Bill C-49 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (trafficking in persons)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to
(a) create an offence of trafficking in persons that prohibits a person from engaging in specified acts for the purpose of exploiting or facilitating the exploitation of another person;
(b) create an offence that prohibits a person from receiving a financial or other material benefit that they know results from the commission of the offence of trafficking in persons;
(c) create an offence that prohibits concealing, removing, withholding or destroying travel documents or documents that establish or purport to establish another person’s identity or immigration status for the purpose of committing or facilitating the offence of trafficking in persons; and
(d) establish that a person exploits another person if they cause them to provide, or offer to provide, labour or a service by engaging in conduct that could reasonably be expected to cause the other person to believe that their safety or that of someone known to them would be threatened if they failed to do so or if, by means of deception or the use or threat of force or of any other form of coercion, they cause the other person to have an organ or tissue removed.

Criminal Code

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to stand in the House today to support Bill C-49 and to echo some of the strong support from members on all sides of the House for the bill.

In 1997 I attended, on behalf of the Government of Canada, the first World Conference on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Youth in Stockholm, Sweden. What I heard was appalling. It was the place where work began to be formalized for dealing in the trafficking in women and children. Since then, it has become a cause for me. It is something about which I feel passionate. I have worked closely with my colleagues over the years to bring us to the point where we have now many policies and pieces of legislation. We are working internationally with the United Nations and other countries to deal with trafficking.

For me the bill is one more piece in that armamentarium of all the tools that we can use to deal with trafficking.

The United States Department of State in its 2004 annual report stated that 600,000 to 800,000 persons are trafficked around the world each year; 47% of those are women and 50% are children. We do not have to be a mathematician to know that that makes up 97% of the total people being trafficked around the world.

UNICEF estimates that about 2.1 million children are trafficked each year and that it is worth $10 billion to organized crime.

Trafficking in human beings is not something is new. It is as old as time. Those of us who have read history know about slavery in ancient Rome. We also know about the 60 million Africans who were trafficked as slaves during the colonial era. We know that trafficking has been with us for a long time. It does not make it acceptable however.

Yet today trafficking is carried out in a very different series of ways than we used to read about in history. The new realities of different types of trafficking is reflected in this bill which is very important. We have to use new tools to deal with modern day problems.

The reality today is that victims can be trafficked through many different means: by being kidnapped, by being lured, by being given false promises of legitimate jobs or by being given false promises of all kinds of opportunity to people who are desperate and wanting to find some way out of the hopelessness of their lives.

The bill also reflects the reality that persons can be trafficked for different purposes: for being forced into the sex trade, for being forced into some form of labour whether it be in sweat shops or otherwise, or horrendously to have to donate a human organ or human tissue as part of what they are trafficked to do.

The bill reflects a reality that no one can ever validly consent to this kind of dehumanization.

At the same time Bill C-49 reflects the reality that human trafficking can involve global dimensions and local dimensions. Trafficking can occur within one country either from rural to urban, urban to rural areas or region to region. We know that it goes on in Canada.

Ultimately it does not really matter what form of conduct it involves or to what purpose the trafficking occurs. Bill C-49 has proposed a package of criminal law reforms that will deal with many of those new ways of trafficking.

This is tough legislation. I know some people do not think it is tough enough, but it is. It is tough enough hopefully to prevent trafficking. It is tough enough to protect the vulnerable victims. It is tough enough to prosecute offenders whether local or international and to make them fully and completely accountable.

However, that is not all. Bill C-49 is only one part of an array of tools, policies and legislation to protect the vulnerable in our society which is a priority for our government. For instance it links with Bill C-2 which was passed in July of this year and it builds on, IRPA, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, to protect persons who may be trafficked as refugees. It builds on our existing Criminal Code protections against behaviours associated with trafficking, by creating three new indictable offences.

The first, trafficking in persons, is a specific prohibition against any person engaged in the exploitation of a person or facilitating the exploitation of a person. This new proposal identifies the acts in question such as recruiting, transporting, transferring, receiving, holding, concealing or harbouring a person, exercising control, and direction or influence over the movements of another person. That is a pretty broad definition. That includes all of the many different players. It does not only include the person who started the movement from country A but it could also be the person who played a role somewhere along the chain of events. They too would be indicted under this bill.

This legislation expands the definition of our criminal law responses. For example, the Criminal Code offence against kidnapping is also expanded in this particular bill. With this new offence, it is proposed that the maximum penalty for any of the trafficking to be life imprisonment if it involves the kidnapping, aggravated assault or aggravated sexual assault or death of the victim, and 14 years imprisonment in other cases.

These maximum sentences send a strong message that this government denounces and deters this kind of criminal conduct. If it were to pass with the agreement of other members of the House, it would send a strong message that the Parliament of Canada denounces and deters this kind of criminal conduct.

The second part of the bill that I like is the proposal to create another indictable offence specifically targeting those who seek to profit from human trafficking and from the exploitation of others, even if they do not engage in the physical acts set out in the main trafficking in persons section. It would specifically prohibit any person from receiving a financial or other material benefit when they know that it results from the commission of the trafficking of another person. That offence would carry a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment.

The third part of the bill also sends a strong message. This legislation would create another new offence to prohibit anyone from concealing, removing, withholding or destroying another person's travel documents or identification.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member opposite for his support for Bill C-49 and his great concern for human trafficking. He also has a private member's bill, Bill C-283, which proposes bonds for people wishing to come to Canada. With his new found interest in human trafficking and support for this bill, I am curious whether he would consider withdrawing his private member's bill.

As many analysts have said when they have looked at the details of the private member's bill, in the best case scenario bonds posted for people wishing to come to Canada would limit visitors to those who are very rich or have very well off families. In the worst case scenario, there are many potential visitors from countries where, unfortunately, circumstances are such that these source countries have large numbers of people willing to take risks and perhaps to take on loans required to pay for these kinds of bonds.

The illegal trafficking in human beings and women in particular is a multi-billion dollar business, a business that can provide financing in these poor countries to people who perhaps would not otherwise have a way of coming to Canada. Analysts are saying this and logic seems to say that this kind of bill would allow and help in the trafficking of human beings, particularly women.

With his support for Bill C-49, will he be withdrawing his private member's bill?

[Gurmant Grewal, Conservative, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Madam Speaker, I knocked on a lot of doors during the summer break and I heard the question consistently. People do not trust this government any more. They think the government is adrift and going in the wrong direction.

The criminal justice system protects the criminals but not the victims. It fails to protect our children to the extent that when a motion and a bill was presented in the House recently, all Liberals shamelessly stood to oppose the bill for the age of consent to be raised from 14 to at least 16. They did not do it, so what do I conclude? The government lacks the political will. It is out of focus, tired and has become arrogant. It does not have the steam any more to address some of these issues.

Naturally when Canadians look at these things, they find the government is not credible on this issue. An example is Bill C-49. After 12 years, the government came up with this bill.

