Madam Speaker, I am very pleased on behalf of my constituents of Winnipeg Centre to join in this debate brought to the House of Commons by the member for Vancouver East with her presentation of Motion No. 192. It is a very thoughtful motion and a timely issue for us as members of Parliament to be dealing with today.
The motion states:
That a special committee of the House be appointed to review the solicitation laws in order to improve the safety of sex-trade workers and communities overall, and to recommend changes that will reduce the exploitation of and violence against sex-trade workers.
I am particularly pleased to point out to the House the tireless dedication to this issue demonstrated by my colleague, the member for Vancouver East. The member for Vancouver East, my NDP colleague and House leader for the NDP, represents a community that is very troubled in many ways, in that it has been the site of horrific incidents pertaining to sex trade workers and street people and in that 66 women have disappeared in recent years, on the face of it at the hands of a mass murderer. Charges have been laid and the outcome remains to be seen, but certainly there has never been a more graphic illustration of violence toward or the exploitation of sex trade workers than what we have witnessed in recent years in the hon. member's riding.
I should point out as well that the member is not new to this issue. As city councillor for that same region for almost 20 years prior to becoming a member of Parliament, the same hon. member was an outspoken advocate and champion for the rights of those disadvantaged people who find themselves in the sex trade on the streets of Vancouver.
I welcome this debate because it is important that Canada get its mind around the laws pertaining to prostitution and the sex trade. I argue that the federal laws pertaining to solicitation are hypocritical, so to speak, because as a nation we are willing to tolerate the idea of a sex industry provided that we do not see it on our streets. Very little is said and done until it becomes a visible social problem evident on the streets of our major cities. It is a contradictory and I believe hypocritical view, which accentuates the good reason for bringing this issue before the justice committee so that it can be dealt with more thoroughly.
I point out that Canada has been seized of the issue before. In 1985 the Fraser commission did a thorough review of Canada's laws pertaining to solicitation and the sex trade. It was at that time that recommendations were made and changes were made to the federal law pertaining to communicating for the purposes of soliciting. Since that time, the review of that law has shown that there has been no substantial change from those actions from the point of view of increasing either safety or law and order in local communities. Again it is time to revisit this issue.
I am particularly pleased that the hon. member gave us this opportunity because my own riding of Winnipeg Centre has many similarities and parallels to the inner city of Vancouver. It is a core area riding with many of the predictable consequences of chronic long term poverty, one of which, as was pointed out very ably by the parliamentary secretary, is certainly the issue of prostitution.
I would like to pay tribute to and recognize in my address some people in the inner city of Winnipeg who are making a difference and who will be very pleased to see that the House of Commons is seized of this issue. Gloria Enns, who was recently awarded the Queen's jubilee medal, runs an organization called Sage House, which advocates on behalf of street sex trade workers. I believe that the emphasis in her work, as has been stated, is harm reduction, taking the morality, so to speak, out of the issue of the sex trade industry and dealing with the more urgent issue of the safety and well-being of many of the people, predominantly women, who find themselves in this situation. Also, the Mount Carmel Clinic in Winnipeg has been a tireless advocate and has done yeoman's work in terms of providing a refuge for people in the sex trade industry.
The point has been made that there is an inexorable link between the sex trade industry and poverty for those who find themselves in that industry. The economic and social inequality of women is largely responsible for the situation as we see it today. It is an issue of gender equality and an issue of human rights as much as it is an issue of criminal law.
It was pointed out as well that those most likely to be engaged in this dangerous activity in the street sex trade industry are: aboriginal women, already disadvantaged in the lowest socio-economic group in the country; substance abusers, those who are addicted; and new arrivals from other countries. We are sensitive to the issue that many people engaged in the sex trade industry find it their only avenue of recourse to deal with the compounded problems that they face in society already.
I know that the member for Vancouver East has done a great deal of research on this issue. Even before this motion came up for debate in the House of Commons, she sent a letter to the justice minister urging the minister to begin an immediate review of the federal laws, as is dealt with in the motion. She stated that the “review of the federal laws...should include two key objectives: to improve the safety of street level sex trade workers and communities, as well as to recommend changes that will reduce exploitation of and violence against prostitutes”.
She does not refer to specific changes that need to be made, but wisely we will leave it up to a subcommittee of the justice committee, hopefully, to hear witnesses, travel across the country and develop recommendations.
One of the things what she suggests will likely come up as the study is undertaken is that consideration should be given to the decriminalization of the sex trade workers altogether. We believe that it is time for a frank and open dialogue about the sex trade and what can be done to reduce the harm, both to individual workers and to the communities impacted by the sex trade industry.
As I have said, we need to change the mindset of Canadians in relation to workers in the sex trade. We need to leave the morality issue to the side and deal with the practical issues of harm reduction, both for the individuals involved and for the community at large.
In the few minutes I have left I would like to draw attention to a tragic issue in my riding of Winnipeg Centre to illustrate that this issue is not limited to Vancouver's east side. I have with me a newspaper article. Just a few days ago in Winnipeg, Therena Adelina Silva was the latest victim in a series of killings of Winnipeg prostitutes, many of whom do their business in the immediate area of my office, at Sargent and Elice Avenues, in the core area of Winnipeg. We are all touched, no matter where we live in Canada, by the tragedies associated with this event.
Madam Speaker, because I am running short of time I would like to raise this issue. I think you would find broad support for the following amendment to the hon. member's motion. I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting the words “a special committee of the House be appointed” and by substituting therefor the words “the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights be ordered to”.