Justice Committee on March 22nd, 2022

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Matte, you were on a roll, and I'd like to give you the opportunity to complete your answer.

Earlier, you stated that you favoured the equality model over the Nordic model. You also said that Quebec had made a move in that direction in 2007. The National Assembly also favoured the equality model.

I'd like to hear more from you on this. First, what is the equality model? What has Quebec done to move towards this model?

[Diane Matte]

In 2007, an equality policy was adopted. As far as I know, it doesn't exist in any other parts of Canada. This policy recognizes prostitution as... It frames prostitution as an equality issue. A society in which women, girls or boys can be used, bought, sold, or rented—you can call it whatever you want—is a society that can't achieve equality for all.

In 2007, Quebec took a major step forward. In my opinion, it hasn't done enough since then, but the spirit is still there. Prostitution is mainly viewed as a practice that concerns the social relationships involving sex between women and men. This is the starting point for analyzing prostitution. We mustn't analyze only its harms or focus solely on the fact that it may be disturbing for some neighbourhood residents or on the fact that we don't want men to catch a venereal disease and pass it on to their wives. We must focus more on equality.

As I was saying, the equality model assumes that attitudes must be changed. It assumes that we live in a patriarchal society, in a society where certain groups of women are specifically targeted. It also assumes that the practice must be changed. Based on this, prevention programs are used...

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Ms. Matte, I'm not trying to be rude, but my time is limited. I have only two or three minutes left.

Can you tell me more about the impact of the equality model? What is this model? What does it change? From a legislative perspective, what should we do with it?

[Diane Matte]

From a legislative perspective, the purchase of sexual services must be addressed. Pimps and any person or group that benefits from the prostitution of others must be dealt with. The key change is to say that men don't have the right to buy sex. The impact of the equality model is that simple. Everything related to this—

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Sorry to interrupt you, Ms. Matte, but I have one more question before my time runs out.

[Diane Matte]

Yes, I'm listening.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Witnesses have told us that criminal organizations are involved in the sex industry. In my opinion, this is quite troubling. As we know, firearms trafficking, for example, is causing a number of problems. There are many issues related to criminal organizations.

I want to address the sex industry. What have you found in the course of your work? Are many people from criminal organizations involved in the sex industry? Do you think that many of them benefit from or manage the sex industry, or is this a peripheral issue?

[Diane Matte]

I imagine that the police could answer the question better than I could.

I can say that we work with women who are in the clutches of organized crime. This happens in Quebec and in other parts of Canada and the world.

In addition, some women are simply brought into the sex industry as a result of normalization. For example, one of their friends may have told them that it was a way to make money. Or, a woman may have met a man who started by telling her that he loved her very much and that he wanted to build something with her. Since he needed money to do so, he sent her out to work as a prostitute.

Again, I was struck by the words of the person who spoke in the last round of questions. She talked about young men between the ages of 12 and 15 trying to convince young girls to sell sex.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Are you seeing this in your practice?

[Diane Matte]

I've never seen 12‑year‑olds, but we do see young men. That's one finding. The normalization of pimping and the purchase of sexual acts means that young men are starting to sell these types of services and bring in young girls from their high school to sell sexual acts. They collect the money and make arrangements with each other. Yes, we're currently seeing this.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

How would you address this issue and prevent or discourage these young men from entering the sex industry?

It would involve education, I imagine. You were talking about a cultural change, among other things.

Could any concrete legislative steps be taken to address this issue?

[Diane Matte]

We need to start by looking at the 2014 legislation and giving it more teeth. The goal is to change attitudes and the educational programs, and to support the women involved in prostitution, including those who want to get out of it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Ms. Matte.

[Diane Matte]

At this point, the best approach is to keep and strengthen the legislation and to ensure that it doesn't criminalize any woman, girl or person in Canada who sells their own sexual services.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you.

[Diane Matte]

You can also ask me a question in English.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Ms. Matte, I'm going to have to interrupt you. I'm sorry.