We will remember a few years ago when a lot of illegal Chinese immigrants or entrants into the country landed on our shores. What did the government do? It did absolutely nothing. The victims who landed on our shores paid huge amounts of money to snakeheads in two provinces in China. The parliamentary secretary at that time went to China and visited those two provinces. The government wanted to solve the problem over there, but did absolutely nothing within its own power to make effective laws in Canada and provide enough resources to law enforcement agencies.

This is the knee-jerk approach of the government. It is too little too late. It came up with Bill C-49 when it noticed that our allies in other countries, the United States and Great Britain, had came up with legislation. It has done this to catch up with the other countries, but it has not made effective laws in our country to protect Canadians.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member has given many insightful comments in terms of immigration.

Here in the House of Commons we are the highest court and this is where the laws are made. We have the power to implement those laws. We have all recognized that the bill has a lot of merit and we all recognize that human trafficking has to stop.

In my view, it is a question of credibility. This year, when we tried to raise the age of sexual consent from 14 to 16, it was defeated. There are many excuses for why it was defeated.

We also heard in this House that the gun registry, which has eaten up more than a billion dollars, is continuing but the money is not being put into the much needed police resources.

Earlier on in the year we had immigrants jumping the queue. We found out that people in the sex trade had preferential treatment on at least one occasion, if not more.

Would the member please comment on the immigration side of this? We have migrants, the most vulnerable people, coming from abroad hoping to have a new life, hoping to have an opportunity to become educated and better themselves. Would the member please comment on the credibility of the Liberal government on Bill C-49?

[Gurmant Grewal, Conservative, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Madam Speaker, I wanted to participate in the questions and comments but I was not recognized even though I stood five or six times to ask a question of the Liberals. However, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the constituents of Newton—North Delta to participate in the third reading debate on Bill C-49, an act to amend the Criminal Code in respect to trafficking in persons.

The proposed amendments would create a few new indictable offences to specifically address human trafficking.

The first offence, trafficking in persons, prohibits a person from engaging in specified acts for the purpose of exploiting or facilitating the exploitation of another person. This offence would carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment where it involved kidnapping, aggravated assault, sexual assault, or even death.

The second offence would prohibit anyone from receiving financial or other material benefits resulting from the commission of a trafficking offence. It would be punishable by a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail.

The third offence would prohibit the holding or destroying of documents, such as identification or travel documents, for the purpose of committing or facilitating the commission of a trafficking offence. It would carry a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment.

Human trafficking is a growing problem that demands urgent and substantial action from the government, which we have not seen for the last 12 years.

According to the United Nations, over 2.4 million people, the vast majority of them women and children, are victimized each year. Human trafficking is now the third largest illegal trade in the world behind weapons and drugs. The penalties have been minimal so this trade has been growing. With annual profits of close to $12 billion on average, organized crime has moved into the trade and has become a dominant force.

Canada is not immune to human trafficking and in fact has been identified as a major transit point and destination for human trafficking. Last year the RCMP estimated that at least 800 people are trafficked into Canada annually, and that an additional 1,500 to 2,200 people are trafficked through Canada into the United States. Some experts believe that the actual numbers are much higher, but the nature of the crime makes it impossible to say definitively how many people are involved. We can say, however, that it is a serious problem.

One of the major root causes has been ignored in the debate that I have listened to today, and that is that the immigration system in this country is in a mess. There are long delays. There is a long queue of people waiting. Some of these people have been waiting for up to eight years to be interviewed and have their cases processed.

For example, in the independent category, in some countries the waiting period is 66 months before someone can be first interviewed. Married couples are separated for a long time before they are reunited. Similarly, parents and other family members have to wait a long time. Visitor visa cases are not being dealt with properly.

The system is being abused. I am not saying the system encourages human trafficking, but why are we letting this happen? It is occurring because the system itself is flawed and is not working the way it should. As a result, the system is vulnerable to abuse because the front door of our immigration policy is not open and therefore people are coming in through the back door. The Liberal government has made promises to address the problem, but for the last 12 years it has not been able to keep any of them.

I would say that these legitimate people, who the system was meant for, are given the run around, are not allowed to come through the proper channels and are being abused by those people.

My province of British Columbia is particularly vulnerable to human trafficking. The United States state department identifies British Columbia as an attractive centre for East Asian traffickers who smuggle South Korean woman through Canada to the United States. Organized crime groups have targeted Vancouver because of our immigration laws, benefits available to immigrants and the proximity to the United States border.

According to the state department, at least 15,000 Chinese entered Canada illegally over the last decade, many of them paying thousands of dollars to smugglers only to end up working as indentured servants or even as prostitutes. Asian women and girls who are smuggled into the country are forced into prostitution regularly. Traffickers use intimidation and violence, as well as the illegal immigrant's inability to speak English, to keep victims from running away or informing the police.

Bill C-49 is not entering into a legislative vacuum. In June 2002, a specific offence against human trafficking came into force under section 118 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The current law provides for fines of up to $1 million and life imprisonment. Section 118, however, deals with human trafficking across our international border from a border integrity angle.

In contrast, Bill C-49 would deal with trafficking both within Canada and across Canadian borders. Although anti-trafficking legislation has been in place for three years, the first ever charge under the law did not occur until this past April. A Vancouver businessman faces human trafficking charges after police answered a call about a violent incident at the businessman's massage parlour. One charge in three years is a rather meagre result.

Detective Constable Jim Fisher, with the Vancouver police intelligence section, confesses that Canada has not come to grips with what it takes to properly police this human trafficking that has been happening for so long. We can have the best laws in the world but if we do not place enough resources into enforcement the laws will mean nothing. That is the case with human trafficking. Our enforcement of the current law is weak, as demonstrated by this one charge.

Canada is struggling to identify its trafficking victims inside secret migrant smuggling operations.

We will remember that the Auditor General's report seriously criticized this particular instance: 36,000 illegal entrants into this country are missing in action and cannot be traced; and 60% of the people who come to our ports and apply for refugee status go before our refugee officers without any documents and no identification but we all know that when they boarded their plane for Canada they had some sort of document. However once they land in Canada and appear in the lineup applying for refugee status they have no documents.

We must use anti-trafficking laws to vigorously increase investigations, arrests, prosecutions and convictions of traffickers. However that will not happen with the government which insists on starving our law enforcement agencies of the resources they need to do their jobs effectively.

As a member of the Subcommittee on Organized Crime, as well as a member of the citizenship and immigration committee in the past, I became familiar with many of the problems facing our country. It has become clear to me that the Liberal policies are undermining the credibility of the criminal justice system. The government has given us a system in which even soft sentences are only partly served and that fails to protect citizens from crime.

The human trafficking aspect is a lose-lose situation for everyone except the human traffickers who are making a profit. It is bad for our country, bad for our society, bad for our communities and bad for newcomers who could have used the front door rather than using the back door and paying huge amounts to the snakeheads or to the human smugglers.

Who is responsible? The weak laws that are not being enforced by the government.

The recommendations of my colleagues and myself on the committee were essential for tackling organized crime but were ignored by the government and are gathering dust somewhere on a bureaucrat's desk.

