Bill C-49 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (trafficking in persons)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to
(a) create an offence of trafficking in persons that prohibits a person from engaging in specified acts for the purpose of exploiting or facilitating the exploitation of another person;
(b) create an offence that prohibits a person from receiving a financial or other material benefit that they know results from the commission of the offence of trafficking in persons;
(c) create an offence that prohibits concealing, removing, withholding or destroying travel documents or documents that establish or purport to establish another person’s identity or immigration status for the purpose of committing or facilitating the offence of trafficking in persons; and
(d) establish that a person exploits another person if they cause them to provide, or offer to provide, labour or a service by engaging in conduct that could reasonably be expected to cause the other person to believe that their safety or that of someone known to them would be threatened if they failed to do so or if, by means of deception or the use or threat of force or of any other form of coercion, they cause the other person to have an organ or tissue removed.

Criminal Code

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, before I begin my speech, I want to commend the hon. parliamentary secretary for giving so much of his speech in French. That takes effort and the results speak for themselves. I want to congratulate him on that.

This bill “amends the Criminal Code to specify what constitutes exploitation for the purpose of establishing whether a person has committed the offence of trafficking in persons.” As my hon. colleague from Saint-Jean said a few sitting days ago, the Bloc Québécois supports the principle of this bill.

It is imperative that we discuss all of the tools that could help authorities combat this scourge, which is getting worse with population movement and the growing number of refugees. This bill also responds to the demands of several human trafficking survivors' groups and would make the definitions of exploitation and human trafficking more consistent with those set out in the Palermo protocol, which Canada signed at the beginning of the millennium.

The bill is very simple but very important. It removes a phrase from the Criminal Code so that an accusation under these provisions must be based on the fact that the victim believes that a refusal on their part would threaten their safety or the safety of someone known to them.

According to the International Justice and Human Rights Clinic at the faculty of law at the University of British Columbia, asking victims to demonstrate that they have reasonable grounds to fear for their safety may be an obstacle to obtaining convictions for human trafficking.

Elements of the offence of human trafficking are more difficult to prove than those of other similar offences. For example, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which prohibits human trafficking, does not require the person involved to prove that they fear for their safety. This standard is no longer appropriate.

Let us look at the chronology of legislation against human trafficking. In 2002, Canada ratified the Palermo protocol, a “protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime”.

Article 3 clearly defines trafficking in persons as follows:

“Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs . . . .

That is the definition.

That is how human trafficking came to be added to the Criminal Code in 2005. The Canadian definition, however, is different from the Palermo Protocol definition in that the issue of consent or the victim's sense of safety is taken into consideration. Thus, the victim must prove that they were in danger if they refused to be exploited.

In human trafficking cases, regardless of whether the victims were initially willing or felt safe, victims should never have to justify the circumstances under which they were lured into the situation in order to prove they were trafficked. Human trafficking is not limited to sexual exploitation, as we have already heard. Traffickers exploit their victims in many ways, including for forced labour. It is important to remember, for example, that even if victims did consent to come to Canada, they did not consent to the forced labour or sexual exploitation to which they may have been subjected afterwards, especially if they end up being dependent on someone because of isolation, lack of resources or language barriers.

Section 118 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, passed in 2002, makes it a criminal offence to “organize the coming into Canada of one or more persons by means of abduction, fraud, deception or use or threat of force or coercion”. Although human trafficking and human smuggling are two different concepts, the act also prohibits human smuggling into Canada.

In 2005, Bill C-49 added three offences related to human trafficking to the Criminal Code, as well as a definition. The offences include trafficking in persons; receiving a financial or other material benefit from the commission or facilitation of trafficking in persons; withholding or destroying a person's identity documents, such as a passport, whether authentic or not, for the purpose of committing or facilitating trafficking in persons; and exploiting another person in the context of trafficking in persons offences.

In 2008-09, the first case involving a charge of human trafficking under the new law was ruled on in adult criminal court.

In fall 2008, a 20-year-old woman went to Peel Regional Police to report that a 22-year-old Ontario man named Vytautas Vilutis was using intimidation and threats to sexually exploit her. She said that she made $10,000 for him in just a few weeks through online Craigslist classified ads. She added that he took her phone calls, set up her “dates” and kept track of her appointments, so he knew how much money she owed him each morning. It was not until he threatened her for not leaving all the cash out for him one morning that she reported him to police. Vytautas Vilutis pleaded guilty in April 2009 to charges of human trafficking and receiving a material benefit from human trafficking.

He was convicted under both provisions and was the first person in Canada to be convicted for benefiting from human trafficking. In 2010, another section was added to the Criminal Code, setting out a mandatory minimum sentence for persons charged with trafficking of persons under 18. That was Bill C‑268.

In 2012, the Criminal Code was amended to allow the prosecution of Canadians and permanent residents for the offence of trafficking in persons committed outside Canada, and added factors that judges may consider when determining whether exploitation occurred. That was Bill C‑310.

In 2015, mandatory minimum sentences were imposed for the main trafficking in persons offence, receiving a material benefit from the proceeds of child trafficking, and withholding or destroying documents to facilitate child trafficking. Bill C‑452 was put forward by my political party.

In 2019, the Hon. Ralph Goodale, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, released the national strategy to combat human trafficking 2019‑24. With $75 million in funding over 6 years, this strategy followed the Palermo protocol. The national strategy to combat human trafficking 2019‑24 was adapted from the previous five-year plan.

It was adapted due to some deficiencies identified during policy assessment, namely that most of the resources were being allocated to the fight against sexual exploitation whereas forced labour is a growing issue. This is nothing new, but it is being increasingly recognized and discussed.

Bill S-224 is part of a long legislative quest to combat human trafficking, which is extremely important. In closing, I would like to paraphrase author Ralph Champavert and say that the stigma of human trafficking will disappear when the sun of human dignity rises in all hearts.

[Matthew Taylor]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thought it might be helpful to the committee for me to provide information for you on two separate things: first, the legislative history of Canada's criminal laws on human trafficking, and second, some background information on the types of programs that Justice Canada has funded to enhance services for victims of human trafficking.

Canada's first human trafficking specific offence was enacted in 2002 as part of the enactment of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Section 118 prohibits the trafficking of persons into Canada and targets the means used by traffickers, such as force, fraud, abduction, deception, or coercion to bring victims into our country. It should be noted that the enactment of this offence coincided with Canada's implementation of the UN protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children, which Canada ratified in May of 2002.

In 2005, Parliament passed Bill C-49, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (trafficking in persons), and enacted three specific Criminal Code offences to more comprehensively address human trafficking, specifically, section 279.01 which prohibits all forms of human trafficking, domestic or transnational, and for any exploitative purpose; section 279.02, which prohibits the receipt of a financial or a material benefit knowing that it was derived from human trafficking; and, third, section 279.03, which prohibits the holding of identity documents to facilitate human trafficking.

Since that time, additional criminal law reforms have been passed by Parliament. In 2010, a private member's bill, Bill C-268, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (minimum sentence for offences involving trafficking of persons under the age of eighteen years), was enacted, creating a separate offence of trafficking in children that is punishable by mandatory minimum penalties of imprisonment.

In 2012, two years later, a private member's bill, Bill C-310, was enacted, enabling Canada to assume extraterritorial jurisdiction to prosecute in Canada Canadian citizens or permanent residents who commit human trafficking abroad. It also enacted a provision in subsection 279.04(2) that provides guidance to the courts in helping them to determine whether exploitation has been made out, exploitation being an essential element of the trafficking in persons offence.

In 2014, former Bill C-36 was passed, enacting the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act.This act provided new mandatory minimum penalties for human trafficking involving adult victims and for the financial benefit and documents offences involving child victims.

Most recently, the government has introduced Bill C-38, an act to amend An Act to amend the Criminal Code (exploitation and trafficking in persons), to bring in force certain amendments that were passed in Parliament in 2015 through a private member's bill, Bill C-452, and also An Act to amend the Criminal Code (exploitation and trafficking in persons). These provisions would enact an evidentiary presumption to help prosecutors prove an element of the human trafficking offence.

That's a bit of a summary of the changes that have been enacted by Parliament. As you can see, these criminal laws in respect of human trafficking have been the subject of ongoing interest and concern by parliamentarians.

At the same time, Justice Canada has supported their implementation in various ways, including through the provision of regular training to police and prosecutors, in conjunction with the RCMP and other police forces, victim services, and other experts. We've developed a handbook for police and prosecutors and fact sheets on key criminal justice issues for police and prosecutors, such as sentencing submissions, bail proceedings, and things of that nature in a human trafficking context. Justice officials have participated in similar efforts internationally, working closely with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to develop similar technical assistance tools to support implementation around the world.

The department is also supporting improvements to victim services. A copy of initiatives that have been funded since 2012 by the department through the victims fund has been provided to the clerk of the committee, I believe, detailing the specifics of each project. Examples for your information include: enhancing victim services delivery in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec; supporting the development of a resource handbook for indigenous women and girls who were victimized through human trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation; and, developing a mental health and addictions program for women and girls who were victims of trafficking.

I'm going to conclude my remarks there. I look forward to any questions.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for coming to committee today. We appreciate it.

As you know, we're talking about human trafficking. Research is showing us that it's primarily underage youths who are duped and deceived into servicing men, and if they don't do it, they get beaten, raped, shot up with drugs. I've worked with victims for 14 years now, so that's the way it happens.

As you know, in this country, Bill C-49 was the first bill, in 2005, that addressed human trafficking. They got one conviction, Imani Nakpangi. He trafficked a 15-and-a-half-year-old girl. You know about that one. Then Bill C-268 and Bill C-310 came in, in 2010 and 2012. Now we have this bill before us today.

I ran out of time on the other session, but this is why we don't have all the hard statistics, because the bills are so new. They are brand new in Canada.

You mentioned something that I thought was so relevant. I want to talk to Ms. Duval. You talked about human dignity. You talked about the right for people to be free, the right for them to make their own choices. Can you tell me, in terms of this bill of Maria Mourani's, why this is so important to help the victims of human trafficking?

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

I'll address this to Mr. Hooper.

The question keeps coming up as to why don't we have the statistics. We all know that in 2005, Mr. Cotler, one of the members from the Liberal Party, passed Bill C-49, and that Imani Nakpangi, the first offender, was convicted in Canada. Then my bills came in—Bill C-268, in June 2010, and Bill C-310, in June 2012—so there was very little time....

People sometimes get human trafficking mixed up with human smuggling. Can you define the difference between human trafficking and human smuggling?

Mr. Hooper, could you perhaps answer the question?

Bill C-31—Time allocation motion

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Madam Speaker, I can. In fact, there is a very clear and compelling deadline that we are rapidly approaching which requires the rapid adoption of Bill C-31, the protecting Canada's immigration system act.

In the last Parliament, the 40th Parliament, this place adopted then Bill C-11, the balanced refugee reform act, that included major revisions to Canada's asylum system which are scheduled to come into force by June 29, 2012.

Since that time, we have seen the growing problem of both human smuggling and a large and growing wave of unfounded asylum claims particularly coming from the European Union. Therefore, we have concluded that it is necessary to strengthen the asylum reforms and adopt measures to combat human smuggling. That is why we have had to delay the coming into force of the balanced refugee reform act from the last Parliament. To be blunt, we are not in a position to implement the new system contemplated in Bill C-11 in the 40th Parliament. If we do not adopt this legislation, if it does not receive royal assent by June 29 of this year, a new law will come into effect that the appropriate administrative agencies, such as the IRB, are not yet ready to put in place.

I would point out to my hon. colleague that this bill has received 13 days of debate, 47.5 hours of debate and 130 speeches at second reading and report stage. It had 15 committee meetings with over 43 hours of committee study and 109 witnesses. It was preceded in a previous Parliament by Bill C-49,, which had many similar provisions including 3 days of debate, 10 hours of debate and 30 speeches.

In fact, this bill and most of its provisions have received an enormous amount of debate and consideration both in this place and at committee. There is a deadline with a great deal of urgency that we adopt this by June 29.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

We know right now of cases that are sitting there. We know Canadians right now who are doing exactly that. They have brothels. We have a man who set up a brothel in Haiti. Publicly I hate to say too much because we're just waiting for this bill to get through. His youngest victim is four years old. Not only that, he comes back to Canada and he continues what he does to Canadian children. It's a matter of putting as many tools in place for police officers so they can grab these cases.

If you look at our history right now, we had Bill C-49, our first trafficking bill, which had royal assent in 2006. That's a brand-new law. Then my bill went through, Bill C-268, mandatory minimums, and now we're getting more tools for them. If you look at the grid, we used to have no trafficking cases. To date we have 19 human trafficking cases in Canada with specific charges related to Bill C-268, and we have 55 human trafficking cases now before the courts that are related to other laws that we have here in Canada. Of the 19 cases or 55 cases, what I am trying to get across is we used to have none. Now, suddenly because we have put those laws in place, they are catching these people, and with Bill C-310.... I know right now of one case extremely close to the Hill that we've been looking at for some time.... We can't touch him unless he goes through the States, and he doesn't.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome.

With respect to your concerns about the bill's title, if it's helpful, I would say that I also don't think it makes any sense. It means... How can I put it? It's precisely because the government cannot measure its own words that it chooses these types of titles.

I'm going to use an example to show you how the Conservative government works. When we were talking about minimum sentences and law and order, Sébastien's Law was created. This law made people emotional. Another act amending the Criminal Code referred to “trafficking in persons”. That meant that the government, if we didn't agree on certain parts of it, could say, for example, that the Bloc Québécois was protecting pedophiles. So you can see how this government doesn't know how to measure its words.

Now, in terms of fairness at the pump, it should be pointed out that Bill C-14 deals with all weights and measures for electricity and gas, obviously. On the other hand, we also know that the federal government has to market its message. We know that it hasn't received good press over petroleum, with western petroleum companies and everything that's happening. Therefore, it's making the retailers shoulder the responsibility. I don't think that's the way to do things. The title of this legislation could simply have included words such as “fairness in measuring”, “accurate measuring” or something like that that involves all devices for weights and measures.

The government refers mainly to petroleum because it does not want to give more power to the Competition Bureau. You know, collusion is much more profitable than inaccurate instruments and differences of 0.5% at the pump. Neither do they want any sort of monitoring agency. They know that this affects many individuals and people who buy gas. So they come up with a pompous title for marketing purposes, simply because they're concerned with their image, it's obvious. They think they can improve their image by doing that.

That said, we know perfectly well, as Mr. Lake said earlier, that the government is surprised by that $20-million loss to the consumer. Obviously, that's not right. However, it's a relatively small amount compared to the $40 billion worth of gas sold every year in Canada. If retailers wanted to, rather than manipulate their instruments—this is what Mr. Lake is claiming—they could simply increase their costs by a tenth of a cent, or a cent, and that would easily cover it.

Generally speaking the Weights and Measures Act covers all measuring devices. What's important is that consumers can feel confident that when they buy something they're getting the right amount.

I do not believe that retailers are going to manipulate their pumps to get a price that will set them a few cents more. Not everyone sells 10 million litres annually. In any case I don't believe it. That would be rare. They should not be accused without any proof. Accusing them offsets to some degree everything the Conservatives have done on the other side. Twenty million dollars is a lot of money for Mr. Lake when the issue is pump adjustments, but $1 billion over three days doesn't appear to be a problem. We could pay for a lot of inspections with that money.

With respect to inspection costs, I've heard that they would vary between $50 and $200. How much are they now? How much does a retailer pay currently for inspection and calibration, approximately?

Criminal Code

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in support of private member's 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 addresses a pressing issue – child trafficking involves the exploitation of society’s most vulnerable – and the bill would ensure a strong criminal justice response to what we must all agree is amongst the vilest of criminal conduct. For this reason, this bill has enjoyed widespread support in this House. For this reason, I add my own voice of support for it.

Might I add that the amendment proposed by the member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, which would remove the provision for mandatory minimum penalties for trafficking in persons under the age of 18, shows the true colours of the Bloc Québécois' soft approach to serious crime in this country.

Trafficking in persons is often referred to as the modern-day form of slavery. It involves the recruitment, transportation and/or harbouring of people for the purpose of exploitation, typically sexual exploitation or forced labour.

Traffickers control their victims in many ways, but often through force, sexual assault and threats of violence. As a result, victims provide labour and services in circumstances where they believe that their safety or the safety of someone known to them would be threatened if they failed to comply with the demands of their traffickers.

I am sure we all agree that this is a serious issue that warrants attention from all levels of government.

Toward that end, I am pleased that this House again has the opportunity to consider Bill C-268 introduced by the member for Kildonan—St. Paul,which would amend the Criminal Code to impose mandatory minimum penalties for the offence of trafficking in children.

Bill C-268 would create a new separate offence of trafficking of a person under the age of 18 years. This offence would mirror the existing offence of “Trafficking in Persons”, found in section 279.01 of the Criminal Code, that protects all victims, adult and child.

The bill was amended by the justice committee in June. Now Bill C-268 proposes to impose a mandatory minimum penalty of six years for the aggravated branch of the offence of trafficking in children, for which the maximum penalty is life imprisonment, in addition to the five-year mandatory minimum penalty with a maximum penalty of fourteen years, as originally proposed by the bill.

In my view, this law reform is an important part of our efforts to combat this terrible crime. What do we really know about trafficking in persons, given that it is so often hidden from public view due to its criminal nature? Global estimates show us just how widespread the problem is.

The United Nations estimates that more than 700,000 people are trafficked globally each year. Further, a February 2009 United Nations report states that over 24,000 victims of trafficking were identified by 111 countries in the year 2006, that 79% of these cases involved trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, and that 18% involved trafficking for the purpose of forced labour. However, the actual number of forced labour cases may be even higher, as forced labour is less frequently detected and reported than is trafficking for sexual exploitation.

Also in 2005, the International Labour Organization estimated that at least 2.45 million people across the world are in situations of forced labour as a result of human trafficking. Of these, it is estimated that 32% are trafficked for economic exploitation and 43% are trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation, with 98% of the latter being women and girls. Finally, UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children are trafficked around the world each year.

These estimates confirm that this crime affects the most vulnerable. We know that trafficking in persons also occurs within Canada. As is the case with all countries, it is difficult to estimate the full extent of human trafficking within Canada. This is so not just because of the clandestine nature of the activity, but also because traffickers may be charged with trafficking in persons and/or other related offences.

In Canada, law enforcement has a tool box of offences that may apply in trafficking cases. As hon. members know, in 2005, three new trafficking-specific Criminal Code offences were enacted. These provisions address all forms of trafficking in persons.

The main offence of trafficking in persons, section 279.01, which provides the model for the new child trafficking offence proposed by Bill C-268, prohibits anyone from engaging in specified acts such as recruiting, transporting, harbouring or controlling the movements of another person for the purpose of exploiting or facilitating the exploitation of that person. This offence is punishable by up to life imprisonment, reflecting the severity of the crime and its harmful consequences for victims and Canadian society.

Section 279.02 makes it an offence to receive a financial or material benefit knowing that it results from the trafficking of persons. This offence is punishable by up to 10 years' imprisonment.

Section 279.03 prohibits the withholding or destroying of travel or identity documents in order to commit or facilitate the trafficking of persons. This offence is punishable by a maximum of five years' imprisonment.

These offences supplement existing Criminal Code offences such as kidnapping, forceable confinement, assault and the prostitution-related provisions, which have long been used to address trafficking cases, as well as section 118 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which prohibits cases involving victims who are foreign nationals.

Police and Crown now have the ability to charge the offences that best meet circumstances of a given case. To date there have been five convictions in Canada under the specific offence of trafficking in persons. Many other cases are currently being investigated or are before the courts.

There have also been numerous charges laid and convictions secured in trafficking cases under other related Criminal Code offences. These cases reflect international estimates. The majority of known victims are women and girls who are trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Further, anecdotal information suggests that aboriginal girls are particularly vulnerable to this type of exploitation.

We must continue to be vigilant in ensuring a strong criminal justice response to this global scourge that victimizes the most vulnerable among us. I believe that we are doing just that. The issue of trafficking in persons transcends party lines. I am sure that hon. members remember the all-party support that Bill C-49 received in 2005. It enacted the three Criminal Code trafficking offences that I have already mentioned.

In 2006, the House unanimously supported Motion No. 153, which was also introduced by the member for Kildonan—St. Paul. This motion condemned the crime of trafficking in persons and called for a national strategy to combat the trafficking of persons worldwide.

Further, in 2007, the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women released its report entitled “Turning Outrage into Action to Address Trafficking for the Purpose of Sexual Exploitation in Canada”. The government's response to this report reiterated the importance of a multidisciplinary response to trafficking in persons. This response is reflected in the international framework established by the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its supplemental protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children.

Canada continues to use this framework as its overarching model for a comprehensive response to the issue by focusing on the four ps: the prevention of trafficking, the protection of its victims, the prosecution of offenders and the building of partnerships, both domestically and internationally.

I believe we all understand and appreciate the seriousness of the issue, which Bill C-268 addresses. I hope that all honourable members will join me in supporting this important initiative.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Madam Speaker, on January 29 the Conservative member for Kildonan—St. Paul introduced a private member's bill, Bill C-268, for first reading in the House of Commons.

This bill would add a new offence to the Criminal Code. It would distinguish offences involving trafficking of persons under the age of 18 years from those involving adults.

The goal of this bill is to impose a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of five years for anyone found guilty of trafficking a person under the age of 18.

This bill is simple enough. There are eight clauses, but the heart of the bill is in the second clause, in its creation of a new offence in the Criminal Code, namely, section 279.011. The wording in this provision is exactly the same as section 279.01, regarding the trafficking of a person, but adds the distinction “under the age of eighteen years” to the definition of an exploited person. With this addition, a separate offence would be created when the trafficking involves a minor.

Although we are well aware of the worldwide scourge that is human trafficking, the Bloc Québécois cannot support this bill. Allow me to explain the reasons for its decision.

In 2005, the Bloc Québécois voted in support of Bill C-49. Creating an offence to specifically condemn human trafficking was necessary, and we willingly cooperated to see it passed. The amendment to the Criminal Code gave law enforcement authorities the legal tools they need to prosecute and convict anyone who unfortunately engages in these horrible practices that show no respect for human dignity.

Bill C-268, however, we believe is a step in the wrong direction. By automatically imposing a minimum sentence of five years on anyone convicted of the trafficking of persons under 18, the government is not solving anything. I will explain why.

First of all, many experts have established that minimum sentences have negative effects and dubious value when it comes to fighting crime.

For instance, criminal lawyer Julian Roberts, from the University of Ottawa, conducted a study in 1997 for the Department of Justice of Canada in which he concluded:

Although mandatory sentences of imprisonment have been introduced in a number of western nations... the studies that have examined the impact of these laws reported variable effects on prison populations and no discernible effect on crime rates.

In early May 2006, during a press conference on the controversial passing of Bill C-10, the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety at the time were forced to acknowledge that no Canadian study has demonstrated that new measures to introduce minimum penalties are effective in fighting crime.

Minimum sentences can also have a negative impact. According to André Normandeau, a criminologist at the Université de Montréal, minimum sentences can encourage plea bargaining by lawyers wanting to have their clients charged with offences that do not have minimum sentences. Minimum sentences can also force judges to acquit an individual, rather than be forced to sentence that individual to a penalty the judge considers excessive under the circumstances.

When it comes to sentencing, the first consideration must be individualization. The justification of this individualized approach lies in the principle of proportionality. The sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender. This is because no two crimes are identical, no two offenders are exactly alike and no two sets of circumstances are exactly the same. For all those reasons, the Bloc Québécois believes in the importance of maintaining judicial discretion.

When judges sentence an offender to prison, they take into account the offender's degree of responsibility, the seriousness of the offence and the best way to serve justice while maximizing the likelihood of rehabilitation.

People who know only the offence and the sentence often do not realize that there are other important factors that must be taken into account in sentencing.

Moreover, studies have shown that when people have the chance to go beyond what is reported in the media, the body of evidence and the factors considered by the judge, most conclude that they would have handed down a similar sentence.

The Bloc Québécois is therefore opposed to mandatory minimum sentences because it believes in the justice system and the importance of maintaining judicial discretion. We believe that judges, who are best able to assess the information presented in court, have to be free to decide.

In addition, Bill C-268 is not consistent. It does not provide for a minimum sentence when an offender found guilty of trafficking of a minor kidnaps, commits an aggravated assault or aggravated sexual assault against or causes death to the victim during the commission of the offence. The bill does not change the subsection that covers this.

We are having a hard time understanding the logic behind Bill C-268. On the one hand, they say that they want to prevent serious offences involving the trafficking of minors by imposing minimum sentences, but on the other, they are not changing sentences for offenders who use extreme violence in committing the crime.

To ensure the most appropriate court rulings possible, we would be wise to look at recommendation 33 of the House Standing Committee on the Status of Women's report on human trafficking. Judges and prosecutors should be informed of, educated about, and made aware of the Criminal Code provisions concerning human trafficking and the disastrous impact of this crime on its victims.

When it comes to justice, the Bloc Québécois firmly believes that the most effective approach is still, and will always be, prevention. We have to attack crime at the root. That being said, the Bloc is aware that the existing legal system needs considerable improvement, and that some changes to the Criminal Code are necessary. The government's duty is to intervene and use the tools at its disposal to make sure that people can live peacefully and safely.

On June 15, 2007, in response to the Conservatives' ideological approach, the Bloc Québécois recommended a number of measures. The party proposed a series of recommendations for major changes to Canada's justice system. Unlike the Conservatives' measures, which lacked nuance, the Bloc's measures reflected the concerns of Quebeckers, who want a more balanced system, one that is consistent with modern realities and will have a real impact on crime, but that avoids the pitfalls inherent in the repression-based American model, whose negative effects are manifest.

The Bloc Québécois proposed measures that are in line with Quebeckers' values, measures based on prevention, rehabilitation, social and economic integration, and better distribution of wealth. Our proposals included the following: streamlining the parole system, stepping up the fight against organized crime, eliminating double credit for time served before sentencing—which British Columbia's Minister of Justice supports—and more funding for the national crime prevention strategy.

The Bloc Québécois does not support the bill because we believe its approach is harmful and ineffective and we are convinced that it will do nothing to improve the safety of citizens. The Bloc defends a model of justice based on a process tailored to each case and founded on the principle of rehabilitation. Any measure seeking to automate the nature of the sentence given to the offender represents, in our opinion, a dangerous approach. Minimum sentences unnecessarily tie the hands of judges who, we believe, remain in the best position to determine what sentence is the most appropriate in light of all the facts of the case.

In closing, experts tell us that minimum sentences do not lower crime rates or the rate of recidivism.

[John Muise]

Minimally, Mr. Karygiannis. In terms of enforcement locally around the country, we are at baby steps. When there is actually enforcement, whether it's the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act or Bill C-49 or the Criminal Code, it's more often an accident because there's a unit looking at all of this. We are in the Dark Ages.

[John Muise]

What exactly consultants are doing is not my expertise.

The other thing is that human trafficking, from an enforcement perspective in this country, is a very new thing. I can tell you my ex-counterparts in policing, with whom I communicate on a regular basis, all know about Bill C-49, from 2005, and they know about the amendment in terms of expanding the work visa. They recognize that they have a special victims unit, and these people are victims. They need to change the way they conduct business, and they have done it across a number of fronts.

You can pass this amendment—and I support it—but you're not going to get to where you want to go, Ms. Chow, without, for instance, that back-and-forth where you have, as one example, dedicated police units on the ground that are actively working with the visa officer or CBSA or the visa officers' counterparts here in this country and sharing the kind of information, for instance, where they can tell the overseas visa officer they now have evidence, as opposed to gossip, that a particular consultant or a particular employee on the ground here in Canada is doing bad things, they are trafficking and have indentured sex slaves, who are working at this place.

That's how it happens. Right now, I have to say, in terms of exploitation, much of the focus by the police services, law enforcement, that actually have specialized units has been on Internet child abuse. They need the resources.

Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to make some comments on Bill C-57. Certainly it is an issue which I know a fair amount about and I am glad to have the opportunity to comment on it.

Bill C-57 is about a page and a half long. It makes an amendment to our immigration laws. Certainly on the face of it, it should not take very long for any of us to deal with it, whether we are debating it at length or not. Part of our role in Parliament is not just to take something at face value and say that it looks good, it is an area that many of us care about and that we would like to see some improvements to strengthen it. Parliament is about debate and discussion to make things better.

For a bill to pass without our having a full opportunity to debate and discuss it, frankly, would be viewed upon as our not carrying out our responsibilities to ensure that legislation brought forward accomplishes what the intent of it clearly is, and if possible, to go further than that. That means we should look for areas to add further strength in the bill and make sure it is going to achieve the same goals that all of us in the House want to achieve.

I am pleased to take a few minutes to comment on this important issue today in an attempt to move the bill forward to committee so we can ensure that it accomplishes what we all want it to accomplish. The bill is an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which recognizes quite clearly, “Whereas Parliament recognizes the importance of protecting vulnerable foreign nationals who come to work in Canada from exploitation and abuse”. That is very clearly written into the Immigration Act and I know all of us want to ensure that happens.

This bill proposes to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to allow immigration officers the ability to refuse or authorize foreign nationals to work in Canada based on if they are considered to be vulnerable persons and/or at risk of exploitation or abuse. That very much is left up to the person who is doing the interviewing.

Currently, the visa officer can explain to individuals that they have certain rights when they go to Canada. The visa officer can hand them pamphlets outlining that they may be asked to do certain things and that they do not have to because they have certain rights under their visa applications. That does not always sink in with the person on the other side of the desk who is fleeing poverty or for whatever reason desperately wants to come to Canada and is willing to take a chance. This bill would end that opportunity. It would give the visa officer the opportunity to decide that the person would be exploited. It gives the officer a huge power. It is something that needs to be seriously looked at.

The bill would also allow immigration officers to determine if granting authorization would be contrary to public policy considerations that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration has specifically outlined or based on evidence that people are at risk of exploitation. Often it is a feeling that someone gets. When we ask why a visa was refused, the visa officer will say that it was instinct, just a feeling that a certain person would find himself or herself in a vulnerable position. It puts a lot of emphasis and trust on the minister giving visas on judgment.

I do not see where there is harm in doing that as long as we make sure the checks and balances are in place. In reading at least the beginning of this bill, I see it is going to require a second person to comment and that is helpful.

Under the proposed amendments to the IRPA, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration could issue written instructions to immigration officers giving them the authority to deny work permits to applicants who appear very vulnerable to them. The instructions would be based on clear public policy objectives and evidence that outlines the risk of exploitation that the applicants face.

Written instructions could help identify, for example, individuals who would be vulnerable to humiliating and degrading treatment, including sexual exploitation. All of us as parliamentarians have been around for a few years and we have certainly had an opportunity to hear firsthand about the exploitation of many people who come here on a variety of different permits. They are very vulnerable and do not have a lot of support or resources, or even know where to turn to get help. They often end up in our offices, sometimes even our campaign offices.

These could include low skilled labourers as well as potential victims of human trafficking. Immigration officers would make their decision on a case by case basis. Each application for a permit is always assessed on its own merits.

Without this authority, immigration officers cannot deny a work permit to someone who meets all the requirements to enter Canada, even if they believe there is a strong possibility of exploitation or abuse.

Clearly, if we have licensed establishments that have a labour shortage, and through our process through HRDC, they can apply to have someone come over to fill that shortage. That is a problem for those of us who are trying to find ways of tightening up the system.

Either we start to ban some of these businesses and decide we are not going to have them. But if we have them, we have to recognize that they have the rights under the law to apply for workers to come to their legitimate businesses.

Strengthening these rules will hopefully provide a tool to respond to situations where a permit applicant could be at risk. Again, it puts a lot of effort and a lot of trust into the visa officer who is making that decision.

Here in the House I am sure that all parliamentarians support the protection of human rights and the prevention of exploitation of foreign nationals, and in particular, women who are at risk.

I must point out that we talk a lot about the exploitation of women, but it certainly goes on with the exploitation of many men who are in positions who do not know any other way out. They are fleeing again from poverty, looking for money to send home to their families, and often find themselves doing work that would be quite unacceptable to Canadians who are born here.

I would like to assure Canadians who are watching at home that the Liberal Party is committed to working closely with the international community to prevent human trafficking. Bill C-49 was an excellent piece of legislation that was just enacted at the beginning of 2006 specifically on the issues of human trafficking. We all recognize that it is a very important area that we need to do all we can to prevent that.

Previously, we had made substantial changes to restrict visa applications to temporary foreign workers who we believe to be at risk.

We also endorse the recent Standing Committee on the Status of Women report, “Turning Outrage into Action to Address Trafficking for the Purpose of Sexual Exploitation in Canada”. It calls on the government to do more to address existing systemic problems involving the most vulnerable members of our society. Clearly, on this side of the House we are waiting to see what kind of action the government takes to address those very issues.

As the former chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women and throughout my political career at the municipal and the federal levels, I heard heart-wrenching stories from marginalized women who fell victim and also heard many constructive suggestions for solutions to this grave problem.

I believe that we need strong laws to protect the most vulnerable, so I will be supporting sending the bill to committee for further review and study. We need further consultation and possible amendments that I am sure will come from some of the members of the House to strengthen the bill.

Although the intent of the legislation is critical, it no doubt needs to be improved and we will do that at committee, which I hope will be done quickly and hastily.

There are considerations that first must be made to ensure the legislation truly achieves the goal of protecting all foreign workers. This is why I believe it should go to committee and I am confident that the work will get done there.

A serious shortcoming of the bill is that all classifications under the foreign worker program could potentially be adversely affected, including agriculture workers and live-in caregivers. If the bill were enacted as it is written today, these workers would have to be denied entry to Canada, exasperating temporary foreign worker shortages in certain sectors of the labour economy.

Therefore, the committee needs to find that balance to ensure protection and avoid exploitation, but still allow people to come into the country to carry out the needs that we have as far as labour shortages. It must ensure that these people know what their rights are and that they have an avenue to complain, to make changes, and to change an employer if the employer is abusive.

Refusing foreign workers entry to Canada based on the potential risk for abuse does not decrease the demand for these workers. This has the potential to create underground economies which render temporary workers even more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse which is exactly what we are trying to avoid with the intent of this legislation.

We need to ensure that blame is placed on the abusers, not on the victims. This is so important because victims of human trafficking, which my colleague continues to refer to, are often so frightened to come forward and admit what has actually happened to them.

I look forward to the bill being sent to committee, for improvements to be made, and for it to be referred back as soon as possible. I hope that we will be able to work together in a non-partisan way to prevent temporary foreign workers from being subjected to exploitation or abuse in Canada and for people to clearly know that they are welcome.

We need them to come to Canada. We want them to come and do well, and to move forward.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would love to get a copy of those speaking notes. Obviously they have been lined up for each party. It would be fascinating to have them and see the arguments that are presented: this is what we say to the NDP, this is what we say to the Bloc, and this is what we say to the Liberals.

That aside, I believe that in my comments I made it very clear that Bill C-49, passed in 2005, which was a bill that amended the Criminal Code dealing with trafficking, was a very significant bill. It was passed in the House. It had significant hearings. It was based on the concerns about exploitation and trafficking. Does that bill need to be amended?

In the subcommittee that I mentioned, of which I was a member, in our study of Canada's criminal prostitution laws we had a recommendation on trafficking that stated:

The Subcommittee recommends that the Government of Canada ensure that the problem of trafficking in persons remains a priority so that victims are provided with adequate assistance and services, while traffickers are brought to justice.

It was a unanimous recommendation from all parties.

As I also pointed out to the member, the response we got from the government, his government, was as I actually read it into the record. It talked about the interdepartmental working group and it referred to the legislation in 2005, and apparently things were in order.