We have to go for the next six minutes to Mr. Garrison.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for their appearance today. Their testimony has certainly been crystal clear. I'd like to thank Ms. Heinz for drawing the committee's attention to the problem of criminal records for those who have been involved in sex work previously.

Given that we're already over time, I am prepared to forgo my time today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Mr. Garrison. I appreciate that.

We'll go to two four-minute rounds next.

We'll have Mr. Brock for four minutes, and then Ms. Dhillon for four minutes, and we'll end it after that.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the witnesses this afternoon for their testimony and co-operation in answering a multitude of questions.

I'll go first to Ms. Heinz. Thank you so much for your testimony today, and your courage to come forward, surviving a dark chapter in your life, but being extremely resilient, and now being a very strong advocate against the industry.

I was remarking to myself about one of the latter comments in your opening statement, that you wanted to ultimately shrink the market. One of the overriding goals of this legislation is to decrease the demand.

I'm going to give you an opportunity, Ms. Heinz, to elaborate within 30 seconds or so, if you could, on what you meant by shrinking the market, and any ideas you have on how to implement that.

[Andrea Heinz]

Thank you so much.

Shrinking the market should be our priority. That will take out a substantial number of sex sellers, who are not there by any means of actual choice. Any policy that we implement is either going to expand the market or it is going to shrink the market. When we look at New Zealand, which we often do, to me that's comparing apples and oranges. New Zealand is an island in the Pacific of approximately five million people. Canada has a population approximately eight times that size, sharing nearly 9,000 kilometres of border with America.

The American population is over 330 million people, and their adult male population is more than double our entire population here in Canada, meaning that there are more than 100 million adult men in the United States. So when Cathy Peters said that we have the potential of becoming “America's brothel”, she was spot-on.

None of us has a crystal glass ball with which we can look into the future to see what will happen with any changes that we make, but we have to look at Canada as its own entity, as its own nation, and ask what risks we are willing to take to risk women's livelihoods and safety.

I also want to point to the effectiveness of Edmonton's sex trade offender program. We have a wonderful low 1% to 3% recidivism rate of re-arrests of men who come and attend the eight-hour program. It is a great program that I have been very fortunate speak at for the last nine years. I have seen tremendous growth in many of the men who come in.

I want to say that I believe, personally, that the industry in many facets is dually exploitative. Most men do not want to purchase sex. Most men are also victims of the culture that tells them that their masculinity requires them to be sexual consumers, requires them to consume women's bodies without any foregoing thought of who they are as an individual and anything along those lines.

I really think that when men are given the opportunity for education, when they are allowed alternative measures programs, many of them do turn the corner and they do not continue to exploit women. They have always said to me, “I had no idea. I really had no idea. I took it at face value. She told me she wanted to be there. I didn't see a pimp or anyone behind her and I thought that it was no harm, no foul.”

I think the problem is that people equate it to healthy natural sex, because that is the type of sex that most people fortunately have participated in. I think that whenever we look at transactional sex, it is not in alignment with what we know to be authentic sexual consent. One of the cornerstones to sexual consent is that it is freely given. The very essence of the fact that we are doing this huge amount of economic coercion in order to suck marginalized and vulnerable people into the industry speaks to what is needed for them to play along and smile, like I said, in the face of their abuse.

I really think that we need to have a strategy that creates an inter-ministerial body that works with Status of Women, with Public Safety, with WAGE and with Justice, because this is such a multi-faceted issue. It involves intimate partner violence, economic inequality, trafficking and all these problems, so this is a multi-decade strategy that we need to do and we need to stay the course.

Trisha Baptie said we need more time, and we do, but we also need more effort. We are not given effort and we can do better by Canadian women and girls. I think education is a cornerstone to it. The feds need to be giving the money to the provinces so that we can have some curriculum being put into all of our educational institutions, particularly starting in grade seven, because we are seeing these young men become exploiters.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Heinz.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Now we go to Ms. Dhillon, for four minutes, please.