The Liberal government has had 12 years to deal with this issue and it has failed. It is the Liberal record of all talk but no action that has put us in this abysmal situation. It is essential that we have tough laws. We need to give the police and law enforcement agencies what they need to carry out their jobs.

The amendments contained in Bill C-49 are comparable to laws passed recently in other jurisdictions.

In July 2004, the United Kingdom passed a new law clamping down on traffickers by introducing a new offence of human trafficking for non-sexual exploitation with a maximum penalty of 14 years and making the offence of knowingly employing an illegal worker a “triable either way” offence subject to unlimited fines.

In 2000, the U.S. Congress passed the trafficking victims protection act which, among other things, created new laws that criminalized trafficking with respect to slavery, involuntary servitude, peonage or forced labour, and increased prison terms for all slavery violations from 10 to 20 years and added life imprisonment where the violation involves the death, kidnapping or sexual abuse of the victim.

In this situation, the victims need protection from the government. Our laws should be such that they should prevent these things from happening, there should be enough deterrents in place and there should be enough resources for the law enforcement agencies to carry on with their jobs but, at the same time, the victims must be protected so that we are fair to all aspects of the law.

Surveying the international scene, it is clear that the time is ripe for tough new human trafficking legislation.

Trafficking in persons has been described as a modern form of slavery. It is a serious human rights violation and is the fastest growing form of transnational organized crime. The profits are huge and the penalities are minimum. It is imperative that Canada acts to stem the growth of this serious crime.

I therefore welcome Bill C-49. It is a small step in the right direction. The bill would bring Canada into line with the international commitments. The bill would address a serious global issue. However the government must not sit on its laurels. Without serious penalties for these serious crimes, the exploitation and abuse will continue.

Bill C-49 speaks of tough maximum sentences. The serious problem with the government is that it talks about tougher maximum penalties but it means nothing because the judicial system, the lawyers, will never hand out those penalties.

Bill C-49 says nothing about mandatory minimum sentences. We need mandatory minimum prison sentences so that those who violate the Criminal Code should be behind bars, should suffer, or at least serve some time and minimum penalties should be imposed.

As we have seen with this existing law, the resources must be available to enforce the law. Only then will Canada be able to start to effectively stamp out human trafficking in this country.

As a nation, it is our responsibility to seek a solution to this problem in order to protect the human rights of all people, from all backgrounds, no matter what their nationality might be.

As lawmakers in this country, it is our responsibility to clean up the system which the government has failed to do for the last 12 years. Our immigration system should be our economic backbone, as well as supporting growth in this country. The immigration system is supporting the manpower needs and the skilled labour that we need. The system is so polluted that it is working only for the human traffickers and not for the legitimate immigrants who want to come to this country and make significant contributions in many ways.

The question of the recognition of foreign credentials did not come to the floor of this House until I brought forward a motion many years ago which the Liberals failed to support. We have qualified people coming to this country to serve, contribute and make positive economic contributions in socio-cultural ways but instead are being employed in menial jobs. Would we expect someone with a Ph.D. or another degree to work at a gas station or drive a taxi? We allow loopholes in the system that have not been taken care of in the past.

On the weekend I attended a wedding reception. Many of the guests who were supposed to join the family on that auspicious occasion could not get their visitor visas. When we inquired about the situation we found out that there were bogus reasons. No legitimate reasons were given and even the income of the sponsors was not properly entered into the system. Some zeros were missing in the income figures. Naturally, the arbitrary criteria did not allow the respectable family members to join the celebration.

We hear similar stories from members of Parliament from all parties. They hear these stories when it comes to funerals.

What do those people do when they are barred from attending family events? They naturally will find some other means to come to this country, such as abuse their ministerial permit or use political influence.

Bill C-49 is a step in the right direction. All the law enforcement agencies must be given enough resources. The laws should be tougher so that we can curtail the violations to the system and the abuse of the system, but on the other hand open the front door to immigration so that legitimate people can come through the front door.

I remember an interesting story. When I was a member of the immigration committee I mentioned this concept of the front door and back door. I said that the back door was closed long ago. When the former minister of immigration was speaking to Bill C-11 in the House at that time, she looked at me and said that the bill would close the back door but that it would open the front door. Neither the front door nor the back door is open now. Instead, the government has installed a revolving door.

I urge the government during the short time it will be in office to clean up the system. The government needs to do whatever can be done to make the immigration system work and stop human trafficking forever.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Madam Speaker, clearly these are issues that we all care very passionately about and want resolved. Bill C-49 is only one part of a multi-faceted approach that the government has taken to deal with the whole issue of crime and how much more closely we can work with international communities. Bill C-49 is one instrument. It is one tool. It is only one part of the fight to eradicate crime and protect the most vulnerable people in our society.

We are going to continue to move forward with a variety of pieces of legislation, working together to ensure the safety of people who live in Canada as well as the safety of people in other countries who clearly want to come to Canada. Some are led to believe that this is the land of luxury for everyone and they simply are brought here to be exploited. Bill C-49 will bring an end to that because we are going to be working closely with the international community on how we can make our laws that much stronger.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to join in the debate on Bill C-49 and to see that this is third reading. Hopefully, with the help of everyone in the House, the bill will be passed and quickly pushed into law.

I also would like to congratulate the minister for his hard work on something that is extremely important.

I will be sharing my time, Madam Speaker, with the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca this evening.

The important part of Bill C-49 is the government's commitment to the protection of vulnerable persons and the ongoing strategy to combat human trafficking, something that all of us in the House deplore.

Currently, the Criminal Code does not specifically prohibit trafficking in persons, although a number of offences, including kidnapping, uttering threats and extortion do play a significant role in targeting this crime. Bill C-49 would strengthen this legislation by going beyond the focus on immigration and making trafficking in persons a criminal offence.

Victims are often women and children being forced into the sex industry, but at times also include men, women and children exploited through farm, domestic and other labour opportunities. In some countries, trafficked children may be forced into work as beggars and as child soldiers.

Trafficked persons are often duped into their own new professions, deceived with possible dreams in a rich land, with seemingly legitimate employment contracts or marriages abroad. These vulnerable people are too often fleeing poverty and poor living conditions, only to be enslaved in what they thought was going to be their country of opportunity on their arrival in Canada.

Upon arriving at their destination, many of these individuals are put to work, subject to debt bondage which they can never pay back because it increases on a weekly basis. They can spend years and years trying to repay their bondage to be free. Victims of trafficking are often subjected to physical, sexual and emotional abuse.

Although some are universally recognized as victims, for example children who are exploited through the sex trade, others are often perceived as illegal migrants or criminals, people who should be persecuted and prosecuted. Women trafficked in the sex trade are sometimes seen as simply violating immigration or criminal laws relating to prostitution, rather than looking at the seriousness of the big picture.

Because of these perceptions and because of the threats from traffickers, many victims are reluctant to turn to the police for protection. Those of us who come from large urban centres frequently hear that as a concern that they have. The social stigma of prostitution is also a factor. Women trafficked internationally who are returned to their home countries may be ostracized within their communities and their families, again becoming a victim.