What I am saying to the member and to the minister is that if there are continuing problems in terms of dealing with trafficking and abuse, then the government should bring forward that amendment to the Criminal Code. Certainly the status of women committee has been looking at it. The subcommittee that I was on was looking at it. We said to keep it as a high priority.

However, the bill that we are debating today, Bill C-57, does not deal with that. The bill is about the Conservatives' moral agenda to basically ban exotic dancers, that is what it is, or to give the minister incredibly broad powers to do I do not know what. It does not really spell it out. That is not good legislation.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the first debate on Bill C-57. I have been sitting here listening to the debate and, frankly, I was quite appalled to hear the Conservative member within an hour accuse the opposition of stalling tactics when we are debating the bill. I get the feeling that the member would be quite happy if the opposition completely disappeared off the face of the earth and then the government could run on its high-minded agenda with no one in the House to debate legislation on what it is doing. It is an outrage that within 50 minutes of the bill being debated, the member had the gall to stand and say to the Bloc member, and the Liberal member who just spoke and who legitimately raised concerns about the bill, that they were using a stalling tactic.

I would say shame on the Conservative members for being so arrogant in their attitude that they will not even tolerate debate in the House on a bill that we are sent here to deal with representing our constituents and public interests. However, we have come to expect these kinds of tactics from the government. Any time debate takes place in this House the government makes accusations and allegations that the opposition is doing a political job.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that we are here to debate this legislation and we will do exactly that. The sad part of this is that this bill, which does raise a lot of serious questions about the Conservative agenda, will probably be over in a few hours and it will be sent off to the committee. I do not know what will happen after that but that is the sad commentary on what is taking place.

I felt like I had to begin with those comments because I was sitting here feeling a sense of outrage about the political spin and the messaging that the Conservatives were engaging in when we had barely begun debate on the bill. I say shame on them for doing that. It is quite offensive the way democracy seems to take a back seat in this place.

I will now make a number of comments on the bill because I think it has some fundamental problems. At this point we in the NDP feel that we cannot support the bill.

First, the bill itself purports to propose amendments that would give authority to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to instruct immigration officers to deny work permits to foreign strippers. I noticed the government seems intent on using the pejorative term “strippers” as opposed to exotic dancers, which is what they are actually called. Again, that gives us a little understanding of the government's agenda. This authority would give enormous powers to the minister, on what basis it is hard to know. Giving the minister the power to cast a yea or a nay on a permit that comes on her desk raises the question as to whether or not this is really a ban.

The minister has been reported in the media as saying that she would like those permits to go down to zero. Even the government's own press release points out that over the last year it has significantly cut back on the number of people coming to Canada as exotic dancers so we know it has been doing this. This raises the question as to whether we are actually dealing with a ban, in which case the government should be up front and say that this is something it will not allow as opposed to saying that it is a discretionary thing because it has already cut permits back. I think only 17 permits were approved in the last year. This is something that is a serious concern to us in terms of the bill's real intent.

Second, as was pointed out by the NDP women's critic, the member for London—Fanshawe, when the bill was first introduced a few weeks ago, she said that if the issue is exploitation and harm, then instead of banning workers and the program, we should be focusing on workplace safety and on the rights of workers, whether they be exotic dancers, other foreign workers or domestic workers. Surely that is the issue.

When I read in one of the news reports that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration was introducing this bill as a humanitarian response, I just about fell off my chair laughing. I spent three years on a subcommittee of the justice committee studying the sex trade in Canada. We held extensive hearings across the country and heard from sex workers, in camera and in public, and we heard from police and advocates. When we finally issued our report, although I must say that it was a disappointing report, the government's response was quite pathetic. It completely ignored the danger, the exploitation and the incredible risks that sex workers already face in this country because of our laws.

I find it incredible that the minister would pop up and say that she was introducing this bill, in which she uses the term “strippers”, based on humanitarian reasons. This is nothing more than part of the Conservatives' moralistic agenda. They see enforcement, the Criminal Code and sanctions against people as the answer to everything, instead of focusing on what the complex issues are.

I must point out that even the government, in its response to the subcommittee's report on prostitution, the Minister of Justice told the committee:

...the Interdepartmental Working Group on Trafficking in Persons...coordinates all federal anti-trafficking efforts. The IWGTIP is composed of 16 participating federal departments and agencies and works in collaboration with its provincial and territorial partners, as well as civil society and its international partners, to prevent trafficking, protect its victims and hold perpetrators accountable.

The government goes on to point out that Bill C-49, which dealt with new trafficking specific offences, was passed in 2005 under the previous government. I remember debating that bill in the House of Commons. In 2006, Citizenship and Immigration Canada announced a further series of measures to deal with the vulnerable situation of trafficking victims.

Therefore, by the government's own admission, a bill had already passed through the House and further measures were taken to deal with the serious question of trafficking, which must be dealt with, and we supported those measures. I know that the Status of Women committee has looked at that and studied it.

We now have this weird little bill before the House and we are being told that it is a most important bill. I would agree with the Liberal member for Mississauga—Erindale who pointed out all the other issues that the Conservative government has failed to address on immigration and citizenship, and the list can become very long.

With all the problems that do exist within the system, whether it is foreign credentials, family reunification or the massive backlog, none of them are being dealt with. However, all of a sudden we have this bill before us even though the government, in its response, said that it had taken significant measures in previous legislation that was enacted to deal with trafficking. One has to question what is behind this bill.

We cannot support the bill because it is does not actually deal with the problem that exists. If we want to deal with exploitation, abuse and people's rights, then we should deal with that, but to simply give the minister power, with no accountability, to accept or deny permits when she feels like it, is a completely irrational legislative response. I do not see how we in this Parliament can support that kind of legislation. I would much rather see us focusing this debate on the real exploitation that is taking place and on what the government is prepared to do about it.

Again, I will come back to the subcommittee of the justice committee that dealt with our laws on prostitution, where there are very serious issues, where we have seen a high rate of violence because of law enforcement and because of the way laws operate. Women have disappeared. Aboriginal women have disappeared at an alarming rate, a rate higher than that of any other sector of our society.

I represent the riding of Vancouver East, the downtown east side, where we have had 63 women who were missing and murdered. The evidence is piling up that the prostitution law itself, because prostitution is not illegal but all the activities around it are, is one of the main contributors to the harm these women are suffering. In fact, just yesterday in Vancouver a new report was unveiled as a result of a two year community process called “Living in Community”, which tried to grapple with this issue in a very holistic, comprehensive and sensitive way in terms of dealing with safety in the community and the safety of people involved in the sex trade.

This bill has nothing to do with that. This bill will not address any of those issues. All it will do is allow the Conservatives to say they were responding to the issues of women's equality and violence against women, to say that this is what this bill is about, but the bill does not even come close. In fact, it is offensive in terms of the way it lays out its purported response.

I want to say in today's debate that we in the NDP believe this bill is very short-sighted. There were already mechanisms in place that allowed the government to take action in terms of dealing with visas. We know that because the Conservatives themselves admitted that they were cutting down on the permits for exotic dancers. It seems to me that rather than focusing a ban on those individuals and what may be legitimate situations, what they have chosen to do is basically bring in a ban on the whole program. That is what really underlies this, because that is what the minister has told us in the media. That is what the real intent is.

Instead of focusing on the issue of the workplace and abusive employers, no matter what workplace it is, whether it is for exotic dancers or in other areas that employ foreign workers or Canadian workers, what the government does is separate out the problems into little boutique bills. It creates a sort of moral high ground around them and then claims that this is how the government is moving forward when really it has not done anything. What it may do, by an unfortunate consequence, is actually drive the sex trade further underground.

Instead of focusing on the workplace and violations that may take place, instead of focusing on the rights and the safety of sex workers or exotic dancers, because those are real situations that could be dealt with, this bill has moved in a completely different direction.

In our caucus, we have had a lot of debate about this bill. We believe it is important to deal with exploitation and abuse. We believe it is important to focus attention on women's equality in this country. We believe it is critical to ensure that foreign workers are not exploited.

In fact, I find it ironic that the government is actually accelerating the foreign worker program. Pilot studies have taken place in Alberta. We have seen a huge acceleration of the program in British Columbia, because there now is a demand from employers who want foreign workers for the Olympics, for construction and the service and hospitality industries. We actually have seen an acceleration of the foreign worker program.

In fact, it is the NDP that has been calling for a review of this program because we are concerned with the exploitation and abuse of foreign workers that is taking place as a result of this program. However, to bring in this bill and say that it is going to resolve these problems flies in the face of reality.

We in the NDP will not be supporting this bill. I think the other two opposition parties have laid out some very good issues and arguments as to their concerns as well. We of course will be participating in the discussion at committee, where I am sure there will be witnesses, and there may be amendments.

We find that the bill as it is now is not supportable. We are not prepared to support a bill that gives such open-ended powers to a minister. We are not prepared to support a bill that in effect bans these particular workers, the exotic dancers.

The NDP is not prepared to support a bill that really is based on the Conservative government's political ideology. The NDP would much prefer to deal with this issue in a real fashion. We would much prefer to deal with exploitation and to deal with, for example, the prostitution laws that have been ignored by the government. That is where the debate needs to be focused.

I would urge the minister and the parliamentary secretary and others in the government who are supporting the bill to read the report that came out of Vancouver just yesterday. It is called the “Living in Community Action Plan”. I would urge them to take a look at what a genuine community debate is all about in terms of the sex trade and what needs to be done. Government members could see how different stakeholders came together, whether it was police, government representatives, city representatives, community advocates, or sex workers themselves, and produced not only a process but a report with recommendations and conclusions that actually make some sense. That was genuine. It has a lot of merit and a lot of legitimacy because of what the individuals went through.

Something like this bill, which almost seems to have been pulled out of a hat because it serves a political purpose, needs to be called what it is, and that is what we are doing here today. The NDP will not be supporting this bill. There are a lot of problems in the citizenship and immigration department. A lot of things need to be fixed. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, this bill ignores all of those issues.

We certainly will debate this bill on its merits. We will deal with it in committee. We will debate it when it comes back. However, we believe that we have a responsibility to tell the Canadian public that this bill is a sham and that it is not going to deal with those harmful situations. All the bill is going to do is ban those workers instead of focusing on safety and rights in the workplace, which is really how this intervention should be made.

NDP members are not in a position to support this bill. I have given the reasons why. I certainly am now expecting a barrage of indignation from the Conservatives as they once again get on their little pedestals, but that is okay. We understand what that political spin is about.

I am just glad that there are members in the opposition who understand that debate is not about stalling. Debate is debate. Dialogue and different points of view are legitimate. That is why we are here. Part of our job is to hold the government to account and to look at legislation with a lens as to whether or not it has merit. We take that very seriously.

I look forward to questions and comments. I will respond to them as best I can.

Human Trafficking

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are many different figures given in regard to the number of people believed to be victims of human trafficking. The United Nations estimates that the number of humans trafficked is about 700,000. UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children are trafficked annually.

The International Labour Organization estimates that the figure may actually be as much as 2.45 million. This organization also estimates that 92% of the victims of trafficking are used for prostitution and that 98% of them are young women and girls. The remaining 2% are boys and transvestites.

It is important to note here that trafficking can occur in many sectors that depend on migrant labour, such as agriculture, the garment sector and domestic work.

According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, approximately 800 people, primarily women and children, fall victim every year to trafficking for purposes of prostitution in Canada. However, non-government organizations estimate the number to be closer to 15,000.

In 1998, a report submitted to the Solicitor General of Canada stated that between 8,000 and 16,000 persons were estimated to be entering Canada every year with the help of smugglers. These vastly different numbers tell us two things: first, that human trafficking is a serious global problem; second, that it is an incredibly difficult thing to count, never mind combat.

I would like to point out that in the last session of the House Bill C-49 was passed with all party support. This bill addressed the issues of human trafficking and assessed our international commitments to combating this very serious crime. The previous government and now the current government have failed to act on Bill C-49. The bill called for an increase in resources for police forces to actually deal with human trafficking. The motion before the House today highlights this lack of action.

There are things we can do to combat this crime in Canada.

First, we need to improve victim support services. They are currently insufficient in Canada, particularly when it comes to victims of human trafficking. Regular victim services are not adequate. People need services geared to people who are victims of organized crime, people who have been terrorized and brutalized. Organizations need the resources and training to deal with these vulnerable victims. These organizations must also be able to work with law enforcement officials, both to protect the victims and to apprehend the criminals trafficking their fellow human beings.

Second, we need to ensure that officials and legal experts are trained and briefed on the issues surrounding human trafficking. We need to better inform the public about the issue. In other words, we need a systemic approach to implement the provisions of Bill C-49.

Third, we need to develop local strategies, because this problem will be most effectively addressed by various agencies at the local level. We need to give local organizations the resources they need to really combat this problem. We also need a coordinated effort among federal, provincial and local governments to combat human trafficking. All levels of government are affected and need to work together to produce real results. Of course this is an international problem and thus we need to cooperate with international bodies and foreign governments to strategically deal with this very serious issue.

Next, we need to collect data and information about human trafficking in Canada. Right now we know very little about it. We need data from police and other organizations that deal first-hand with human trafficking victims to learn how best we can help those already in the system and how to stop others from being sucked in.

Finally, the protection of victims must be paramount and must be placed at the centre of the preoccupations of all of those responding to the problem.

We need to do these things because human trafficking is a very serious issue across the world, but we need to be intelligent about it. I would like to note that past anti-trafficking measures often ended up restricting female migration rather than protecting women's rights.

People move around in the hope of improving their lives. That is a reality. Sadly, some people try to take advantage of others' innocence, trust and vulnerability. As more women migrate to find better paid work, it appears that more will fall victim to trafficking or an exploitative work situation they cannot easily escape.

I would like to also acknowledge that identifying human trafficking victims is a challenge. I sit on the Standing Committee for the Status of Women, where we studied this issue at length. One witness outlined the difficulties quite clearly.

The witness said victims of crime did not necessarily come forward. They did not necessarily know until it was too late that they were victims. How would they know that they should report it? Once they knew they were being victimized, there were all kinds of reasons why they could not report. They were intimidated. They were victims of violence. They were afraid. They did not trust police officers. Sometimes they would come from other countries where police officers were not to be trusted. There were all kinds of reasons why women fail to report.

One witness to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women told us that we had to work together and give ourselves good mechanisms, good means to encourage victims to come forward and let them know that it was safe for them to do so.

Another witness, Mr. Richard Poulin, a professor at the department of sociology and anthropology at the University of Ottawa, described to the committee the recruitment methods used to lure women into trafficking. He said:

Recruitment methods vary, but traffickers almost always resort to deception and violence. The most common method involves putting ads in the papers proposing jobs in another country as a hairdresser, caregiver, domestic worker, waitress, au pair, model or dancer.

Another method involves recruiting them through placement agencies, travel agencies or dating and matrimonial agencies, which are often nothing more than a front for procurers.

Victims of trafficking have also been sold by their family, their boyfriends or institutions such as orphanages.

Once someone has been recruited, that person is kept in a situation of dependency throughout the period that she is trafficked. She is passed from one person to the other until her arrival in her country of destination....

Rape and other forms of servitude are often used....As soon as they arrive in their country of destination, their documentation is confiscated by the traffickers and they are immediately placed on the sex markets. In Canada, that means prostitution, nude dancing, and so on.

In the country of destination, the trafficking victims, whether or not they were already prostitutes in their own country, will see their passport and other papers confiscated by the people organizing the prostitution. They will have to repay their travel debt. To that are added fees for room and board, clothing, make-up, condoms, and other items that are all deducted from their income. Once all the costs have been paid, there is practically nothing left for them.

A recent investigation by the International Labour Organization determined that prostitutes who are victims of trafficking end up keeping only about 20 per cent of generated income, with the rest going to the procurer.

If the prostitute does not bring in enough money, she will be threatened with sale to another procuring ring, to whom she will again have to repay her debt. She will frequently be moved from one place to another, be threatened with reprisals against her family back home, be subject to psychological, physical and sexual violence, and if she manages to escape her procurer, she runs the risk of being deported as an illegal immigrant. She is completely vulnerable, and rare are the countries that provide services to such persons and protect them from the procurers.

No human being deserves such a life or to be treated like that. We in Canada have an obligation at home and internationally to address this issue. I hope the House and the government finally will.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will focus on the motion itself and restrain myself on other points.

We have been attempting to deal with the matter of human trafficking since the previous Parliament. In the last Parliament, Bill C-49 went through this place very quickly with all party support. It did not get any time in committee. The bill went through rapidly and is now law. The previous Parliament took on that responsibility in response to international commitments we had made.

This motion should not be necessary. I applaud the author of the motion for having brought it to the House because it highlights the inaction on this issue since we passed Bill C-49 in the last Parliament. In the work that I do within the public security committee and justice committee I have not seen any substantial increase in the resources, in particular for our police forces to deal with human trafficking.

I want to make a couple of points that have not yet been made. The motion itself does not address the other part of human trafficking, although I know other members have referred to it. Close to half of the human trafficking that goes on is not related to the sexual abuse of the victims but is related to victims who are used for work purposes. This occurs mostly in the United States in the garment trade and the agricultural field. Very little of that has ever been identified in Canada, but it is a major worldwide problem. There are children being used as soldiers. That is part of the human trafficking problem that we are confronting internationally.

We have heard estimates of the numbers of people that have been trafficked. The numbers that we have heard today are actually higher. The United Nations estimates that the number of humans trafficked is 700,000. UNICEF, which has done a great deal of work on this, estimates that 1.2 million children are trafficked annually. The International Labour Organization, and this brings me back to the point I was making earlier about the number of people who are trafficked for straight commercial purposes, that is, for labour, estimates that the figure is actually 2.45 million. That was a couple of years ago and there is no reason to believe that the numbers have gone down; if anything, they have probably increased in the last two years. Realistically, the figure for all sorts of human trafficking is probably about 2.5 million.

The motion itself is limited in its assessment to the problem of women and children specifically for the purposes of sexual abuse and exploitation. With regard to the exploitation of women and children for sexual purposes, there is no one in this country, with the exception of the traffickers perhaps, who would argue that we should not be doing more. As a base value within our society the forced use of human beings for sexual purposes is contrary to everything we believe in.

The Conservative government needs to be moving more dramatically to have a fixed plan in place, which is what the previous Liberal government should have done. The plan has to be multi-level. It has to be regional, national and international.

What is interesting, particularly when I was listening to the speaker from the Bloc, is that we also have to get back to the root causes of why women in particular are able to be exploited so efficiently. That means going back to root causes, such as poverty, cultural mores and the acceptance, for instance, of violence in sexual relations. Those are the vast majority of the root causes in other countries.

The vast majority of women and children are being trafficked out of other countries into Canada and in some cases being used here. From the preliminary information we have from our security forces both at the border and internally, the vast majority of them are being trafficked through Canada from other countries. We have to deal with it locally and we have to be prepared to deal with it internationally.

One of the frustrations of dealing with it internationally is that when we go to any number of countries in the world at the international level and say they are a major source of human beings being trafficked into Canada and North America, we get a very blasé response and no action. There is work that has to be done at the international level.

There is work that needs to be done in terms of additional legislation at the international level and, most importantly, enforcement. There are very few countries in the world, if any, that I am aware of, where what is going is not illegal.

I remember being in Russia in the spring of this year as part of the preparation for the G8 meeting with my counterpart in public security and a number of NGOs and my counterpart talked about the major problem in Russia. It is not only a source of women and children to be exploited, it is a consumer of it, and a country where a great number of human beings are trafficked through that country to other destinations. It is a major problem for Russia.

The point he was making was that this conduct is completely illegal in Russia under its laws and it is being almost completely unenforced. It is a reasonably developed community in society but there is very little enforcement of it in Russia. That problem is repeated. We know it is a problem throughout Asia, Africa and South America.

We have a lot of work to do at the international level. We have to get at the root causes to stop it and have countries enforce their laws to stop the flow. In Canada we need to be dedicating more resources. We constantly hear, particularly from the border people, that we have to be doing more work to intervene.

This government, as did the prior one, has to be looking at a change in policy, so that if women and children are trafficked into Canada, we have the ability to stop that trafficking. If we end it here in Canada, we have to be sure that we have a refuge and provide individuals with that security. We have to ensure that we just do not, as is the present situation, instantaneously send people back.

England took a look at this about a year ago and found that women who were sent back to their own countries repeatedly went back to England because when they went back to their own countries they were caught by the traffickers again and immediately sent back to England. Oftentimes they or their families in their home countries were under immediate threat of violence by the traffickers. We have to look at a change in our immigration policy and provide a special category for these victims if we are serious about dealing with this issue.

Again, I congratulate the author of the motion. This is one of the areas we need to work on. The government needs to work harder and Parliament has to be prepared to put into place policies that are meaningful and will be useful in terms of combating this scourge.

[Det Sgt Michel Hamel, Manager , Risk Management and Special Victims Unit, Sex Crimes Unit, Toronto Police Service]

Good morning. Thank you for having us here today.

The focus of the presentation will be the challenges that we face at the local level in terms of enforcing and prosecuting human trafficking offences.

According to statistics released by the RCMP, it is estimated that over 2,000 people are trafficked into Canada every year. At the national level, the RCMP have taken on the responsibility of providing awareness sessions and training to other law enforcement agencies with respect to Bill C-49. Although this is a global issue, the reality is that the municipal police services do have the responsibility of enforcing the law at the local level. Most of the victims of human trafficking will be found in the larger cities, such as Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, and surrounding areas.

In most cases, female victims will be discovered during criminal investigations within the sex trade industry, bawdy houses, escort services, massage parlours, and prostitution rings. Another initiative that was undertaken by the Toronto police this year was to create a new unit called the special victims section within the sex crimes unit as a pilot project, and the mandate is to identify and rescue young persons involved in the sex trade industry, to collect and maintain a data bank of known sex trade workers and share this information with other law enforcement agencies, and to investigate criminal acts committed against sex trade workers and provide support to the victims, and this includes victims of human trafficking.

A one-day awareness session is in the planning stage. It will be held in December of this year. It will involve the RCMP, the Canada Border Services Agency, and the Toronto Police Service. Community agencies that provide assistance and shelter to sex trade workers will also be invited.

I'd like to give you a brief summary of the current situation in Toronto. As the officer in charge of the special victims section, I had the opportunity to meet with the informal leaders of the sex trade industry in Toronto. They are aware of human trafficking victims in the city. Some have sought refuge in shelters in the past and some of them are there now, and that's why we want to have an information session, to develop trust between us and the shelters. However, the fear of deportation exists and victims will not come forward. That's why it is so important to develop this trust, and we recognize that it will take a long time.

We have been getting Crime Stoppers tips about human trafficking victims within the city being exploited through the escort service industry. These allegations were investigated without success because the information was very limited. A matter is currently under investigation in Toronto involving a strip club. The owner had flown to the Philippines to recruit 15 dancers from local strip joints, and we have seen photographs of him and the young females, and these photographs were taken in dirty backrooms of these so-called strip clubs in the Philippines. The owner is now in Canada and he is waiting for immigration papers to be finalized so that his new staff can be flown to Toronto.

I have identified some of the challenges that we are facing in the investigative stages of human trafficking offences, and the number one is housing. There seems to be no plan and/or protocol in place to provide immediate assistance to the victims of human trafficking. Shelters are available, but this would have to be on a short-term basis, and if there are issues of security, the shelters would have to be made aware of this, and most would decline to provide assistance. There are also serious liability issues from all those concerned.

The Canada Border Services Agency enforcement unit will assist, as they normally do, where there are immigration issues. If the victims have status in Canada, there is no policy in place, at least in the Toronto area, to provide any shelter for the victims. If they have no status, the victims can be detained for 48 hours in a holding facility; however, the victims are then treated as suspects, thus jeopardizing any efforts made to gain their trust.

The Canada Border Services Agency usually becomes involved with us in Toronto during the investigation of inmates found in massage parlours and bawdy houses. Their role is primarily to determine the status of inmates in Canada and to provide assistance to us with immigration issues.

The focus has to change for all parties involved. The emphasis should be on the possibility of human trafficking and being a victim of this crime, first, before looking at the minor charge of being an inmate of a bawdy house.

The process of implementing a three-month permit in the Toronto area is not very clear.

[Carole Morency]

Within the context of a domestic response, just to echo what Adèle said, prevention is a huge issue for us. We have focused a lot of our preliminary efforts federally on getting that message out locally. Absolutely there's more we need to do, and will continue to do, in partnership with our partners on the ground. We do continue to work on that.

As was mentioned earlier, the three Ps--protection of victims, prevention, and prosecution of offenders--is really the international standard. Those three remain the key priorities for us domestically as well. The protection of victims, then, with the announcement by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in May of 2006 about the guidelines, was a huge step forward for us.

Again, clearly there's much more we need to do. Within the criminal justice sector we continue to work through various federal, provincial, and territorial fora to keep the issue on the table, including with heads of prosecution and directors of victims services. There's much we can do federally to keep the issue on the agenda, but there's also much we need to do very much in partnership with provinces and NGOs to make further inroads.

On data collection, what Adèle said about issues internationally is true for us here. The clandestine nature of the conduct in question makes it incredibly difficult for anyone to get real data on this. If we look to other areas where we have experience here in Canada--i.e., sexual assaults and spousal abuse--we have some statistics there, but everybody who's worked in that area will say that we all estimate those to be incredibly below the real numbers.

Bill C-49, the IRPA offence, and those types of specific offences addressing human trafficking will help us a bit in terms of trying to track those specific offences. We will continue to need to look at related types of conduct; a case that may not be identified by somebody as a trafficking case clearly is, once you look at the facts.

In terms of our law enforcement, you've heard from the RCMP already. I think the CBSA will be appearing as well, and they can speak to efforts they can and are taking domestically to enhance their ability to keep data on these numbers.

So there's a lot more we need to do, but there are huge hurdles in terms of trying to get to the real numbers that we would all like to have.

[Carole Morency]

The new offences came into force on November 25, so they can only be used to address situations that have occurred after that point in time. We are not aware of any charges that have yet been laid under the new offences, but that doesn't mean that law enforcement is not currently investigating cases that have come to their attention or that other cases are not proceeding under existing Criminal Code provisions that may address trafficking-related conduct.

So, yes, we continue to monitor how Bill C-49 in particular will advance our efforts in this regard; and yes, we continue to monitor how existing Criminal Code offences and also the trafficking offence under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act continue to be used in this area.

Tracking cases, for example, between spring 2004 and February 2006, looking at the existing Criminal Code offences that are being used to address trafficking-related conduct...when we've looked at the facts in reported cases we have found or identified 25 cases where convictions have been entered and nine that are still before the courts, meaning the fact situation is a trafficking situation but not necessarily identified because of the trafficking in persons specific offence.

[Carole Morency, Senior Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice]

Good morning.

Trafficking in persons has often been described by many as a modern-day form of slavery. To understand that, we need to have a clear understanding of what kind of conduct we're actually talking about.

Human trafficking involves three key elements.

First, it involves a physical act; namely, the recruitment, transportation, or harbouring of a person across international borders, or within borders.

Second, it involves the use of such means as threats, force, coercion, or deception. With respect to children, although it's irrelevant whether any such means are used, they nonetheless often involve the abuse of power or position of authority over the child or the giving or receiving of consideration to obtain the consent of the person who has authority over that child.

The third key element is that it's carried out for the specific purpose of exploiting its victims, usually for sexual exploitation or for forced labour.

It is the means--principally coercion--and the exploitative purpose that distinguishes trafficking from similar crimes such as human smuggling and makes it so abhorrent, whether a person is forced to work in a garment factory, on a farm, or as a domestic servant or to perform sexual services. No matter the form of human trafficking, it's always an affront to human dignity and a fundamental violation of their human rights.

There are many different types of exploitation involved in human trafficking, such that it has been linked to other issues, for example, prostitution. And although there are some linkages between human trafficking and prostitution, particularly when we're dealing with child prostitution, there are differences that warrant treating the issues separately.

Adèle has already outlined the magnitude of human trafficking as we understand it domestically and internationally, which makes us appreciate even more the importance of having a strong, coordinated domestic response in place.

Canada recently strengthened its criminal justice response to trafficking. In November 2005 Parliament enacted the former Bill C-49. These new Criminal Code offences created an important step towards strengthening our ability to protect victims of human trafficking by ensuring that Canada's legal framework clearly recognizes and strongly denounces and deters this terrible crime.

It does this by creating three new indictable offences to better address human trafficking—in whatever form it may manifest itself.

To begin with, the main offence of trafficking in persons prohibits anyone from engaging in specified acts, such as recruiting, transporting, harbouring or controlling the movements of another person for the purpose of exploiting or facilitating the exploitation of that person. This offence is punishable by up to life imprisonment, reflecting its severity and its harmful consequences for its victims and Canadian society.

Secondly, Bill C-49 deters those who seek to profit from the exploitation of others by making it an offence to receive a financial or material benefit knowing that it results from the trafficking of persons. This offence is punishable by up to ten years' imprisonment.

Thirdly, Bill C-49 prohibits the withholding or destroying of travel or identity documents in order to commit or facilitate the trafficking of persons. This offence is punishable by a maximum of five years imprisonment.

Bill C-49 reforms will strengthen our current responses to trafficking by building upon existing provisions in the Criminal Code that already address trafficking-related conduct, such as forcible confinement, kidnapping, sexual assault, and aggravated sexual assault, and these reforms also complement the trafficking-specific offence that exists in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Bill C-49's new criminal offences, together with the existing offences, provide a broader framework for all criminal justice personnel with a significantly enhanced ability to ensure that the offence charged is the one that best responds to the facts of each trafficking case.

The federal government is also addressing human trafficking through other non-legislative measures, which is a reflection of the reality that an effective response to such a problem requires not only a strong legal framework but also multi-sectoral collaboration to ensure that victims are protected and to enhance our awareness and understanding of the problem.

For example, in 2006 the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration introduced measures to strengthen Canada’s response to the unique needs of trafficking victims who find themselves in Canada but are foreign nationals. These measures include guidelines that will assist immigration officers in issuing short-term temporary resident permits to trafficking victims for a period of reflection of up to 120 days, and this permit can be renewed. Victims are also exempted from the temporary resident permit processing fee and given access to the interim federal health program to ensure that they receive the medical attention they need, which could include emergency health services and trauma counselling.

The government has also undertaken numerous awareness-raising measures within Canada. For example, we have a website on trafficking in persons that can be accessed through the Department of Justice website. The website provides useful information for the public, describing the problem and providing related links.

Public education and awareness is being fostered through the development and broad dissemination, within Canada and through Canadian embassies, of a poster—available in 17 languages—and an information pamphlet—available in 14 languages—to help prevent human trafficking victimization.

We have brought with us a sampling of those materials to leave with the committee. These have been really widely disseminated and sought as materials for persons organizing conferences.

Professional training and education about human trafficking and enforcement-related issues is under way and began with a training seminar in law enforcement in March 2004, co-hosted by the Department of Justice and the International Organization for Migration. A similar seminar was held in May 2005 in Vancouver, hosted by the RCMP, and another will be held in November 2006 in Nova Scotia.

As you have already heard from Adèle, we've supported prevention and awareness efforts in source countries, and we continue to look to build partnerships here at home and abroad. The interdepartmental working group on trafficking in persons is committed to our mandate to continue to coordinate all federal anti-trafficking measures, and we continue to work with our provincial counterparts and civil society to ensure an effective, comprehensive response to this terrible crime.

With that, I will end my remarks. We will be happy to answer any questions the committee may have.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Okay.

You alluded to the fact that there are some major hurdles there in terms of spooling up law enforcement. Are there any initiatives in place right now that you can tell me about that are helping law enforcement agencies to be better aware of their obligations under Bill C-49?

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I don't want to cut you off, but I have only a minute left.

With regard to Bill C-49, have there been any prosecutions on this so far?

[Yvon Dandurand]

I would just add to this that the RCMP, as I said, has provided very strong and effective leadership in the police community in Canada. They had a head start because they were responsible for part of the enforcement of the offence under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The other police forces are just coming online, because before this, it wasn't their responsibility. With Bill C-49, they all have to do something. Many of them, I would say, are probably still asleep. They still probably don't know exactly what it means for them.

Sergeant Lowe mentioned British Columbia. The RCMP, itself, has gone to the municipal police forces and provided information and so on. I believe that the RCMP, and the national centre in particular, is crucial, but I would like you to also remember that there are a lot of other law enforcement agencies and other groups that need to be brought on board. It's not just a problem for the national police force. Others need to be mobilized.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That's interesting, because what you're saying is that while the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies are doing some research, it needs to be done by a separate body that would bring law enforcement into the mix, but also the communities and all of the other...in order to have proper research.

That goes back to the point you made. The previous government's bill, C-49, while it's good legislation, cannot be as effective without this other arm of knowing where things are at. So that's interesting, because everybody tends to look at the existing institutions as places to start, but it looks like we're looking at something that may be slightly different to do the research and collecting. Okay, that's good.

The other question I had was on the root causes. I know the research hasn't been done, but from what you know at this point, generally, what are the main motivators for trafficking—apart from greed and crime? Obviously I know what the motive of the people who are perpetrating this is, and to some degree I understand that it's economic for the women who come to do exotic dancing or they come to do a job but end up doing something else. Do you know of any way or of any research being done from the economic perspective—the prevention side—that could start chopping off the supply and address the issue of income support and prevention, in partnership with some countries that might be the major source of trafficking? The core issue is what I'm looking at.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you both for your presentations. They were very interesting.

Also, I was pleased and disappointed at the same time to hear that Bill C-49 is welcomed but that it may not be getting down to the ground where it needs to be. That is one of the major failings of a lot of our legislation. We can build as much legislation as we can, but at the end of the day, if it's not implemented properly, if it's not really used, then of course the resources aren't applied, and that's a major problem.

One of my first questions was on what your reaction to the legislation itself was and if any changes were needed, but you said it's too early to tell. I was also wondering what we are doing to make it a reality. Obviously, you've given us some good suggestions with respect to that.

You said there's still not enough data, and obviously we have a shortage of research. Is there any research going on at this point that you know of within the RCMP, for instance, or any other institution with respect to the data you know is needed but is not yet available? If not, who do you think should be, at this point, doing that kind of research? Where should the government direct its attention and resources, its funding, to make that happen?

[Yvon Dandurand, Senior Associate, International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy, University of British Columbia]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for this opportunity to appear before the committee today.

As you mentioned, I am affiliated with the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy in Vancouver, which is a United Nations-affiliated research institute, as well as with the University College of the Fraser Valley.

My colleagues and I, over the last four or five years, have had all kinds of opportunities to work on the issue of human trafficking and have studied the problem. We were involved initially, more than five years ago, in the discussions that led to the adoption of the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and the protocols thereto, of course, as observers and as part of a committee of experts. We were also involved in designing and developing legislative guides for member states on how to implement these international instruments with the support of the Government of Canada. We were involved in developing a tool kit for member states on how to implement the protocol on trafficking in persons, and also developing handbooks for law enforcement officers, both in Canada and in other countries. We have worked locally and nationally with our colleagues from the RCMP and other police forces. We also work internationally, again on human trafficking, with colleagues from Central America and with UNICEF in Vietnam and in Myanmar. So we have gathered a fairly good appreciation of the complexity of the problem and would like to volunteer some comments today on how much progress we have made in Canada and what's still ahead of us in terms of actions to counter the problem.

As Sergeant Lowe has already mentioned, we don't have really good information in Canada, or systematic information, on the extent of the problem. In fact, I understand this is the first hearing of this committee on the issue of human trafficking. There's no doubt in my mind that during the course of your work you will hear different views on how important the problem is and how it presents itself in Canada. This disagreement on the nature of the problem and the extent to which it afflicts us in Canada is partly due still, in spite of the new legal definitions of the problem, to disagreements or different views about what constitutes a problem. It's also due to the fact that this is not an easy problem to study, because obviously all of that crime occurs in a clandestine fashion and is obviously difficult to measure. Organized crime does not publish annual reports, so it's quite difficult to get a good sense of what it is.

