My goodness, I don't know if it's the time, the fact that it's been three days into the hearing.…
First of all, I want to thank you all for your testimony, your experiences that you shared with the members of the committee. At the same time, I feel like I could pull my hair out.
I feel like we're hearing diametrically opposed views from groups on both sides I consider to be very feminist. There is agreement on a number of other issues.
That said, it's not that easy for us, the committee members, either, to sort all this out in our heads. On the one hand, we have one person telling us this is their occupation, and on the other, we have people telling us prostitution is a form of exploitation and goes hand in hand with violence. For every person who asks us to deregulate prostitution, another asks us to criminalize it, either wholly or partially.
As you can imagine, it's not straightforward. Perhaps the answer is crystal clear for some of you, but my 54 years on earth have taught me that very little in life is black and white.
I grew up with two solitudes. I used to think it was English and French. Now I'm convinced that it is prostitution, in a lot of aspects, because I don't know how we'll be able to end up reconciling all of these views. The bottom line is that we are trying to find the best solution.
What I was aiming at is that, for me, actions speak louder than words. We can talk until we die about equality and about the fact of respect. We can write it in the best charter we want but if, at the end of the day, the action does not follow then there is a big problem.
I will say to your panel, as I've said to other panels, that I find there is a lack of credibility with the law when I don't see what should be attached to it being attached to it. I see some of your groups saying to me—and pretty much everybody agrees that there are a couple of issues within the prostitution file where we seem to have an almost perfect agreement, except for the Conservatives—that the amount is definitely not sufficient. Pretty much everybody agrees with that. Thank God for that.
The fact that we should not criminalize sex workers—victims for some, workers for others—but that we should criminalize; we can find you all agreeing with that.
If we can't decriminalize completely, and remove those sections from the bill, my worry is that we have solved nothing.
My other worry is that if we don't attach what you so eloquently explained, Trisha, about your life and what happened and the life of your friends and what you've seen.... But when you said that you have to feed your kids or be in prostitution, my only question at the end of this week is: If Bill C-36 is passed, what will the person who has to answer that question do? It won't miraculously stop overnight, definitely not with $20 million, so what do you answer to that?
For your ladies who talked about torture, I so—
You have my heartfelt solidarity.
But are you telling us that the Criminal Code doesn't already cover it and that people who inflict torture can't be charged for it?
As I see it, torture is already covered by the Criminal Code. Torture in any form is not accepted in Canada. So there's a problem somewhere.
I was glad, Mr. Paterson, that you made the point that the Supreme Court of Canada did not say that we had to do something by December. It said that these three sections in the Criminal Code were invalid, but they are giving us a year before it comes into effect. If we want to do something then, do it, but we'd better do it in a way that doesn't put the lives of people in danger.
Maybe it's a lot of rambling, but we've heard a lot. I feel for you and I feel as if people are trying to push us on one side versus the other. There is no one side or the other. There is one side; it's called equality. If we believe in it we have to change a lot of things in Canada and it's not Bill C-36 that will change anything.
I don't know if anybody wants to.... I see Heather nodding. Maybe you can comment with the few minutes I left you. I'm so sorry.