Thank you, Mr. Chair, and honourable members of Parliament and all my sister and fellow panellists.
I also want to thank the technicians who made it possible for many of us to videoconference in to this important democratic process.
Our organization did send a letter to Madame Boivin and Mr. Casey and to Mrs. Smith, as well as a brief, which may have been translated in time. In our letters to the members of Parliament, we included a letter from a woman who was in massage and escort for seven years, a woman who was exploited through street prostitution for 22 years, a mother whose daughter is among the murdered victims in Edmonton, a man who was a former buyer, and a therapist who works to help women in their recovery from complex trauma. So they are with me, even though I am here alone.
Also, I carry the stories of grassroots community action to address the heavy impact of men cruising our communities. I remember the fear of children being harassed as they tried to go to school and being asked if they were working girls. Women standing at bus-stops, just trying to go shopping or whatever they had to do, were being harassed by men.
So I speak from a grassroots experience of people in Edmonton trying to do something about a complex issue. I think it's very important for us to state that we do not see this as a partisan issue. We do see it to be a human rights issue, a social justice issue, and a women's equality issue. Our organization would say that we come from the stance where we do not want to see any vulnerable person of any age or persons in vulnerable circumstances such as poverty or homelessness, or having no other jobs or sources of income, or with mental health or physical challenges. We want to live in a country that creates equality for all, and we do not want to see vulnerable people preyed upon in any way.
I think it's also important to remember that in our history as a country and a colony, the weight of the law and discrimination has been focused primarily on women. What we're seeing here is a shift. This is a shift that we would like to support. We see it as a 30-year generational shift. We won't see the fruits of the shift in this law for a few years, but we do think it's very important to shift the accountability for a harm that is generated to those who create that harm.
In Alberta and in the province of Manitoba, there have been many united actions of community groups, of groups led by women who have lived experience, by political leaders, by crown prosecutors, and by police. We have developed resources over the years that are appropriate and respectful of the persons seeking health care or any part of the continuum of harm reduction.
At the same time, the exploitation does continue, so we feel that it's important to shift the accountability to those who are demanding sexual services and creating that market for that industrialization of children and women.
In our brief, we do say that the criminalization of the activity of buying will have a positive effect, but that the criminalization of those who are providing has a very detrimental effect. We do not support the ability to arrest children, youth, and women who are in places where children might be present. We would like to see that section of this bill totally removed. We've lived too often with the discrimination that others have mentioned, and I can cite how in Edmonton, our capital region, the housing commission will not allow anyone with a criminal record to get subsidized public housing and how people who have a history of solicitation are not welcome in that housing.
Women who want to become social workers at our university cannot apply, because they have a criminal record. Many jobs that women apply for require criminal record checks. Many women just give up, because they do not want to talk about what they've been doing, because of the stigmatization.
In 1995, our organization wrote to the Minister of Justice of the day. We said that as ordinary people, we see that there's a power imbalance between the person who's cruising and the person who's standing on the corner, and we think we need to create different options. We went to work in our own city and created, with the crown prosecution office and the mayor and the Minister of Justice, the prostitution offender program.
The Minister of Justice of that day said that because the community raised this issue, we will charge the men the equivalent of a fine, about $500, and we will return that money to the community to help heal the harm. So a multi-stakeholder group, including women who survived exploitation, parents whose daughters were on the street, front-line workers, and all the parties, identified that the priorities are poverty elimination, trauma recovery, bursaries so that people can rebuilt their lives, and public awareness and education.
In Alberta we have had a number of public education initiatives, but this education must be continual; it must be in the schools, around consent.
We must send a message. I'd like to see a message in every airport that in Canada we do not tolerate the buying and selling of people, so that men who are newcomers to our country know that in our country you cannot buy sexual services.
We'd like to see age-appropriate education directed at both those who may become vulnerable as well as those who may become perpetrators. Sadly, we're seeing that many young men are perpetrating violence against women, so we know that we need to look at how to educate our young men about what it is to be in a healthy and respectful relationship.
Our recommendations are that we support the direction of Bill C-36. We would like to see section 213 of the Criminal Code removed. We would like to see the investment in creative and positive social media and prevention education.
We would like to see more than $20 million. I misunderstood; I thought that was $20 million for one year. I can tell you that the groups working across the country, from PEERS Victoria Resource Society all the way across the country, would know well how to put that money to use to support women, men, and the transgendered wherever they are on the continuum.
We also think that it's important to establish a monitoring and evaluation process. Any law is a blunt instrument. There will be positive intended consequences; there will also be positive unintended consequences.
We had the past laws for almost 30 years. We think that we need to monitor every five years or so that we know what we are accomplishing by trying to set normative values in the law.
We also would like to see an easy mechanism established to wipe away and expunge the criminal records of anyone charged with section 213 in the past—any prostituted woman, male, or transgender—to remove this burden from their shoulders and welcome them into the fullness of our Canadian society.
In Scotland, while they still had some charges around prostitution, they just went away. No one had to apply for a pardon; the charges went away. We can do something; we can be creative: we're calling for this expunging of all the records of the past 30 years.
Those are our primary points. Thank you.