On the other hand, in the last five to ten years, basically around the globe people have paid more attention to the issue, and we're getting a little wiser about how the problem presents itself and what works and what doesn't work. I think it would be fair to say that the international community is still trying to identify some of the best practices, but we know a lot more today about the problem and how best to respond to it than we did, say, ten years ago.

One of the issues that you will probably notice is that in Canada there are still very few official cases of human trafficking--only a handful. By “official”, I mean cases that have come to the attention of law enforcement and have been treated or recognized as cases of human trafficking. Once you notice this, you have to wonder what's really happening. Are we really the only country in which there is very little human trafficking? Is it true that there aren't many cases out there, or is the problem merely one where a lot of victims in Canada still do not find it safe to come forward and ask for assistance?

In Canada we don't yet have a good way of keeping track of cases. I know our colleagues from the RCMP have worked on developing databases, including intelligence databases, that allow them to keep track of the information that comes to their attention, either in the form of complaints or in the form of intelligence. Still, there are many issues in Canada about studying the problem and figuring out how it presents itself. For instance, there are very few, if any, official cases of trafficking in children in Canada. Are we supposed to believe we'd be the only western country with no incidents of child trafficking? That would be very surprising.

We need to deal with the issue differently and be more vigilant. Obviously this is not a case that comes to the attention of the police spontaneously. It is an area where proactive law enforcement is really important, and that is why the work described earlier by Sergeant Lowe is so important, not only at the level of the RCMP but at the level of all police forces in Canada, and I'll come back to this in a minute.

I've suggested to you so far that we're not as effective as we should be when it comes to fighting human trafficking in Canada, and that's not an indictment of Canada. We are more or less where other countries are. The reasons why we tend to fail to respond as well as we could are many, and I'll list a few here for you, mostly because you will encounter them again in your work and in your deliberations.

The first reason why we're not always as good as we could be in fighting human trafficking is that there is still disagreement about what trafficking is, and that's why it's important to do a lot of public education and public awareness activity, so we develop a common language, a common understanding of what the problem is, and distinguish it from other very important problems such as sexual exploitation of sex trade workers and others, which may or may not involve human trafficking. It's important that we collectively gain some clarity about those different problems and the best ways to deal with them.

Another reason why we're not as good as we could be is that we still have limited knowledge of how human trafficking presents itself in Canada, and that leads us to think we need to do more systematic investigation. Researchers need to work in cooperation with law enforcement and others, NGOs, and people who have first-hand knowledge of the issues so we get a better understanding.

The other reason we have trouble is that the phenomenon evolves rapidly. The modes of operation of human traffickers change constantly. They try to avoid detection. They find different ways. So when you turn the spotlights in one direction, they go somewhere else. There's a lot of what criminologists would call crime displacement. They use different methods. They go to different places. They use different routes. And therefore whatever you think you know about human trafficking is only true of human trafficking last week or last year, because right now they're proceeding in a different way.

That means we have to be a little more efficient at sharing information, particularly among law enforcement agencies, but not just among law enforcement agencies. I'll get back to this, but clearly this is an area where law enforcement needs to work very closely with community groups, with people who work with new immigrants, with people who work with various ethnic communities in Canada, and so on.

Another reason why we are not as good as we could be is that we have a hard time measuring the success of our efforts. So when you don't know whether what you're doing is producing results, it's quite hard to perfect your methods, and again it comes back to getting good information about what we're doing.

There's also another reason: there are still many obstacles to international cooperation. I'm not going to go into many details about this. I would be quite happy to provide more information to the committee if it wishes, but given that the crime frequently occurs across borders, preventing it and controlling it and prosecuting it presupposes very good cooperation among law enforcement agencies and legal authorities in both countries, and that is still fraught with all kinds of difficulties. We have made great progress not only in Canada but internationally with the Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, to which Canada is a party. This certainly resolves a lot of those issues, but we're still very much at the beginning of this era of international cooperation. International cooperation comes at a risk, as I think all of us have discovered recently, so international cooperation is an area where we need to focus a little bit more of our efforts in future.

And finally I would say one of the reasons why we don't always succeed is that we have not always examined the assumptions we're prepared to make about human trafficking, what it is, who is involved, who the victims are, what they look like, where they come from, and all those other things.

There is a lot of mythology around this, including mythology about what organized crime is. When we think about organized crime, we think about The Godfather or a whole bunch of other stereotypical images, but in practice, organized crime, particularly as it refers to this type of human trafficking and other forms of trafficking, is a very different kind of animal. It looks more like networking; it is very loose associations of different groups across borders. We have to revise our assumptions about what organized crime is like in order to be effective at fighting this kind of organized crime.

Collectively, I would say, we are getting a lot wiser about how to best respond to the problem. Sergeant Lowe earlier talked about the importance of protection. In the federal government a lot of reference has been made to the three p's: prevention, protection, prosecution. Sometimes that could be misleading and sometimes it can help us organize ourselves, but we should never lose sight of the ultimate, paramount importance of protecting victims, because prevention, prosecution, and everything else depends upon how well we protect victims.

We've learned, for instance, that protection of victims must be paramount and must be placed at the centre of the preoccupations of all those responding to the problem. We also know that law enforcement cannot act alone and must reach out to a broad network of victim assistance and other service providers in order to offer that protection to victims.

Many of those agencies are part of civil society. Some of them don't have a long history of working with law enforcement and some of them are distrustful of working with law enforcement; therefore, we are at the stage where a lot of law enforcement agencies need to develop different kinds of networks and relationships with service providers when it comes to this particular group of victims.

I'm happy to say that the RCMP has provided leadership in that respect in Canada. In my region, where I come from in British Columbia, clearly the RCMP has not worked alone. It has brought together all community groups and has made advances in developing cooperation protocols, inter-agency protocols, and so on. That has been useful, but more of it needs to happen. And it's not an RCMP problem; there are a whole lot of other people in Canada who need to be mobilized to do their part in responding to the problem.

I'd like to say a few words, briefly, about Bill C-49. It is very important, and I'm sure you will receive a proper briefing, if necessary, on what Bill C-49 did and how it criminalized human trafficking and introduced other offences. My only regret is that Bill C-49 was not adopted earlier. There is a difference between criminalizing the behaviour as part of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and criminalizing the behaviour as part of the Criminal Code. One of the main differences, of course, is that once it becomes a Criminal Code offence, it entails all kinds of responsibility for municipal police forces and regular law enforcement agencies.

The problem with the previous way of criminalizing it, through the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, was that it put the emphasis on people crossing borders. Of course, that is oftentimes part of the crime, but it creates a reflex of looking for those victims and looking for those crimes at the border. We think it's a border issue and that we need to put more people at the border.

In fact, research everywhere shows us that's the least likely place to identify victims of human trafficking. When they go across borders, most of them are being conned into believing they're being smuggled and that they're going to a brighter future and all of that. In that sense, they almost look like accomplices. They will cooperate with the smugglers and the traffickers, because they don't know yet that they are victims of crime. So the worst place to try to get victims of crime, or to intercept them, is at the border.

Where will you find them? You'll find them in your community, you'll find them in massage parlours, you'll find them on farms—you'll find them in all of those places. Who gets to those places? It is the regular beat police officer, who will bump into those cases more or less by coincidence or by accident. So it's very important that all of the police forces be mobilized to work together and to work with agencies in their own communities to deal with all of this.

So Bill C-49 was a very welcome change and very important legislation. You will probably hear people who think it should have been different, gone further, all of those other things. My own view on this is that it is too early to tell. It's a very good piece of legislation. We should have a look at how it works and what kinds of results it produces, but probably you will hear other witnesses who have different views.

Another very significant thing has happened to address a situation that was very problematic in terms of protecting victims of human trafficking, particularly those coming from other countries. There was no proper mechanism for allowing victims to stay in Canada for a period of time, so the introduction by Citizenship and Immigration Canada of temporary residence permits is another major step in the right direction.

Now there are still issues about how to apply it and when it applies, and there are still ambivalences I think to be conquered in terms of the relationship between people who work with victims and illegal immigrants and others, and law enforcement. I'm sure they'll work it out. This is a sort of new measure, but it's a step in the right direction. The committee probably should ensure that this process is monitored carefully and that we learn about how it's implemented and whether it can be improved in the next several months or years.

I'm not going to say a lot, but you will hear a lot about the difficulty in identifying victims of crime. That is really a very difficult issue always for everyone involved. Victims of crime do not necessarily come forward. They do not necessarily know early in the stage in the process of trafficking that they are victims, so how would they know to report it? Once they know they are being victimized, there are all kinds of reasons why they cannot. They are intimidated. They are victims of violence. They are afraid. They don't trust police officers. Sometimes they come from other countries where police officers are not to be trusted. So there are all kinds of reasons why that happens, and this is why it is so important to focus on that aspect. We have to work together and give ourselves good mechanisms, good means, to encourage victims to come forward and let them know that it is safe for them to do so.

I'm going to conclude here, Madam Chair, by identifying seven areas generally that I think still deserve attention in Canada and where probably your work will lead you to make some recommendations.

One is victim support services. They are currently insufficient in Canada, particularly when it comes to victims of human trafficking, and not everyone understands yet that regular victim services are not always adequate for victims of human trafficking, or victims who come from other countries, or victims of organized crime in general. It's one thing to help someone who was robbed yesterday on the street. It's quite another thing to try to help someone who has been in the clutches of a major dangerous organized crime group.

I'm not saying we need a whole set of new victim services, but we need to assist existing services in developing a capacity to assist those victims. Again, we haven't had that many cases, at least official cases, so most of those agencies are still in a learning mode and most of them would probably be telling you that they don't have sufficient resources to do a good job at this and that they need to train their volunteers, they need to train their staff, and so on. So that's one area.

Another one is support for the role of organizations that work with victims in general.

Another one is that I am not certain that Bill C-49 is being implemented as systematically and as thoroughly as it should be. I'm referring mostly in particular to training of various officials. I'm talking about public information and legal education and so on. There might be more measures that I'm not aware of, but certainly from where I'm sitting, I haven't seen a systematic approach to implementing Bill C-49, and that is required.

I would also say that another major priority is developing local strategies, because that problem is really going to be countered by good cooperation and effective relationships between agencies at the local level. There are some examples of that. I mentioned the example of British Columbia. I know that in Ottawa, also, there are some initiatives, and there are several others. That needs to happen in every community around the country, and that probably needs support, which brings me, of course, to the next part. There is a lack of resources everywhere in terms of putting those measures into place, and they will require support. These things will not happen on their own.

When you're talking about support, assistance, and administration of justice, you're also talking about provincial responsibilities. Therefore, there needs to be good, tight coordination between the federal and provincial governments and a clear road map on how they're going to work together to address this problem.

I have two more points.

International cooperation will require constant attention and more investment on our part in order to succeed. You cannot think of it broadly and try to cooperate with 197 countries, so one will have to be strategic. We do know which countries are more problematic and which ones we need to work with more closely. Therefore, this also will require attention.

On data, I mentioned several times in my comments here that we don't have information. What we need is a strategy to collect information, not just police information, but including police information, so that we all get a better sense of what we're dealing with.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Opposition Motion--Status of Women

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me today to rise to support this motion.

The motion deals with an issue that is extremely important to all Canadians: equality for women.

Budget cuts affect us all, but mostly the very vulnerable in our country.

The Treasury Board president defends his government's cuts by referring to the cuts to social programs made by the Liberal government 10 years ago. However, we cut spending in a successful effort to deal with a $42 billion deficit resulting from the fiscal mismanagement of the previous Conservative government. The Conservatives had reduced Canada to what the brokers on Wall Street described as a third world economy.

Today's cuts are being made despite the fact that we have a $13.2 billion surplus, thanks to the prudent fiscal management of the recent Liberal government.

We are heading down the meanspirited path of Mike Harris in Ontario. Two former Mike Harris hatchet men are leading the charge in their new federal roles as finance minister and Treasury Board president.

Soon there will be no funding and no services, and it will take a generation to fix. The most vulnerable groups are affected first, including women.

It is all in the cuts. The list includes: $5 million from status of women; $45 million from housing, we were fighting for housing just two minutes ago and here we are now cutting; volunteerism, now the government is punishing volunteers; youth international internship programs; youth employment; literacy; court challenges program; and important support programs for the most vulnerable in our society. The government is hammering women, aboriginals and youth. This is totally unacceptable.

It is targeting equality seeking groups because this government believes that they are a threat to its voter base.

A government with only 125 seats out of 308 in this House has absolutely no mandate to make such major changes to the social fabric of Canada.

Let us not forget that this Prime Minister, during the recent election campaign, signed a commitment to “ensure that Canada fully upholds its equality commitments to women”.

How do we square that with the Draconian cuts to women's programs that this government has just made?

I have news for the folks across the aisle. The government must address the needs of all Canadians not just its favourite ones.

Our democratic system has to support the fight for equality rights for all citizens, including: minority language groups, immigrant groups, religious groups, disability groups, same-sex rights groups, and women's groups. They all need the resources to ensure their arguments are heard when their rights are trampled on.

We are approaching the 25th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It should be a cause for celebration. Instead, this government dishonours that by shutting out equality seeking groups. Women were only included in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, and that was only after they marched on Ottawa to demand recognition.

The court challenges program established under the Liberal government was meant to implement this kind of thing. That program was dismantled by the Brian Mulroney Conservatives. It was then reinstated by the former Liberal government. Now, this Conservative government has chopped this program yet again.

What does the court challenges program really do? It seems to me that people think it is a waste of time fighting for people's rights. Let me give some examples.

One example is ESL for immigrant women. In the late eighties the policy of the government was that immigrant women should not receive subsidized English language training because they were not deemed to be going to work, whether they did or not, it did not matter. They did not need English language training. Only men could get training.

It was as a result of a court challenge, which I personally, by the way, was involved with, that women were able to get that turned around.

I have here another charter challenge. The Canada pension plan was extended to include on reserve workers after a status Indian, employed on reserve for many years, was excluded from CPP simply for working on reserve, funded by a court challenges program. This was another aboriginal woman again.

The other example is the rape shield. We all know the famous decision on that one, the protection of therapeutic and confidential files of sexual assault survivors in the context of criminal proceedings. These are only but a very few examples. I have many others if the members opposite are interested. The elimination of the court challenges program is just the beginning of the Conservative plan to cut the legs out from under all equality seeking groups.

The cuts that have just been announced are yet another example of the government's lack of compassion for ordinary Canadians. Women have many roles in today's Canada and face many problems of discrimination and violence. The government has to be there to protect. It has to be there for the people of Canada. Instead, the government guts the funding to equality seeking groups that help raise awareness and fight discrimination.

We are saddled with a minister who will not rule out the possibility that Status of Women Canada might wind up on the Conservative chopping block. Does the minister not see the important role this agency serves in promoting gender equality and the full participation of women in the economic, social, cultural and political life of Canada? If, as she has shown so far, she is not prepared to fight for Canadian women, she should resign today.

My colleagues were taken aback, as I was, to hear the minister say:

Our government is not a government that just keeps institutions alive in any of its areas...just for the sake of keeping an institution alive.

What planet is she living on? Maybe it is Pluto. Her attitude is offensive to all Canadian women struggling for decent affordable housing, a decent income and retirement years free from poverty. The minister has no heart in this case and no clout.

The minister says that money spent on women's programs can be farmed out to other departments. The other solution is to hide the problem. By mainstreaming responsibilities, she will be ensuring that no one is responsible for guaranteeing women's equality rights, rights guaranteed to them under the Constitution. When nobody is responsible, there is no accountability.

Without a full department under a real minister, the rights of women under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms will be non-existent. That is what the Status of Women Canada is, which is why it is so important that it be preserved and supported as a lead agency for all government departments in the ongoing quest for equality for the women of Canada.

The knowledge and experience that it has gained in such areas as pay equity, gender based analysis, just name it, must not be sacrificed on the altar of the REAL Women ideology. Canadian women are still marginalized within key political, social and legal institutions. These are still the realities of today. They must have a strong and independent women's movement to promote recommendations in support of women's rights. We must have that to support equality before the law, an adequate standard of living, to fight for meaningful employment and access to justice.

The government must demonstrate leadership and vision on women's equality on all those issues and many more and it must increase the women's budget and make it sustainable, not cut it.

The government must ensure that core funding is available to sustain day to day operations of women's groups. This is what is demanded and this is what is necessary. Instead of this, the President of the Treasury Board says that the government is cutting fat. For the Conservatives, parental leave is fat, affordable housing is fat and women's health is fat.

As we all know, we established the National Centers of Excellence in Women's Health all cross Canada, which was never done before and did not exist. I guess the present government considers the research centres of excellence to be fat. I guess the ESL for immigrant women that I mentioned earlier, which, under a charter challenge, were given the right to access programs, is fat.

The Prime Minister says that Canadian men and women of the armed services coming home in coffins is the price we must pay for bringing freedom and equality to Afghani women. Meanwhile, his government is slashing spending on hundreds of programs upon which Canadian women depend for an improved quality of life. He is prepared to leave them voiceless.

Does anyone follow the logic of committing military force to protect the rights of Afghani women while, at the same time, slashing spending on programs designed to promote and protect the rights of Canadian women? I certainly cannot.

We need to further strengthen women's rights to equality and security of the person, not weaken them as the minority Conservative government is doing. The Conservatives are simply caving in to the pressure of right wing radical groups, such as REAL Women, that believe a woman's place is in the home, barefoot in the kitchen.

Women's groups still have a long battle ahead to achieve equality in this country. We are not there. The fight is a huge one. Women in this country were well on their way until the present minority government came along and removed equality from the national agenda altogether.

Liberal governments, on the other hand, are known for their commitment to women's equality. Building on the Liberal achievements from 1993 to 1994, the former Liberal government continued to take action. The following are only some of the things it achieved: first, Parliament established the Standing Committee on the Status of Women in September 2004, which the Conservative government tried to eliminate at the beginning of this Parliament.

In October 2005, an expert panel was created to provide advice and options to strengthen accountability mechanisms to advance gender based analysis and gender equality issues.

In 2000, parental benefits were extended to one year. National Centers of Excellence in Women's Health and the Institute for Gender and Health were created to work on health policy issues unique to women.

Thirty-two million dollars were committed on an annual basis to the national crime prevention initiative and $7 million were committed to the family violence initiative. Of that money, $1 million over four years is being provided to address violence against aboriginal women.

In the fall of 2005, trafficking in persons was added as an offence to the Immigration and Refugee Act, Bill C-49.

In response to the sisters in spirit proposal, the Liberal government provided $5 million over five years to the Native Women's Association of Canada. These funds support NWAC's work with other aboriginal women's organizations and the federal government on activities aimed at ending violence against aboriginal women.

To help make post-secondary education more affordable for lower and middle income Canadians, $2.1 billion over five years were committed to improving student financial assistance. There were $1.3 billion over five years committed to improving settlement and integration services for new immigrants to Canada.

Budget 2005 ensured that senior women would benefit from a $2.7 billion increase over two years to the guaranteed income supplement and a $15 million increase to the new horizons for seniors program.

Despite the progress that we have made, women still only make 71¢ for every dollar a male earns in Canada. The government, in conjunction with women's organizations, must deal with the growing problem of women's economic security.

The National Council on Welfare research shows that women, especially lone parents, stay in poverty longer than others. Poverty costs all Canadians in many ways: increased health care costs, social disintegration and associated crime, untapped potential and labour market activities.

Women are still disadvantaged by the employment insurance program. The program was supposed to be reviewed to assess the inequities for women. Still today, women are less likely to qualify and less likely to get full benefits. Part time workers, mostly women, are excluded. Maternity and parental benefits are least accessible to those mothers who need it the most.

Senior women and caregivers are among those most severely at risk of poverty. The old age security and the GIS benefits are below the poverty line and do not factor in actual costs of living, such as rent in Toronto.

EI must be reformed. Hours needed to qualify must be reduced. Self-employed women must be able to contribute and qualify for maternity and parental benefits.

CPP is very important for senior women as well. This is another part that is based on employment but could be interrupted because of violence, child rearing and caregiving. This affects women in a totally different way than it affects men. Taking time out is something that affects women.

The poverty level of seniors is increasing. Unpaid work for women is a major cause of poverty, as I mentioned earlier, because of having to take time out. Caregivers of today are the poor seniors of tomorrow. Women making 71¢ for every dollar made by men is not acceptable. That has to change.

The way we structure the CPP has to change to allow women to deal with taking time out for caregiving, as we do when we have children, because, quite frankly, they are the backbone of our nation. They are holding up the nation right now and are saving us billions of dollars in caregiving. However, because they are pitching in they will pay the price when they are seniors and that is not acceptable.

Increased education levels for women have not changed and this is appalling.

The report from the Standing Committee on the Status of Women clearly shows that the current system does not work.

We need new pay equity legislation. The Liberal Party committed to introducing this legislation in the House but the Conservative government's response to the standing committee, which basically says that it will not introduce pay equity legislation, is further proof that the present government is dead set against equality for women. It has chosen to keep in place an archaic system that has not worked for the last 30 years and has refused to introduce pay equity legislation that would give women some semblance of income security. It is quite obvious that the government does not intend to respect and promote women's human rights. That is yet another clear reason why it is so important to ensure the ongoing federal funding for advocacy groups that defend women's rights.

The government's response to gender based analysis is that it will make sure it is adhered to but it is not prepared to put in place a process or legislation to ensure its use by every department, especially the Department of Finance and other departments that have traditionally resisted integrating gender based analysis of all programs into their systems, which would address the issues of inequalities. This could be identified up front before policies are made and before they impact on women in a negative manner. This is another area that the government completely refuses to act on. We are supposed to trust it on everything but it will eventually get rid of the Status of Women. It seems that it is on the chopping block and that will completely obliterate women's rights.

With respect to pay equity, it is absolutely unacceptable that pay equity is not part of the government's program. When we were in government, we committed to bringing in legislation because the departments were not prepared to function. The only place where we were successful was at CIDA and maybe one other ministry. We actually led the way in training the World Bank with respect to gender based analysis because we had the expertise in the Status of Women Canada department. However, we are not able to use that expertise in our own departments because there is no will to force it. We were prepared to push that with legislation but the present government has refused to do that.

I am proud to inform the House that the Conservatives received only 18% of the vote in my riding of Beaches--East York. My voters understood what the Conservatives would do if they ever came into power. These latest budget cuts demonstrate that my constituents were right when they concluded that the Conservatives were most definitely not fit to govern.

First Nations Oil and Gas and Moneys Management Act

[Bernard Cleary, Bloc, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to speak to Bill C-54, the First Nations Oil and Gas and Moneys Management Act. This bill will open up access to the natural resources and the immeasurable wealth of the first nations’ ancestral lands, allowing the money to be used for our aboriginal nations.

The intent of Bill C-54 is to give first nations the opportunity to manage and regulate oil and gas exploration and exploitation, and to receive the moneys that Canada retains for them. This bill was introduced in the House of Commons on June 1, 2005. It allows for the transfer, to the first nations named therein, of the management and control of the oil and gas resources found on their lands and the payment to the first nations of the moneys held in trust for them by the Crown.

The Bloc Québécois supports this bill. Although not perfect, it will give first nations the tools they need to achieve greater self-sufficiency when they have oil and gas resources on their lands. The first nations who opt to take advantage of the services provided for under this bill will be able to participate more actively in their economy and strengthen their autonomy. The first nations' demands for the authority to manage their own affairs are a matter of interest to the Bloc Québécois. Self-management can be achieved only when a nation controls the levers of its own economy.

The Government of Canada must not use Bill C-54 as a way of evading its fiduciary responsibilities towards the first nations. It bears a responsibility to rectify the inequalities between aboriginals and non-aboriginals.

I am very happy to be able to talk about the importance to a first nation of being able to participate in the economic development of its own territory. We know that the ancestors were always in favour of using their lands for their livelihood and their development. The impact on the life of the communities who are fortunate enough to participate in the development will be huge, in both social and economic terms.

The Bloc Québécois recognizes the aboriginal peoples’ right to self-determination, as I noted in Geneva during a study session of the Commission studying the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The role of trustee and the expectations that we should have with regard to the Department of Indian Affairs in the area of economic development will allow us to develop industries drawing on the resources of the territories negotiated.

It is important to remember that the standard of living of aboriginal peoples is much lower than that of non-aboriginals in Canada. The importance of reducing this gap has been noted on many occasions, notably in the throne speech on October 5, 2004.

Many first nations believe that economic development is the key to achieving this goal. However, it is difficult for a first nation that has no control over its lands and resources to achieve this. In her report in November 2003, the Auditor General of Canada pointed out that one of the barriers to economic development resulted from the federal approach to institutional management and development.

This report also stated that “several First Nations consider the department's approach too slow, too short term, and on some occasions, poorly administered”.

A large number of first nations and their organizations have worked diligently toward assuming greater responsibility for their lands and resources. Bill C-49, An Act providing for the ratification and the bringing into effect of the Framework Agreement on First Nations Land Management (First Nations Land Management Act), which received royal assent on June 17, 1999, is a good example of legislation giving participating first nations greater autonomy in the management of their lands. Under that legislation, any first nation may opt out of the land management provisions of the Indian Act and manage its lands using its own land management code. The First Nations Land Management Act, however, does not affect in any way the management of oil and gas resources on first nations lands.

The development of a new financial relationship between the first nations and the Government of Canada has always been the basis for discussions and analyses over the past 20 years or so.

Already in 1983, the Penner report, a report by the House of Commons Special Committee on Indian Self-Government, recommended that the fiscal relationship between the federal government and the first nations be redefined.

In 1996, the final report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples also recommended a full review of the fiscal relationship between the federal government and the first nations. The proposed initiative focused on redefining this relationship within a broader context based on first nations self-government. The Tlicho self-government act that we had the honour of passing in this House is an example of this.

Bill C-54 will change the way oil and gas are developed and it will allow first nations which are self-reliant to develop these resources on their own land. To date, first nations have had to comply with the Indian Oil and Gas Act and its regulations, which has not allowed them to manage these resources directly.

The first nations oil and gas management initiative was launched in February 1995. This pilot project provided for the gradual transfer of management and control of oil and gas resources on the land of five first nations: the Blood tribe of Alberta, the Siksika first nation of Alberta, the White Bear first nation of Saskatchewan, the Horse Lake first nation of Alberta, and the Dene first nation of Alberta.

Only the Blood, the Siksika and the White Bear continue to participate in this initiative. The pilot project was directed by a steering committee composed of representatives of Indian and Northern Affairs, Indian Oil and Gas Canada, the participating first nations, and the Indian Claims Commission.

This project was divided in three phases: co-management, enhanced co-management and management and control by first nations. During the first phase, the administrative duties were shared between the first nations and IOGC, and decisions were made jointly.

In the second phase, IOGC maintained its authority and the first nations received the necessary training to perform IOGC functions. The pilot project is now in its final phase. It needs Bill C-54 to pass in order for the powers to be transferred to those first nations meeting the requirements in the legislation.

Bill C-54 will change the way oil and gas are developed and will allow first nations that are self-reliant to develop these resources on their own land. To date, first nations have had to comply with the Indian Oil and Gas Act and its regulations, which has not allowed them to manage these resources directly.

The first nations oil and gas management initiative was launched in February 1995. This pilot project provided for the gradual transfer of management and control of oil and gas resources.

Bill C-54 would allow first nations, that choose to do so, to be excluded from the application of the Indian Oil and Gas Act and its regulations. This act is currently the legislation governing the exploitation and exploration of the oil and gas resources on reserve land. This legislation does not allow first nations to manage the oil and gas resources on their land directly nor does it allow them to develop an appropriate regulatory framework.

However, Bill C-54 would allow any first nation, if it chooses to do so, to create regulations on oil and gas exploration and preservation, on the spending of moneys derived from the exploitation of these resources, and on the protection of the environment.

As for regulations to protect the environment, those established by first nations will have to at least meet the standards of Quebec or the province in which the aboriginal community is located.

As far as management of their finances are concerned, those first nations choosing to come under this new legislative framework will come under different rules as far as “Indian moneys” are concerned. These are currently defined in the Indian Act as all moneys collected, received or held by the federal government for the use and benefit of Indians or bands. For these first nations, the provisions of the Indian Act will no longer apply. They will therefore be able to directly administer the amounts collected rather than letting them be administered by the federal government. As a result, they will be able to make their own choices for investment in their communities instead of letting the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development dictate priorities to them. Auditor General Sheila Fraser pointed out in her 2004 report that this department is not doing a good job of administering the billions of dollars intended for the aboriginal communities.

If a first nation does not feel it would be advantageous to come under the new legislative regime, the current standards will continue to apply to it, so it will continue to benefit from the provisions of the Indian Act, including those that apply to the administration of Indian moneys.

Lastly, we wish to point out that the Bloc Québécois has endorsed the core recommendations of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. The commission set forth an approach to the concept of self-government based on recognition of aboriginal governments as a level of government with jurisdiction over issues concerned with good governance and the well-being of their people.

Furthermore, the entire report is based on recognition of the aboriginal peoples as self-governing nations occupying a unique place in Canada.

Criminal Code

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know how many more speakers there will be on the bill but I am certainly pleased to add a few comments of my own before it moves on through the legislative process.

As has already been pointed out, the bill is an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Cultural Property Export and Import Act. The summary of the bill that is distributed says, among other things, and act to amend the Criminal Code to prohibit certain offences, including theft, robbery, mischief and arson against cultural property protected under the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. These amendments would allow for the prosecution of these offences when committed outside of Canada by Canadians.

The bill would do a number of things that are ancillary to that as well to expand on this country's commitment and, indeed, the world community's commitment to protect cultural works and to protect particularly against offences that take place against them and, in this case, by Canadians.

It is always and it always has been a somewhat tricky business in the world to project one's own set of values, one's own set of laws outside the boundaries of our own country.

, I was reading over the weekend that this is the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. One of the outcomes of the Battle of Trafalgar was, according to this article, that it allowed the Royal Navy to project the English common law, the British Admiralty law basically right around the world. After that point it was generally acknowledged that the Royal Navy would not or could not be challenged to any great extent, so with the export of British influence through its navy, also came its laws.

We will see in the decades subsequent to that , instances that are very similar to the ones that we are dealing with in this particular bill. There were individuals who may have been picked up for a crime outside of the country. If they were a British subject, they may have been taken back to Britain to stand trial. Crimes against property could be prosecuted. The laws of the sea were promulgated.

Interestingly enough, one of the byproducts was that many countries, which had no connection to Britain or which were completely outside the British orbit, adopted many of the laws and principles just for the orderly traffic on the sea and for the betterment perhaps of their own causes, that if they adopted certain rules between countries it worked for the better.

For instance, one of the rules was that a country was able to own and control three miles off its territorial boundary. For many countries that had nothing to do with Britain and, indeed, did not have imperial measurements, would use the three mile limit to order the relationships between themselves because it sort of made sense and made for a more workable relationship.

In many ways, what happened in the 1800s was the idea that might was right. Might was not always wrong but if a country were strong enough, it could project its laws around the world. It did not just apply to the laws of the sea. It did not apply even to the English common law. For those who study law in common law jurisdictions, as the province of Ontario is, they will see many instances throughout the world where civil cases arise and end up getting looked after and decided in an English court.

Indeed, there was a doctrine promulgated by the English Court of Appeal at some point which said that the doors to the King's courts were open to the world. If we had a commercial transaction and we were not satisfied with the local jurisdiction, we could, under certain circumstances, have that heard in an English court and get a decision. It seemed to work out well.

However the world is a lot more complicated place than it was in the decades after the Battle of Trafalgar. One of the positive things that has happened in the last century is the development of international protocols that help establish the working relationships between countries and spell out the obligations that individuals have in peace time and in war.

I find the legislation that Canada is signing on to very interesting. As a nation we are committing to saying that Canadians who get involved in the destruction, theft or arson of cultural pieces can be prosecuted and brought back to this country where they can face a Canadian court. That is a good thing and I do not think anyone would disagree with that.

I have only made about two comments on this. A couple of Canadian veterans of World War II made it very clear to me that on a careful reading of the history of World War II, and I think that can be said of all Canada's participation in armed conflicts, I would see that Canadians are not the problem. They said that it was not us who created some of the atrocities and some of the cultural degradation for which there is evidence.

I agreed with those veterans when they said that it was not us who did some of these things. I appreciate that but the laws apply to everyone and mistakes are made by people of all nationalities and all countries. It seems to me that it is a leadership role that Canadians can play by adopting legislation such as this.

The other issue that was raised with me is that war, in and of itself, by definition, is a messy business and damage does take place. The individuals who were familiar with this bill and discussed it with me wanted assurances, and I think we can give those assurances, that we are not talking about the kind of collateral damage that can happen in an armed conflict. There can be destruction of property, and that can include cultural pieces and that is understood, but, in my reading of the bill, that is not what we are getting at.

I think overall this is a step in the right direction. I guess if I had any quarrel with this it would be the quarrel I have with a great deal of Criminal Code legislation, which is that there is no uniformity in the sentencing and the seriousness of an offence.

This bill is a perfect example of a case that I have made a number of times over the years. It says, among other things, that an individual who commits mischief against cultural property, which includes things like destruction, theft, illegal importation, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to a prison term of up to 10 years.

If people want to steal art or destroy art in some other country, the Government of Canada says that they could get up to 10 years. One may ask what the problem is with that. My problem with that is when it is taken in relation to other offences defined by the government, it seems to me that it does not measure up with the seriousness with which I view other offences.

I will give an example. The House, indeed, the Canadian Parliament, is having a look at another bill known as Bill C-49 which is trafficking in persons. I believe that bill is before the Senate. The bill purports to make it a crime to traffic in human beings, to kidnap human beings or to press other human beings into slavery. This of course is a terrible problem. The United Nations estimates that over 700,000, mainly women and children, are trafficked annually around the world into this type of slavery and yet it is a little disappointing to me, although I do support the intent of the bill and bills like this have to go forward.

I would just point out that one of the offences created in that bill says, among other things, that if a person withholds or destroys documents, if a person permits or facilitates the commission of a trafficking offence, the person would be liable to a sentence of five years.

Let me back up for a second to the individual who assists in the importation of a person for the purposes of slavery. A person who destroys documents, who aids and abets this type of crime, is liable for an offence of five years. Do not get me wrong. I abhor any individual who would destroy a work of art, but in terms of the seriousness of these offences, those individuals who are into the importation and the enslavement of individuals are much worse offenders, in my opinion, and the sentences should be apportioned accordingly.

To be fair, it is not easy. I was a parliamentary secretary to the justice minister a little over four years ago. It was a little tricky. I remember trying to make sure, to the extent that I was able to in that role, that the penalties matched the seriousness of other offences within the Criminal Code. Indeed, there were individuals who used to suggest to us that we should start all over again with the Criminal Code, that we should start from square one and take all the offences, update them and make sure that the penalties corresponded with the seriousness.

Other than that reservation, and it is something that I just point out, quite frankly, I think the legislation should proceed. I am pleased to have been given the opportunity to say a few words on it.

[The Acting Speaker (Hon. Jean Augustine)]

It being 6:30, pursuant to order made earlier today, the motion for third reading stage of Bill C-49 is deemed carried.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed)

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to stand in the House today to support Bill C-49 and to echo some of the strong support from members on all sides of the House for the bill.

In 1997 I attended, on behalf of the Government of Canada, the first World Conference on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Youth in Stockholm, Sweden. What I heard was appalling. It was the place where work began to be formalized for dealing in the trafficking in women and children. Since then, it has become a cause for me. It is something about which I feel passionate. I have worked closely with my colleagues over the years to bring us to the point where we have now many policies and pieces of legislation. We are working internationally with the United Nations and other countries to deal with trafficking.