We need to ensure in this legislation that we provide strong criminal and witness protection measures backed by the necessary resources in order to ensure effective prosecutions and the real deterrent against trafficking.

We also need accurate statistics concerning the scope of trafficking at home and abroad, a difficult thing at times to achieve.

Although there are no clear statistics, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police estimate that 600 foreign women and girls are coerced into the sex trade in Canada every year with a promise of a better life. This number would probably rise to approximately 800 if it were to include those trafficked into Canada for other kinds of forced labour. Estimates also indicate that approximately 1,500 to 2, 200 people are trafficked from Canada into the United States every year.

Bill C-49 promises a series of criminal law reforms which will enable us to better address human trafficking. Specifically, it would create the three new indictable Criminal Code offences, providing our law enforcement officials with additional tools to address the full range of behaviour often associated with this terrible crime.

Human trafficking involves the recruitment, transportation, concealing and harbouring of a person in order to exploit the person. The main offence proposed by Bill C-49 would target exactly this behaviour and specifically prohibit it.

This offence would carry a strong penalty, indeed, the strongest penalty our criminal law provides: life imprisonment where the offence involves kidnapping, aggravated assault, aggravated sexual assault or the death of the victim. In all other cases, the penalty would be 14 years' imprisonment. This sends a very strong message that such conduct will not be tolerated in Canada and, in my opinion, rightfully acknowledges the terrible impact this activity has on its victims, their families and society in general.

Bill C-49 also proposes to define exploitation as central to the main offence. This is very important, because we know that the crime of human trafficking is always about exploitation of the victims. Bill C-49, in my opinion, properly defines the most reprehensible aspect of this crime. Whether victims are exploited for forced labour, for sexual services or for human organs or tissue, traffickers exploit the lives and the souls of their victims for profit.

And profit they do. By all accounts, human trafficking is big business, generating an estimated $10 billion annually for its perpetrators. That is why Bill C-49 also proposes to create another offence that would target those who would profit from the exploitation of others. Specifically, it would prohibit anyone from receiving a financial or material benefit knowing that it results from the trafficking of persons. This offence is punishable by up to 10 years' imprisonment.

I support this approach because it specifically addresses one of the primary factors fuelling the demand for this type of labour, that is, the ability to make huge profits from the buying, selling and reselling of human beings. Moreover, it provides law enforcement with an improved ability to get at those who would economically benefit from this crime, those who may not actually engage in the physical act of trafficking in persons but who clearly benefit.

Finally, Bill C-49's proposed third offence would prohibit the withholding or destroying of travel or identity documents in order to commit or facilitate the trafficking of persons. This offence would be punishable by a maximum of five years' imprisonment.

Bill C-49 will help to ensure the protection of society's most vulnerable people. I want to say thanks to all members of the House for supporting it. I again congratulate the minister and the government for moving it forward.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-49 would make as crimes three additional provisions. First, it would make trafficking in human beings a crime. It is amazing that it is not one already. Second, it would be a crime if anyone were to profit from trafficking. Third, it would be a crime to withhold documents, such as travel documents or identification documents.

The bill is designed to deal with what can only be classified as a horrendous crime and a horrendous set of circumstances that is besetting us worldwide. We are being told, particularly by the United Nations, that crimes of this nature are growing in number.

Until a few years ago when this became very apparent, we had believed that slavery in all of its forms had been eradicated. We certainly think of the steps that were taken back in the 1800s and the role Canada played in outlawing slavery in Canada.

I was recently at a testimonial for a husband, who was an escaped slave from the United States, and his wife. We unveiled a plaque in the west end of the city as a testimony to the work they had done around that period of time, that their predecessors had done in Canada and the work that they had done in the United States to bring what we believed was an end to slavery on this continent.

We were all shocked when we found out that there are all too many cases of people being indentured in one form or another, intimidated, threatened, assaulted, and in some cases even killed, as part of this type of crime. The incidents are largely generated by organized crime operating in gangs right around the globe.

We are late in terms of responding to this. We are doing so as a result of the protocol which we along with a large number of other countries signed at the UN in 2000, and which was ratified in 2002. The protocol is to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially the trafficking in women and children. It is accurate that women and children are mentioned because they tend to be victims of this crime in significantly larger numbers than men are. We are responding to that finally in this bill.

As we heard in the debate so far, all parties will be supporting the bill. It may be one of the few bills that gets through this House with unanimous support, and rightfully so.

I want to address most of my comments today to what the bill does not do and what we as a legislature have to look to do.

The protocol I mentioned a few moments ago does not talk just about defining the crime, condemning the crime, and putting in place enforcement to fight the crime. It also talks about our responsibility as a nation to deal with the victims of the crime. We have not done that in this country up to this point.

The primary thing we have to be looking at, and it is really the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration who has to take on this responsibility, is what we do with the victims of this crime who have come in from offshore. We are a focal point to some degree for these victims to be used in Canada in this way. However, Canada is also used as a conduit and probably larger numbers of people are trafficked through Canada into the United States.

On a regular basis we do catch some of the criminals and a significant number of victims. Our pattern now is to deport the victims back to their country of origin, oftentimes into a set of circumstances that have not changed at all since they were first victimized. They are threatened and intimidated again and the same thing happens to their families and friends because of the strength of the organized criminals in those countries and the lack of proper law enforcement to protect them.

I recently saw a documentary from England on this point. England is beginning to identify repeat victims. The victims are found and the criminals are charged. As is done here, the victims are sent back to their country of origin and go through the same thing. The victims are brought back into the criminal system, smuggled back into England and the victimization continues.

We should not be part of that. We need amendments to our immigration legislation to deal with victims whom we have identified clearly as victims. If they are to continue to be victimized, we should not be sending them back to that country. As I said earlier, the protocol which we have ratified calls on us as a nation to take steps to prevent that from happening and to bring our laws into line with humane treatment of those victims.

The protocol also recommends that we provide proper benefits. This would be for the victims in the country who are generated from within this country. There are a significant number. Particularly within the sex trade, victims are not voluntarily recruited, but are recruited in a non-voluntary forceful fashion. They are recruited into the system by the gangs and are victimized in this country.

We need to have in place regulations and resources to deal with the situation when they are identified as victims. This oftentimes means extensive counselling because of the great deal of physical and sexual abuse they have suffered. The legislation does not address that point. It is one which the government should address.

My final point and something on which I believe we should be working is a more forceful position on the international scene. It is beyond our immediate control, but it is almost a moral obligation that we should say to the countries that do not have sufficient law enforcement that they have go begin to do that. We are conveying a message. We are saying to the international community that we will meet our responsibilities, but we also have to say to the international community, specifically to those countries that are not carrying out their responsibilities, that are not protecting their own citizens from this type of abuse who are being recruited non-voluntarily into the system that they have to start doing that.

We may have to move to an even stronger position and in some cases suggest sanctions. Do we reduce our cultural ties or our trade ties with some of these countries until they respond and prevent their own citizens from becoming victims?

