to cross-examine AK about the commercial and advertising aspects of her prior sex work. The trial judge held that s. 276 of the Criminal Code (Code) applied because the charges engaged sexual assault, restricted the cross-examination and redacted AK’s preliminary inquiry evidence. The Court of Appeal held that s. 276 of the Code did not categorically apply to sexual services or human trafficking offences, found the restrictions erroneous and ordered new trials. The Crown submitted that s. 276 of the Code applied categorically or, alternatively, that the common law screening regime should be extended, and that the proposed inferences from AK’s prior sex work were prohibited propensity reasoning. The respondents submitted that s. 276 of the Code required a case-specific connection to an enumerated offence, that Parliament excluded the offences from s. 276 of the Code while including them in other screening regimes, that common law extension would circumvent that choice, and that their proposed inferences arose from the commercial, not sexual, nature of AK’s work....