For me the bill is one more piece in that armamentarium of all the tools that we can use to deal with trafficking.

The United States Department of State in its 2004 annual report stated that 600,000 to 800,000 persons are trafficked around the world each year; 47% of those are women and 50% are children. We do not have to be a mathematician to know that that makes up 97% of the total people being trafficked around the world.

UNICEF estimates that about 2.1 million children are trafficked each year and that it is worth $10 billion to organized crime.

Trafficking in human beings is not something is new. It is as old as time. Those of us who have read history know about slavery in ancient Rome. We also know about the 60 million Africans who were trafficked as slaves during the colonial era. We know that trafficking has been with us for a long time. It does not make it acceptable however.

Yet today trafficking is carried out in a very different series of ways than we used to read about in history. The new realities of different types of trafficking is reflected in this bill which is very important. We have to use new tools to deal with modern day problems.

The reality today is that victims can be trafficked through many different means: by being kidnapped, by being lured, by being given false promises of legitimate jobs or by being given false promises of all kinds of opportunity to people who are desperate and wanting to find some way out of the hopelessness of their lives.

The bill also reflects the reality that persons can be trafficked for different purposes: for being forced into the sex trade, for being forced into some form of labour whether it be in sweat shops or otherwise, or horrendously to have to donate a human organ or human tissue as part of what they are trafficked to do.

The bill reflects a reality that no one can ever validly consent to this kind of dehumanization.

At the same time Bill C-49 reflects the reality that human trafficking can involve global dimensions and local dimensions. Trafficking can occur within one country either from rural to urban, urban to rural areas or region to region. We know that it goes on in Canada.

Ultimately it does not really matter what form of conduct it involves or to what purpose the trafficking occurs. Bill C-49 has proposed a package of criminal law reforms that will deal with many of those new ways of trafficking.

This is tough legislation. I know some people do not think it is tough enough, but it is. It is tough enough hopefully to prevent trafficking. It is tough enough to protect the vulnerable victims. It is tough enough to prosecute offenders whether local or international and to make them fully and completely accountable.

However, that is not all. Bill C-49 is only one part of an array of tools, policies and legislation to protect the vulnerable in our society which is a priority for our government. For instance it links with Bill C-2 which was passed in July of this year and it builds on, IRPA, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, to protect persons who may be trafficked as refugees. It builds on our existing Criminal Code protections against behaviours associated with trafficking, by creating three new indictable offences.

The first, trafficking in persons, is a specific prohibition against any person engaged in the exploitation of a person or facilitating the exploitation of a person. This new proposal identifies the acts in question such as recruiting, transporting, transferring, receiving, holding, concealing or harbouring a person, exercising control, and direction or influence over the movements of another person. That is a pretty broad definition. That includes all of the many different players. It does not only include the person who started the movement from country A but it could also be the person who played a role somewhere along the chain of events. They too would be indicted under this bill.

This legislation expands the definition of our criminal law responses. For example, the Criminal Code offence against kidnapping is also expanded in this particular bill. With this new offence, it is proposed that the maximum penalty for any of the trafficking to be life imprisonment if it involves the kidnapping, aggravated assault or aggravated sexual assault or death of the victim, and 14 years imprisonment in other cases.

These maximum sentences send a strong message that this government denounces and deters this kind of criminal conduct. If it were to pass with the agreement of other members of the House, it would send a strong message that the Parliament of Canada denounces and deters this kind of criminal conduct.

The second part of the bill that I like is the proposal to create another indictable offence specifically targeting those who seek to profit from human trafficking and from the exploitation of others, even if they do not engage in the physical acts set out in the main trafficking in persons section. It would specifically prohibit any person from receiving a financial or other material benefit when they know that it results from the commission of the trafficking of another person. That offence would carry a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment.

The third part of the bill also sends a strong message. This legislation would create another new offence to prohibit anyone from concealing, removing, withholding or destroying another person's travel documents or identification.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member opposite for his support for Bill C-49 and his great concern for human trafficking. He also has a private member's bill, Bill C-283, which proposes bonds for people wishing to come to Canada. With his new found interest in human trafficking and support for this bill, I am curious whether he would consider withdrawing his private member's bill.

As many analysts have said when they have looked at the details of the private member's bill, in the best case scenario bonds posted for people wishing to come to Canada would limit visitors to those who are very rich or have very well off families. In the worst case scenario, there are many potential visitors from countries where, unfortunately, circumstances are such that these source countries have large numbers of people willing to take risks and perhaps to take on loans required to pay for these kinds of bonds.

The illegal trafficking in human beings and women in particular is a multi-billion dollar business, a business that can provide financing in these poor countries to people who perhaps would not otherwise have a way of coming to Canada. Analysts are saying this and logic seems to say that this kind of bill would allow and help in the trafficking of human beings, particularly women.

With his support for Bill C-49, will he be withdrawing his private member's bill?

[Gurmant Grewal, Conservative, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Madam Speaker, I knocked on a lot of doors during the summer break and I heard the question consistently. People do not trust this government any more. They think the government is adrift and going in the wrong direction.

The criminal justice system protects the criminals but not the victims. It fails to protect our children to the extent that when a motion and a bill was presented in the House recently, all Liberals shamelessly stood to oppose the bill for the age of consent to be raised from 14 to at least 16. They did not do it, so what do I conclude? The government lacks the political will. It is out of focus, tired and has become arrogant. It does not have the steam any more to address some of these issues.

Naturally when Canadians look at these things, they find the government is not credible on this issue. An example is Bill C-49. After 12 years, the government came up with this bill.

We will remember a few years ago when a lot of illegal Chinese immigrants or entrants into the country landed on our shores. What did the government do? It did absolutely nothing. The victims who landed on our shores paid huge amounts of money to snakeheads in two provinces in China. The parliamentary secretary at that time went to China and visited those two provinces. The government wanted to solve the problem over there, but did absolutely nothing within its own power to make effective laws in Canada and provide enough resources to law enforcement agencies.

This is the knee-jerk approach of the government. It is too little too late. It came up with Bill C-49 when it noticed that our allies in other countries, the United States and Great Britain, had came up with legislation. It has done this to catch up with the other countries, but it has not made effective laws in our country to protect Canadians.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member has given many insightful comments in terms of immigration.

Here in the House of Commons we are the highest court and this is where the laws are made. We have the power to implement those laws. We have all recognized that the bill has a lot of merit and we all recognize that human trafficking has to stop.

In my view, it is a question of credibility. This year, when we tried to raise the age of sexual consent from 14 to 16, it was defeated. There are many excuses for why it was defeated.

We also heard in this House that the gun registry, which has eaten up more than a billion dollars, is continuing but the money is not being put into the much needed police resources.

Earlier on in the year we had immigrants jumping the queue. We found out that people in the sex trade had preferential treatment on at least one occasion, if not more.

Would the member please comment on the immigration side of this? We have migrants, the most vulnerable people, coming from abroad hoping to have a new life, hoping to have an opportunity to become educated and better themselves. Would the member please comment on the credibility of the Liberal government on Bill C-49?

[Gurmant Grewal, Conservative, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Madam Speaker, I wanted to participate in the questions and comments but I was not recognized even though I stood five or six times to ask a question of the Liberals. However, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the constituents of Newton—North Delta to participate in the third reading debate on Bill C-49, an act to amend the Criminal Code in respect to trafficking in persons.

The proposed amendments would create a few new indictable offences to specifically address human trafficking.

The first offence, trafficking in persons, prohibits a person from engaging in specified acts for the purpose of exploiting or facilitating the exploitation of another person. This offence would carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment where it involved kidnapping, aggravated assault, sexual assault, or even death.

The second offence would prohibit anyone from receiving financial or other material benefits resulting from the commission of a trafficking offence. It would be punishable by a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail.

The third offence would prohibit the holding or destroying of documents, such as identification or travel documents, for the purpose of committing or facilitating the commission of a trafficking offence. It would carry a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment.

Human trafficking is a growing problem that demands urgent and substantial action from the government, which we have not seen for the last 12 years.

According to the United Nations, over 2.4 million people, the vast majority of them women and children, are victimized each year. Human trafficking is now the third largest illegal trade in the world behind weapons and drugs. The penalties have been minimal so this trade has been growing. With annual profits of close to $12 billion on average, organized crime has moved into the trade and has become a dominant force.

Canada is not immune to human trafficking and in fact has been identified as a major transit point and destination for human trafficking. Last year the RCMP estimated that at least 800 people are trafficked into Canada annually, and that an additional 1,500 to 2,200 people are trafficked through Canada into the United States. Some experts believe that the actual numbers are much higher, but the nature of the crime makes it impossible to say definitively how many people are involved. We can say, however, that it is a serious problem.

One of the major root causes has been ignored in the debate that I have listened to today, and that is that the immigration system in this country is in a mess. There are long delays. There is a long queue of people waiting. Some of these people have been waiting for up to eight years to be interviewed and have their cases processed.

For example, in the independent category, in some countries the waiting period is 66 months before someone can be first interviewed. Married couples are separated for a long time before they are reunited. Similarly, parents and other family members have to wait a long time. Visitor visa cases are not being dealt with properly.

The system is being abused. I am not saying the system encourages human trafficking, but why are we letting this happen? It is occurring because the system itself is flawed and is not working the way it should. As a result, the system is vulnerable to abuse because the front door of our immigration policy is not open and therefore people are coming in through the back door. The Liberal government has made promises to address the problem, but for the last 12 years it has not been able to keep any of them.

I would say that these legitimate people, who the system was meant for, are given the run around, are not allowed to come through the proper channels and are being abused by those people.

My province of British Columbia is particularly vulnerable to human trafficking. The United States state department identifies British Columbia as an attractive centre for East Asian traffickers who smuggle South Korean woman through Canada to the United States. Organized crime groups have targeted Vancouver because of our immigration laws, benefits available to immigrants and the proximity to the United States border.

According to the state department, at least 15,000 Chinese entered Canada illegally over the last decade, many of them paying thousands of dollars to smugglers only to end up working as indentured servants or even as prostitutes. Asian women and girls who are smuggled into the country are forced into prostitution regularly. Traffickers use intimidation and violence, as well as the illegal immigrant's inability to speak English, to keep victims from running away or informing the police.

Bill C-49 is not entering into a legislative vacuum. In June 2002, a specific offence against human trafficking came into force under section 118 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The current law provides for fines of up to $1 million and life imprisonment. Section 118, however, deals with human trafficking across our international border from a border integrity angle.

In contrast, Bill C-49 would deal with trafficking both within Canada and across Canadian borders. Although anti-trafficking legislation has been in place for three years, the first ever charge under the law did not occur until this past April. A Vancouver businessman faces human trafficking charges after police answered a call about a violent incident at the businessman's massage parlour. One charge in three years is a rather meagre result.

Detective Constable Jim Fisher, with the Vancouver police intelligence section, confesses that Canada has not come to grips with what it takes to properly police this human trafficking that has been happening for so long. We can have the best laws in the world but if we do not place enough resources into enforcement the laws will mean nothing. That is the case with human trafficking. Our enforcement of the current law is weak, as demonstrated by this one charge.

Canada is struggling to identify its trafficking victims inside secret migrant smuggling operations.

We will remember that the Auditor General's report seriously criticized this particular instance: 36,000 illegal entrants into this country are missing in action and cannot be traced; and 60% of the people who come to our ports and apply for refugee status go before our refugee officers without any documents and no identification but we all know that when they boarded their plane for Canada they had some sort of document. However once they land in Canada and appear in the lineup applying for refugee status they have no documents.

We must use anti-trafficking laws to vigorously increase investigations, arrests, prosecutions and convictions of traffickers. However that will not happen with the government which insists on starving our law enforcement agencies of the resources they need to do their jobs effectively.

As a member of the Subcommittee on Organized Crime, as well as a member of the citizenship and immigration committee in the past, I became familiar with many of the problems facing our country. It has become clear to me that the Liberal policies are undermining the credibility of the criminal justice system. The government has given us a system in which even soft sentences are only partly served and that fails to protect citizens from crime.

The human trafficking aspect is a lose-lose situation for everyone except the human traffickers who are making a profit. It is bad for our country, bad for our society, bad for our communities and bad for newcomers who could have used the front door rather than using the back door and paying huge amounts to the snakeheads or to the human smugglers.

Who is responsible? The weak laws that are not being enforced by the government.

The recommendations of my colleagues and myself on the committee were essential for tackling organized crime but were ignored by the government and are gathering dust somewhere on a bureaucrat's desk.

The Liberal government has had 12 years to deal with this issue and it has failed. It is the Liberal record of all talk but no action that has put us in this abysmal situation. It is essential that we have tough laws. We need to give the police and law enforcement agencies what they need to carry out their jobs.

The amendments contained in Bill C-49 are comparable to laws passed recently in other jurisdictions.

In July 2004, the United Kingdom passed a new law clamping down on traffickers by introducing a new offence of human trafficking for non-sexual exploitation with a maximum penalty of 14 years and making the offence of knowingly employing an illegal worker a “triable either way” offence subject to unlimited fines.

In 2000, the U.S. Congress passed the trafficking victims protection act which, among other things, created new laws that criminalized trafficking with respect to slavery, involuntary servitude, peonage or forced labour, and increased prison terms for all slavery violations from 10 to 20 years and added life imprisonment where the violation involves the death, kidnapping or sexual abuse of the victim.

In this situation, the victims need protection from the government. Our laws should be such that they should prevent these things from happening, there should be enough deterrents in place and there should be enough resources for the law enforcement agencies to carry on with their jobs but, at the same time, the victims must be protected so that we are fair to all aspects of the law.

Surveying the international scene, it is clear that the time is ripe for tough new human trafficking legislation.

Trafficking in persons has been described as a modern form of slavery. It is a serious human rights violation and is the fastest growing form of transnational organized crime. The profits are huge and the penalities are minimum. It is imperative that Canada acts to stem the growth of this serious crime.

I therefore welcome Bill C-49. It is a small step in the right direction. The bill would bring Canada into line with the international commitments. The bill would address a serious global issue. However the government must not sit on its laurels. Without serious penalties for these serious crimes, the exploitation and abuse will continue.

Bill C-49 speaks of tough maximum sentences. The serious problem with the government is that it talks about tougher maximum penalties but it means nothing because the judicial system, the lawyers, will never hand out those penalties.

Bill C-49 says nothing about mandatory minimum sentences. We need mandatory minimum prison sentences so that those who violate the Criminal Code should be behind bars, should suffer, or at least serve some time and minimum penalties should be imposed.

As we have seen with this existing law, the resources must be available to enforce the law. Only then will Canada be able to start to effectively stamp out human trafficking in this country.

As a nation, it is our responsibility to seek a solution to this problem in order to protect the human rights of all people, from all backgrounds, no matter what their nationality might be.

As lawmakers in this country, it is our responsibility to clean up the system which the government has failed to do for the last 12 years. Our immigration system should be our economic backbone, as well as supporting growth in this country. The immigration system is supporting the manpower needs and the skilled labour that we need. The system is so polluted that it is working only for the human traffickers and not for the legitimate immigrants who want to come to this country and make significant contributions in many ways.

The question of the recognition of foreign credentials did not come to the floor of this House until I brought forward a motion many years ago which the Liberals failed to support. We have qualified people coming to this country to serve, contribute and make positive economic contributions in socio-cultural ways but instead are being employed in menial jobs. Would we expect someone with a Ph.D. or another degree to work at a gas station or drive a taxi? We allow loopholes in the system that have not been taken care of in the past.

On the weekend I attended a wedding reception. Many of the guests who were supposed to join the family on that auspicious occasion could not get their visitor visas. When we inquired about the situation we found out that there were bogus reasons. No legitimate reasons were given and even the income of the sponsors was not properly entered into the system. Some zeros were missing in the income figures. Naturally, the arbitrary criteria did not allow the respectable family members to join the celebration.

We hear similar stories from members of Parliament from all parties. They hear these stories when it comes to funerals.

What do those people do when they are barred from attending family events? They naturally will find some other means to come to this country, such as abuse their ministerial permit or use political influence.

Bill C-49 is a step in the right direction. All the law enforcement agencies must be given enough resources. The laws should be tougher so that we can curtail the violations to the system and the abuse of the system, but on the other hand open the front door to immigration so that legitimate people can come through the front door.

I remember an interesting story. When I was a member of the immigration committee I mentioned this concept of the front door and back door. I said that the back door was closed long ago. When the former minister of immigration was speaking to Bill C-11 in the House at that time, she looked at me and said that the bill would close the back door but that it would open the front door. Neither the front door nor the back door is open now. Instead, the government has installed a revolving door.

I urge the government during the short time it will be in office to clean up the system. The government needs to do whatever can be done to make the immigration system work and stop human trafficking forever.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Madam Speaker, clearly these are issues that we all care very passionately about and want resolved. Bill C-49 is only one part of a multi-faceted approach that the government has taken to deal with the whole issue of crime and how much more closely we can work with international communities. Bill C-49 is one instrument. It is one tool. It is only one part of the fight to eradicate crime and protect the most vulnerable people in our society.

We are going to continue to move forward with a variety of pieces of legislation, working together to ensure the safety of people who live in Canada as well as the safety of people in other countries who clearly want to come to Canada. Some are led to believe that this is the land of luxury for everyone and they simply are brought here to be exploited. Bill C-49 will bring an end to that because we are going to be working closely with the international community on how we can make our laws that much stronger.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to join in the debate on Bill C-49 and to see that this is third reading. Hopefully, with the help of everyone in the House, the bill will be passed and quickly pushed into law.

I also would like to congratulate the minister for his hard work on something that is extremely important.

I will be sharing my time, Madam Speaker, with the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca this evening.

The important part of Bill C-49 is the government's commitment to the protection of vulnerable persons and the ongoing strategy to combat human trafficking, something that all of us in the House deplore.

Currently, the Criminal Code does not specifically prohibit trafficking in persons, although a number of offences, including kidnapping, uttering threats and extortion do play a significant role in targeting this crime. Bill C-49 would strengthen this legislation by going beyond the focus on immigration and making trafficking in persons a criminal offence.

Victims are often women and children being forced into the sex industry, but at times also include men, women and children exploited through farm, domestic and other labour opportunities. In some countries, trafficked children may be forced into work as beggars and as child soldiers.

Trafficked persons are often duped into their own new professions, deceived with possible dreams in a rich land, with seemingly legitimate employment contracts or marriages abroad. These vulnerable people are too often fleeing poverty and poor living conditions, only to be enslaved in what they thought was going to be their country of opportunity on their arrival in Canada.

Upon arriving at their destination, many of these individuals are put to work, subject to debt bondage which they can never pay back because it increases on a weekly basis. They can spend years and years trying to repay their bondage to be free. Victims of trafficking are often subjected to physical, sexual and emotional abuse.

Although some are universally recognized as victims, for example children who are exploited through the sex trade, others are often perceived as illegal migrants or criminals, people who should be persecuted and prosecuted. Women trafficked in the sex trade are sometimes seen as simply violating immigration or criminal laws relating to prostitution, rather than looking at the seriousness of the big picture.

Because of these perceptions and because of the threats from traffickers, many victims are reluctant to turn to the police for protection. Those of us who come from large urban centres frequently hear that as a concern that they have. The social stigma of prostitution is also a factor. Women trafficked internationally who are returned to their home countries may be ostracized within their communities and their families, again becoming a victim.

We need to ensure in this legislation that we provide strong criminal and witness protection measures backed by the necessary resources in order to ensure effective prosecutions and the real deterrent against trafficking.

We also need accurate statistics concerning the scope of trafficking at home and abroad, a difficult thing at times to achieve.

Although there are no clear statistics, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police estimate that 600 foreign women and girls are coerced into the sex trade in Canada every year with a promise of a better life. This number would probably rise to approximately 800 if it were to include those trafficked into Canada for other kinds of forced labour. Estimates also indicate that approximately 1,500 to 2, 200 people are trafficked from Canada into the United States every year.

Bill C-49 promises a series of criminal law reforms which will enable us to better address human trafficking. Specifically, it would create the three new indictable Criminal Code offences, providing our law enforcement officials with additional tools to address the full range of behaviour often associated with this terrible crime.

Human trafficking involves the recruitment, transportation, concealing and harbouring of a person in order to exploit the person. The main offence proposed by Bill C-49 would target exactly this behaviour and specifically prohibit it.

This offence would carry a strong penalty, indeed, the strongest penalty our criminal law provides: life imprisonment where the offence involves kidnapping, aggravated assault, aggravated sexual assault or the death of the victim. In all other cases, the penalty would be 14 years' imprisonment. This sends a very strong message that such conduct will not be tolerated in Canada and, in my opinion, rightfully acknowledges the terrible impact this activity has on its victims, their families and society in general.

Bill C-49 also proposes to define exploitation as central to the main offence. This is very important, because we know that the crime of human trafficking is always about exploitation of the victims. Bill C-49, in my opinion, properly defines the most reprehensible aspect of this crime. Whether victims are exploited for forced labour, for sexual services or for human organs or tissue, traffickers exploit the lives and the souls of their victims for profit.

And profit they do. By all accounts, human trafficking is big business, generating an estimated $10 billion annually for its perpetrators. That is why Bill C-49 also proposes to create another offence that would target those who would profit from the exploitation of others. Specifically, it would prohibit anyone from receiving a financial or material benefit knowing that it results from the trafficking of persons. This offence is punishable by up to 10 years' imprisonment.

I support this approach because it specifically addresses one of the primary factors fuelling the demand for this type of labour, that is, the ability to make huge profits from the buying, selling and reselling of human beings. Moreover, it provides law enforcement with an improved ability to get at those who would economically benefit from this crime, those who may not actually engage in the physical act of trafficking in persons but who clearly benefit.

Finally, Bill C-49's proposed third offence would prohibit the withholding or destroying of travel or identity documents in order to commit or facilitate the trafficking of persons. This offence would be punishable by a maximum of five years' imprisonment.

Bill C-49 will help to ensure the protection of society's most vulnerable people. I want to say thanks to all members of the House for supporting it. I again congratulate the minister and the government for moving it forward.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-49 would make as crimes three additional provisions. First, it would make trafficking in human beings a crime. It is amazing that it is not one already. Second, it would be a crime if anyone were to profit from trafficking. Third, it would be a crime to withhold documents, such as travel documents or identification documents.

The bill is designed to deal with what can only be classified as a horrendous crime and a horrendous set of circumstances that is besetting us worldwide. We are being told, particularly by the United Nations, that crimes of this nature are growing in number.

Until a few years ago when this became very apparent, we had believed that slavery in all of its forms had been eradicated. We certainly think of the steps that were taken back in the 1800s and the role Canada played in outlawing slavery in Canada.

I was recently at a testimonial for a husband, who was an escaped slave from the United States, and his wife. We unveiled a plaque in the west end of the city as a testimony to the work they had done around that period of time, that their predecessors had done in Canada and the work that they had done in the United States to bring what we believed was an end to slavery on this continent.

We were all shocked when we found out that there are all too many cases of people being indentured in one form or another, intimidated, threatened, assaulted, and in some cases even killed, as part of this type of crime. The incidents are largely generated by organized crime operating in gangs right around the globe.

We are late in terms of responding to this. We are doing so as a result of the protocol which we along with a large number of other countries signed at the UN in 2000, and which was ratified in 2002. The protocol is to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially the trafficking in women and children. It is accurate that women and children are mentioned because they tend to be victims of this crime in significantly larger numbers than men are. We are responding to that finally in this bill.

As we heard in the debate so far, all parties will be supporting the bill. It may be one of the few bills that gets through this House with unanimous support, and rightfully so.

I want to address most of my comments today to what the bill does not do and what we as a legislature have to look to do.

The protocol I mentioned a few moments ago does not talk just about defining the crime, condemning the crime, and putting in place enforcement to fight the crime. It also talks about our responsibility as a nation to deal with the victims of the crime. We have not done that in this country up to this point.

The primary thing we have to be looking at, and it is really the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration who has to take on this responsibility, is what we do with the victims of this crime who have come in from offshore. We are a focal point to some degree for these victims to be used in Canada in this way. However, Canada is also used as a conduit and probably larger numbers of people are trafficked through Canada into the United States.

On a regular basis we do catch some of the criminals and a significant number of victims. Our pattern now is to deport the victims back to their country of origin, oftentimes into a set of circumstances that have not changed at all since they were first victimized. They are threatened and intimidated again and the same thing happens to their families and friends because of the strength of the organized criminals in those countries and the lack of proper law enforcement to protect them.

I recently saw a documentary from England on this point. England is beginning to identify repeat victims. The victims are found and the criminals are charged. As is done here, the victims are sent back to their country of origin and go through the same thing. The victims are brought back into the criminal system, smuggled back into England and the victimization continues.

We should not be part of that. We need amendments to our immigration legislation to deal with victims whom we have identified clearly as victims. If they are to continue to be victimized, we should not be sending them back to that country. As I said earlier, the protocol which we have ratified calls on us as a nation to take steps to prevent that from happening and to bring our laws into line with humane treatment of those victims.

The protocol also recommends that we provide proper benefits. This would be for the victims in the country who are generated from within this country. There are a significant number. Particularly within the sex trade, victims are not voluntarily recruited, but are recruited in a non-voluntary forceful fashion. They are recruited into the system by the gangs and are victimized in this country.

We need to have in place regulations and resources to deal with the situation when they are identified as victims. This oftentimes means extensive counselling because of the great deal of physical and sexual abuse they have suffered. The legislation does not address that point. It is one which the government should address.

My final point and something on which I believe we should be working is a more forceful position on the international scene. It is beyond our immediate control, but it is almost a moral obligation that we should say to the countries that do not have sufficient law enforcement that they have go begin to do that. We are conveying a message. We are saying to the international community that we will meet our responsibilities, but we also have to say to the international community, specifically to those countries that are not carrying out their responsibilities, that are not protecting their own citizens from this type of abuse who are being recruited non-voluntarily into the system that they have to start doing that.

We may have to move to an even stronger position and in some cases suggest sanctions. Do we reduce our cultural ties or our trade ties with some of these countries until they respond and prevent their own citizens from becoming victims?

We have taken a step forward. I have to say perhaps with some cynicism that it is not nearly as big a step as we have heard from some of the other speakers particularly on the government side, but it is a step forward. It is one that is a bit late. We probably should have done this several years ago in order to meet our responsibilities internationally. We have now accomplished part of the goal that has been set in that protocol, but we are not all the way there. There is still a substantial amount of work that has to be done, particularly in the immigration area.

I would encourage the government to say that we have made the first step, and let us move to fully protect the victims of those crimes.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his very interesting question. It may not be a cure-all, but it is a good part of the solution. Bill C-49 is a good step in the right direction. But we must also give quick passage to Bill C-53, providing for the reversal of onus. This bill will be debated in this House very shortly.

If we want to fight organized crime, this bill will enable us to go after those who traffic white slaves or workers, or those currently involved in modern day slavery, as I said earlier.

This kind of slavery is a lucrative business, the proceeds of which are often used to buy big mansions, snowmobiles and what not. When the time comes to convict the offenders, we will need the last piece of the puzzle, namely Bill C-53, to reverse the onus of proof. It will require offenders who have been convicted to prove that the money is not the proceeds of the crime they committed, more specifically trafficking in persons.

I hasten to conclude by answering the second question. Indeed, police protection could be provided to witnesses. What is commonly known as witness protection, more specifically in connection with organized crime, will be available.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to congratulate my colleague on his remarks on Bill C-49. He knows this subject well, and that knowledge will be an asset to the Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

Like all the members of the Bloc Québécois, I support Bill C-49, which will give the justice system better tools with which to deal with the problem of human trafficking.

I want to ask my colleague two questions. First, is Bill C-49 sufficient in order to improve the human trafficking situation in this country? Could we do more to fix this problem with regard to modern slavery? Second, does this bill provide greater protection for those who are victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation, who are forced to work and provide sexual services?

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues who spoke before me on this issue. Let me begin by thanking the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, who introduced this bill that we debated and passed unanimously at the Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

I am pleased to rise in this House for the first time to speak to a bill that was referred to the Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, where I began to sit only a few weeks ago. We studied this bill very carefully.

I knew the hon. Minister of Justice in another life when he was a law professor at a famous university in Quebec, since he was one of my professors. The hon. minister could not possibly remember that, as it was a few decades ago.

His great sense of justice allows us to debate today a very important bill that will end modern-day slavery. This type of slavery is practised throughout the world, but in Canada in particular. This bill could provide us with arguments, elements and possibilities to at least deter this modern-day slavery.

I do not want to rehash the debate on whether we should impose minimum sentences or not, or what type of sentence the courts will hand down in light of the bill before us, that I hope will be passed very quickly. No, I do not want to do that.

I have a 30-year career in criminal law behind me. I worked as a defence lawyer over the past 20 years or so. It is now known that minimum sentences have not resolved anything. The minimum sentence for importing narcotics was seven years. That never stopped narcotics trafficking whatsoever.

Traffickers formed groups and we saw the arrival of the Hells Angels and other such criminal gangs. I do not have any statistics before me, but in my career, five or six of my clients were charged, but never sentenced to seven-year minimal sentences. Every possibility was explored, bargaining was used, cases were argued and nothing was resolved.

Under the bill before us, we will be eliminating modern-day slavery by creating “an offence of trafficking in persons that prohibits a person from engaging in specified acts for the purpose of exploiting or facilitating the exploitation of another person”. This bill will put an end to all of that.

This bill will “create an offence that prohibits a person from receiving a financial or other material benefit that they know results from the commission of the offence of trafficking in persons”.

It will “create an offence that prohibits concealing, removing, withholding or destroying travel documents or documents that establish or purport to establish another person’s identity or immigration status for the purpose of committing or facilitating the offence of trafficking in persons”.

Then, as if that were not enough, it will create an offence of causing another person “to provide, or offer to provide, labour or a service by engaging in conduct that, in all the circumstances, could reasonably be expected to cause the other person to believe that their safety or the safety of a person known to them would be threatened if they failed to provide, or offer to provide, the labour or service; or cause them, by means of deception or the use or threat of force or of any other form of coercion, to have an organ or tissue removed.”

To paraphrase that, which is not complicated, from this evening on—it is the hope of us all—anyone who causes another person from any country whatsoever to believe she can come to Canada and work as a babysitter or something else, and then takes away that person's passport and other papers and forces her into prostitution, will be punished. Those who do such things will have to realize that, starting this very night, the game is all over. Unless they take their business elsewhere, they are at risk of some serious jail time. We will make sure that their offences are heavily punished.

I think it is important to underscore this point: forcing someone to work or to provide services, sexual services for example, through behaviour that leads the victim to fear for his or her personal safety, or that of a loved one, if the demands are not met, is the definition of exploitation as far as human trafficking is concerned.

The legal roadblock over the years consisted in defining what constituted exploitation as far as human trafficking is concerned. That is exactly what it is.

This bill contains an important clause dealing with causing a person “by means of deception or the use or threat of force or of any other form of coercion, to have an organ or tissue removed”. It is not true that, in the future, someone who comes to our country can have a kidney removed for any reason. With this bill, this falls under human exploitation. I think it is important to emphasize that. It is one of the key points of this bill, which, as I said, will put an end to modern day slavery.

The victims are often deceived into or forced to work in the sex industry or to perform other kinds of forced labour. That will stop. It is unacceptable that, in Canada alone, more than 800 people are the victims of this new kind of slavery every year. This bill will put an end to that, starting tonight. We believe that it is essential that it be passed, and passed as soon as possible.

There have been reports and studies. The first report, the UN report on trafficking in women published in 2000, indicates that Canada is among the top 30 destination countries for human trafficking. Starting tonight, Canada, Quebec and the other provinces could be taken off that list. It sends a chill up my spine to think that Canada could be one of the top 30 destination countries for human trafficking in recent years. We do hope that this bill will be given quick passage.

Among the issues raised in this 2000 report was the fact that, more often than not, the victims do not expose their employers because, for one thing, once identified by the authorities, they will not be allowed to remain in their country of adoption in order to seek protection or demand redress.

Based on the information provided to us in committee, we believe that this bill will ensure that steps are taken so that the victims of trafficking—and I am addressing my remarks to them—are no longer afraid to expose those who have been holding them hostage or maintaining them in forced slavery for far too long.

As if this were not enough, the International Labour Organization produced a report in which it was estimated that there are at least 2,450,000 people in the world who are kept in situations of forced labour. These people are forced under physical and psychological threats to prostitute themselves or to work for little or no pay in the construction or agricultural sectors.

As of this evening, this will be a thing of the past in Canada. We hope this bill will be passed at the earliest opportunity, and we feel there is a consensus among members of the House to put an end to this exploitation, to this modern day slavery.

Indeed, the United States did pass the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which created new offences, but it was time for us to do the same. This is very important legislation. Bill C-49 is a major piece in the puzzle to fight organized crime. It is a good start and it has the great merit of adding to the tools needed to prosecute individuals involved in the trafficking in persons.

However, since this human trafficking is often run by criminal organizations, it becomes just as urgent to amend the Criminal Code so as to create a reversal of the burden of proof as regards proceeds of crime. This will be another issue, another piece of the puzzle. The House will deal again with this issue very soon. I am referring to Bill C-53, which we also want to be passed at the earliest opportunity. Once it is passed—and here it is the defence lawyer who is speaking—it will give police officers other means to fight organized crime, which has made too many victims in this country, particularly in Quebec.

If I may, I would like to pay tribute to the hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, who is the Bloc Québécois critic on justice, human rights and public safety. My colleague has done a tremendous job regarding the two issues relating to Bill C-49 and Bill C-53. He has been working on these two issues for close to two years. At last, we will begin to move forward, one step at a time. This evening we will be making a step forward with Bill C-49.

Bill C-49, which is before us, will say three things when it is passed by the Senate and ratified by the Governor General. We know that there are two bills currently on the Prime Minister's desk that have yet to come into force. It is probably because there is a shortage of funds somewhere. However, I think that this is a false pretext. Given the budgetary surpluses of this government, the hon. Minister of Justice will be able to argue that the fight against organized crime is essential and important. We must give our police forces the means to implement the fight against organized crime.

As a result of amendments to the bill, human trafficking or profiting from human trafficking will be illegal. This affects all those involved directly or indirectly in such trafficking.

I am thinking of agricultural workers who are brought over and exploited on farms. This would carry a prison sentence. We will punish and launch legal proceedings against anyone who destroys or conceals identity documents in order to facilitate human trafficking.

In conclusion, I was extremely pleased to have taken part in the debate on this bill. The Bloc Québécois will support it without reservation. However, it will ask the Minister of Justice to ensure that this bill comes into force as soon as possible, so that we have the means to effectively and radically fight this crime.

I come from a region called Abitibi—Témiscamingue, where admittedly there is little to no human trafficking. In any case, I have not heard a great deal about it in the last 50 years. However, this phenomenon exists not only in mid-size and large urban centres in Quebec and Canada, but throughout the world.

Canada must be a leader and a model in this area. This evening, we have the opportunity to adopt a bill that will put Canada in the position to call upon other nations to follow our lead and put a stop to this unacceptable form of modern slavery in our world today. So I am calling on the House to pass this bill as soon as possible.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the justice minister. I believe he honestly means well, but I do not believe his paradigm is in line with what Canadians want. They want justice. They want appropriate sentencing where there is a consequence for the crime. They do not believe in dangerous offenders serving their sentences at home.

Twice, at the beginning of my speech and also at the end, I talked about Bill C-2 and Bill C-13 and why they were sitting on the Prime Minister's desk without being enacted. When we come up with legislation, why does it sit on the Prime Minister's desk? Unfortunately, the minister did not answer those questions.