We have taken a step forward. I have to say perhaps with some cynicism that it is not nearly as big a step as we have heard from some of the other speakers particularly on the government side, but it is a step forward. It is one that is a bit late. We probably should have done this several years ago in order to meet our responsibilities internationally. We have now accomplished part of the goal that has been set in that protocol, but we are not all the way there. There is still a substantial amount of work that has to be done, particularly in the immigration area.

I would encourage the government to say that we have made the first step, and let us move to fully protect the victims of those crimes.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his very interesting question. It may not be a cure-all, but it is a good part of the solution. Bill C-49 is a good step in the right direction. But we must also give quick passage to Bill C-53, providing for the reversal of onus. This bill will be debated in this House very shortly.

If we want to fight organized crime, this bill will enable us to go after those who traffic white slaves or workers, or those currently involved in modern day slavery, as I said earlier.

This kind of slavery is a lucrative business, the proceeds of which are often used to buy big mansions, snowmobiles and what not. When the time comes to convict the offenders, we will need the last piece of the puzzle, namely Bill C-53, to reverse the onus of proof. It will require offenders who have been convicted to prove that the money is not the proceeds of the crime they committed, more specifically trafficking in persons.

I hasten to conclude by answering the second question. Indeed, police protection could be provided to witnesses. What is commonly known as witness protection, more specifically in connection with organized crime, will be available.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to congratulate my colleague on his remarks on Bill C-49. He knows this subject well, and that knowledge will be an asset to the Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

Like all the members of the Bloc Québécois, I support Bill C-49, which will give the justice system better tools with which to deal with the problem of human trafficking.

I want to ask my colleague two questions. First, is Bill C-49 sufficient in order to improve the human trafficking situation in this country? Could we do more to fix this problem with regard to modern slavery? Second, does this bill provide greater protection for those who are victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation, who are forced to work and provide sexual services?

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues who spoke before me on this issue. Let me begin by thanking the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, who introduced this bill that we debated and passed unanimously at the Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

I am pleased to rise in this House for the first time to speak to a bill that was referred to the Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, where I began to sit only a few weeks ago. We studied this bill very carefully.

I knew the hon. Minister of Justice in another life when he was a law professor at a famous university in Quebec, since he was one of my professors. The hon. minister could not possibly remember that, as it was a few decades ago.

His great sense of justice allows us to debate today a very important bill that will end modern-day slavery. This type of slavery is practised throughout the world, but in Canada in particular. This bill could provide us with arguments, elements and possibilities to at least deter this modern-day slavery.

I do not want to rehash the debate on whether we should impose minimum sentences or not, or what type of sentence the courts will hand down in light of the bill before us, that I hope will be passed very quickly. No, I do not want to do that.

I have a 30-year career in criminal law behind me. I worked as a defence lawyer over the past 20 years or so. It is now known that minimum sentences have not resolved anything. The minimum sentence for importing narcotics was seven years. That never stopped narcotics trafficking whatsoever.

Traffickers formed groups and we saw the arrival of the Hells Angels and other such criminal gangs. I do not have any statistics before me, but in my career, five or six of my clients were charged, but never sentenced to seven-year minimal sentences. Every possibility was explored, bargaining was used, cases were argued and nothing was resolved.

Under the bill before us, we will be eliminating modern-day slavery by creating “an offence of trafficking in persons that prohibits a person from engaging in specified acts for the purpose of exploiting or facilitating the exploitation of another person”. This bill will put an end to all of that.

This bill will “create an offence that prohibits a person from receiving a financial or other material benefit that they know results from the commission of the offence of trafficking in persons”.

It will “create an offence that prohibits concealing, removing, withholding or destroying travel documents or documents that establish or purport to establish another person’s identity or immigration status for the purpose of committing or facilitating the offence of trafficking in persons”.

Then, as if that were not enough, it will create an offence of causing another person “to provide, or offer to provide, labour or a service by engaging in conduct that, in all the circumstances, could reasonably be expected to cause the other person to believe that their safety or the safety of a person known to them would be threatened if they failed to provide, or offer to provide, the labour or service; or cause them, by means of deception or the use or threat of force or of any other form of coercion, to have an organ or tissue removed.”

To paraphrase that, which is not complicated, from this evening on—it is the hope of us all—anyone who causes another person from any country whatsoever to believe she can come to Canada and work as a babysitter or something else, and then takes away that person's passport and other papers and forces her into prostitution, will be punished. Those who do such things will have to realize that, starting this very night, the game is all over. Unless they take their business elsewhere, they are at risk of some serious jail time. We will make sure that their offences are heavily punished.

I think it is important to underscore this point: forcing someone to work or to provide services, sexual services for example, through behaviour that leads the victim to fear for his or her personal safety, or that of a loved one, if the demands are not met, is the definition of exploitation as far as human trafficking is concerned.

The legal roadblock over the years consisted in defining what constituted exploitation as far as human trafficking is concerned. That is exactly what it is.

This bill contains an important clause dealing with causing a person “by means of deception or the use or threat of force or of any other form of coercion, to have an organ or tissue removed”. It is not true that, in the future, someone who comes to our country can have a kidney removed for any reason. With this bill, this falls under human exploitation. I think it is important to emphasize that. It is one of the key points of this bill, which, as I said, will put an end to modern day slavery.

The victims are often deceived into or forced to work in the sex industry or to perform other kinds of forced labour. That will stop. It is unacceptable that, in Canada alone, more than 800 people are the victims of this new kind of slavery every year. This bill will put an end to that, starting tonight. We believe that it is essential that it be passed, and passed as soon as possible.

There have been reports and studies. The first report, the UN report on trafficking in women published in 2000, indicates that Canada is among the top 30 destination countries for human trafficking. Starting tonight, Canada, Quebec and the other provinces could be taken off that list. It sends a chill up my spine to think that Canada could be one of the top 30 destination countries for human trafficking in recent years. We do hope that this bill will be given quick passage.

Among the issues raised in this 2000 report was the fact that, more often than not, the victims do not expose their employers because, for one thing, once identified by the authorities, they will not be allowed to remain in their country of adoption in order to seek protection or demand redress.

Based on the information provided to us in committee, we believe that this bill will ensure that steps are taken so that the victims of trafficking—and I am addressing my remarks to them—are no longer afraid to expose those who have been holding them hostage or maintaining them in forced slavery for far too long.

As if this were not enough, the International Labour Organization produced a report in which it was estimated that there are at least 2,450,000 people in the world who are kept in situations of forced labour. These people are forced under physical and psychological threats to prostitute themselves or to work for little or no pay in the construction or agricultural sectors.

As of this evening, this will be a thing of the past in Canada. We hope this bill will be passed at the earliest opportunity, and we feel there is a consensus among members of the House to put an end to this exploitation, to this modern day slavery.

Indeed, the United States did pass the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which created new offences, but it was time for us to do the same. This is very important legislation. Bill C-49 is a major piece in the puzzle to fight organized crime. It is a good start and it has the great merit of adding to the tools needed to prosecute individuals involved in the trafficking in persons.

