Justice committee  I would, and I'll tell you why: when my 15-year-old gets accosted standing outside at a bus stop, I will know I did the right thing. My children are more at risk of being brought into prostitution due to race and having a mom who was exploited; they're more likely. I value my c

Justice committee  There's a solution for that. I work on a zero operating budget for Sextrade101. I make my money by public speaking. I have 400 girls who are clients across Canada who I work with. We have not gotten federal funding. We do everything within our speaking...and I have another job wh

Justice committee  No, we do need funding, but we do our best with what little we have. You know, $20 million, that's nothing—

Justice committee  —for five years. Hopefully with the johns and the john schools we'll see revenue from it. We need to look at this. When these johns are fined, the fines should be geared to income. If they're making $100,000 a year, they should be paying a $10,000 fine, with that money going into

Justice committee  The men and women who exploited me were involved in organized crime. It comes hand in hand. I think it's a boldfaced lie for someone who is involved in prostitution to sit up here and say they've never encountered a child. In my time working across Canada, do you know how many t

Justice committee  I think we need to just have this dialogue. I think that with all of what's going on with the legislation and that it will open that dialogue. Every day I open up my email and there are two more women or girls, or mother of a girl, or whatever, who ask me to help them. I don't kn

Justice committee  We've been working alongside the Invisible Men Project, and every day we get an e-mail about quotes from these johns taken from a website that rates prostitutes. This one reminds me of my daughter's mother: “I chose her thinking mileage may be better if she's a little desperate

Justice committee  I did have a criminal record, and I was able to get a pardon. But I did have a lengthy record.

Justice committee  You know what? I exited with a Canada-wide warrant, so it didn't have any effect. Actually, you know, I look at it as a blessing. I look at it as things happen for a reason, and it saved my life.

Justice committee  I think Bill C-36 will protect aboriginal women a little bit more. I think there is a dialogue that's opened, and with the amount of missing and murdered aboriginal women, this bill will recognize the need to protect them.

Justice committee  Actually, as a child, one of my clients was a crown attorney in Thunder Bay, and he paid for me and was caught with me, and I got put on trial. I grew up being shamed in my own community for what a grown man who was put in a place of power did. I got rejected from where I grew up

Justice committee  To be really truthful, I made a lot more money as a child than I did as an adult. They paid me a lot more when they knew I was 12 years old. As an adult woman I felt that I had control, but I didn't have control because when I stepped back from prostitution to be a mom, I realize

Justice committee  I don't think little girls aspire to service multitudes of different men as adults. I think lack of choice consists of choice. When women involved in prostitution say that this is their choice, they are feeling somewhat in need to control and hold some kind of control to it. That

Justice committee  Thank you.

Justice committee  For me, I think prostitution is inherently dangerous. There is no form of screening that would tell you if the guy is going to kill you. To even communicate with the johns is very tricky; that is why we call them “tricks”. I was involved in prostitution as a child and as an adul