I think Canadians want conditional sentencing. We support Bill C-49 going ahead, but I am hoping we will get mandatory minimums added at committee stage.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from Wild Rose says it from the heart. Canadians are frustrated with the sentencing that dangerous offenders are receiving in Canada.

The member sits on the justice committee, as do I. Canadians are asking for appropriate sentencing. Canadians are asking for sentencing to change. They are asking that we have consequences for dangerous and repeat offenders. Canadians want there to be consequences for those actions.

In my riding of Langley, a young man sexually assaulted two young girls. What sentence did he receive? He received conditional sentencing. It was house arrest. He served out his sentence at home. His victims lived on each side of him.

There has been an actual abuse of discretion. Canadians are calling out for change on how we sentence criminals. Canadians are calling for mandatory minimums because they do not have confidence in this government. Canadians do not have confidence in the weak legislation. They do not have confidence in the phony announcements.

Earlier I brought up the fact that we have Bill C-2, Bill C-13 and now Bill C-49 dealing respectively with child pornography, DNA and trafficking in people. What happens to those bills when there is unanimous consent within this House to have them move forward? Why do these bills sit on the Prime Minister's desk? Why are they not signed and enacted? We have heard about how important these bills are. Why are they not enacted?

What will happen with Bill C-49? Will this bill pass through this process? Will it receive immediate attention and then sit on the Prime Minister's desk? Canadians are asking for a change. The change starts with mandatory minimum sentences for dangerous and repeat offenders.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to stand in the House of Commons to speak to Bill C-49, a very important bill. We do have unanimous consent that this move forward to protect the most vulnerable.

I will start off by addressing some of the comments made by the justice minister. He made the comment that mandatory sentencing results in lower sentencing. Canadians are frustrated that the sentencing the courts provide for very serious offences result in conditional sentencing, meaning offenders are serving their sentences at home. Canadians are not confident that the sentencing is adequate, which is why there is an outcry to have mandatory minimum sentencing so there will be at least jail sentences for these heinous crimes.

We had a recent announcement regarding crystal meth which is now a schedule one drug. Traffickers in this drug would receive life imprisonment. The typical sentence for that type of offence is three and a half years. The government comes out with these proclamations, these phony bills saying that it will get tough on crime. Every member of the justice committee wants to make sure that these victims are protected, that this does not happen any more in Canada and that there is a serious message.

As a Conservative, I believe that mandatory minimum sentencing has to be part of the bill. We support having the bill go ahead. Why? I would like to go back to the late 1700s. There was a man by the name of William Wilberforce who was known as the conscience of Parliament. He fought against slavery.

It came to the attention of the United Nations that trafficking in people was still going on, primarily of women and children being drawn into the sex trade. It is offensive, it needs to be dealt with and it is a world concern. As we have heard, $10 billion U.S. a year is what organized crime is reaping in benefits from this. It is a very big problem and we need to deal with it.

William Wilberforce in the late 1700s stood against slavery and yet it is still happening today. We need to come up with legislation that deals with this modern day form of slavery.

Trafficking in persons has been described, as I said, as human slavery in this year. The United Nations reported that trafficking is the fastest growing form of transnational organized crime. Local crime organizations are drawn to this industry because of the relatively low risk of being caught and it is run by multinational criminal networks that are well-funded, well-organized and extremely adaptable to changing technologies.

The United Nations estimates that 700,000 people are trafficked annually worldwide and most of them are women and children. Most victims are forced into commercial sexual exploitation as well as involuntary servitude or debt bondage. Others may be exploited through hard labour and, in some countries, children are trafficked to work even as soldiers.

Trafficked persons are often duped into their new profession, deceived with seemingly legitimate employment contracts or marriage abroad. Others are simply abducted.

People are being told they can come to Canada and get a job and that it is a wonderful country. It is a wonderful country, but they are brought into Canada under false pretences. When they arrive here they are told that the job they were promised is no longer there but that they do have another job, which turns out to be that of a sex trade worker. It is terrible to trap people into that. The visas and passports are seized and taken from these people. These people are afraid to go to the police in case they will be deported from Canada, so they keep quiet and they are trapped.

The government is right that it is an abhorrent crime against humanity, against human rights and we need to stand against it as a country.

In dealing with victim protection, international attention to the issue of trafficking is very important. The status of the victim is often very complex. Although there are some universally recognized victims such as, for example, children who are exploited through the sex trade, others often are perceived as illegal migrants and criminals.

Women trafficked into the sex trade are sometimes seen as simply violating immigration or criminal laws relating to prostitution. Because of these perceptions and because of threats from traffickers, many victims are reluctant to turn to the police for protection.

The social stigma from prostitution is also a problem. Women who have been trafficked internationally and who are returned to their home countries may be ostracized within their communities and their families. It is a very big problem.

In Canada there are no hard statistics, but the RCMP estimates that 600 women and children are smuggled and coerced into the Canadian sex trade every year. If we include in that figure people who are forced into other forms of labour, it numbers about 800 people a year. This should not go on.

Canada has a relatively good record on the international stage in terms of efforts to stem this trade. In June of last year, the U.S. state department reported that British Columbia has become an attractive hub for East Asian human traffickers, who smuggle South Korean women through Canada and into the United States. In large part this is attributed to the fact that South Koreans do not need a visa to enter Canada.

The only thing these thugs understand is the full force of the law. We must have legislation. Bill C-49 must have teeth. We need to involve heavy prison time and confiscation of all profits. As a Conservative government, we would want to have Bill C-49 amended to deal with things properly.

The proposed amendments to the Criminal Code in Bill C-49 would create three new indictable offences that specifically address human trafficking. The first contains the global prohibition on trafficking persons. The second prohibits a person from benefiting economically from trafficking. The third prohibits the withholding or destruction of identity, immigration or travel documents to facilitate trafficking in persons.

The legislation also ensures that trafficking may form the basis of a warrant to intercept private communications, to take bodily samples for DNA analysis and to permit inclusion of the offender in the sex offender registry. Bill C-49 also expands the ability to seek restitution to the victims who are subjected to bodily or psychological harm.

Again, without serious penalties for these very serious, abhorrent crimes, the exploitation and abuse will continue. In this legislation, there are no mandatory minimum prison sentences. We need to send a clear message that slavery is wrong.

About five months ago, the justice committee passed Bill C-2, the child pornography legislation. It received third reading and went to the Senate and received royal assent, but Bill C-2 is sitting on the Prime Minister's desk. As well, Bill C-13, the DNA legislation, passed through this House, went to the Senate and received royal assent, but it also is sitting on the Prime Minister's desk, waiting to be enacted. These are very important pieces of legislation and I would like the justice minister to answer us as to why Bill C-2, the child pornography legislation, and Bill C-13, the DNA legislation, are sitting on the Prime Minister's desk waiting to be enacted.

Bill C-49 is such an important bill. There is a will in this House to see it go on to the Senate and receive royal assent. Is it going to sit on the Prime Minister's desk, just like Bill C-2 and Bill C-13? I hope not.

We also have heard of the Liberal-NDP coalition's plan to legalize prostitution solicitation. We have heard that there is a report coming, which has been made public. This is a very serious problem. If we go down the path of legalizing prostitution solicitation, it will exacerbate the problem.

We already know that the government wants the age of sexual consent to be 14, one of the lowest in the world. It causes us problems. We have pedophiles looking at our children. They lure them through the Internet. Now there is a plan from the government to legalize prostitution and solicitation. With a low age of consent and the plan regarding prostitution, we must have multiple types of legislation to protect our vulnerable children and our women.

This is what I want to know. We need to know from the justice minister what kind of legislation we are going to have. Are we going to have Bill C-49, which is what Canadians want, with some teeth? Would he accept amendments?

We have other pieces of legislation in our Criminal Code that have mandatory prison sentences. Is not trafficking in persons one of the most abhorrent crimes in the world today? I would argue that it is.

If we have mandatory minimum sentences for these other violent offences, why not for trafficking in persons? Are the minister and the government saying that it is really not as bad as some of these other offences? I would argue that it is. I think it is one of the worst and I think the United Nations acknowledges that it is one of the worst. If we have mandatory minimums for other criminal offences, why not for this?

I do support Bill C-49 going ahead, but we have to toughen it up.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-49, an act to amend the Criminal Code (trafficking in persons). Bill C-49 realizes a commitment made by the government in the Speech from the Throne. It reflects a continuing priority not only for the government but for me personally as Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, namely the protection of the vulnerable.

It is a matter of protecting the most vulnerable among us.

No less important, this third reading debate on Bill C-49 is a reflection of all-party support for the bill, which I hope is a reflection of the broader support for the work of the government and indeed the international community in combating this scourge upon humanity, what I have referred to elsewhere as the new contemporary global slave trade.

I have always been concerned with promoting and protecting equality, and continue to do so as Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. It has always been my belief that the true measure of a society's commitment to the principles of equality and human dignity is taken by the way it protects its most vulnerable members.

This is really what Bill C-49 is all about. It is about more clearly recognizing and denouncing human trafficking as the persistent and pervasive assault on human rights that it is. It is about providing increased protection for those who are most vulnerable to this criminal violation of human rights, namely women and children. It is about bringing the perpetrators to justice and ensuring that human traffickers are held to account fully for this criminal conduct.

Trafficking in humans is considered to be the most rapidly growing criminal industry in the world. It is estimated that it generates $10 billion in annual profits for organized crime, thus ranking second after drug and firearms trafficking.

Although the clandestine nature of human trafficking makes it impossible to know the real magnitude of the tragedy, the United Nations estimates that more than 700,000 persons are trafficked across international borders each year. Others put it higher. UNICEF for example estimates that 1.2 million children alone are trafficked globally each year.

In May of this year the International Labour Organization released a global report on forced labour. This report estimates that approximately 2.5 million persons are currently in situations of forced labour as a result of having been trafficked. Of these 2.5 million persons, approximately one-third are estimated to have been trafficked into situations of forced labour and just under one-half are estimated to have been trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation purposes. This is the important point. Almost all of these victims, 98% of them, are the most vulnerable, women and children. The remaining one-third are believed to have been trafficked for mixed or undetermined reasons.

If we take as our starting point that one person trafficked is one too many, that this is not just a matter of abstract statistics, but behind every statistic is a trafficked human being and a tragedy of that trafficking, these estimates surely must underscore the importance of measures such as Bill C-49. Indeed this should strengthen our resolve to do all that we can domestically and internationally to combat human trafficking.

Moreover, although anyone can be a victim of human trafficking, the numbers show that women and children are the primary victims of such trafficking, a reflection of their social, economic and legal inequality, indeed of their differential vulnerability. In fact, this is how many human traffickers achieve their aims, by exploiting the hopes and fears of their victims by offering them false hope and the promise of a better life.

Most of the time, women and children are trafficked for purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labour. They end up as servants, baby sitters or drug mules, for instance. Men, on the other hand, are generally trafficked for forced labour in illegal sweatshops, or to work on farms, in abattoirs or in the construction industry.

But no matter for what purpose they are trafficked, all trafficked persons: men, women and children suffer deprivation of liberty, physical, sexual and emotional abuse, including threats of violence and actual serious harm to themselves and/or to their family members.

This is why human trafficking is so often described as today's global slave trade because it is about the bonding and bartering of human beings, and battering as well, and indeed, the commodification of human beings which constitutes a pervasive and persistent assault on the most fundamental of human rights, the right to life, liberty and security of the person.

The daily reality of trafficked victims is difficult if not impossible to comprehend, but it is perhaps just as difficult to comprehend that trafficking in human beings is even an issue today in the 21st century, and in a country such as Canada, where the constitutional protection of fundamental rights and freedoms is at the very heart of how we seek to define ourselves as a people and a society.

Bill C-49 addresses the protection of vulnerable persons and the protection of fundamental human rights only.

Bill C-49 is organized around the three key objectives identified by the international community or what we call the three P s: prevention of human trafficking, protection of its victims, and prosecution of the traffickers themselves.

Currently, the Criminal Code addresses human trafficking through existing offences that apply to trafficking related conduct such as, kidnapping, forceable confinement, aggravated sexual assaults and uttering threats. Although these existing provisions have been successfully used in trafficking cases, Bill C-49 proposes the creation of three new specific indictable offences to more effectively and comprehensively address all forms of trafficking in persons, irrespective of whether it occurs wholly within Canada or involves cross-border movement.

The main offence of trafficking in persons would prohibit anyone from engaging in the acts therein specified, such as the recruitment, transportation, harbouring or control of the movements of another person for the purpose of exploiting that person or facilitating the exploiting of that person. This new offence would carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment where it involves kidnapping, aggravated assault, aggravated sexual assault or causes the death of a victim. It would carry a maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment in all other cases.

The second proposed offence would apply to persons who seek to profit from the trafficking in persons, even if they do not actually engage in the act specified in the main trafficking in persons offence. It proposes to prohibit any person from receiving a financial or other material benefit knowing that it results from the trafficking of another person. This offence would be punishable by a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

The third new offence would prohibit the withholding or destruction of documents such as a victim's travel documents or documents that establish the victim's identity or immigration status for the purpose of committing or facilitating the trafficking of that person. This offence would carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Bill C-49's innovation applies not only in the proposal to create three new specific indictable offences to address all aspects of trafficking in persons, but also in the fact that these offences are built on the very essence of trafficking in persons. No matter what form the conduct may take, human trafficking is always engaged for the purposes of exploiting its victims, whether it is by forcing them to provide labour services, including sexual services, or services as a drug mule or human organ or tissue. Everything and all of it is for the purpose of exploiting that victim.

Accordingly, Bill C-49 includes a specific definition of exploitation that reflects this reality as well as the reality that victims may be forced to engage in such conduct, not only because they fear for their own safety but because they may fear for the safety of others such as members of their families.

However, we believe there is much to be gained by creating new Criminal Code offences that specifically target this conduct and that broaden the reach of our existing prohibition to comprehensively respond to all forms of human trafficking, whether they occur wholly within Canada or whether they involve some cross-border or international dimension.

Bill C-49 will more clearly and broadly define and address the type of conduct in question that we seek to prevent and we will more clearly and strongly denounce all forms of human trafficking. Bill C-49 will enable us to more clearly and directly name and respond to this heinous crime for what it really is, namely, human trafficking. Anyone who has ever heard victims of this tragedy speak of their experience will appreciate just how important this is to them, and so too it is an important and welcome innovation.

Bill C-49 will significantly enhance Canada's domestic laws against human trafficking. This will in turn support the broader international effort to combat trafficking. On that point, on the international scene, I am pleased to note that Canada, together with the international community, continues to support and enhance international collaboration in response to human trafficking.

Canada was among the first nations to ratify the UN convention against transnational organized crime and its supplemental protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children. These two instruments provide the widely accepted international framework for addressing the contemporary manifestation of human trafficking.

International protections against trafficking in persons offered by these instruments are themselves supplemented by numerous other international instruments, including the optional protocol to the UN convention on the rights of the child, on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography that Canada ratified last month on September 14.

I note this instrument in particular because it is focused entirely on children, the most vulnerable of the vulnerable who are trafficked. While any form of human trafficking is incomprehensible and condemned, this is particularly true in the case of children. Behind each one of UNICEF's estimate of 1.2 million trafficked children is a child, a human face, an individual with a name and an identity, a vulnerable person who is completely dependent upon us, upon the global community, for protection of the most profound of rights, the right to life itself.

Bill C-49 is an important step forward in strengthening Canada's overall response to human trafficking. We recognize that more is required than just a strong legal framework and we are working to address the three P 's, to which I referred, across the whole of the federal government.

Over the past year, for example, a lot has been done to address the principle of prevention, including training for police, prosecutors, immigration, custom and consular officials on human trafficking. We held seminars in this regard in March 2004 and 2005, one of them being an international seminar itself, round tables involving government and non-governmental organizations to discuss prevention and best practices to address human trafficking, conferences in which I myself have participated, both nationally and internationally, and the development of public education materials including an anti-trafficking poster that is available in 17 languages and a pamphlet available in 14 languages. Both of these have been widely disseminated within Canada and through our embassies abroad through the internationalization prevention effort.

As well, we are continuing to work to provide better support and protection for the victims, including through Bill C-2, the protection of children and other vulnerable persons, which received royal assent on July 20, 2005. Bill C-2 enacted criminal law reforms that will facilitate the receipt of testimony by child victim witnesses and other vulnerable victim witnesses, including women. Once enforced, these reforms will significantly enhance the ability of the criminal justice system to respond to the unique needs of vulnerable victims, including trafficking victims.

Lastly, I would note that the federal interdepartmental working group on trafficking in persons, co-chaired by the Departments of Justice and Foreign Affairs, continues to coordinate efforts to address human trafficking and is currently developing a comprehensive federal anti-trafficking strategy.

I believe that this interdepartmental working group, composed of representatives of 17 federal departments and agencies, is a clear illustration of how difficult it is to come up with a complete response to human trafficking, as well as a clear indication of how committed the federal government is to beefing up its overall response to this problem.

In conclusion, Bill C-49 will significantly improve our ability to address all forms of human trafficking, including trafficking that has international dimensions, as well as trafficking that occurs wholly within our country. It proposes, as I mentioned, the creation of specific offences prohibiting human trafficking, the imposition of severe penalties to better reflect the serious nature and impact of this form of criminal conduct on its victims and on Canadian society.

Together these new offences clearly and strongly denounce trafficking in persons and send a strong signal with regard to governmental, parliamentary, domestic and international condemnation of this global slave trade. Clearer and stronger prohibitions will mean greater protection for those who are the most vulnerable to being trafficked: women and children.

I appreciate and wish to emphasize the support that all members have expressed for Bill C-49 to date. I hope we can continue the spirit in common cause and commitment to expedite Bill C-49's passage because this is not a matter for a particular party or partisan cause. This is something in which we have united together on behalf of the trafficked victims and the most vulnerable, to provide for them the prevention and protection they deserve, and the accountability in terms of bringing the perpetrators to justice where warranted.

Business of the House

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opposition House leader's comments. The same confusion which reigned in the House perhaps reigned when I was trying to describe what we understood the consent to be.

The opposition House leader is exactly right. It would be our intention, if we could, to return to second reading of Bill C-65. If, however, we went until 6:30 p.m. with Bill C-49, we would return to Bill C-65 at a later date.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly concur with my hon. colleague across the way in the sense that there was some confusion immediately following routine proceedings today that allowed these two bills to slip by. I think there were members from all parties who wanted to speak to them. I certainly would concur with my colleague.

I would like further clarification. If Bill C-49 carries the day until 6:30 p.m., would it be the intention following debate that the question would be put and deemed carried and we would then return to second reading of Bill C-65 either tomorrow or at some future date?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Discussions have taken place between all parties concerning the bills listed on today's Projected Order of Business.

Mr. Speaker, as you noticed, there was perhaps a bit of confusion on all sides of the House with respect to participating in different debates following routine proceedings a few moments ago, in particular the third reading of Bill C-49 and the second reading of Bill C-65.

Mr. Speaker, I believe you would find consent in the House to return to third reading of Bill C-49 in order for members to participate in said debate, and that at no later than 6:30 p.m. today, the motion for third reading of this bill would be deemed carried.

Should Bill C-49 conclude before 6:30 p.m. today, the House would immediately return to the second reading of Bill C-65 for the same reasons I noted above.

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I understand from the member's question that he was obviously not at the last opposition House leaders' meeting where the entire agenda up to December 15 was laid out, including the seven opposition days to which he has referred.

In terms of background, I might also suggest to the hon. member that back in 1973 when there was a minority Parliament, the House opened on January 4 and all seven opposition days were held between March 5 and March 26. Back in 1979, when the House opened on October 9, opposition days started November 6. Opposition days clearly are the purview of the government to schedule. We have scheduled all of them for the opposition parties.

The House will continue this afternoon with the second reading of Bill C-54, the first nations oil and gas bill, followed by second reading of Bill S-38, respecting trade in spirits, and report stage and third reading of Bill C-28, the food and drugs bill.

Tomorrow we will begin with Bill C-28 and if it is completed, we will proceed with second reading of Bill S-37, respecting the Hague Convention and Bill S-36, respecting diamonds.

Next week is the Thanksgiving break week and I wish all hon. members a very happy Thanksgiving.

When the House returns on October 17, we will consider second reading of Bill C-63, respecting the registration of political parties, followed by report stage and third reading of Bill C-49, the human trafficking bill, second reading of Bill C-65, the street racing bill, Bill C-64, the vehicle registration legislation, and report stage of Bill C-37, the do not call bill.

As the week continues, we will add to the list reference to committee before second reading of Bill C-50, respecting the cruelty to animals, Bill C-44, the transportation legislation, Bill C-47, respecting Air Canada, the reference before second reading of Bill C-46, the correctional services bill, and by the end of the week we hope to begin debate on the energy and surplus bills that are being introduced this week. There is also ongoing discussions about a take note debate that week.

As members can see, there is a heavy agenda and important legislation. As I said and as I laid out to the opposition House leaders at our previous meeting, in the post-Remembrance Day segment of this sitting, we will consider the business of supply and we hope to be in a position to deal with the final stages of many of these very important bills before the end of the year.

Committees of the House

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

In accordance with its order of reference of Tuesday, September 27, 2005 the committee has considered Bill C-49, an act to amend the Criminal Code (trafficking in persons) and agreed on Tuesday, October 4, 2005 to report it with amendments.

Criminal Code

[Art Hanger, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the whole issue of minimum sentences came up as a result of legislation in the past, which eliminated, or which confused, and I guess that might be a better way of putting it, this whole issue of consequences for one's actions. Before then, the law took care of that. The law said that if we broke the law or rule we would pay a price for it. That ruled the courtroom. I was a police officer during those years to see it. There was precedent. There were issues that dealt specifically with the crime. Yes, the judge had discretion, but he looked at the safety of the individuals, the safety of the community and the consequences to fit the act that was committed.

There does not seem to be that philosophy anymore in the whole issue of judicial decisions. In fact, it is almost like situational ethics. Let us talk about a lawyer. I was going to say a Philadelphia lawyer, but how about a Bay Street lawyer? A lawyer would come in and say, “Look, this guy did this because of these reasons and any normal person would do the same thing”. Maybe that is stretching it a little bit, but the argument is there: it is that situation and it warrants a different judgment so there is no consistency anymore. Once a precedent is set, even a new precedent, in any law or any case, then suddenly that becomes the issue for the entire court to follow. It just deteriorates over time.

Why are minimum sentences now the topic of discussion? Because it is the only way to hold accountable--something that our government will not do--those courts that decide these are frivolous matters and warrant only minor sentences. On this side of the House, we want to ensure that there is some sort of consequence to the action of an individual. I do not know what the members on the other side think, but that is what is behind minimum sentences. I believe that even legislation like Bill C-49 should be addressing these matters clearly.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, recently a court ruled on a sentence for someone who pleaded guilty in the ad scam scandal, in which there was theft of something like a million and a half dollars. The court said, “This man has been a good man. He has never committed crimes before. We will just send him home and we will let him give lectures on ethics to students at universities. That is what we are going to do”. That was his sentence for stealing a million and a half dollars.

I would like the member to comment again on minimum sentences. The minister says he is not going to go that way because it has not worked in other countries. Let us look at the section of Bill C-49 that was read out by the member for Winnipeg Centre. It talks about very serious offences. It says what the penalties are. It has been quoted several times. People can be sentenced to life imprisonment, but there is no minimum sentence. There is no guidance to the court, so someone could commit a very serious offence and some hotshot lawyer could come into the courtroom and say, “This is a good man. He has never done this before. Let us send him home”. And the man will spend his sentence at home.

I would ask the member to elaborate further on what he thinks about these minimum sentences that members on our side of the House have been talking about.

[Art Hanger, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that I can get on the speaking list in reference to this issue of trafficking in persons, Bill C-49.

It is interesting that right now in the subcommittee there is a major discussion going on concerning this whole issue of prostitution. It started out just relating to solicitation as it happens on the streets of our cities and elsewhere in the country and its impact on the safety of women, and men I guess to some degree but mostly women in this nation, as it applies to whether the laws are placing them in harm's way.

The debate widened very quickly and included the whole issue of trafficking. The reason that it took that route is because it became clear in the nations that decriminalized or legalized prostitution that the efforts to control that activity on the streets opened another door, that door being another brand of illegal prostitution springing up for those who did not fit into the pattern or the mould as set by the state. Therefore the issue of illegal prostitution expanding became the focus.

Who is involved in the expansion of that prostitution, that other aspect of illegal prostitution? There are several jurisdictions in the world that tried to decriminalize or legalize prostitution and authorities found that women were being hustled into the illegal side of prostitution and many of them from out of the country. In other words, there was a trafficking process that was set up from various parts of the world bringing women and children for that matter into those jurisdictions that had decriminalized or legalized the activity.

What is wrong with the picture? On one side, the government is moving toward the legalization of prostitution or decriminalization, whichever way it wants to call it. It is part and parcel of the debate that we are having in the committee. Once that is done, the illegal trade and the trafficking of women and children will increase in a very dramatic fashion.

Australia and New Zealand went through it. The Netherlands went through it and it is a prime example of what not to do. The only nation that did not and in fact started cracking down on those who were engaged in the activity of prostitution and trafficking, which is the organized criminal side of it, was Sweden. It not only cracked down on the pimps but it also cracked down on the johns, those who exploited women. Lo and behold, many of Sweden's problems disappeared. The numbers of women involved in that whole area of prostitution diminished dramatically because the jurisdiction took care of it. It took the money out of it and away from organized criminals.

We have Bill C-49 that proposes to step down on those involved in trafficking. At the same time this other debate is going on. For the most part I can see the real advantage of having some tough law, if we want to call this tough law. There are no minimum sentences in the law but at least it would address some of these concerns. It proposes up to life sentences for those who recruit, transport, transfer, receive, conceal harbour or exercise some control or influence over them.

On the surface it looks good, but we have the same problem here as we do with other pieces of legislation from the government. There are no minimum sentences to guarantee that the courts will deal aggressively with individuals who involve themselves this way. There is nothing to guarantee that and the argument of course on the other side is that the court must have all the discretion it needs to deal with whatever case may come up, and it is up to the judge to exercise that discretion.

We have heard that story far too many times. It washes kind of thin when we start looking at the results of legislation that does not aggressively deal with a growing problem within the international community.

Trafficking in people, just like drugs, is considered one of the largest sources of profits for organized crime. In our committee when we started talking about this whole matter of organized crime, nobody wanted to address it. In fact, it was almost a taboo subject because the issue of prostitution was considered by some, unfortunately, as a legitimate occupation to pursue and should be protected like any other legitimate occupation. It was the flawed thinking of some members within that committee. Most of them just so happened to be Liberals or NDP members who thought that prostitution was a legitimate form of work to be protected by the state.

To look at it from that point of view we would have move into the direction of legalization or decriminalization of prostitution. It would be a very dangerous route to go, I might point out, looking at the jurisdictions that have already experienced such a downtrend to this whole issue. Organized criminals step into the breach and they will reap the profits in tens of billions of dollars that it will bring, all at the expense of women and those who abuse women.

My concern of course is that this not get a foothold in this country. The bill certainly addresses a point or two when it comes to trafficking in people, but it does not deal with the issue once those individuals are here clearly in real terms engaged in an illegal activity in the nation.

Yes, we can support the bill. There are some provisions in it that deal with the reality of trafficking, the forced coercion or deception and the issue of forced labour or forced prostitution, but it does not connect when it comes to the other debate that is going on in the justice subcommittee dealing with the prostitution issue.

I have a couple of questions for the members on the other side and I want to put them on the record. If this country were to decide to decriminalize prostitution, how many members on that side would agree that it would lead to increased trafficking in persons, especially women and children?

Members on that side will probably not be able to answer that question or maybe will not want to answer that question, but it is the only question that bears the need for an answer.

Let us talk about sentencing. It was not long ago when an issue of drugs entered the debate in the House and in fact it even hit the media in this fashion. Some suggested that the serious drug dealer, the one who makes sure that crystal meth and others are distributed to our youngsters, receive a life sentence. There was outrage from members on that side and they said, “A life sentence. How absolutely archaic”. That mantra was kind of picked up by the media. Fingers were pointed to members on this side, accusing them of being somewhat extreme, or dinosaurs or whatever.

I see drugs destroying the lives of many of our young people in this nation. In fact, that has happened and continues to happen. There is no serious legislative effort to shut it down. I am talking about the bills and the suggestions about decriminalizing marijuana for one and really seriously dealing with the grow op situation in the nation. We have no national drug strategy. In fact, we do not even have, and again this relates directly to this bill, any organized crime strategy. How are we going to deal with the organized crime issues?

I find it appalling that there is so much organized criminal activity. I have seen it creep into my own city over the last five years in very real terms and how insidious it is, how devastating it is to a community, and how many police resources are involved in trying to combat this kind of not only violent but insidious type of crime that works on prostitution, drug distribution and the like. There is no clear national strategy on drugs.

Now we have an issue dealing with people and again, it is organized crime that is at the foot of it, the foundation. I have a concern because the Liberal cabinet and the majority of members over there cannot put this into perspective. I would like to know why?

However, getting back to sentencing, it states that for the purposes of anyone who recruits, transports, transfers, conceals or harbours a person or who exercises control or influence over the movement of that person for the purposes of exploiting them or facilitating their exploitation commits an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for up 14 years or life imprisonment if the accused kidnaps, commits an aggravated assault or sexual assault, or causes death to the victim.

I do not feel exactly confident that this matter is being dealt with in real terms again. A life sentence was pooh-poohed because a life sentence was suggested for drug traffickers and now all of a sudden, it appears here in another form. But again, it is at the discretion of a judge, and who knows where it will end up. Even if all of these heinous acts are committed against an individual or a group of individuals, there nothing to suggest that individual would receive a life sentence.

Then it comes to the section on money, the issue that makes this organized criminal activity go round and round in circles. It is involved in the drug business. It is involved in the prostitution business and of course the issue of trafficking in people.

We know that even cross-border trafficking is taking place. It was pointed out to the Liberal government that this had been going on and even where it had been going on, and still it was never addressed over all the years. It continues on to this day. There is a fee. There is a charge for moving a person across the border.

Even though that is the illegal side of it, there is a legal side too that is also playing hand in glove with those who want to traffic in people, and that is our immigration department. What is the immigration department going to do? If it is willing to open the doors to strippers and prostitutes of various kinds and claim what they do to be a legitimate form of work, then it is a party to what happens afterwards. I find that appalling, given the fact that it is a government department. I might also point out that ministers of the past here, ministers of the Crown, have even gone to bat for this so-called legitimate occupation. That is where the thinking is.

I urge my colleagues on the other side to deal with this in a much more effective manner. There seems to be a cross purpose of one side wanting to legalize prostitution, knowing that it will increase trafficking in women and children, and the other side wanting to crack down on some of the traffickers, if that in fact can even happen. I would like to see how the final playout of this legislation really does come about when it hits the law books and the enforcement agencies in our nation.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a specific question about Bill C-49 and I preface it only by saying that my colleague from Mississauga is aware of how rare it is for white collar crime to earn jail time. Much of his speech was about sentencing and jail time and a lot of us were shocked at the relatively light sentence that Mr. Paul Coffin received. Maybe all those jail cells are needed for some Indian guy who steals a loaf of bread. Maybe there is no room in the prisons for a white collar criminal who steals $1.5 million.

I will ask my colleague to contemplate Bill C-49 specifically. I would like to read one clause and then I will ask him about it. Clause 279.01(1) reads:

Every person who recruits, transports, transfers, receives, holds, conceals or harbours a person...for the purpose of exploiting them...is guilty of an indictable offence and liable

(a) to life imprisonment....

How often do we see that as a penalty in our Criminal Code?

Does my colleague believe that clause in Bill C-49 should apply for instance to those involved in the exploitation of women and the Canadian strippergate visa scandal if proven guilty?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think I understand where the member is coming from. I am not sure that the member is aware of what I have been doing on this but I can assure him that I have had these conversations with the justice minister and the Deputy Prime Minister in her role in terms of security issues.

I raised this issue because it came up in debate. Even the justice critic from the Conservative Party raised the matters of the sentence and stuff. I do not accept the rationalization that mandatory minimum sentencing does not work and is not a deterrent. I am not as concerned about deterrence as I am about someone who commits a serious violent crime. They need to be in jail to have the cold shower that being incarcerated brings. They need to know that as a society we believe that what they did was abhorrent and that this is part of the penalty. We know that a guy like Roszko, should not have been on the streets. The system let the families down because it did not deal with Roszko, the way he should have been dealt with.

I raised this issue and I am asking other members to join with me to ensure they do what they can in whatever venues they can to influence the discussions, even at the justice committee when this legislation comes before it, so that the issues that are ancillary or related to Bill C-49 may bring some movement in terms of effective legislation and amendments to the Criminal Code.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

This is important. It is not just the RCMP. We are talking about the official provincial police and regional policing authorities that have to enforce the Criminal Code. This is at all levels of government. It is one reason why I wanted to raise and debate the whole question about the criminal justice system as it relates to sentencing, and I hope the committee will deal with it.

The linkage here is to the four slain RCMP officers. Reverend Schiemann spoke to the MPs yesterday about this in our brief meeting. He has said that the person who perpetrated these murders. Mr. Roszko, and I use the word “Mr.” very loosely, has a criminal record that would make any common sense person say that he is someone who has a deep problem. The recidivism rate already has been very high. He is a threat to society. Everybody in the community knew that the person was a problem. He had been charged, convicted, put away for a couple of days, then let go and he was back on the streets. It became a game.

How can Canadians have confidence in the laws of Canada if they know that the application and the defence of those laws only goes so far as the police will lay charges and the person will have a criminal record, but the individual will be back on the street again?

I understand very well why the families are saying that they need the federal government to help them make reasonable changes to the laws so that dangerous people are not out on the streets, that they are not there to perpetrate even further crimes to do the damage to these families, their friends and their communities such as happened with the senseless murder of four RCMP constables, human beings with families.

Members of the justice committee are here today. Notwithstanding that Bill C-49 prescribes that there are penalties to a maximum of, et cetera, it is about time we have some real discussions about mandatory sentencing.

There was an incident in Toronto not too long ago. It was just discharged by the courts. It involved a police officer who was charged with sucker-punching a refugee. Right out of the blue, he gave him a whack. The officer received a sentence of 30 days in jail. It should have been a lot more given the circumstances. He denied it, but someone came forward with a film of the incident. Now the police unions are going to appeal this because he is a good guy and his wife is going to have a baby. I understand there are always mitigating circumstances, but when a person in a position of trust violates the rights of a human being, we need to deal with that firmly. A 30 day sentence says to that person that he is going to jail for a sucker punch.

If we look at Mr. Roszko's rap sheet, we see how much time he has spent in jail. The system basically said that he had a problem, that he had done this or that and that his criminal record was very long. However, he was out on the streets before we could blink. He went back into the community and was a risk to people of his community. Everyone knew it would happen again, but no one knew it would be that bad on March 5 when four RCMP officers were slain needlessly because the criminal justice system and the courts let them down.

We are the legislators. We are the people who make laws that affect the Criminal Code. This is affecting the Criminal Code. The bill does not talk about sentencing. We do not have a lot to do other than prescribing maximums. More and more members in this place comment on grow ops. People who have grow ops with 3,000 plants get slapped with an $1,800 fine and a suspended sentence. We know very well that major grow operations are generating cash for organized crime, for serious criminal activity. When people have more than a plant or two, it clearly is not for their own use. I do not want to debate where to draw the line, but when there are hundreds and thousands of plants, I want to see people go to jail.

We seem to have an aversion to putting people away when they commit serious crimes. We do not talk about this enough. Would someone please make a case to the Speaker that we need an emergency debate, or at least a take note debate, on the sentencing in the criminal justice system. Let us talk about it and see what our parliamentarians have to say. This is a very important issue because families are hurting each and every day.