However, since this human trafficking is often run by criminal organizations, it becomes just as urgent to amend the Criminal Code so as to create a reversal of the burden of proof as regards proceeds of crime. This will be another issue, another piece of the puzzle. The House will deal again with this issue very soon. I am referring to Bill C-53, which we also want to be passed at the earliest opportunity. Once it is passed—and here it is the defence lawyer who is speaking—it will give police officers other means to fight organized crime, which has made too many victims in this country, particularly in Quebec.

If I may, I would like to pay tribute to the hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, who is the Bloc Québécois critic on justice, human rights and public safety. My colleague has done a tremendous job regarding the two issues relating to Bill C-49 and Bill C-53. He has been working on these two issues for close to two years. At last, we will begin to move forward, one step at a time. This evening we will be making a step forward with Bill C-49.

Bill C-49, which is before us, will say three things when it is passed by the Senate and ratified by the Governor General. We know that there are two bills currently on the Prime Minister's desk that have yet to come into force. It is probably because there is a shortage of funds somewhere. However, I think that this is a false pretext. Given the budgetary surpluses of this government, the hon. Minister of Justice will be able to argue that the fight against organized crime is essential and important. We must give our police forces the means to implement the fight against organized crime.

As a result of amendments to the bill, human trafficking or profiting from human trafficking will be illegal. This affects all those involved directly or indirectly in such trafficking.

I am thinking of agricultural workers who are brought over and exploited on farms. This would carry a prison sentence. We will punish and launch legal proceedings against anyone who destroys or conceals identity documents in order to facilitate human trafficking.

In conclusion, I was extremely pleased to have taken part in the debate on this bill. The Bloc Québécois will support it without reservation. However, it will ask the Minister of Justice to ensure that this bill comes into force as soon as possible, so that we have the means to effectively and radically fight this crime.

I come from a region called Abitibi—Témiscamingue, where admittedly there is little to no human trafficking. In any case, I have not heard a great deal about it in the last 50 years. However, this phenomenon exists not only in mid-size and large urban centres in Quebec and Canada, but throughout the world.

Canada must be a leader and a model in this area. This evening, we have the opportunity to adopt a bill that will put Canada in the position to call upon other nations to follow our lead and put a stop to this unacceptable form of modern slavery in our world today. So I am calling on the House to pass this bill as soon as possible.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the justice minister. I believe he honestly means well, but I do not believe his paradigm is in line with what Canadians want. They want justice. They want appropriate sentencing where there is a consequence for the crime. They do not believe in dangerous offenders serving their sentences at home.

Twice, at the beginning of my speech and also at the end, I talked about Bill C-2 and Bill C-13 and why they were sitting on the Prime Minister's desk without being enacted. When we come up with legislation, why does it sit on the Prime Minister's desk? Unfortunately, the minister did not answer those questions.

I think Canadians want conditional sentencing. We support Bill C-49 going ahead, but I am hoping we will get mandatory minimums added at committee stage.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from Wild Rose says it from the heart. Canadians are frustrated with the sentencing that dangerous offenders are receiving in Canada.

The member sits on the justice committee, as do I. Canadians are asking for appropriate sentencing. Canadians are asking for sentencing to change. They are asking that we have consequences for dangerous and repeat offenders. Canadians want there to be consequences for those actions.

In my riding of Langley, a young man sexually assaulted two young girls. What sentence did he receive? He received conditional sentencing. It was house arrest. He served out his sentence at home. His victims lived on each side of him.

There has been an actual abuse of discretion. Canadians are calling out for change on how we sentence criminals. Canadians are calling for mandatory minimums because they do not have confidence in this government. Canadians do not have confidence in the weak legislation. They do not have confidence in the phony announcements.

Earlier I brought up the fact that we have Bill C-2, Bill C-13 and now Bill C-49 dealing respectively with child pornography, DNA and trafficking in people. What happens to those bills when there is unanimous consent within this House to have them move forward? Why do these bills sit on the Prime Minister's desk? Why are they not signed and enacted? We have heard about how important these bills are. Why are they not enacted?

What will happen with Bill C-49? Will this bill pass through this process? Will it receive immediate attention and then sit on the Prime Minister's desk? Canadians are asking for a change. The change starts with mandatory minimum sentences for dangerous and repeat offenders.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to stand in the House of Commons to speak to Bill C-49, a very important bill. We do have unanimous consent that this move forward to protect the most vulnerable.

I will start off by addressing some of the comments made by the justice minister. He made the comment that mandatory sentencing results in lower sentencing. Canadians are frustrated that the sentencing the courts provide for very serious offences result in conditional sentencing, meaning offenders are serving their sentences at home. Canadians are not confident that the sentencing is adequate, which is why there is an outcry to have mandatory minimum sentencing so there will be at least jail sentences for these heinous crimes.

We had a recent announcement regarding crystal meth which is now a schedule one drug. Traffickers in this drug would receive life imprisonment. The typical sentence for that type of offence is three and a half years. The government comes out with these proclamations, these phony bills saying that it will get tough on crime. Every member of the justice committee wants to make sure that these victims are protected, that this does not happen any more in Canada and that there is a serious message.

As a Conservative, I believe that mandatory minimum sentencing has to be part of the bill. We support having the bill go ahead. Why? I would like to go back to the late 1700s. There was a man by the name of William Wilberforce who was known as the conscience of Parliament. He fought against slavery.

It came to the attention of the United Nations that trafficking in people was still going on, primarily of women and children being drawn into the sex trade. It is offensive, it needs to be dealt with and it is a world concern. As we have heard, $10 billion U.S. a year is what organized crime is reaping in benefits from this. It is a very big problem and we need to deal with it.

William Wilberforce in the late 1700s stood against slavery and yet it is still happening today. We need to come up with legislation that deals with this modern day form of slavery.

Trafficking in persons has been described, as I said, as human slavery in this year. The United Nations reported that trafficking is the fastest growing form of transnational organized crime. Local crime organizations are drawn to this industry because of the relatively low risk of being caught and it is run by multinational criminal networks that are well-funded, well-organized and extremely adaptable to changing technologies.

The United Nations estimates that 700,000 people are trafficked annually worldwide and most of them are women and children. Most victims are forced into commercial sexual exploitation as well as involuntary servitude or debt bondage. Others may be exploited through hard labour and, in some countries, children are trafficked to work even as soldiers.

Trafficked persons are often duped into their new profession, deceived with seemingly legitimate employment contracts or marriage abroad. Others are simply abducted.

People are being told they can come to Canada and get a job and that it is a wonderful country. It is a wonderful country, but they are brought into Canada under false pretences. When they arrive here they are told that the job they were promised is no longer there but that they do have another job, which turns out to be that of a sex trade worker. It is terrible to trap people into that. The visas and passports are seized and taken from these people. These people are afraid to go to the police in case they will be deported from Canada, so they keep quiet and they are trapped.

The government is right that it is an abhorrent crime against humanity, against human rights and we need to stand against it as a country.

