Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, and thank you for inviting us here to speak today about this important issue. I had the opportunity to appear before your committee on April 1 to discuss Bill C-14, and I appear before you again today on behalf of the RCMP organized crime pro

Justice committee  Mr. Petit, I will try to answer you to the best of my ability. Those who are more familiar with the Hells Angels than I am could perhaps add to my response. There are two things that come to mind. First of all, certain large criminal organizations, such as the mafia, will not ne

Justice committee  On the issue of expert witnesses, it is a challenge. Maybe Mr. Latulippe can address it from the Quebec front. That would probably be helpful. The RCMP recognizes it, and we are challenged on it due to human resource issues. I'm not going to hide that from you. It is a challeng

Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for the invitation for us to come here and speak today. If it's okay, I will do my opening remarks both in English and French. As mentioned, I'm the director of the RCMP's immigration and passport branch at the national headquarters in Ottawa, re

Justice committee  It's a two-part question, sir, and hopefully I'll get the right answer. In terms of the numbers, the understanding is that a number of entities have used numbers that came out of Project Surrender, which was done in 2004 or thereabouts, and those numbers have been misinterpreted

Justice committee  I have to agree with you on that one, sir. It is a problem, I have no doubt. In my personal police experience, the areas that I've been involved in, is there human trafficking, as defined? Yes, there is. What is the breadth of it, in terms of quantifying the numbers? From a law e

Justice committee  I would say so.

Justice committee  I will do my best to answer your question, Mr. Ménard. It is very difficult to establish the exact number of victims. Are there 2,000? Are there more? Are there fewer? It is hard for us to know with any certainty because this is a hidden crime. It is a crime whose victims do not

Justice committee  Are you talking about the cases that still have to be dealt with?

Justice committee  In the cases where a conviction was obtained, there were 4 people under the age of 18, and, in the 17 cases that are presently before the courts, there are seven victims under 18.

Justice committee  There are other cases of— human trafficking-related cases. These are human trafficking charges that are not laid as such; they are related charges. In 2008-2009, there were seven victims under the age of 18.

Justice committee  The only thing, Mr. Comartin, we can think of is that it may have been taken from Project Surrender. Again, it's our opinion that it's a project whose results have been misinterpreted.

Justice committee  All I can tell you, sir, in all honesty, is that we have no hard figures we can rely upon to provide you.

Justice committee  I will do my best, Mr. Petit. In my experience with organized crime and in my recent experience, I can say that it is not an insignificant problem. The problem does not just exist in Canada; it is widespread in Europe, where police and governments are putting a lot of time into

Status of Women committee  Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for the invitation to speak to you today. I am Superintendent Michel Aubin, the Director of the RCMP's Immigration and Passport Branch at national headquarters in Ottawa. My branch is responsible for human trafficking and hu