I do not want to start picking holes. We all understand that we collectively are the lawmakers of Canada. I believe it is a priority. We should talk about this and put it on the table. When the judges and people in positions of trust and authority hear what Parliament has to say about the sentencing track record for serious and violent crime and how we feel about this, even without passing a law, they will look twice and think twice.

We need to take some leadership, too, if things are not happening in the courts and through our judges. I believe very firmly that we can make a difference, and I wanted to raise it in this debate. It is not really a major part of Bill C-49. It is not.

If somebody gets up on a point of order to say that this is not relevant, it was very relevant to the families yesterday. I went there to support them personally. I listened to them. I do not support Bill C-17, which includes the decriminalization of marijuana. I voted against it the last time and I will vote against it again. That is only part of it because that gives the wrong signal.

I think we also give the wrong signal through our legislation. Even though the amendments to the Criminal Code must prescribe penalties, we need to have some real direction to the courts through the criminal justice system. I do not know from where it is being driven. I am not a lawyer. I am not a member of the justice committee. I listened to the people yesterday and I listen to my constituents. I know there is a legitimate concern that should be dealt with in Parliament, and I want that.

I am sorry that what I said has not been relevant to the bill, but I wanted to raise the issue because it is important to Canadians.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the debate all day yesterday and today. I do not want to address the former speaker's comments any further. I think he is just incorrect in his analysis.

I did have the opportunity yesterday to attend a meeting with the families of the four RCMP officers who were slain in Mayerthorpe on March 5. There are a couple of points I would like to make.

This is debate at second reading. The bill will go to committee after this. Debate at second reading is intended to give members the opportunity to put forward some points of view that they would like to have considered at committee. It is extremely important that members, as they hear the debate, participate and ask questions, if not make suggestions for changes as to how we can have an effective piece of legislation. This is a very important bill.

As background for those who may be following this debate, Bill C-49 proposes amendments to the Criminal Code specifically to prohibit trafficking in persons in Canada. This bill is part of our commitment as a government to the protection of vulnerable persons and the ongoing strategy to combat human trafficking which is not only an international activity but also is a domestic activity.

Currently the Criminal Code contains no provisions to specifically prohibit trafficking in persons, although there are a number of offences that are related, such as kidnapping, uttering threats, or extortion, which also play a role in this crime. There is some overlap, but the Criminal Code does not have a specific prohibition on this trafficking.

Yesterday a couple of points were raised that the description of trafficking in persons seems to suggest that these are people who are being bought and sold like slaves. It is more than that. In fact I have suggested that we need to continue to put in the word “exploitation”. This is about the exploitation of people. We are talking about the vulnerable, the poor, those who are unable to defend themselves, those who can be coerced. We talk about these issues all the time. We talk about vulnerable seniors, seniors who are abused, seniors who are defrauded of their money. We talk about children's issues and children who are used for pornographic purposes. These are the vulnerable in our society who deserve protection.

There are also people who are subject to these pressures by those who see the weakness, those who see the poverty, those who hold out some hope for someone, take advantage of them and put them in a situation which is certainly no better.

This bill goes beyond the focus of immigration which the prior speaker was talking about. It contains three notable provisions. There are three new indictable offences specifically to address human trafficking.

The main offence is called trafficking in persons. It would prohibit anyone from engaging in specific acts for the purpose of exploiting or facilitating the exploitation of a person. It would carry a maximum penalty, I stress a maximum penalty, of life imprisonment where it involves kidnapping, aggravated assault, sexual assault or death, and imprisonment for 14 years in all other cases.

The second offence would prohibit anyone from receiving financial or other material benefit resulting from the commission of a trafficking offence. It would be punishable by a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment.

The third offence would prohibit the withholding or destroying of documents, such as identification or travel documents, for the purpose of committing or facilitating the commission of a trafficking offence. It would carry a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment.

From the debates yesterday and today, it is clear that this bill has the support of all parties to pass second reading and to go to the committee for its exhaustive study and to hear witnesses to make absolutely sure that this bill is effective.

I am not going to repeat their information, but many members articulated how serious this problem is. In the magnitude of 700,000 people a year may be subject to these trafficking activities.

The United Nations has been a leader on this. Canada finally will play a role by having this legislation in place. One reason is only Canada, the U.S., New Zealand and Australia are taking new immigrants into their countries. There are about 30 other countries that are rampant with the activity of taking advantage of people. With the other three countries, we become the sites of many of these crimes that have been perpetrated. We cannot overstate the seriousness of the problem.

While the parties are very supportive of the bill, and it is important for us to be involved, the debate has included a substantive component of a matter which is beyond the scope of the bill. I am not sure whether it should be, but maybe the committee will be. This is one reason why I wanted to speak.

As I said at the beginning, I had an opportunity yesterday, with a number of our colleagues from the other place and here in the chamber, to meet with the families of the four RCMP officers who were slain on March 3 in Mayerthorpe, Alberta. I want to remind Canadians of their names: Constables Anthony Gordon, Leo Johnston, Brock Myrol and Peter Schiemann.

The families had some messages for the legislators. During the debate, the issues that came up were the frustrations about the criminal justice system. I raised this point in the debate yesterday. Do we have the resources and the means at provincial and federal levels to enforce, to protect and to defend in Bill C-49, should it become law?

I have a good relationship with my chief of police. I know we have a relatively affluent community. Yet our chief of police would say that they do not have enough police officers even to follow up on the reports of suspected grow house operations. Not only can they not investigate and prosecute, they cannot even check them out.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pretty sure the member will get a chance to respond.

I do not think we should mix things up. We are talking about a visa issue. We are talking about the reality that there are strip clubs in Canada and the reality that more strippers are being brought over periodically to provide the services in these institutions. They are coming over under visas. They are providing these services and then they are going back. That is not forced services. He suggested that immigration authorities went over to Romania to somehow force these people to do something.

We should keep Bill C-49 in perspective. We are talking about a very serious issue and the member talked about it to some extent in his speech. We are talking about people who are vulnerable, who cannot protect themselves from these things, who need some way to survive and people take advantage of their vulnerability. That is not the same case. The member, in fairness, should differentiate between visas for people coming over here to work on a part time basis and those vulnerable people around the world and domestically who have been taken advantage of by those committing these abhorrent crimes.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will take this opportunity to speak to Bill C-49 to perhaps develop the concerns that I raised.

Let me preface this by saying that I am proud that Canada is taking on the global issue of trafficking in human beings. I had some experience with this as the immigration critic for my party when not too long ago boatloads of Chinese immigrants were washing up on the shores of British Columbia. To some consternation, there seemed to be waves of humans being smuggled, some 600 in total.

As we investigated this rash of illegal migrants, it became clear that they were being smuggled in a very organized and structured way by groups of Asian organized crime known as snakeheads. This is a reprehensible practice. People's hopes and ambitions were being exploited by these snakeheads who I suppose offered opportunities or hopes of a better life.

However that is only one example and that perhaps is a more benign example of the type of human trafficking that is a growing problem around the world.

In that case, those people were cheated and undertook a very dangerous practice of being smuggled across the seas, often in shipping containers, or through other methods where they could risk their lives. That was bad enough but the type of human trafficking, the type of modern day slave trade trafficking that is being contemplated by Bill C-49, is of another scale and dimension altogether. It is almost too horrible to imagine.

We recently saw a documentary on one of the news magazine programs in Canada. Some very good investigative journalism has been done showing how vulnerable young people are being seduced off the streets in places such as eastern Europe and some of the Asian countries with offers of opportunities, sometimes being misled and offered legitimate jobs in their destination country, and sometimes being overtly kidnapped and forced into this.

This used to be the stuff of dime store novels where we would hear this kind of thing happening. It is to our shock, horror and dismay to have to admit that in the year 2005 it is commonplace and in fact it is growing in practice. In developed nations, modern, contemporary countries such as Canada, it is incumbent upon us to lead the way by passing legislation that condemns this practice universally.

However the contradiction that I was trying to raise with my colleague from Davenport is that Canada has been enabling this very practice for years. Through three successive ministers of immigration, all very strong women, this practice was allowed to continue. I know for a fact that some of them tried to intervene and put a stop to the exotic dancer visa program.

One of the owners of the hotels, a famous immigration lawyer in Toronto who owns one of the strip joints, one of the biggest beneficiaries of this program, was actually interviewed by Immigration Canada. When asked about the condition of the employment of these women who were being called in to dance, he said, “Don't worry about it. Tell the minister that they are treated like fine race horses”. That was the Toronto immigration lawyer's attitude when asked to explain the terms and conditions of employment. In other words, he is keeping a stable of exotic dancers, of strippers.

We know that as many 500 of these women have been lost. They have literally slipped through the cracks at Immigration Canada. They were corralled in Romania and Hungary, where Canadian immigration officers, to enable the demand for these exotic dancers by Toronto immigration lawyers, were sent to actually recruit dancers. Taxpayers' money was spent for immigration officers to actually station themselves in Romania and sign up as many as 200 of these exotic dancer visa applicants at a time.

Then, when the women do in fact come to Canada, they find that over time their papers are taken away from them. This is the accusation made. We heard testimony to this effect on that news show which was recently broadcast. This would be a violation of and a crime under Bill C-49. As for their working conditions, they are told that their travel is restricted and they have to stay in a certain hotel. Often they are locked in certain hotel rooms, and exotic dancing leads to lap dancing, which leads to pornography and has led to prostitution, and then the women disappear.

This is horrific, whole scale, widespread exploitation of women that not only involves human trafficking but is modern day slavery. As for the fact that my own government, the Government of Canada, was facilitating this, I find it hard to get my mind around that. The fact that it was allowed to continue by otherwise progressive and feminist ministers of immigration is mind-boggling to me.

I have to rise and ask my colleague from Davenport how he squares that in his own mind. The Liberals have a Minister of Justice doing and saying all the right things internationally about trying to be at the leading edge in putting a stop to the international trafficking of human beings, whereas our own recent experience right up until a few months ago was that we were actually engaged in what I call the human trafficking and exploitation and sex slavery of women from East European countries.

God knows what happened to the 500 women who have disappeared. Maybe they have been smuggled out of the country again. That is most serious form of trafficking. Even if it was not illegal trafficking to get the women here, it certainly became illegal trafficking when they were moved across another border into the United States or God knows where.

There is an underworld that exists for this international trafficking of human beings and clearly that underworld exists in this country. I accuse that Toronto immigration lawyer of being part of that underworld. These people know who they are. They are very well known. They are in the Yellow Pages. I could tell this House their names, but I will not bother in this place because it is not worth the hassle of agitating lawyers.

In actual fact, Canada has been complicit in this international trafficking of human beings in recent years. I do not know if we have the right to be pious about our introduction of Bill C-49. When I raise this issue, it is not to be critical of the intentions and the goals of Bill C-49. These are laudable concepts. I would expect nothing else from a country such as Canada but to put in place perhaps the toughest human trafficking legislation in the world. I would be very proud.

There is one thing about Canada and our adherence to and ratification of international conventions and treaties. I have always been very proud that we do not ratify international conventions and treaties unless we actually intend to comply with and abide by them.

It has actually held us back in some respects. I have always been a little bit embarrassed that Canada has never ratified the international convention against child labour. Canada has not done that for specific reasons. In some of our prairie provinces it is not unusual for kids to be taken out of school at harvest time and seeding time to help their families around the farm. Even though we do not consider that child labour, that would be in slight violation of the literal interpretation of ILO convention 183 against child labour. We have not ratified that convention.

I raise that only as an example. I have found it a source of pride that when Canada participates in an international convention or agreement we do it with our eyes open and with every intention of complying to the letter of the law.

How, then, do we work with our partners and colleagues internationally to stem this rising tide of the trafficking of human beings when we knowingly and willingly allow this horror to take place with our eyes open?

I say “allow it to take place” because it has been at least five years since I have been aware of this stripper program, this exotic dancer visa immigration special deal to supply the pornography and sex trade with fresh, young, vulnerable women from desperate circumstances. That has been Canadian policy. It has been a big chunk of the immigration department that has been allocated to this one program. I am not trying to say that it is a third of the department's budget or anything, but it is to the point where full time officers were sent to Romania and Hungary to meet with and interview women specifically for that program.

I would argue that more care and attention have been put into the stripper program, the exotic dancer visa program, than the live-in caregiver program that provides domestic help from places like the Philippines. These programs are on a comparable scale. The difference is that on the one side we are condemning someone to sexual slavery and exploitation and on the other side we are providing a legitimate, hourly paid job at above minimum wage with Saturdays and Sundays off. This is a glaring contrast.

How could anybody in all good conscience allow this number of years to go by and be complicit with and in direction and control of a program that is tantamount to modern day sexual slavery? It absolutely boggles my mind.

As we dwell today on Bill C-49, we are talking about introducing stiff penalties for things like seizing workers' travel documents and passports. Under Bill C-49, that would be a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. That is a heavy penalty. That is far more than one would get for stealing money in the sponsorship program, so obviously the Government of Canada frowns on the idea of seizing someone's personal passport and not allowing him or her to travel.

Yet it has overlooked this in the stripper programs for years, forcing these women into labour conditions that may resemble slavery more than anything. That would be a penalty punishable by Bill C-49. What I mean by this is modern day bondage, where persons have to pay back their bond before they are allowed to begin earning a normal income.

This is exactly the structure of the exotic dancer program, which was allowed to proliferate for so many years. The women are brought over here and are told they have to pay off their travel costs first. It is a classic organized crime structure. That travel costs figure seems to be never ending. It seems to compound. They have an impossible task. They can never seem to pay it off. Therefore, their servitude and their bondage extend and extend. It is in fact modern day slavery.

On exploitation in terms of pornography and the smuggling of children, I have a researcher in Ireland who follows the human sex trade trafficking issue. It is his full time occupation. He phoned our office saying that some of the women who were imported into the exotic dancer visa program and who came to Canada were in fact under age and using false documents. In fact, this Irish non-profit organization is accusing Canada not just of trafficking and smuggling human beings in order to pimp for the underworld, but of trafficking in children, in underage, young, vulnerable women. This is information we will have to collaborate on, but it is not beyond the realm of possibility that a young woman desperate enough to come to Canada to change her circumstances may in fact have been casual about the age she put on the application.

I condemn in the strongest possible terms the Toronto immigration lawyers who own the strip clubs and who convinced the Liberal government to allow them to import these many hundreds of women.

I condemn the government for allowing this program to exist. I cannot believe how callous and uncaring it must be.

I am sympathetic to the immigration workers, some of whom have complained to me how terrible they feel about the fact that part of their job was to enable and facilitate the importation of these women under this visa program.

I have never yet met anyone who was actually stationed in Romania and Hungary, but I have met co-workers who have told me about one particular woman who was stationed there and whose job essentially was to gather up fresh meat for the pornography and prostitution industry in Canada. They have told me how sick to her stomach she felt in exploiting other women in that way, all of it with the royal seal of approval of the Government of Canada.

I am not speaking today in an effort to make us feel bad about ourselves, but I am asking us to take a long, hard look at ourselves. We may feel good and puff our chests up with pride that today we are debating a bill that will in fact address trafficking of humans. We also may say all the right things at public forums and international conventions on this subject. We would be the first at the United Nations to condemn this in the strongest possible terms, I have no doubt, but let us take a hard look at what we have allowed to happen in recent years.

Let me go back again to the one human trafficking issue with which I have in fact been directly involved. That was the issue of what we called economic migrants, who were washing up on the shores of British Columbia, sometimes literally. Sometimes they jumped out of boats which were in fact tied up just a few hundred yards offshore. They were swimming ashore 600 at a time. Those people all claimed refugee status. It took a number of years to work through whether in fact they were legitimate refugees seeking sanctuary or whether they were economic migrants seeking economic opportunities.

As the interviews went forward and as we found out more about these groups, it turned out that they were in fact being trafficked. They were being transported across the world for a fee of as much as $30,000 to $40,000. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration took a group of us as a committee to the Chinese port in Fujian province that these people left from, which we had envisioned as a small village where people perhaps had rice paddies with water buffalo and wore those straw hats. In actual fact, it is a city of five million people and has skyscrapers that compete with downtown Toronto's.

The economic migrants being trafficked by illegal snakehead smugglers had the $30,000 or $40,000 to give the snakeheads, my point being that it is a very lucrative and profitable enterprise. In fact, there are not many other criminal activities one can undertake in developing nations and third world countries that would pay that kind of return. In a country where $350 is the average annual income, $30,000 rivals any trafficking of drugs.

Trafficking in humans, I argue, is more lucrative than the trafficking of any kind of contraband substance, with the possible exception of medicines. I understand that some medical products in fact exceed the profit margin one can make on human beings, but trafficking in human beings is an ancient and evil concept and is certainly one that I support abolishing.

The international community should unite in condemning and squashing the international trafficking and trade of humans, but let us as Canadians go into this with our eyes open and acknowledge and apologize to the international community for the role that we have played in supplying Toronto immigration lawyers with strippers that they could then sell into prostitution and pornography. God knows what has happened to them.

As I condemn those lawyers and I condemn this government, I apologize to the women who have been exploited by the Government of Canada through the exotic dancer program. I hope they are well and have survived their ordeal.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a brief follow up. The member for Davenport specifically cited aspects of Bill C-49 that had strict penalties for things like seizing the travel documents of foreign workers so that they cannot leave and forcing them into labour conditions that more resemble slavery.

I ask my colleague to reconsider his remarks. Surely he followed the Toronto Star and the widespread journalism coverage of specific bars in Toronto that had visitor work visas for exotic dancers but the women were in fact treated like sex slaves. These women had their travel documents taken away from them and they were forced into activities that they did not wish to go into, pornography and prostitution, and their wages were withheld. It was human bondage.

Will my colleague at least concede that this has been an extended problem within his own jurisdiction in Toronto stemming from Canada immigration policies that have been at least enabling and facilitating the trafficking of human beings with the government's exotic dancer visa program?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I noted from the comments of my colleague from Davenport that Bill C-49 proposes stiff penalties for those who would exploit women and children and in the trafficking of women and children.

What would be the application of Bill C-49 in a situation where the Government of Canada put immigration workers over in Romania and Budapest to seduce young women to come to Canada under the exotic dancer's visa and then to have these women imported by immigration lawyers in Toronto who own the strip clubs and have these women by the hundreds fall into what can only be categorized as sex slavery and human bondage?

Could the hon. member, as a representative of the government side, tell me how Bill C-49 would apply to this wholesale human trafficking that was the exotic dancers program with his government pimping for the underworld to import strippers who then get lost into pornography and prostitution by the hundreds? How would it deal with the mess that his government has created with its own trafficking of sex trade workers?

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-49, an act to amend the Criminal Code, trafficking in persons. The bill is unquestionably an important step toward protecting the vulnerable and is also a reflection of the government's commitment to ensuring Canadians clearly recognize and strongly denounce the practice of human trafficking.

Bill C-49 demonstrates the government's commitment to these priorities as it introduces indictable offences to address the horrible human rights violation that is human trafficking.

The main offence related to the trafficking in persons would essentially prohibit anyone from engaging in specified acts such as recruiting, transporting, harbouring or controlling the movements of another person for the purpose of exploiting or facilitating the exploitation of that person. Under Bill C-49, this offence becomes punishable up to life imprisonment depending on the severity and the harmfulness the trafficking caused the victims and Canadian society.

Bill C-49 would not only protect the vulnerable but it would also serve to deter those who seek to profit from the exploitation of others by making it an offence to receive a financial or material benefit knowing that it results from the trafficking of persons. An individual found guilty of this offence could face up to 10 years imprisonment for their involvement in trafficking.

Bill C-49 proposes to forbid the withholding or destroying of travel or identity documents in order to commit or facilitate the trafficking of persons. Involvement in this type of conduct would be punishable by a maximum of five years imprisonment.

Recently in a report released on May 11 by the international labour organization, it was estimated that 2.45 million people around the world are forced into labour conditions as a result of human trafficking. Who are the primary victims? They are women and children. UNICEF has estimated that 1.2 million children are being trafficked around the world each year.

Numbers like these demonstrate the magnitude as well as the urgency of strengthening both domestic and international measures to combat human trafficking. It is our duty to ensure that we have the best response possible to this horrible crime that violates the most basic human rights.

Bill C-49 would strengthen Canada's legal framework by building upon existing local and global responses to human trafficking. Currently, there are many international mechanisms that respond to human trafficking, including the most recent one which is the United Nations Conventions Against Transnational Organized Crime and its supplemental protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children. These offer a widely accepted international framework for addressing this issue. Bill C-49 more clearly reflects this framework.

Canada's approach, as it is stated in Bill C-49, focuses on the prevention of trafficking, the protection of its victims and the prosecution of the offenders. The reforms proposed by Bill C-49 send a direct message to those who seek to exploit the most vulnerable members of our society through this intolerable form of conduct.

Bill C-49 would strengthen Canada's current responses to trafficking by building upon existing provisions in the Criminal Code and would also complement the provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that look to prevent Canada's border from being breached by human trafficking smugglers.

The government is also working to address human trafficking in a non-legislative manner as well. In April 2004 the Department of Justice launched a website on trafficking persons. This website provides important information for the public describing the problems and providing related links.

Education and awareness are moving forward through the development within Canada and to Canadian embassies in the form of posters and information pamphlets which are both available in 14 different languages.

Training and education about human trafficking began with a training seminar in March 2004. This program was co-hosted by the Department of Justice Canada and the International Organization for Migration. A similar seminar was also hosted by the RCMP in May in Vancouver.

I support Bill C-49 because it demonstrates our commitment to bringing human trafficking to an end. The bill serves to protect millions of women and children and would hold traffickers accountable. I hope all members recognize the importance of the bill and vote in favour of this important legislation.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity, even at this late hour, to speak to Bill C-49. I want to take the opportunity to recap some of the items in the bill that relate particularly to vulnerable persons.

We have heard some very eloquent testimony here this afternoon on some of the situations that young people in this country find themselves in. The message that Bill C-49 sends is both strong and clear. It sends the message that the full force of the criminal law will be brought to bear on those who seek to take advantage of those who are indeed the most vulnerable among us.

We know that the crime of human trafficking disproportionately impacts on vulnerable people, particularly women and children who are preyed upon, exploited and abused for the profit of others. About 98% of those forced into commercial sexual exploitation are women and children. They are often lured through false promises of employment and working conditions that would benefit them and their families. This type of exploitation runs contrary to the very essence of who we are as Canadians and what we value: equality, liberty and justice.

Bill C-49 would strengthen our legal framework to combat trafficking by creating three new criminal offences. These offences directly address the very heart of this terrible crime of exploitation.

The main offence of trafficking in persons would prohibit anyone from recruiting, transporting, harbouring or controlling the movements of another person in order to exploit or facilitate the exploitation of that person. It carries the Criminal Code's strongest punishment, up to life imprisonment, accordingly reflecting the abhorrent nature of this crime, the impact it has on its victims, and importantly, society's condemnation.

As I indicated, exploitation is at the very heart of this crime and Bill C-49 properly acknowledges this fact by making it a key element of the offence. This approach is important. It reflects the international community's understanding of human trafficking and more importantly, squarely addresses the very behaviour that targets the most vulnerable among us. Bill C-49 proposes to create two additional offences providing law enforcement with an expanded ability to address the full range of conduct involved in human trafficking.

The second offence would prohibit anyone from profiting from the misery of others. Bill C-49 would make it an offence to receive a financial or other material benefit knowing that it resulted from the trafficking in persons. This offence would be punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment.

The third offence would criminalize the withholding or destroying of travel or identity documents in order to commit or facilitate the trafficking in persons. This is an integral response to trafficking because we know that traffickers often withhold such documents in order to maintain control over their victims in essence to ensure that victims' vulnerability is perpetuated.

Canada continues to be in the vanguard of nations in the global struggle against injustice and inequality. I am pleased to note that Canada has recently ratified the optional protocol to the convention on the rights of the child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. This ratification underscores our commitment, both domestically and internationally, to protect children from all forms of exploitation including trafficking.

Bill C-2, which received royal assent in July, further underscores this commitment. Bill C-2 builds upon already expansive criminal law protections and offers even greater protections for children and other vulnerable persons through enhanced penalties for those crimes involving the sexual exploitation of children and through expanding the use of testimonial aids to children and other vulnerable persons.

The government has an ongoing and strong commitment to the protection of the vulnerable and I believe that Bill C-49 is a further step in the right direction. I understand that the whole of government's approach to trafficking reflects the international community's approach to human trafficking, namely, to prevent trafficking, protect its victims and prosecute the offenders. A working group has been tasked with the development of a federal strategy and that work, I believe, is currently underway. Bill C-49 is an important part of this comprehensive approach and it will help us accomplish these prevention, protection and prosecution objectives.

I appreciate that Bill C-49 represents one component of a larger federal response to this issue and supports as well the government's numerous activities to combat trafficking in persons in all its forms. These include, for example, partnering with members of civil society to develop the capacity to properly respond to the needs of victims of this terrible crime. I also understand that the government has been active in developing prevention and awareness materials and in delivering training seminars on the dangers of human trafficking.

I, along with most members of the House, support all of these efforts. Bill C-49 is a critical step toward better addressing human trafficking in all its manifestations, both domestically and internationally. It proposes welcomed criminal law reforms that will enable Canada to continue to show global leadership on the protection of the vulnerable. I hope all members of the House will strongly support this bill. It is an important one for our communities.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Madam Speaker, the question is particularly relevant, and typical of our colleague from Abitibi-Témiscamingue.

When I met with the Franciscans International, they provided me with the ratification schedule. With respect to the convention in question, for example, more than 100 countries have ratified it. I am not familiar with the details of this convention, however, and I do not know why Canada did not ratify it.

I hope that someone on the government side—the parliamentary secretary or anyone else in a position of authority—will be able to enlighten us. This is very disturbing. I think this situation ought to be remedied.

Of course, my hon. colleague understands that this in no way affects the relevance of Bill C-49. The Bloc upholds its brilliant tradition of defending the interests of Quebec. As the hon. member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie points out in many of his speeches, when a bill is good for Quebec, the Bloc supports it, and when a bill is bad for Quebec, the Bloc opposes it. In this particular case, we stand for the interests of Quebec and will therefore support the bill.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank you for allowing me to participate in this important debate on Bill C-49, which is clearly on a timely topic, trafficking in persons.

A few years ago, we were concerned about cross-border crime. Moving forward, we have realized that there is now something that is just as great a concern, namely trafficking in persons. The United Nations has set up a special working group on trafficking in persons. It has determined that about 15 million people a year could be subject directly or indirectly, within various migratory flows, to trafficking or the sex trade or exploitation.

This is therefore a very important question. During my speech, I will have occasion to refer to a document on sex workers and prostitution that was provided to us in connection with our work on the Subcommittee on Solicitation Laws, created by the Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. This document was produced by Citizenship and Immigration Canada and also the RCMP. It is a joint classified document which we obtained through our clerk. It is very interesting because it is a matter of costs and large international circuits with consequences on the human level and for national security. “National security” is used here in reference to illegal immigration into Canada.

I would like to start by thanking two fellow citizens who came to see me in September. I am speaking of Danielle Julien who works for Franciscans International, an NGO that has followed very closely the entire international migration question as well as trafficking in women and, more especially, their exploitation. Franciscans International has come up with a document that is very well done called Handbook on Human Trafficking. It explains in a very educational way the issues surrounding human trafficking. I was extremely surprised to learn that Canada had not ratified.

Today, we are talking about Bill C-49, an extremely important bill, which the Bloc Québécois supports. Our party's justice critic, the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, said so this morning, and I believe the member for Québec, our status of women critic, reiterated our position. I was extremely surprised to learn that the government has not ratified the 1949 convention on the traffic of persons. It is cause for serious concern to now have a bill on such issues when Canada could have done so much more in international tribunals. A number of countries have ratified this convention, but not, unfortunately, Canada.

There are a number of tools. I want to list a number of conventions, including the one entitled “Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others”. This convention dates back to 1949, very early in the history of the United Nations, which was established in 1945. Nearly five years after the UN was created, in an already multilateral framework, member countries were taking an interest in the issue of human trafficking. Most people know, and we must admit it, that we are referring here to the trafficking of women.

It is quite incredible; I could not believe my ears. When the Franciscans came to my office in early September to talk to me about this issue, they told me that Canada had not ratified this convention. I hope that someone will explain why. I hope that the parliamentary secretary and other MPs on the government side will tell us why Canada has not ratified this convention.

I have a list here of the countries that did ratify that convention in 1949: they include Afghanistan, Argentina, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Colombia, Cyprus, Congo, Ivory Coast, Dominican Republic and Egypt. A number of countries have ratified it, but Canada still has not.

Fortunately, even if Canada has not ratified the 1949 convention, it has ratified another extremely important document, the Protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against transnational organized crime.

The document I referred to earlier, a joint effort by the RCMP and Citizenship and Immigration Canada, provides a sort of ranking as far as trafficking in persons is concerned. We know that there are four countries in the world that might be called high immigration volume countries, and one of these is of course Canada. We receive between 220,000 and 240,000 immigrants yearly. On October 1 each year, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration has to disclose the planned quotas for immigrants.

I will point out in passing that Canada specializes more in economic immigration. The main interest is in independent workers, investors and family helpers. That is economic immigration and basically accounts for over 75% of those who immigrate to Canada.

So, we have four countries with a large volume of immigration: Canada, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand.

Another aside: Canada and Quebec have not made the same choice as far as models for integration are concerned. Canada has opted for multiculturalism, which means that people who have chosen Canada, whether they come from Poland, Spain, Senegal, Côte-d'Ivoire or the Dominican Republic, can maintain their culture of origin but must participate in the great melting pot of the ideology that is multiculturalism.

In Quebec, because Quebec is a francophone society with a particular historical responsibility, we have not opted for multiculturalism. We have opted for a common public culture. Quebec selects approximately 40% of its immigrants. It selects mainly those who come here to work. We will select a few refugees in camps outside their own country, but essentially this is also economic immigration.

Of course, in a sovereign Quebec, we will be fully aware of the importance of selecting our immigrants. I will make another digression here. I do not want to get too far away from the issue, because this is not what my comments are about. However, one of the modern reasons why Quebec should achieve sovereignty is to able to select its immigrants. Quebec needs immigration. We have a tradition of opening our doors to immigrants and of being generous with them. It goes without saying that since Quebec does not have a fertility rate that allows for the natural reproduction or replacement of its population, it needs immigration. In a sovereign Quebec we will set up extremely generous policies to select, welcome and integrate immigrants, based however on a common public culture.

The former poet, the late Gérald Godin, who was the MNA for Mercier, and who was very appreciated in sovereignist circles, and whom the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst knew, used to say that there are one hundred ways to be a Quebecker, but that these one hundred ways all had a common denominator, namely the French language.

This is why we rejected the multiculturalism model. We are saying that one can choose Quebec, but to do so is to participate in the common public culture. That participation is achieved through a communication vector, namely the French language. That was my short digression, which of course is totally non partisan. We are all aware of the level at which our debates should take place.

So, I am now getting to the issue of human trafficking, which is an extremely important issue, at least as important as the trafficking of goods or the illegal transborder trade. The UN set up a task force in which Franciscans International, as an NGO, is recognized as a stakeholder. I looked for some figures for Canada.

I remember that when the committee was working on the issue of prostitution, we were looking for figures. It is not easy to get an assessment on such an issue.

I obtained a confidential and protected document prepared in 2002 by Immigration Canada and the RCMP. I am referring to the first paragraph, on page 6, which says: “Over a five year period, about 13% of improperly documented arrivals that came to Canada or that were intercepted en route to Canada were directly related to a trafficker or an escort”.

This means that 13% of the people who entered Canada in various ways, by air, sea or land, did not have a passport or official travel documents, and of course, did not have a visa permitting them to enter.

A little further along in the document, the RCMP and Immigration Canada make the following assessment: “If only the people arriving by airplane are considered, this proportion rises to 25.1%.”

A look at the literature on illegal immigration will show that, for Canada, it is about 10,000 people a year. This is not an insignificant number. As lawmakers, we have good reason to be concerned about this.

There is another more humanitarian consideration. We know that there are people all over the world going through upheavals in their countries: genocide, the overthrow of the political regime, famines. They are going through terrible times. Therefore they want to leave their countries. What would we do if we were in their shoes, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, or Niger, or certain countries in Africa where people cannot survive on $1 a day? We should ask ourselves the question. It is possible that we too, as human beings, would be tempted to want to improve our fate and leave our country of origin. It is not unpatriotic to want to improve one's fate.

It should be understood that in terrible situations like those I just described, people are vulnerable and put themselves in the hands of traffickers. This is why there is illegal international immigration. People take advantage of the misfortune and unhappiness of others. They demand money and hold out the possibility of coming to live in a third country. In my example, of course, we are speaking of Canada.

The document from the RCMP and Immigration Canada estimates the amount that is asked from these poor people living in anguish. I would like to quote from the document: “The fees paid by migrants to enter Canada are high. They are said to be rising. The cost depends on the means of transportation and the market. According to illegal migrants, the fees vary between US$20,000 and US$50,000.”

US$50,000 is easily C$70,000.

“Few clients are able to amass the necessary funds by liquidating their personal assets, and even fewer are prepared to risk such a large sum by paying the full price before reaching their destination. A portion of the cost of human smuggling, perhaps as little as 10% to 20%, is paid in advance. The rest is collected upon delivery to the final destination.”

Remember that we are not talking about goods here but rather about human beings.

“Partial payments of the price for smuggling may be demanded at various stages of the journey.”

That is why Bill C-49, which the Bloc Québécois supports, is so important. From now on, the Criminal Code will set out sanctions and offences. Smugglers found guilty of such a crime could face life in prison. Document forgers may easily face 10 years in prison.

When the UN Commission on Human Rights last met, for example, it mandated a special rapporteur to report before the next UN general assembly. So this is an extremely important issue that deserves the full attention of parliamentarians.

I was saying earlier that Canada has not ratified the 1949 convention. I hope that someone will tell me why. I do not understand how this bill can be adopted here, by parliamentarians, when, in a multilateral forum, a convention dating back to the early years of the UN has not been ratified.

This convention was important nonetheless, however, because it created a legal system to fight the traffic of persons and the exploitation of the prostitution of others, now called procuring, by individuals serving as intermediaries. Procuring feeds on prostitution. The convention made it a crime to arrange for or profit from the prostitution of others.

This system affects women, children and some men, but obviously this reality applies mainly to women.

Canada's ratification of the 1949 convention must be a source of concern. As Franciscans International pointed out to me, it is extremely embarrassing when NGOs are working with the UN Human Rights Commission, for example, and there is talk of a bill, like Bill C-49 or Bill C-2 in the past, yet the convention has not been ratified.

I will say something about the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. That protocol contains something of interest, something that is in fact basic: the whole issue of victim consent. This protocol is an important tool.

For the first time, this protocol gives a definition of the phenomenon which consists of abuse of authority, as well as one for victim consent. We know that traffickers often make use of threats, blackmail, constraints, kidnapping, fraud, trickery, false promises, swindles and abuse of authority. The trade exists because of these ingredients.

This protocol, which has been ratified by Canada, is one of the means that has been used where victim consent, whether freely given or invalid, cannot be used as a pretext to excuse some action by a smuggler.

In other words, the mere fact that these means have been used is sufficient in itself to bring the law into play, regardless of the victim's wish or acceptance of the exploitation.

In closing, let me say that this is a bill supported by the Bloc Québécois and dealing with an extremely significant phenomenon. The entire Bloc Québécois parliamentary team will work diligently to help it pass.

[Randy White, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to talk about the things that we support in Bill C-49. I am going to relay to members of the House and people listening across this country some situations that I have been involved with that involve exploitation. They are not situations involving the exploitation of somebody outside the country; it is the exploitation of somebody here in our country.

