Vermilion served as co-chair of the Sex Worker Action Network (SWAN) in Waterloo, Ontario.
As part of SWAN, she served as an expert witness in R v. Boodhoo, a case that challenged specific sex worker laws in Canada.
[1] She also created the Sex Worker Media Library Archive in the Hamilton Public Library, an archive of books, zines, videos, podcasts, and news articles dedicated to sex worker history, activism, and culture.
In 2020, Vermilion and Carol Leigh collaborated to reproduce her #TakeBackTheNight film with the sex work excerpts from December 1990 San Francisco's Take Back The Night March to address the violence and stigma surrounding sex work and the need for decriminalization.
The assault happened hours after she met with the city's emergency community services committee to discuss strategies to address gender-based violence.