Evidence of meeting #7 for Justice and Human Rights in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was prostitution.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:40 p.m.
Liberal
Anju Dhillon Liberal Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC
My first question is for Ms. Gerrard.
In your testimony, you talked about racism and marginalized people in the ads. Can you please tell us if there's a huge difference when it comes to helping those who are marginalized when it comes to law enforcement and when they go to the police to denounce a crime? Are they mistreated when they are presenting themselves there? Do they not go because they are afraid of criminal charges themselves? Could you please talk a little bit about that?
Thank you.
5:40 p.m.
Director, Defend Dignity
I would say that out of our survivor support fund about 17% of our applicants are indigenous people. We don't ask that specific question on what their experience has been like with police. I can only answer that question anecdotally from my own conversations with different survivors who are indigenous or BIPOC. I can respond to the question that way and say that, yes, there certainly have been experiences that they may have had with the police that have not been good. Conversely, there are some who have had good experiences with the police.
I really want to speak to that and about how important it is. If we're talking about changes to the legislation, I would strongly encourage you to include a training component for all aspects, all parts of our justice system.
As I mentioned, we have trained 10,000 people across Canada, most recently at a summit, the Canadian Sexual Exploitation Summit, where we had a whole day for training police, Crown attorneys, judges and whoever wanted to be part of that training. Part of that training was to hear from indigenous voices and to share their experiences with the police on the things to do, the things not to do and some of the challenges they have faced.
Absolutely, I don't deny that there have been challenges at times for indigenous people with their experiences with the police, but I think that better training is what is needed, and I do see that as possible. We were very encouraged to have about 75 police, Crown attorneys and judges take part in the training that day last May. They were all very supportive of PCEPA, the law you are currently reviewing, and just wanted to learn how better to implement it and how to enforce it.
5:40 p.m.
Liberal
Anju Dhillon Liberal Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC
Thank you very much for that.
You also spoke a bit about the research report and then ran out of time. Were there any suggestions in the report or anything that those who responded wanted to see when it came to legislation?
5:40 p.m.
Director, Defend Dignity
Again, we didn't ask questions about the legislation, but I can tell you, on behalf of those whom I believe we are representing as we share the results of this research, that many of them spoke to the harms of purchasing and how buyers were violent. We would certainly speak in support of keeping that provision in place. We need to have the section 286.1 purchasing provision stay as it is, based on what the research tells us: that it's the buyers and the pimps and traffickers, the exploiters, who are causing the violence.
We believe the law protects those who are experiencing that kind of violence.
5:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Randeep Sarai
Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Dhillon.
Thank you to our witnesses today. You've enlightened all of us in all aspects of this.
I'll now conclude the meeting. We'll adjourn until next time.