What I am about to describe happens all the time to young girls and boys in Canada. I am going to tell the House about a young man who was in grade 11 who was approached by a gang of bottom dwelling thugs who sell drugs. These thugs approached him with bats and golf clubs and said that they would not only beat him but they would thoroughly and resoundingly pound his younger brother and sister and grandmother if he did not join them. I am telling this story for the first time and everything is absolutely factual. This young man decided to go with this gang because he did not want his family harmed. He was taken away to a home in the city and tortured. He was deprived of sleep and food and was beaten quite resoundingly.

They said that he was now a member of their gang and that he would be the muscle, meaning he would collect drug bills. It is also the most dangerous job one could get in a gang that sells drugs. Normally the people who owe the gang are delinquent. When someone as the muscle goes to collect from them, that person may be harmed, shot or any other such thing.

This young fellow managed to get away from that group. He went into hiding. He thought he was safe. He went out a little while later and the gang got him again. They beat him resoundingly. I am talking about a 16 year old.

It is said that once people are in a gang in Canada they are in it forever.

The gang assigned to this young fellow a debt owed by another fellow who worked for the gang who had been picked up by the police and lost $3,000 worth of drugs. He was told he must pay this debt. He could not pay it of course. He was not paid for being muscle because he was in fact coerced into going with them.

The young fellow got away from them a second time, but the third time he was not so lucky. They tortured him. They burned his hand thoroughly with a knife blade right through his hand. He is currently in hiding.

Why do I relay this story? This is not about somebody we are shipping out of this country. This is something that is happening to children every day in Canada. This is not an isolated story. This is about what I call bottom dwelling thugs who think they can run our communities by stealing our kids off the street and threatening them and getting them into the drug trade. Once they are into the drug trade, they eventually are wanted by the police or other drug dealers. The police do not know any different. As far as they know the individual is in the drug trade.

This young man was forced into that. He has never done drugs. He has never gotten into trouble at school. He has passed every year. But now he cannot get into school because he poses a risk to the other students should he go back in and the gang tries to get him.

If we talk about exploitation of our children, we had better wake up to the fact that they are being exploited in our communities by people who think they should run our communities their way. This happens a lot in Vancouver. It happens in every city across the country. There are people who do not deserve to be outside; they deserve to be in jail, quite frankly. They are exploiting our children. When children go missing and we cannot understand it, we should not first think that they got into drugs and left home. There could very well be other reasons, such as they have been taken by a gang and coerced into doing what they are doing. In fact, they may even be protecting their families because as far as they know great damage would come to their families and their siblings should they not do what they are told to do. This is serious. This bill on exploitation of people had better cover this.

My question earlier to colleagues on the other side asked whether or not the maximum penalties would be a decent deterrent. My concern is that we will end up like we do on a lot of the drug issues, that these kinds of issues will end up in court and the judge will issue some minor penalty.

One might ask why this young fellow did not go to the police. Well, he did, of course. The comment from the police was that he should leave town and finish grade 12. Why was that comment made? Because if the gang members ended up going to court, they would likely get little or no penalty and would come looking for him. The police suggested that he leave town. That is just unacceptable. What that is saying is that we have lost confidence in the court system to issue adequate penalties to these bottom dwelling thugs who will only go back and make life miserable for this young man and his family. This is unacceptable.

We have lost confidence and the police have lost confidence in our judicial system to administer the justice system, to add deterrents for people like that. That is why I say there is a serious problem. The maximum penalties, if the judges issue minor penalties, we might as well kiss them goodbye when these young people come to us and say they need help. They will not come forward, as this young man does not want to, because they do not believe they can get help.

I am sincere when I say this to members on the other side. This is a good bill, but my concern is that if there are no minimum penalties for such disgusting behaviour by these bottom dwelling thugs, nothing is going to happen. They are going to continue to take kids off the street and abuse them.

This young fellow has been in hiding for five or six weeks now. He cannot stay there forever, but he is afraid to come outside. What do these thugs do? They do not wait for him to come and join them, they go get other children. They get another one, and if that does not work out, they will get another one. When does it become our children that they get? At what point do we say they cannot have any of them, that it is they who have to leave the community? This has got to stop.

I hope this bill is a good bill, I sincerely do, but we must give confidence to these young men and girls who are being exploited in their own communities to be muscle or to drive those drug cars. It happens all the time. What I related to members is not an isolated incident. I can tell members about the young girl who was in a crack house being exploited by 30 and 40 year old men. When her mother went to the police and said she had to get her daughter out of there, they said, “The age of sexual consent is 14. She can stay. She is 15 years old”. The mother could not go get her. They went to welfare, who said to send her over and they would give her a cheque. What kind of answer is that?

The problem lies in the confidence, or the lack thereof, in our justice system. I am not trying to make politics out of this. I have been in and out of these courtrooms for 13 years with victims of crime. I know what I am talking about. We do not have confidence in the judicial decisions any more. I have seen it in hundreds of cases related to the growing of marijuana. I have seen it in dozens of cases related to crystal meth. I have seen it with James Armbruster, who had 63 prior convictions before he raped yet another woman in my riding. One of those convictions was for raping his grandmother. Do we have confidence in those judges who should have put that person behind bars after 10, 15, 30, 40, 50 or 60 convictions?

Maximum penalties are not doing the trick. We in this House have an obligation to put an end to the tyranny of these drug gangs and these frequent and consistent repeat offenders.

I think I got my message across. I hope those who are watching outside of this House send e-mails to acknowledge their frustrations with the court system that is not addressing the problem. This young man needs help. So do the young men and women who are being coerced into these drug gangs every day. We have been looking at this wrong.

I spent a lot of time with people involved in drugs. Often people say, “Well, another kid gone bad. He must be doing drugs, breaking the law”. I did not realize the extent to which they are being forced to be involved in these drug gangs, until now. I have run across it a number of times. I know what we are addressing here but what is bothering me and what we must keep in mind is that trafficking of people is going on in our communities as I speak.

I can talk about high schools and their sex clubs. Does everybody know what a sex club is? A sex club is young girls doing tricks in high school. They do a trick and they get a cap or they get a joint laced with meth or whatever they are looking for. They do not see this as prostitution. It is seen as a one on one trade but it is exploitation as its worse. These young kids may think it is trade but they get the worst deal of all: a life of addiction. This kind of stuff is exploitation. It is not just grabbing a child or somebody off the street and sending them to China or some other country. Exploitation is going on in our schools every day.

We have a minority government situation. It really is incumbent upon all of us to quit with the partisan politics. We need to start listening and if this is the case and it is in our communities, and it is, then we need to do something about it. I sincerely hope this bill addresses it but I fear it will not. I am leaving the House of Commons but I hope those left after me will think of this and keep on top of it because this young man today needs our help. He has no confidence, nor do I or the police, that a judge is going to give it to him.

By the way, after the lawyer, who is paid by the known drug gang, gets through defending these thugs that is when the plea bargaining starts, the deals are made and the judge says that he knows the poor little boy kidnapped somebody and forced the person to deal drugs but he had a bad upbringing. We have to forget that kind of story. These people are hauling our kids out of school. One of the conditions these people have is that they cannot go to school.

Who are these people? Who in the name of blue blazes do these people think they are? Do we not run this country? Are we not in charge? Is someone not capable of hauling these people off the streets and doing something with them?

I support the bill but I sincerely hope the government moves away from this business of maximum penalties. I have seen too much for too long to have confidence that it will be applied appropriately. There are too many people counting on us to do better.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak on Bill C-49, the act to amend the Criminal Code in regard to trafficking in persons.

These proposed reforms will strengthen Canada's response to this horrible crime, a crime that victimizes the most vulnerable. We know that children are disproportionately at risk of being trafficked. UNICEF has estimated that as many as 1.2 million children are trafficked globally each year. The International Labour Organization has estimated that of the 2.45 million people who are in situations of forced labour at any given time as a result of trafficking, 40% to 50% are children.

Children, along with women, are generally the primary victims of trafficking. In fact, they are almost exclusively the victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation. The International Labour Organization estimates that 98% of those forced into commercial sexual exploitation are women and girls.

This estimate reflects just how susceptible the most vulnerable members of our society are to this crime. Although children are the most vulnerable to being trafficked for sexual exploitation, they are also forced into other kinds of work such as domestic labour, which often involves sexual abuse. In some parts of the world, children are also trafficked for their body organs, if we can believe it, or as child soldiers. These children are treated like objects to be owned, used, sold, mistreated and abused.

Children's evolving capacity and dependency make them the most vulnerable members of society. They are at a much higher risk of being exploited and abused, and those who suffer socio-economic and other disadvantages are at an even greater risk. No child should have to suffer like that.

I understand that Canada is actively engaged, both domestically and internationally, in the fight against trafficking. I am convinced that our efforts put us on the right track. We must continue to be at the forefront of this global effort.

Canada's ratification on September 14 of the optional protocol to the convention on the rights of the child, on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, is one example of this government's commitment to protecting children from trafficking and other forms of abuse and exploitation. Bill C-2, which received royal assent this past July, is another example.

Bill C-49 contains criminal law reforms which, once enacted, would expand the availability of existing testimonial aids to children as well as to other vulnerable victims and witnesses to ensure that such victims can provide a full and candid account.

I am proud to rise today to support Bill C-49, which proposes three new offences that will specifically target trafficking in persons. It will strengthen our ability to hold perpetrators to account for treating others in a way that is unfathomable and abhorrent to Canadian society and the world. These reforms will offer law enforcement additional tools to combat trafficking-related conduct and will assist in protecting victims by denouncing and deterring this heinous practice.

The proposed new reforms would create a main offence of trafficking in persons, prohibiting anyone from engaging in specified acts such as recruiting, transporting, harbouring or controlling the movements of another person for the purpose of exploiting or facilitating the exploitation of that person. It would be punishable by a maximum penalty of life imprisonment where it involves the kidnapping, aggravated assault or aggravated sexual assault or death of the victim and to a maximum of 14 years' imprisonment in any other case.

I note with approval that exploitation would be a key element of the trafficking offence. Exploitation is really the aspect that makes this crime so reprehensible. I support this approach, as it would clarify that our criminal law sanctions severely those who would exploit others for their own gain.

Two additional offences would also be created, one prohibiting anyone from receiving a financial or other material benefit for the purpose of committing or facilitating the trafficking of a person, punishable by a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment, and the second prohibiting the withholding or destruction of documents, such as a victim's travel documents or documents establishing their identity, for the purpose of committing or facilitating the trafficking of that person, punishable in this case by a maximum penalty of five years.

I am convinced that this bill, once enacted, will assist law enforcement in holding to account those who would traffic children to exploit them for sexual or other purposes. It will help us deter this type of conduct and, in so doing, it will help us protect vulnerable children. I hope all hon. members will support Bill C-49.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for allowing me to put a question to my colleague, the hon. member for Québec. I know that she is doing an outstanding job on status of women issues brought before this House. There are two bills in particular, namely Bill C-53, which is currently before the committee—I will have the opportunity to work on it in the coming months—and particularly Bill C-49, which I hope will be passed by this House and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness as soon as possible.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague the same question I asked of the previous speaker. I did not get a very clear answer from the department or from the member opposite. I know that my hon. colleague has done extensive work on this issue.

There is a clause in Bill C-49 that is of particular interest to us. I will quote it. It deals with causing:

—by means of deception or the use or threat of force or of any other form of coercion, to have an organ or tissue removed.

Under Bill C-49, this would be illegal and would be prosecuted under the Criminal Code as aggravated assault and assault with a weapon. I wonder if this will apply to the same extent to the whole issue of female circumcision.This is an issue that has been much publicized, without ever being settled. With this bill, could those who, directly or indirectly, commit this kind of aggravated assault on women be prosecuted? That was my question to the hon. member.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me a chance to speak today on Bill C-49 so that the Bloc Québécois can state its position on this matter. This bill is of special interest to me in my capacity as status of women critic. This is a new job for me. The Bloc leader has asked me to be the status of women critic for the next session. I am also the social development critic. This is an important job as well because it is a matter of poverty, equity and quality of life.

Bill C-49 has to do with trafficking in persons. It is an alarming and revolting subject in some regards. It could also be said that the life story of abused people is deeply upsetting and morally unacceptable.

We know that some people profit from human misery—from the misery of certain people and cultures. Faced with these human tragedies, we as legislators must also do what we can and make our contribution toward a better understanding of how this Mafia-like crime works.

Today we offer our raised awareness and our understanding of this matter and the extent of the problem.

This is a complex subject with a number of aspects. Various people are involved. First there are those who are exploited: the women, children and men. Then there are the exploiters. Who are these people who profit from the situation? We know that there is a whole chain of activities from which a number of people benefit.

Today the Bloc Québécois considers Bill C-49 a step in the right direction, not just because it will provide a better framework for the drafters of the Criminal Code but also because it will make it possible to prosecute the people who benefit. There is a better definition of recruitment. It says, for example, how individuals are transported and how their housing makes it possible for the victims to be abused. This includes exploitation in the sex trade. That cannot be denied.

We were speaking earlier about trafficking in women. When a connection is drawn with prostitution, trafficking in women and children for the purposes of prostitution, we can see that we must be very vigilant about taking action with the Criminal Code. We must be better able to meet the needs of the people who are being exploited.

The purpose of this bill is to ban trafficking in persons. This means that those profiting from such trafficking will be doubly penalized. People have gone so far as to destroy or conceal I.D. in order to facilitate trafficking in persons.

All those who are involved in trafficking of persons will be prosecuted: those who are engaged in trafficking, those who receive financial gain from it, those who destroy or conceal identity documents in order to facilitate the offence of trafficking in persons. These are the ones who will be penalized the most heavily under the Criminal Code.

Under Bill C-49, anyone found guilty of trafficking in persons will receive a life sentence. There are also provisions for accomplices to a kidnapping, aggravated assault or sexual assault, or the death of a victim during the commission of the offence. They will be liable to a prison sentence of 10 years.

Any person who takes financial advantage of forced labour, which is another thing imposed on the victims of trafficking of persons, would be liable to a maximum 10 year sentence. Five years would also be a possibility for those taking possession of identity or travel documents belonging to a victim. Those destroying identity documents would also be liable to a prison sentence.

With this bill, a whole chain of individuals linked to the human trafficking trade will be far more heavily punished.

We know that the Minister of Justice tabled eight clauses on May 12, 2005. These very brief clauses will amend the law and create three new offences:

(a) create an offence of trafficking in persons that prohibits a person from engaging in specified acts for the purpose of exploiting or facilitating the exploitation of another person;

(b) create an offence that prohibits a person from receiving a financial or other material benefit that they know results from the commission of the offence of trafficking in persons;

(c) create an offence that prohibits concealing, removing, withholding or destroying travel documents—

The foregoing is part of the summary of the bill, which will amend the Criminal Code and create three new offences.

The bill also defines the concept of exploitation as it relates to human trafficking, for instance forcing a person to work or provide services, including services of a sexual nature, causing a victim to believe that their safety or that of a person close to them would be threatened if they failed to do what is required of them. The same goes for causing a person, by means of deception or the use or threat of force or of any other form of coercion, to have an organ or tissue removed.

These are the changes contained in the bill with respect to exploitation as it relates to trafficking in persons.

Human trafficking could be described as modern slavery. As we know, the first to be exploited are women and children, the most vulnerable in society. Also, on certain continents, the victims are individuals living in minimal conditions for survival.

Everyone involved in trafficking, be it to recruit, transport or house for the purpose of sexual or other exploitation, has to be punished. The victims are first deceived, and often coerced. This is taking place here, in Canada. It is reported that 800 persons are the victims of this kind of abuse in Canada every year. We thought this could not happen in our country, that it only happened in developing countries or in countries that turn a blind eye to trafficking in women, children and men. Such trafficking exists for all sorts of purposes; it may be for purposes of sexual exploitation or for labour purposes.

In 2000, the United Nations published a report on trafficking in women. Canada is said to be among the 30 top destinations. The countries involved are divided into countries of origin, transit and destination for this type of trafficking. We must therefore be extremely vigilant.

I am pleased to see the Criminal Code further strengthened today, so that something can be done about this. We are aiming for zero tolerance in terms of violence against women, but also with respect to human trafficking.

This also allows us to raise public awareness. This is modern-day slavery. Many might think that slavery existed in another century and that we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the end of racial exploitation. However, this type of slavery still exists today.

We know there were a number of events to celebrate the abolition of slavery, but this type of slavery still goes on today. In the context of globalization, the transfer of individuals takes place much more quickly and we know this type of trade is in demand.

Without a stringent Criminal Code, there is permissiveness. This allows traffickers or the mafia to set up in countries that are more lax.

In addition, the 2000 United Nations report on trafficking in women recommends that countries review their overly restrictive, even anti-immigration, approaches, as I was saying. Earlier someone asked what we could do to be more understanding with respect to this type of trafficking. Some people want to emigrate to other countries where living conditions seem better. We could stop granting so many temporary visas to tourists, instead of putting the brakes on real immigration possibilities for some.

This is a recommendation from the 2000 United Nations report on trafficking in women. It is a question of responsible immigration policies.

There is fertile ground for the growth and perpetuation of the exploitation of women. Victims should not be treated as illegal immigrants. This is an area that could be addressed much more proactively. It is a matter of having policies on illegal immigrants, not treating victims as illegal immigrants or criminals, but as women, children, even men who have been abused by people who are part of a mafia, who want to exploit them and who take all human dignity away from those who have suffered this abuse.

A 2005 report by the International Labour Organization estimated that at least 2.4 billion people in the world are victims of abuse, threatened physically or psychologically by their attackers. Their labour is also exploited.

Some of these people are threatened physically, are forced into prostitution or jobs in various sectors that are poorly paid, if at all. There is the construction sector, for instance, but also agriculture, in which some people from other countries work. Here too there are abuses in regard to working conditions and pay.

This entire work-related sector represents US$32 billion on a global scale. That is a lot of money. Who benefits? It is the companies that may pay a little less for clothing and all kinds of services and materials. At the same time, other people suffer the effects of reducing the cost of clothing or other things we use in our daily lives.

The report also emphasizes that forced labour can be abolished if governments and various national institutions take persistent, meaningful, political action. Bill C-49 can therefore be seen as part of a slightly more determined demonstration of their commitment to the abolition of certain conditions in which people live.

In addition, the legislation must be strengthened. The report states as well that governments should become involved in eradicating this kind of treatment of human beings. This concerns not just a country but the entire international community. According to the 2005 report of the International Labour Organization, we need to do more than simply encourage governments to change their laws and adopt policies to eradicate such treatment of human beings.

The report also calls for the creation of a global alliance. We cannot do this in isolation, each of us in our own corner. A global alliance is needed, involving all levels of government, employer and employee organizations, development agencies, financial institutions, civil society, research institutions and academics. It would be a grand coalition that could be much more vigilant on a number of social levels.

It is to be hoped that this scourge can be relegated to the past and ancient history. We hear that some countries have taken certain initiatives. For instance, the United States passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in 2000, which created new offences so that crimes in the criminal code could be punished more severely, as is now being done.

Moreover, the victims who cooperate with American authorities during the investigations are protected from deportation. The United Kingdom, France and Japan have also amended their legislation to include harsher provisions.

The fight against organized crime is also a step in the right direction. My colleague, the hon. member for Hochelaga, has worked very hard to get the government to come up with better targeted provisions against organized crime.

So, Bill C-49 is a good tool to prosecute those individuals involved in human trafficking. It is said that the fight against exploitation goes hand in hand with the fight against organized crime. Bill C-49 pursues that objective and it has the great virtue of broadening the scope of the tools available to prosecute individuals.

Criminal organizations engaged in human trafficking are first and foremost motivated by profit. The reversal of the burden of proof will facilitate the work of authorities and allow them to seize the property of individuals who are members of criminal organizations and who profit financially from the trafficking in persons.

The Bloc Quebecois has long been asking for the implementation of measures to fight organized crime more effectively. Last year, the hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles introduced Bill C-242 to allow for the reversal of the burden of proof, which would compel an offender who is found guilty of an offence related to organized crime to demonstrate on the balance of probabilities that his assets were obtained in an honest and legitimate fashion.

That is one way to go a little further than the bill before us does. We must also target organized crime. Indeed, based on all the reading that I have done, organized crime is a pillar of this trafficking of children and women. There is money to be made in it.

On March 11, 2005, an opposition day, the Bloc Québécois went a step further by presenting a motion forcing the government to table a bill to amend the Criminal Code reversing the burden of proof as regards the proceeds of crime. In response to this motion, which the House passed unanimously, the federal government tabled Bill C-53. It is essential to waging real war on organized crime and money laundering and to righting the injustice that has too long allowed criminals to profit from trafficking in humans.

Therefore, the Bloc Québécois urges the government to keep its promises and allow Bill C-53 to quickly become a reality. This bill was introduced by my Bloc colleague, the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.

As I said earlier, it is alarming and loathsome to see so many men, women and children being exploited. The theme of the 2000 World March of Women was poverty and violence, which are not too far removed from the consequences of human trafficking.

There was a committee on prostitution. Like the other parties, the Bloc will submit a report in committee about whether to decriminalize or legalize prostitution. I am not passing judgment on this important issue today. My colleague from Trois-Rivières has worked on this issue. She will tell the House about the various directions she would like to see taken with regard to this report. First, it will be subject to consideration in committee.

We must be careful when we talk about decriminalizing prostitution or drugs. It may encourage the prostitution of children, women and men. After the fall of the Soviet Union, for example, sex industry dealers engaged in the serious trafficking of women and girls from Russia and Poland to Germany and Western Europe.

Women, too often still minors, are terrorized, stripped of their papers and drugged. When they regain consciousness, they do not even know what city they are in. They are shipped from country to country like cattle. How can we ignore the many women and children all over the world who have disappeared? It is very troubling.

Today it is not only important to talk about the meaning of Bill C-49 but also to speak of all these victims and all these human dramas. I have seen a number of reports and programs on this. Very often families are affected. People go out in to the countryside telling young women they can get work in the textile industry or as hairdressers and promising them jobs. Not only are there no jobs, but they very often end up being sexually exploited.

Today there is a lot of misleading language being used. People often try to conceal the fact that this is slavery and not sexual freedom. There is a debate going on at present as to whether prostitution is a matter of free choice or nothing more than slavery. The committee that will study the report on the sexual exploitation of women will have to decide that.

There are 54 western countries, Canada among them, engaged in sex tourism and therefore controlling most of the “commodification” of women and children. So this is an issue of concern to all of us today.

I would have liked to have given more examples of these human dramas, but my time is up. I await my colleagues' comments and questions. I was very pleased to speak on this important matter.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start out on a personal note. Since I was a new member, you are one of the members of Parliament with whom I have had a very close relationship. I have enjoyed working with you and I want to wish you the best of health and thank those people who have given you strong relationships. I congratulate you for your courageous statement earlier today. Our thoughts are with you. You continue to do an excellent job in your role in serving the country.

I am pleased to rise today to speak on Bill C-49, an act to amend the Criminal Code, trafficking in persons.

Trafficking in persons is a pervasive global phenomenon. No country has been left untouched by this terrible scourge. Canada, along with the international community, recognizes the severity of the problem and is committed to addressing it, both domestically and together with its international partners.

This bill is one example of that commitment. It is part of a larger approach that involves and overarching federal anti-trafficking strategy currently being developed by an interdepartmental working group dedicated to this issue.

I support this broad based approach because it recognizes the many manifestations of this complex crime, a crime that has serious implications for victims, for law enforcement, Canadian society and the entire international community.

Such an approach must be formed by the international standards that have been developed in response to this problem, and I believe Canada's approach does just that.

The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its supplemental protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children, established the most widely accepted international framework to address trafficking. Canada was among the first nations to ratify these important instruments in May 2002.

In keeping with this framework, I understand that the federal anti-trafficking strategy will focus on the prevention of trafficking, the protection of victims and the prosecution of offenders.

As part of this approach, these proposed reforms send a very clear message that those who seek to exploit vulnerable people will be brought to justice. In particular, these criminal law reforms would strengthen our response to trafficking by building on existing provisions in the Criminal Code which address trafficking related conduct as well as the specific trafficking offence in the Immigration and Refugee Act that addresses cross-border trafficking. For those people who questioned this earlier today, there have been convictions under that act, so we are already working in that area.

These reforms would provide additional tools to better respond to the various manifestations that this crime can take, including prohibiting trafficking that occurs across and wholly within our borders and by focusing on exploitation which is at the very heart of this criminal conduct.

These continuing efforts by Canada to strengthen our responses to human trafficking are recognized internationally as well. For example, in the June annual “Trafficking in Persons Report” by the United States department of congress, which was mentioned in the debate earlier today, Canada's top tier one ranking was maintained, reflecting full compliance with minimum standards set by the United States to assess other countries' efforts addressing prevention, protection and prosecution.

Three new offences are proposed.

The main offence of trafficking in persons would prohibit anyone from engaging in specified acts such as recruiting, transporting, harbouring or controlling the movements of another person for the purpose of exploiting or facilitating the exploitation of that person. This offence is punishable by up to life imprisonment, reflecting its severity and its harmful consequences to the victims.

Second, the proposed reform seeks to deter those who would profit from the exploitation of others by making it an offence to receive a financial or material benefit knowing that it results from the trafficking of persons. The offence is punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment.

Third, the proposed reform seeks to criminalize the withholding or destroying of travel documents in order to commit or facilitate the trafficking of persons. The offence is punishable by a maximum of five years imprisonment.

The approach is consistent with the international community's understanding of this terrible crime and I rise today in strong support of these reforms, as have most speakers in the House today.

I think it is important to remember that the bill does not stand alone. In addition to the federal anti-trafficking strategy that I already mentioned, trafficking continues to be addressed through non-legislative measures as well. For example, I know that the government has undertaken numerous initiatives to combat human trafficking through the development of awareness materials such as a poster, pamphlet and website. I understand that the poster and the pamphlet have been translated into many different languages in recognition of the international nature of the crime.

I also applaud the government's continuing commitment to work in partnership with the international community to address this issue, for example through funding prevention efforts abroad, participating in various organizations, such as the United Nations, the Organization of American States and through the new security and prosperity partnership of North America.

I also would like to mention that Canada ratified the optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography on September 14. It is a further reflection of an ongoing commitment to address all aspects of trafficking, including trafficking in children.

Just recently the International Labour Organization estimated that at any given time at least 2.45 million people are in situations of forced labour as a result of human trafficking, the majority of whom are women and children, the most vulnerable members of our society. These numbers underscore the need for a comprehensive approach to this global problem. Bill C-49 represents an opportunity to strengthen Canada's approach as well as to further the government's continuing priority, the protection of the vulnerable.

I am convinced that the current broad response is what is required if we are to effectively combat this crime. Bill C-49 is an important part of this comprehensive approach to combating human trafficking.

It seems that virtually everyone is speaking today in favour of the bill and I hope we will have a speedy passage through the committee and through the various readings in the House.

The one issue that has been up for some discussion and which might be interesting to carry on was raised by Her Majesty's loyal opposition. It relates to the lack of types of sentencing on these particular crimes and perhaps in the justice system in Canada as a whole. As I mentioned earlier, I have concerns about some of the light sentences relating to the assault of women when it could ruin or destroy lives. I think members are very interested in discussing that issue.

I talked earlier about mandatory minimum sentences. It has been suggested that this particular bill, and it is the only amendment that anyone has proposed today so I should address it, is just not part of the general philosophy for general offences in Canada. There are 29 very serious offences where there are mandatory minimums and 11 more in our proposed Bill C-2. However in general it is not part of the justice system in Canada for several reasons.

First, it tends not to achieve the objectives, which is more protection and more rehabilitation of offenders. For instance, in the United States, where it has been tried, because there is a mandatory minimum what often happens is that people tend to use it as a maximum and it has ended up reducing the length of sentences which was not at all the intention of such a scheme.

Also, in Canada, rather than an arbitrary, very narrow view of sentencing, we have a very broad system of sentencing and options because there is a broad system of circumstances if one is making decisions in fairness both to the circumstances and to the productivity of the results. What Canadians and everyone else wants in a justice system are two things: protection from the offenders so that they do not offend again and rehabilitation. Not everything fits into narrow forms of incarceration limits and punishments, which is why the Canadian system of sentencing can be based on fairness with a variety of solutions to those problems.

If those are the only concerns about the bill I hope we will move very quickly. Everyone in the House agrees it is a very serious international offence. We do have some laws in place. We have some convictions. We have some other programs. We have information programs that are an important a part of our strategy. There is also prevention. It is much more effective to prevent this in the first place. It solves a lot of economic and human tragedies.

All these are part of a strategy and this particular bill is another sign to the international community and to the justice system that we take this offence very seriously. That is why we are setting out three new offences and specifically targeting this so that there is no way that offenders could escape prosecution for the serious offence in Canada that afflicts nations around the world.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour to speak today to the trafficking bill.

Injustice takes many forms and one of the most heinous is what can only be described as the modern day slavery of human trafficking.

Human trafficking is a cruel and insidious stain on collective humanity that refers to the recruitment, transportation and harbouring of a person for the purposes of exploitation involving the threat or use of force, coercion and deception.

The majority of victims are women and children who are typically forced into prostitution and other elements of the sex industry, but they can also be exploited through farm, domestic or other labour.

The victims of human trafficking are usually, although many are abducted outright, individuals desperate to flee dire economic and living conditions in their native land. Traffickers, or more accurately flesh peddlers, prey on dreams of a better life and employment to support families back home to lure unsuspecting individuals into a life of slavery.

Victims and their families are conned into believing a trafficker's false promises of a good job and wealth that awaits them in a new far off land. Often traffickers will produce a fake employment contract, fake visa or whatever to sell the victim this false opportunity. Once they arrive, however, they soon discover that the jobs do not exist and that this better life is a miserable existence in the sex trade or labour servitude.

The activities of these networks of traffickers threaten not only the lives of those affected, but also the social, political and economic fabric of nations where they operate.

Although the clandestine nature of the activity makes accurate data difficult to obtain, the UN estimates 700,000 people are trafficked annually worldwide, and these numbers are growing, of which 80% are woman and children, a majority of which are girls and women under the age of 25.

Moreover, this serious human rights violation is, according to the United Nations, the fastest growing form of transnational organized crime, generating annual global revenues exceeding $11 billion US.

Matthew Taylor with Family Child and Youth Services in Ottawa has stated, “It is the third highest source of revenue for organized crime next to drugs and firearms”.

While the cruelty and inhumanity of human trafficking cannot be quantified, I ask everyone here today to try to imagine the reality of human trafficking. I ask them for a moment to imagine that this is happening to a sister, a daughter or even to themselves.

As Leslie R. Wolfe, the president for the Center for Women Policy Studies in Washington, has asked us:

Imagine that you have left home for a new country and new economic opportunity. Imagine that you are eagerly looking forward to a job as a nanny or elder care provider or waitress--to earn money to send home to your family.

You have been brought to this new country for this wonderful job by a man or men you fear or even trust--only to find yourself imprisoned in a brothel or sweatshop.

Imagine your terror: You cannot speak the language. You are not even sure exactly where you are in this huge country. You fear the local police, who may be complicit in the trafficking--as they likely were in your home country.

You have no contacts with local people, no resources, and no knowledge of existing services such as battered women’s shelters, rape crisis centers, refugee and immigrant women’s centers.

And, of course, you are afraid to ask because you have been threatened and brutalized and your passport has been taken from you--and so you legitimately fear arrest, imprisonment, and deportation.

The nightmare continues as these victims are often forced into involuntary sexual exploitation and servitude.

As the U.S. state department trafficking in persons report states:

Victims of human trafficking pay a horrible price. Psychological and physical harm, including disease and stunted growth, often have permanent effects. Another brutal reality of the modern-day slave trade is that its victims are frequently bought and sold many times over--often sold initially by family members.

That is the terror facing countless victims of human trafficking. Some people might dismiss this as something that cannot happen here, that it is restricted to third world and impoverished developing countries. These people are wrong. Canada is not immune to this slavery of our age. The fact is we are increasingly becoming a major destination country for traffickers.

Carole Morency, senior counsel with the Department of Justice, remarked that “this is a global phenomenon that touches every country, including Canada”.

The RCMP reports that about 800 people are smuggled into this country each year. Even more troubling, Canada's Solicitor General stated that 8,000 to 16,000 illegal immigrants are forced to work in the sex trade industry.

Moreover, we have become a major transit point for trafficking to other countries with an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 people being trafficked from Canada into the U.S. a year.

According to the trafficking in persons report, British Columbia, for instance, has become an attractive hub for East Asian traffickers who smuggle South Korean women to the United States through Canada. Detective Constable Jim Fisher with the Vancouver police intelligence section supports that assessment and he has remarked that “Canada has not really come to grips with what it takes to properly police this phenomenon”.

Until the introduction of this legislation, Canada's response to this growing epidemic has been wanting at best. However, Bill C-49 strives to correct that by specifically prohibiting trafficking in persons in Canada.

At the present time the Criminal Code includes no provisions to specifically prohibit trafficking in persons, although numerous offences include kidnapping, uttering threats, and extortion which all play a role in targeting these crimes.

While the government brought Canada's first anti-trafficking legislation into force in 2002, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, prohibiting bringing anyone into Canada by means of abduction, fraud, deception with the use or threat of force or coercion, it has proven somewhat lacking with the first charges under the three year old act laid only this past spring.

Bill C-49 seeks to augment that legislation by moving the focus beyond immigration and making trafficking in persons a criminal offence. This is a positive step and one I support. However, we must note that without attaching severe and lengthy penalties for these crimes, the possibility exists that the exploitation and abuse will continue.

In Bill C-49 there are no mandatory prison sentences and imposing such would send a clear message that Canadians will have no tolerance for these flesh peddlers.

Throughout my remarks today I have referred to the trafficking in persons report produced by the United States state department. The report which monitors global human trafficking is designed to, and in my opinion has in its five years of existence, raise awareness and stimulate government action, both domestically and internationally, to combat human trafficking. I note however that Canada produces no such document and that this bill does not refer to a Canadian annual report on trafficking. Consequently, I would implore that we strongly amend the bill to include such an amendment.

An annual report, modeled after the state department report but perhaps with a more domestic focus, would allow Canadians and their elected officials an opportunity to measure our success in combating this modern form of slavery. Furthermore, this legislation is only the first step in the battle against human trafficking.

The government must ensure, once this legislation is passed, that it will guarantee the necessary resources to ensure that this legislation may be effectively enforced. This includes increased resources for our underfunded immigration and border security, and increased support for agencies that will house and assist women who have been smuggled here, especially those involved in the sex trade.

In closing, I will be supporting the bill. The government, however, has to ensure that the legislation is passed and that it will guarantee there are necessary resources to ensure that the legislation is effectively enforced.

[Paul MacKlin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, as has been mentioned in the House today, Canada does have other laws that have been applied to human trafficking but not necessarily domestic laws that have been as precise as what are being proposed in Bill C-49.

I wonder if the hon. member, who I know is well versed in matters of justice and sits as the chair of the justice committee, might be able to comment on how effective Canada has been in terms of bringing human traffickers to justice using the existing methods that we have at our disposal.

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am extremely pleased to speak today to Bill C-49, an act to amend the Criminal Code (trafficking in persons).

The bill is important for many reasons. It is important because it would more clearly recognize and denounce human trafficking. It is important because it would provide increased protection to those who are most vulnerable to this criminal conduct, namely women and children. It is important because it would impose increased accountability for those who engage in it. It is important because it realizes what I believe is one of this government's most important commitments: the protection of the vulnerable.

