A Manitoba Court of Appeal verdict handed down November 1, effectively closed the doors of Winnipeg’s estimated 20 video-porn stores.
In a split decision, a majority of the judges ruled that Manitoba’s obscenity law is constitutional.
“Sexual stimulation is not protected by the charter of rights and freedoms,” the judges maintained, overturning the August 1989 arguments of Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Scott Wright who had dismissed the charges with the opinion that free choice cannot exist without temptation.
“Intellectual rather than sensual arousal is what the Charter is intended to protect,” they ruled.