In dealing with victim protection, international attention to the issue of trafficking is very important. The status of the victim is often very complex. Although there are some universally recognized victims such as, for example, children who are exploited through the sex trade, others often are perceived as illegal migrants and criminals.

Women trafficked into the sex trade are sometimes seen as simply violating immigration or criminal laws relating to prostitution. Because of these perceptions and because of threats from traffickers, many victims are reluctant to turn to the police for protection.

The social stigma from prostitution is also a problem. Women who have been trafficked internationally and who are returned to their home countries may be ostracized within their communities and their families. It is a very big problem.

In Canada there are no hard statistics, but the RCMP estimates that 600 women and children are smuggled and coerced into the Canadian sex trade every year. If we include in that figure people who are forced into other forms of labour, it numbers about 800 people a year. This should not go on.

Canada has a relatively good record on the international stage in terms of efforts to stem this trade. In June of last year, the U.S. state department reported that British Columbia has become an attractive hub for East Asian human traffickers, who smuggle South Korean women through Canada and into the United States. In large part this is attributed to the fact that South Koreans do not need a visa to enter Canada.

The only thing these thugs understand is the full force of the law. We must have legislation. Bill C-49 must have teeth. We need to involve heavy prison time and confiscation of all profits. As a Conservative government, we would want to have Bill C-49 amended to deal with things properly.

The proposed amendments to the Criminal Code in Bill C-49 would create three new indictable offences that specifically address human trafficking. The first contains the global prohibition on trafficking persons. The second prohibits a person from benefiting economically from trafficking. The third prohibits the withholding or destruction of identity, immigration or travel documents to facilitate trafficking in persons.

The legislation also ensures that trafficking may form the basis of a warrant to intercept private communications, to take bodily samples for DNA analysis and to permit inclusion of the offender in the sex offender registry. Bill C-49 also expands the ability to seek restitution to the victims who are subjected to bodily or psychological harm.

Again, without serious penalties for these very serious, abhorrent crimes, the exploitation and abuse will continue. In this legislation, there are no mandatory minimum prison sentences. We need to send a clear message that slavery is wrong.

About five months ago, the justice committee passed Bill C-2, the child pornography legislation. It received third reading and went to the Senate and received royal assent, but Bill C-2 is sitting on the Prime Minister's desk. As well, Bill C-13, the DNA legislation, passed through this House, went to the Senate and received royal assent, but it also is sitting on the Prime Minister's desk, waiting to be enacted. These are very important pieces of legislation and I would like the justice minister to answer us as to why Bill C-2, the child pornography legislation, and Bill C-13, the DNA legislation, are sitting on the Prime Minister's desk waiting to be enacted.

Bill C-49 is such an important bill. There is a will in this House to see it go on to the Senate and receive royal assent. Is it going to sit on the Prime Minister's desk, just like Bill C-2 and Bill C-13? I hope not.

We also have heard of the Liberal-NDP coalition's plan to legalize prostitution solicitation. We have heard that there is a report coming, which has been made public. This is a very serious problem. If we go down the path of legalizing prostitution solicitation, it will exacerbate the problem.

We already know that the government wants the age of sexual consent to be 14, one of the lowest in the world. It causes us problems. We have pedophiles looking at our children. They lure them through the Internet. Now there is a plan from the government to legalize prostitution and solicitation. With a low age of consent and the plan regarding prostitution, we must have multiple types of legislation to protect our vulnerable children and our women.

This is what I want to know. We need to know from the justice minister what kind of legislation we are going to have. Are we going to have Bill C-49, which is what Canadians want, with some teeth? Would he accept amendments?

We have other pieces of legislation in our Criminal Code that have mandatory prison sentences. Is not trafficking in persons one of the most abhorrent crimes in the world today? I would argue that it is.

If we have mandatory minimum sentences for these other violent offences, why not for trafficking in persons? Are the minister and the government saying that it is really not as bad as some of these other offences? I would argue that it is. I think it is one of the worst and I think the United Nations acknowledges that it is one of the worst. If we have mandatory minimums for other criminal offences, why not for this?

I do support Bill C-49 going ahead, but we have to toughen it up.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-49, an act to amend the Criminal Code (trafficking in persons). Bill C-49 realizes a commitment made by the government in the Speech from the Throne. It reflects a continuing priority not only for the government but for me personally as Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, namely the protection of the vulnerable.

It is a matter of protecting the most vulnerable among us.

No less important, this third reading debate on Bill C-49 is a reflection of all-party support for the bill, which I hope is a reflection of the broader support for the work of the government and indeed the international community in combating this scourge upon humanity, what I have referred to elsewhere as the new contemporary global slave trade.

I have always been concerned with promoting and protecting equality, and continue to do so as Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. It has always been my belief that the true measure of a society's commitment to the principles of equality and human dignity is taken by the way it protects its most vulnerable members.

This is really what Bill C-49 is all about. It is about more clearly recognizing and denouncing human trafficking as the persistent and pervasive assault on human rights that it is. It is about providing increased protection for those who are most vulnerable to this criminal violation of human rights, namely women and children. It is about bringing the perpetrators to justice and ensuring that human traffickers are held to account fully for this criminal conduct.

Trafficking in humans is considered to be the most rapidly growing criminal industry in the world. It is estimated that it generates $10 billion in annual profits for organized crime, thus ranking second after drug and firearms trafficking.

Although the clandestine nature of human trafficking makes it impossible to know the real magnitude of the tragedy, the United Nations estimates that more than 700,000 persons are trafficked across international borders each year. Others put it higher. UNICEF for example estimates that 1.2 million children alone are trafficked globally each year.

In May of this year the International Labour Organization released a global report on forced labour. This report estimates that approximately 2.5 million persons are currently in situations of forced labour as a result of having been trafficked. Of these 2.5 million persons, approximately one-third are estimated to have been trafficked into situations of forced labour and just under one-half are estimated to have been trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation purposes. This is the important point. Almost all of these victims, 98% of them, are the most vulnerable, women and children. The remaining one-third are believed to have been trafficked for mixed or undetermined reasons.

If we take as our starting point that one person trafficked is one too many, that this is not just a matter of abstract statistics, but behind every statistic is a trafficked human being and a tragedy of that trafficking, these estimates surely must underscore the importance of measures such as Bill C-49. Indeed this should strengthen our resolve to do all that we can domestically and internationally to combat human trafficking.

Moreover, although anyone can be a victim of human trafficking, the numbers show that women and children are the primary victims of such trafficking, a reflection of their social, economic and legal inequality, indeed of their differential vulnerability. In fact, this is how many human traffickers achieve their aims, by exploiting the hopes and fears of their victims by offering them false hope and the promise of a better life.

Most of the time, women and children are trafficked for purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labour. They end up as servants, baby sitters or drug mules, for instance. Men, on the other hand, are generally trafficked for forced labour in illegal sweatshops, or to work on farms, in abattoirs or in the construction industry.

But no matter for what purpose they are trafficked, all trafficked persons: men, women and children suffer deprivation of liberty, physical, sexual and emotional abuse, including threats of violence and actual serious harm to themselves and/or to their family members.