Human trafficking, or the recruitment, transportation or harbouring of persons for the purpose of exploitation, has become the new global slave trade. We have heard this reference to slavery several times today and all the vileness such references conjure up. It is a practice that affects all countries, including Canada, and because of this it has become an issue of prominence and priority for the international community, for Canada and for us regionally, including my region of Niagara, together with the United States and Mexico as part of the new security and prosperity partnership of North America.

The United Nations has estimated that as many as 700,000 persons are trafficked around the world each year. UNICEF has estimated that as many as 1.2 million children are trafficked globally each year.

In May of this year, the International Labour Organization estimated that at least 2.45 million people across the world are in situations of forced labour as a result of human trafficking. Of these, it is estimated that 32% are trafficked for economic exploitation and 43% are trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation, with 98% of these being women and girls.

Those estimates show that those at greatest risk of being trafficked are those who suffer social, economic and legal disadvantage, in other words, children and women who are typically trafficked for sexual exploitation purposes or for forced labour.

As a consequence, in support of a stronger response to this horrible crime, I am very pleased to rise today and speak in favour of these proposed reforms which would create three new Criminal Code indictable offences.

The main offence of trafficking in persons would specifically prohibit anyone from engaging in specified acts, such as recruiting, transporting, harbouring or controlling the movements of another person for the purpose of exploiting or facilitating the exploitation of that person. This offence would carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment where it involves the kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault or death of the victim and to a maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment in any other case. These are very significant penalties.

The second new offence would prohibit anyone from receiving a financial or other material benefit for the purpose of committing or facilitating the trafficking of a person. This offence would be punishable by a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment.

The third new offence would prohibit the withholding or destruction of documents, such as a victim's travel documents or documents establishing their identity for the purpose of committing or facilitating the trafficking of that person. This offence would carry a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment.

These reforms also recognize that the exploitation of the victims is at the very heart of the criminal conduct and so we are proposing to make exploitation an element of the trafficking offence itself.

There are many manifestations of human trafficking. Some of these can be addressed through the trafficking in persons offence in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act which applies to cross border trafficking and addresses exploitation as an aggravating factor for sentencing purposes.

I believe that the proposed Criminal Code reforms would better enable us to address more forms of trafficking, including trafficking that occurs wholly within Canada. Ultimately, with the proposed Criminal Code amendments, law enforcement officials would have a significantly enhanced ability to ensure that the offence charged, whether it is under these new Criminal Code offences or under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, is the one that best responds to the facts of a specific trafficking case and best achieves our ultimate objective, namely the protection of the victim and effective prosecution of the offender.

I also understand that the proposed Criminal Code reforms have been developed in close collaboration with the interdepartmental working group on trafficking in persons which is currently developing a federal anti-trafficking strategy to coordinate and enhance federal anti-trafficking measures.

I understand that the strategy will focus on preventing trafficking, protecting victims and holding offenders to account in keeping with international standards. There is clearly a continuing commitment to address this serious issue beyond legislative reform. Right now these reforms will help us to achieve these ultimate objectives.

I really believe that the proposed reforms are important ones. They respect the commitment made in our throne speech and underscore our ongoing commitment to revisit our measures against trafficking in persons.

I therefore hope that all hon. members will support the proposed reforms.

[Paul MacKlin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, I was very pleased to hear the hon. member make his remarks with respect to Bill C-49. He has caught the true flavour and feeling that all of us have when it comes to dealing with this subject matter.

I am wondering whether he agrees with the approach of dealing with the bill in a way that we deal with exploitation as being a key element. Does he believe that is the proper approach and the approach that really goes to the essence of this issue?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, the debate has often drifted to looking offshore at other countries, the source from where all these people are coming. Bill C-49 refers to trafficking in persons. The member has suggested that we have to work within those countries through international cooperation. We also have trafficking in persons within Canada. Maybe the bill should be renamed to refer to exploitation of persons, exploitation of seniors, exploitation of children, exploitation of the vulnerable.

I wonder if we are going to have some influence over the initiatives taken in some of the other countries which are the highest perpetrators. Canada cannot just go to those countries and do something without taking a strong stand, defining our values, defining who Canadians are and how we feel about these things, how we feel about the exploitation of persons, the vulnerable, the weak, the poor. That is the kind of Canada we are. We need to say that. We need to express that within this legislation. I am not sure if the words “trafficking in persons” mean what they should to Canadians. We are talking about a piece of legislation that deals with the exploitation of persons and those who are involved directly or indirectly in that exploitation.

I would be interested in hearing the member's comments about what we can do to make a very bold statement about how we feel about the exploitation of persons.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-49 comes out of a reality which I suppose none of us really want to accept.

I always think that I am optimistic in my viewpoint of humanity and progress in the world. One of the points I always make in that regard is that we conquered slavery, slavery that was part of any number of institutional and government makeups from time immemorial. We beat that one. We progressed. We outlawed slavery right across the world. Unfortunately, when we come to the question of human trafficking, the reality is that we have not. There still is a small part of the world, individuals mostly involved in organized crime, who are engaged in what in effect is slavery. There is no other way to look at it.

When I was looking at Bill C-49, I thought, do we really need this bill? There are provisions within the Criminal Code that would deal with what oftentimes is kidnapping, hostage taking, assaults, and more serious violent crimes against individuals. When we look at the scope of the problem, the ultimate conclusion we have to draw is that we do need the bill.

I cannot help but bring this home to my own riding. We have a major crossing in Windsor and Tecumseh and Essex County. In the last five to seven years we have had a series of incidents of trafficking in humans.

We so often hear about young women in particular, and sometimes young men but almost always young women, who are being trafficked for the purpose of the sex trade. But there are others who appear to be used to provide cheap slave labour in the garment industry, the farming industry, which is all in the U.S. There are even people in the service industry, in restaurants and hotels. These people work at way below minimum wage in working conditions that oftentimes are horrible. They are doing so because of threat to their personal safety and oftentimes threats to their family members in their country of origin. We have seen that.

We have had some tragedies in Windsor as a result of this type of crime. There is a train tunnel that crosses between Windsor and Detroit. In the last five to seven years I think there have been three deaths as people were being smuggled through the tunnel. We think at least on one occasion it was one of the smugglers who was killed. The other two were victims of these crimes.

We have seen from some of the victims who have been apprehended that they come from all over the world. They come from Asia, China, Vietnam and India.

As we heard earlier from the Bloc member, a large number of people, especially young women, come from the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe. Some come from the Middle East. Interestingly enough a number of people come from Central and South America. They come up to Canada usually by boat along Canada's shores and then they are smuggled into the United States as what in effect will be slave labour.

There is no question about the problem. We heard from the parliamentary secretary the figure of 700,000 people a year that are trafficked. I have heard figures as high as a couple of million. The problem is there. Canada is one of the countries that is a recipient of this trade, mostly as a conduit into the United States. We have to deal with this problem.

Turning specifically to the bill, we have to ask the question, does it properly address the creation of new crimes? It makes sense to make the offence of human trafficking a specific crime. It would be much easier for our prosecutors and our police forces to obtain convictions if there was a specific charge.

Similarly, the additional charge that is being created which would make receiving a material benefit a crime under our Criminal Code makes sense. That one is often very difficult to establish. It may be taken into account in the sentencing, but right now, simply by showing that somebody has trafficked in humans, perhaps in the form of kidnapping or hostage taking, and then trying to prove that it is a separate crime because one has received a material benefit does not exist in our Criminal Code. The creation of the additional charge makes sense.

Often the victims' passports, travel documents, visas, and personal identification documents are removed from them as another means of control. By creating that specific offence, as is done in this bill, it would attack that conduct and convert it into a serious criminal offence punishable by what I consider to be fairly severe penalties.

I suppose I am speaking not only to the other members of the justice committee who will be reviewing this bill but also to the Canadian people more specifically when I say that one does have to be careful. The bill has significant limitations in terms of how it would be used. In order for us to comprehend that, we have to understand the nature of these crimes.

The vast majority of these crimes are perpetrated by organized crime around the globe. Because of the nature of the traffic in this country, a great deal of that organized crime, and in particular the ringleaders of those crime syndicates are not here in Canada because the crime originates elsewhere, for example, in the former Soviet Union, in Vietnam, or in China. It is in the country of origin where the crime originates. That is where the organized crime head pins tend to be situated. A great deal of the traffic that goes on here is by underlings. I will not say that for the biker gangs which we know are involved in the trafficking in the sex trade. We know that a number of those principals are here in Canada. The bill, if passed into law, would be useful in getting at them. What we and the Canadian public have to appreciate is that we will not get at the kingpins who are elsewhere, whether they are in the United States, in Europe, or in Asia. We will not be able to get at them with this bill.

We do need to take a more proactive position internationally on combating crime at its source. At least since the second world war we have done a reasonably good job of interacting with Interpol in dealing with crimes that are coming out of Europe. We have not been nearly as successful in other parts of the world. That is something we need to work on.

I do not think it can be done with legislation. It is one of those things where as parliamentarians we like to think we can resolve all problems. Maybe the Conservatives do not believe that, but I think the rest of us from time to time think we can resolve all problems by passing laws in this House. This is one of those times when it is clear it is not. This problem is only going to resolve itself, and I say that probably in the majority of cases, by getting to the source back in the countries of origin. That means international cooperation with governments across the globe.

It also speaks to another point. I want to raise the issue of terrorism and the amount of effort we have put into combating that. We have learned a lot about how to prevent incursions into Canada, as the Americans have in the U.S., those ideas, those thoughts and those enforcement mechanisms that we have developed to fight the agent who is coming into Canada on a clandestine operation or the terrorist bent on committing a serious crime. We have become much better at getting at that.

We have not done the same at stopping the flow of human traffic, but we have learned. We can apply those same new thoughts, principles and mechanisms to help fight human trafficking, to stop it from happening in Canada.

We can only do that with international cooperation with police forces around the globe. A good deal is being done at the UN at this time. We have to insist that more be done by countries that look the other way when young women are trafficked out of the former Soviet Union or young workers out of China, Vietnam or India. When governments look the other way, when local police forces and local enforcement agencies look the other way, we have to call them on it. We have to tell them that this problem which originates in their countries is being foisted on us and we are prepared to deal with it here, but we should not have to deal with it, that it should be stopped before it gets to our shores. A great deal of work needs to be done on this issue by our foreign affairs department and through our security services internationally.

I would like to make one more small point with regard to Bill C-49. I have drawn this issue to the attention of the parliamentary secretary. One of the clauses in the legislation is probably going to be redundant, if it is not already, in that it has already been dealt with in Bill C-2, the child protection act which passed in the House and the Senate and is waiting final implementation. There are a couple of other technical matters in Bill C-49 which I have some concerns about as well.

The NDP will be supporting this bill subject to those minor changes, recognizing that it is not a panacea. It is not going to resolve half of the problems we are faced with in this country with respect to human trafficking. Our government has to do more at the international level to effectively combat this problem.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his speech in support of Bill C-49.

Much of this debate has been about sentencing issues. It appears there is support for the bill, but the sentencing issues and the ability of the legislation to be enforced has come into question. I am wondering whether the House needs to have a take note debate on things like conditional sentencing, mandatory minimums, house arrest, and so on.

I am sure the member can provide a perspective as he is a member of the justice committee.

My question has to do with the provincial resources available to do the job. We can pass laws to change the Criminal Code but there is the enforceability and the resources, to have the assets available, the officers to do the work, as well as the resources of jails. The fastest growing business in the United States is jail building. The growth industry is jails. The member agrees.

I wonder whether part of the problem related to the bill is the inability of the courts to provide for the incarceration of those who commit abhorrent crimes such as child pornography, or with regard to the bill, the exploitation of the poor.

[Richard Marceau, Bloc, Charlesbourg, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-49. I note that the debate has wandered a bit in the past few minutes, and would like to get it back on track to the subject we need to address. This is, in fact, a very important and serious subject, one the House of Commons needs to address and act on as soon as possible, since it affects the most vulnerable members of our society.

This extremely important issue resurfaces from time to time in the media. Unfortunately, likely because of its complexity, it has not so far seemed to hold people's attention long enough to result in any effective action against it. Allow me to explain.

We know that organized networks with connections with major criminal organizations are taking advantage of others' distress, young women for the most part, but children as well. Very often, these vulnerable people are ready to do anything at all to escape the poverty they are living in.

The causes of this situation can vary from one individual to another, but there is a common denominator relating to misery, poverty and secrecy. The preconceived idea people have of trafficking in persons is, more often than not, associated with what used to be called, inappropriately to my mind, white slavery.

As I have just said, certain people, mostly women, get recruited for jobs here, in hopes of a better future and with no idea of the real hell that awaits them.

To take a familiar example: young women from the former soviet republics are approached by fake talent or modelling agencies and leap at the chance for a lucrative career in fashion. Others are approached by agencies claiming to be recruiting au pairs, that is young women to look after Canadian families' children. They end up in the clutches of criminal organizations that take away their passports and have well organized rings forcing them into strip clubs or prostitution.

There are other cases even more disturbing than those. Although we cannot take it upon ourselves to quantify or classify the degree of another's misery, it is important to know that, in this 21st century, some of these women end up as sex slaves. They are subjected to unimaginable abuse and constant threats on their own lives or those of people back in their country of origin, children, brothers and sisters, or parents. They live with the constant fear of something happening to themselves or a loved one.

Trafficking in persons is a very broad issue, and I am deliberately dwelling specifically on this grim aspect of the issue, because it is both more insidious and more common around us than we are really aware. I could just as well have brought up the case of refugees, who are often clandestine immigrants, and who are being exploited by unscrupulous businesses in terms of the basic rights of workers or by individuals who reduce them to the condition of slaves by employing them as domestics.

Such situations exist and they are disturbing, but no efforts appear to have been made so far to denounce them.

That is the context in which we reviewed and addressed Bill C-49 and that is why the Bloc Québécois will be supporting it.

Allow me to digress briefly. Until just recently, we MPs got to spend a great deal of time in our respective ridings. I have been asked what bills we would be working on upon returning to the House. Whenever I mentioned the bill dealing with trafficking in persons, people almost always thought that legislation was already in place, that such behaviour was prohibited and that this problem was being addressed. They were very surprised when I told them that they thought wrong and this was going to be on our agenda.

We figure that Bill C-49 will provide police and crown attorneys with better legal tools to fight this trafficking in persons problem, especially where sexual exploitation and forced labour are concerned.

According to official statistics, there are approximately 800 reported cases—and the word “reported” is important—of victims of trafficking in persons in Canada. As one might expect in any such situation, this is probably but the tip of the iceberg.

The environment those involved live in is understandably not exactly conducive to denouncing abuse or effectively seeking resources capable of helping these victims.

We are supporting Bill C-49 essentially because it creates new offences specifically to prevent and denounce trafficking in persons and to hold the perpetrators of the crime responsible.

From a legal standpoint, trafficking in persons is defined as the recruitment, transportation or harbouring of a person for the purpose of exploitation. Although the bill does not mention it explicitly, this offence specifically addresses exploitation in the sex trade and in forced labour.

This bill also legally prohibits, in a broad sense, trafficking in persons for financial gain and the falsification, destruction or alteration of identification documents for the purpose of facilitating the commission of these criminal offences.

Bill C-49 also establishes sentences as serious as imprisonment for life for every person found guilty of trafficking in persons. This maximum sentence of the Canadian system would apply to individuals who, while trafficking in persons, kidnapped, committed an aggravated assault or aggravated sexual assault against, or caused death to the victim, or if they were an accomplice to these acts.

Every person who receives a financial benefit from the forced labour imposed on the victims of trafficking is liable to imprisonment for a maximum sentence of 10 years. Every person found guilty of possessing travel or identification documents such as a passport belonging to a victim, is liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than five years.

As a whole, the bill should be effective in addressing this growing problem and its atrocious social, individual and personal consequences.

The only odd thing is the relative simplicity of the proposed legislation. As I was saying in my introduction, it is a wonder that the government waited so long to tackle this issue head on. The bill includes only eight clauses. It is short and specific but took a long time coming.

To correct the unbearable situation that thousands of people are living in, the Bloc will do everything in its power to move this bill swiftly through the House of Commons and the parliamentary committee. As usual, we are open to any suggestions for improvement from witnesses at the Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

Again, the bill is simple and gets to the heart of the problem.

The concept of exploitation is clearly defined in the context of human trafficking. So exploitation means making a person work or provide services, quite often of a sexual nature, by acting in such a way that victims fear for their safety or that of a loved one if they do not comply with the demands being made. In fact, it would be difficult to be any more specific.

Imagine the stress and fear that prevent an individual from identifying an abuser or pimp, and you get a good idea of the problem we are trying to eradicate here. Add to this the clandestine nature and the international ramifications of the problem, and it becomes a complex issue.

Once in effect, Bill C-49 will provide us with modern tools with which to fight slavery, which unfortunately has also adapted to the reality of globalization.

As I said during my introduction, prostitution is central to the activities of organized gangs, and the recruitment of foreign workers is facilitated by the wretched reality of people misled about the nature of the work they are seeking.

In a 2000 report by the United Nations on the trafficking of women, Canada was among the top 30 destination countries for human trafficking. We all agree that this is less glorious for “the best country in the world”.

This report states that victims of trafficking do not expose their employers, among others, because once identified by the authorities, they will not be allowed to remain in their country of adoption in order to seek protection or demand redress.

In a report published this year, the International Labour Organization estimated that 2.45 million people in the world are victims of forced labour.

The issue we are addressing today in the House is not, of course, restricted to the sexual exploitation of the victims of human trafficking. It is important to keep that in mind, although that aspect is easier to get a handle on. There are, however, also situations of forced labour under physical or psychological threat in such areas as construction, hotels, shipping or agriculture.

Exploitation of one human being by another is present everywhere at various levels, and the International Labour Organization has estimated that the revenue generated annually by such exploitation amounts to some US$32 billion.

Other countries have moved on this more quickly than Canada—and more power to them.

In 2000, the United States passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which created new offences as well as more severe penalties for crimes already included in the criminal code. Victims who work with the American authorities in order to help advance investigations into rings of trafficking and forced labour will be protected from deportation. The United Kingdom, France, Russia and Japan have recently amended their legislation to include provisions on trafficking in human beings.

Finally, passage of Bill C-49, the bill before the House at this time, will move Canada one step further along the road to a better world, and the Bloc Québécois will make an effective contribution to this.

In closing, I will make a commitment on behalf of my party to getting this bill passed as promptly as possible in order to provide our police, prosecutors and the law enforcement community with all the best tools needed to counteract this 21st century scourge as quickly as possible. This is my solemn appeal to all colleagues of all parties: work along with us to get this bill passed quickly, so that such tools will be available for the protection of these people, these women and children, in such great need of our assistance and protection.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be back in the House and to address Bill C-49 as the justice critic for the official opposition.

The official opposition agrees that trafficking in persons is a modern form of slavery and is a serious human rights violation. The United Nations has reported that human trafficking is the fastest growing form of transnational organized crime. It is little wonder. Local organized crime organizations are drawn to the industry because of the enormous profit potential and the relatively low risk of detection. This is a booming industry that is run by powerful, multinational criminal networks who are well funded, well organized and extremely adaptable to changing technologies.

The United Nations estimates that there are over 700,000 people who are trafficked annually on a worldwide basis, 80% of these people being women and 50% of them being children. Revenues generated globally from trafficking are estimated at approximately $10 billion American. Most victims are forced into commercial sexual exploitation as well as involuntary servitude or debt bondage. Others may be exploited through hard labour in some countries. Children are trafficked to work as soldiers.

Trafficked persons are often duped into their new profession, deceived with seemingly legitimate employment contracts abroad or indeed marriages abroad. Others are simply abducted. Victims are often subjected to physical, sexual and emotional abuse.

Although there are no hard statistics because of the difficulty in tracing these crimes, in Canada the RCMP estimates that approximately 600 foreign women and girls are forced into the Canadian sex trade every year. That number of course is increased when one includes the number of individuals forced into other kinds of labour.

While Canada has a relatively good record on the international stage in terms of efforts to stem the incidence of human trafficking, there is still much work to do. In June of this year the United States state department reported that British Columbia had become an attractive hub for east Asian human traffickers who smuggle South Korean women through Canada to the United States, in large part attributable to the fact that South Koreans do not need a visa to enter Canada.

While trafficking is clearly a global problem that does not respect borders, enforcement is for the most part a domestic issue and Canada needs to take a much more active role in terms of ensuring that this international plague is not increased within our own borders.

I would like to quote Canadian journalist, Victor Malarek, who has written and researched extensively on the global sex trade. He said, “If a country is to be judged on how it deals with this scourge, that judgment must be based on the action it takes to eradicate it. The only thing that will send these thugs scurrying back into the rat holes is the full force of the law -- unwavering prosecution, heavy prison time and confiscation of all profits amassed on the backs of these women”.

I could not agree more with Mr. Malarek. I think though that one then has to measure his observations, the studies that people like Mr. Malarek and other agencies have done and compare them to what Bill C-49 would do.

What the bill would do in many respects is nothing new. It simply would codify in a more succinct fashion existing laws. Yes, it does focus on the issue of human trafficking, but there already are many provisions in the Criminal Code that are applicable to these particular crimes.

Currently the Canadian Criminal Code contains no provision to prohibit specifically trafficking in persons. although in the 2002 Immigration and Refugee Protection Act it did bring in some measures to combat this crime. Specifically, section 118 of the act prohibits bringing anyone into Canada by means of abduction, fraud, deception or use or threat of force, or coercion. Again, many of these laws already exist. Bill C-49 would simply codify and focus the law in this respect.

Bill C-49 goes beyond the current focus on immigration. The proposed amendments to the Criminal Code in Bill C-49 create three new indictable offences to specifically address human trafficking. The first contains the global prohibition on trafficking in persons. The second prohibits a person from benefiting economically from trafficking. The third prohibits the withholding or destroying of identity, immigration or travel documents to facilitate trafficking in persons.

In addition, the legislation also ensures that trafficking may form the basis of a warrant to intercept private communications and to take bodily samples for DNA analysis and permits inclusion of the offender in the sex offender registry.

Simply saying that we will permit the DNA taking or the inclusion in the sex offender registry is not enough. We know that there are numerous loopholes in both the DNA legislation and the sex offender registry. For example, the DNA legislation pales in comparison to the efforts that the British have taken. In Great Britain there are about 60 million people. There are approximately 3 million people in the British DNA database. In Canada, with a population of 30 million people, approximately half, we only have a database of about 70,000 people. Is it because we are so much more law abiding? I would suggest not.

In fact, what is the true case is that over 50% of even the most serious individuals convicted of offences are not being required to provide DNA samples. Quite frankly, this is a deplorable state of affairs. We cannot blame this particular legislation, but we can blame the government for refusing to put in the kinds of steps that are necessary to make our DNA legislation as effective as American or British legislation.

Rosalind Prober from Beyond Borders recently contacted me to talk about the problems with the sex offender registry. If people go to the Beyond Borders website, they will see many of the sex offender loopholes contained in it.

One of the things our government allows is for convicted sex offenders who are on our sex offender registry to leave the country for up to 14 days without giving any notice. These individuals, of course, are going to other countries exploiting youth and women and our government does absolutely nothing. That is only one small example of where the government could actually be taking steps to prevent the abuse of people in other countries by Canadian citizens and yet it simply refuses to do it.

What is important to note as well is that Bill C-49 also expands the ability to seek restitution to victims who are subjected to bodily or psychological harm. I want to talk about how one collects restitution in the Canadian justice system. It used to be that prior to the 1996 amendments to the legislation that the court would enforce restitution. Now, thanks to a bill the Liberals brought in, if one wants to enforce a restitution order, one has to go to court which issues a judgment. The victim gets a judgment. Instead of the court enforcing it through the criminal process, the victim gets a judgment which he or she has to enforce it through the civil process.

There is the spectre of immigrants or other people who may not be as knowledgeable of our legal system or are intimidated by our legal system asking gang members for restitution. Can anyone imagine the ludicrous nature of this kind of law where we put the burden on the victim to collect these restitution orders instead of doing it as the courts used to? The courts used to enforce these orders. Saying that we are going to seek restitution and allow the victims to get restitution is absolutely ridiculous.

Can anyone imagine a poor, little old lady from the north end of Winnipeg going up to the Manitoba Warriors trying to collect a restitution order? That is a sample of the ludicrous provisions we have in legislation. They make great sound bites but they do absolutely nothing.

The other point is that we have new provisions for maximum sentences. Some are 5 years, some are 10 years and some are life imprisonment. The point we have emphasized over and over again is that when Parliament sends direction to the courts about increasing sentences, the courts are very clear in not following those directions. They simply do not follow them. The courts continue to impose the sentences they have always imposed because they have said that the overall direction from the government is not to send people to prison. Instead of enforcing new sentences, all the courts are going to do is look at the general policies set out in the Criminal Code which basically say to divert criminals from prison.

There are many situations where diversion is a good thing, but we know that in these kinds of situations it is not a good thing. These individuals are entitled to house arrest or conditional sentences as they are called in the Criminal Code.

We could compare sentences in Canada to sentences in Great Britain when individuals are actually convicted there. Members should read Victor Malarek's book in terms of the sentences that are imposed in Great Britain and the United States. The problem is that in Canada we simply do not have any mandatory prison sentences that individuals will face if they are convicted. This particular government is fond of saying that there is no evidence demonstrating that mandatory minimums work.

I will just mention for a moment marijuana grow ops. I spent a lot of time this summer in the lower mainland in British Columbia where there are an estimated 8,000 marijuana grow ops. Two days ago I was on a street of 25 houses where there were seven marijuana grow ops including one meth lab and one MDMA lab. This is an area with 8,000 marijuana grow ops, yet the government says mandatory sentencing does not work.

Whereas Canada has hundreds of cases going through the courts where individuals essentially receive a few thousand dollars in fines for operating multi-million dollar grow ops, in the United States, at the same time, there are three or four actual prosecutions because grow ops simply do not exist there to the extent that they do here in Canada.

The difference is that when individuals get caught in the United States for manufacturing methamphetamine or MDMA or getting involved in grow ops, those individuals will go to jail and will go to jail for hard time. Firefighters and police officers who have to raid these places and expose themselves to dangerous chemicals are protected, never mind the neighbourhoods that are subjected to this horrible abuse. Yet the government keeps on saying mandatory minimum sentences do not work.

We know for sure that the policy of the government of allowing these hardened criminals who are putting poison into our children's veins does not work. They are putting poison into our children's veins and they are getting house arrest. The government says that works, but I beg to differ. The Liberal government is killing our children and it does not seem to care.

This bill is only giving lip service to the concept of stopping those who want to exploit women and children no matter what country they come from. As a Canadian I feel that we have an international obligation to help people from whatever country they come from.

We know that the courts will do absolutely nothing in terms of deterring this unless the message is sent clearly in our Criminal Code that if this is done mandatory prison terms will be served.

There is one other point that I want to quickly make. The people who stand to monetarily gain from this are subjected to lower sentences, not life imprisonment. These are the kingpins who sit in the backrooms. They are protected by layers of criminal activity. They are the ones who collect the money. They are the ones who direct everything, and yet they are the ones who get the lower sentence.

Why is it that the government thinks that we should simply catch the people out on the street who are doing the abuse, but leave the criminals who are actually profiting with fewer sentences or lesser sentences when it is so difficult to get these individuals to begin with?

Is this a good thing that we are doing in Parliament today? Yes it is. The bill is a good one, but there are a few basic steps that we could take to make this truly an effective bill that would make a difference.

The first thing we should do is impose mandatory minimum prison sentences for those who want to abduct and exploit women and children in this fashion. Those individuals need to go to jail. It is not enough to say that we are going to leave this up to the courts. It is not enough. Parliament needs to stand up and Parliament needs to give direction in this respect.

I have already mentioned the other points. We must fix the sexual abuse registry, clear up the loopholes, and ensure that those who are convicted for abusing children and women are in fact protected.

Lastly, we have to look at the DNA bill. We took some steps to protect Canadians by improving the DNA bill. The Liberals in the last term wanted to give rapists a free rape or a free murder. We do not agree with that kind of thing. Persons should not have a free sexual assault or a free murder before they get on the DNA registry. That was changed as a direct result of the official opposition standing up and saying that once individuals have been convicted of a murder they should be on the DNA database.

It is not enough to simply say they should also be convicted of a sexual assault or if they have been convicted of a sexual assault, they should also have a murder. It is not enough. If persons are convicted of an indictable offence in this country they should be on that DNA database to give the police the appropriate weapons to ensure that dangerous criminals are off the street.

The government, despite all of its talk refuses to do it, continues to refuse to do it, and is simply putting forward legislation saying that this sends a strong message. Who does it send a strong message to? It does not send a strong message to the courts because the courts are not imposing appropriate sentences. It does not send a strong message to the criminals because they are simply paying fines of a few thousand dollars as a licence to operate and they are back on the streets before the police complete the paperwork.

Who is it sending a strong message to? Is it sending a strong message to the people in our communities who are frightened because of crime? Absolutely not. The only message that it is sending to them is that they are scared to walk out on the streets in the evening. That is the message that the government is sending to the people of Canada in large cities, small towns and in rural Canada.

The opposition is prepared to stand up for Canadians, and protect Canadians and the rights of victims over the rights of criminals that the government consistently wants to protect.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, about a year ago I had an opportunity to attend a conference sponsored by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. At that conference we received an excellent magazine produced by the United States on this very subject matter. It contained maps showing exactly where these incidents occur and the frequency. Just to look at the research that has been done shows us how serious a problem this has been over all these years. I am very pleased that this legislation has been brought forward.

I would like to ask the member about the sentencing. Sentencing issues have come up. I understand that under Bill C-49 those who are guilty of exploitation could suffer imprisonment for life. Where there is financial gain it could be 10 years. Where there is withholding or destroying of documents it could be up to five years.

I have often wondered whether the sentencing regime that we have related to some of these abhorrent crimes that are committed, like child pornography, child abuse and trafficking in persons, that we need to make absolutely sure that the courts recognize that the maximum sentences are not to be ignored. However if they are being ignored maybe the member could tell us what kind of experience they have had with regard to those matters where something like mandatory minimum sentencing might be an appropriate response to these abhorrent crimes.

[Paul MacKlin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here at the opening of this session of Parliament to participate in the debate on Bill C-49, an act to amend the Criminal Code, trafficking in persons.

Trafficking in persons is sometimes described as the new global slave trade—no country has been left untouched by this terrible scourge. In a recently released report, May 11, 2005, by the International Labour Organization, it is estimated that the total number of people who are in situations of forced labour as a result of human trafficking is at least 2.45 million people around the world.

Who are the primary victims? Women and children. UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children are trafficked around the world each year.

When we hear numbers like this we get a better appreciation of both the magnitude and urgency of strengthening domestic and international measures to combat human trafficking. We must ensure that we have the best response possible to a crime that is such a horrible violation of human rights, a crime that disproportionately impacts the most vulnerable in our society.

Bill C-49 does that. It is undoubtedly an important step toward strengthening our ability to protect the vulnerable, an ongoing priority for the government, and it reflects the government's commitment to ensure that Canada's legal framework clearly recognizes and strongly denounces and deters human trafficking.

It does this by proposing the creation of three new indictable offences to better address human trafficking—in whatever form it may manifest itself. The main offence of “trafficking in persons” would prohibit anyone from engaging in specified acts, such as recruiting, transporting, harbouring or controlling the movements of another person for the purpose of exploiting or facilitating the exploitation of that person. This offence is punishable by up to life imprisonment reflecting its severity and its harmful consequences to its victims and Canadian society.

Second, Bill C-49 proposes to deter those who seek to profit from the exploitation of others by making it an offence to receive a financial or material benefit knowing that it results from the trafficking of persons. This offence is punishable by up to 10 years' imprisonment.

Third, Bill C-49 proposes to prohibit the withholding or destroying of travel or identity documents in order to commit or facilitate the trafficking of persons. This offence is punishable by a maximum of five years' imprisonment.

Human trafficking is all about the exploitation of its victims. The very thought of being denied one's right to life, liberty and security of the person and to being treated as a commodity to be bought, sold and used for whatever purpose is unimaginable and yet it is the reality for so many.

Bill C-49 recognizes this exploitation in a very real and concrete way and would make exploitation a key element of the offence. As defined by Bill C-49, exploitation means causing people to provide labour or services, such as sexual services, by engaging in conduct that could reasonably be expected to cause those people to fear for their safety or that of someone known to them. It also could mean removing a human organ or tissue from victims through the use of force or deception.

Bill C-49 would strengthen Canada's legal framework by building upon the existing domestic and international responses to human trafficking.

There are many international instruments that address human trafficking, but the most recent one is the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and its supplemental protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially woman and children, which offers a widely accepted international framework for addressing the issue. Bill C-49 more clearly reflects this framework. In keeping with this framework, Canada's approach, as reflected in Bill C-49, focuses on the prevention of trafficking and the protection of its victims and the prosecution of the offenders.

The proposed reforms in Bill C-49 send a very clear message to those who seek to exploit the most vulnerable members of society through this form of criminal conduct will be brought to justice.

Bill C-49 would strengthen our current responses to trafficking by building upon existing provisions of the Criminal Code that address trafficking related conduct and would complement the provisions in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that seek to safeguard Canada's border against human trafficking and human smuggling. The new criminal offences proposed by Bill C-49, together with the existing legal framework, will provide criminal justice personnel with a significantly enhanced ability to ensure that the offence charged is the one that best responds to the facts of the specific trafficking case.

The government is also addressing human trafficking through other non-legislative measures, a reflection of the reality that an effective response to such a problem requires not only a strong legal framework, but also multi-sectoral collaboration to enhance our awareness and understanding of the problem and to facilitate effective and meaningful implementation of targeted responses.

The government recently has undertaken numerous measures for this end. For example, a website on trafficking in persons was launched in April 2004 and can be accessed through the Department of Justice Canada website. The website provides useful information for the public, describing the problem and related links.

Public education and awareness is being fostered through the development and broad dissemination within Canada and to Canadian embassies of a poster and an information pamphlet—available in 14 languages—to help prevent human trafficking victimization.

Professional training and education about human trafficking and enforcement related issues is underway and began with a training seminar in March 2004, co-hosted by the Department of Justice Canada and the International Organization for Migration. A similar seminar was held in May 2005 in Vancouver, hosted by the RCMP.

I support Bill C-49 because it is an important step toward strengthening Canada's ability to prevent human trafficking, to better protect its victims and to hold traffickers accountable. I hope all members of the House will be able to support the expeditious passage of this important legislation.

[Raymond Chan, Liberal, for the Minister of Justice]

moved that Bill C-49, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (trafficking in persons), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

The Environment

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, 30 environmental groups wrote to all the leaders of this House calling on all parties to put aside their differences long enough to ensure that the measures that are necessary for the implementation of the Kyoto protocol introduced in the February budget were approved by Parliament without delay. If those members have a little sense of responsibility they will vote for Bill C-49.

[Bob Mills, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the minister does not even know the bill number. There is no Bill C-49. That is how much he knows and is doing about the environment. Just ask the parents who have just had their child diagnosed with chronic asthma what they think of answers like that.

Greenhouse gases are increasing every year. The OECD now ranks us 28th out of 29 in terms of environmental integrity. The minister sets up a website in order to accomplish this.

When will the minister put the health of Canadians ahead of his own environmental drivel?

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, we have introduced Bill C-49, which that party is opposing because that party has never requested a penny for the environment since the beginning of the budgetary process.

Canada is now implementing the toughest targets regarding clean air in order to decrease smog. Smog emissions are decreasing by 90% because of our 10-year clean air agenda. We are now at mid-term and we will continue with our agenda. We need those things to be stopped by the Conservative Party that does not care at all about the environment.

Criminal Code

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-49, an act to amend the Criminal Code (trafficking in persons).

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)