This is why human trafficking is so often described as today's global slave trade because it is about the bonding and bartering of human beings, and battering as well, and indeed, the commodification of human beings which constitutes a pervasive and persistent assault on the most fundamental of human rights, the right to life, liberty and security of the person.

The daily reality of trafficked victims is difficult if not impossible to comprehend, but it is perhaps just as difficult to comprehend that trafficking in human beings is even an issue today in the 21st century, and in a country such as Canada, where the constitutional protection of fundamental rights and freedoms is at the very heart of how we seek to define ourselves as a people and a society.

Bill C-49 addresses the protection of vulnerable persons and the protection of fundamental human rights only.

Bill C-49 is organized around the three key objectives identified by the international community or what we call the three P s: prevention of human trafficking, protection of its victims, and prosecution of the traffickers themselves.

Currently, the Criminal Code addresses human trafficking through existing offences that apply to trafficking related conduct such as, kidnapping, forceable confinement, aggravated sexual assaults and uttering threats. Although these existing provisions have been successfully used in trafficking cases, Bill C-49 proposes the creation of three new specific indictable offences to more effectively and comprehensively address all forms of trafficking in persons, irrespective of whether it occurs wholly within Canada or involves cross-border movement.

The main offence of trafficking in persons would prohibit anyone from engaging in the acts therein specified, such as the recruitment, transportation, harbouring or control of the movements of another person for the purpose of exploiting that person or facilitating the exploiting of that person. This new offence would carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment where it involves kidnapping, aggravated assault, aggravated sexual assault or causes the death of a victim. It would carry a maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment in all other cases.

The second proposed offence would apply to persons who seek to profit from the trafficking in persons, even if they do not actually engage in the act specified in the main trafficking in persons offence. It proposes to prohibit any person from receiving a financial or other material benefit knowing that it results from the trafficking of another person. This offence would be punishable by a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

The third new offence would prohibit the withholding or destruction of documents such as a victim's travel documents or documents that establish the victim's identity or immigration status for the purpose of committing or facilitating the trafficking of that person. This offence would carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Bill C-49's innovation applies not only in the proposal to create three new specific indictable offences to address all aspects of trafficking in persons, but also in the fact that these offences are built on the very essence of trafficking in persons. No matter what form the conduct may take, human trafficking is always engaged for the purposes of exploiting its victims, whether it is by forcing them to provide labour services, including sexual services, or services as a drug mule or human organ or tissue. Everything and all of it is for the purpose of exploiting that victim.

Accordingly, Bill C-49 includes a specific definition of exploitation that reflects this reality as well as the reality that victims may be forced to engage in such conduct, not only because they fear for their own safety but because they may fear for the safety of others such as members of their families.

However, we believe there is much to be gained by creating new Criminal Code offences that specifically target this conduct and that broaden the reach of our existing prohibition to comprehensively respond to all forms of human trafficking, whether they occur wholly within Canada or whether they involve some cross-border or international dimension.

Bill C-49 will more clearly and broadly define and address the type of conduct in question that we seek to prevent and we will more clearly and strongly denounce all forms of human trafficking. Bill C-49 will enable us to more clearly and directly name and respond to this heinous crime for what it really is, namely, human trafficking. Anyone who has ever heard victims of this tragedy speak of their experience will appreciate just how important this is to them, and so too it is an important and welcome innovation.

Bill C-49 will significantly enhance Canada's domestic laws against human trafficking. This will in turn support the broader international effort to combat trafficking. On that point, on the international scene, I am pleased to note that Canada, together with the international community, continues to support and enhance international collaboration in response to human trafficking.

Canada was among the first nations to ratify the UN convention against transnational organized crime and its supplemental protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children. These two instruments provide the widely accepted international framework for addressing the contemporary manifestation of human trafficking.

International protections against trafficking in persons offered by these instruments are themselves supplemented by numerous other international instruments, including the optional protocol to the UN convention on the rights of the child, on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography that Canada ratified last month on September 14.

I note this instrument in particular because it is focused entirely on children, the most vulnerable of the vulnerable who are trafficked. While any form of human trafficking is incomprehensible and condemned, this is particularly true in the case of children. Behind each one of UNICEF's estimate of 1.2 million trafficked children is a child, a human face, an individual with a name and an identity, a vulnerable person who is completely dependent upon us, upon the global community, for protection of the most profound of rights, the right to life itself.

Bill C-49 is an important step forward in strengthening Canada's overall response to human trafficking. We recognize that more is required than just a strong legal framework and we are working to address the three P 's, to which I referred, across the whole of the federal government.

Over the past year, for example, a lot has been done to address the principle of prevention, including training for police, prosecutors, immigration, custom and consular officials on human trafficking. We held seminars in this regard in March 2004 and 2005, one of them being an international seminar itself, round tables involving government and non-governmental organizations to discuss prevention and best practices to address human trafficking, conferences in which I myself have participated, both nationally and internationally, and the development of public education materials including an anti-trafficking poster that is available in 17 languages and a pamphlet available in 14 languages. Both of these have been widely disseminated within Canada and through our embassies abroad through the internationalization prevention effort.

As well, we are continuing to work to provide better support and protection for the victims, including through Bill C-2, the protection of children and other vulnerable persons, which received royal assent on July 20, 2005. Bill C-2 enacted criminal law reforms that will facilitate the receipt of testimony by child victim witnesses and other vulnerable victim witnesses, including women. Once enforced, these reforms will significantly enhance the ability of the criminal justice system to respond to the unique needs of vulnerable victims, including trafficking victims.

Lastly, I would note that the federal interdepartmental working group on trafficking in persons, co-chaired by the Departments of Justice and Foreign Affairs, continues to coordinate efforts to address human trafficking and is currently developing a comprehensive federal anti-trafficking strategy.

I believe that this interdepartmental working group, composed of representatives of 17 federal departments and agencies, is a clear illustration of how difficult it is to come up with a complete response to human trafficking, as well as a clear indication of how committed the federal government is to beefing up its overall response to this problem.

In conclusion, Bill C-49 will significantly improve our ability to address all forms of human trafficking, including trafficking that has international dimensions, as well as trafficking that occurs wholly within our country. It proposes, as I mentioned, the creation of specific offences prohibiting human trafficking, the imposition of severe penalties to better reflect the serious nature and impact of this form of criminal conduct on its victims and on Canadian society.

Together these new offences clearly and strongly denounce trafficking in persons and send a strong signal with regard to governmental, parliamentary, domestic and international condemnation of this global slave trade. Clearer and stronger prohibitions will mean greater protection for those who are the most vulnerable to being trafficked: women and children.

I appreciate and wish to emphasize the support that all members have expressed for Bill C-49 to date. I hope we can continue the spirit in common cause and commitment to expedite Bill C-49's passage because this is not a matter for a particular party or partisan cause. This is something in which we have united together on behalf of the trafficked victims and the most vulnerable, to provide for them the prevention and protection they deserve, and the accountability in terms of bringing the perpetrators to justice where warranted.