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.

Business of the House

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opposition House leader's comments. The same confusion which reigned in the House perhaps reigned when I was trying to describe what we understood the consent to be.

The opposition House leader is exactly right. It would be our intention, if we could, to return to second reading of Bill C-65. If, however, we went until 6:30 p.m. with Bill C-49, we would return to Bill C-65 at a later date.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly concur with my hon. colleague across the way in the sense that there was some confusion immediately following routine proceedings today that allowed these two bills to slip by. I think there were members from all parties who wanted to speak to them. I certainly would concur with my colleague.

I would like further clarification. If Bill C-49 carries the day until 6:30 p.m., would it be the intention following debate that the question would be put and deemed carried and we would then return to second reading of Bill C-65 either tomorrow or at some future date?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Discussions have taken place between all parties concerning the bills listed on today's Projected Order of Business.

Mr. Speaker, as you noticed, there was perhaps a bit of confusion on all sides of the House with respect to participating in different debates following routine proceedings a few moments ago, in particular the third reading of Bill C-49 and the second reading of Bill C-65.

Mr. Speaker, I believe you would find consent in the House to return to third reading of Bill C-49 in order for members to participate in said debate, and that at no later than 6:30 p.m. today, the motion for third reading of this bill would be deemed carried.

Should Bill C-49 conclude before 6:30 p.m. today, the House would immediately return to the second reading of Bill C-65 for the same reasons I noted above.

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I understand from the member's question that he was obviously not at the last opposition House leaders' meeting where the entire agenda up to December 15 was laid out, including the seven opposition days to which he has referred.

In terms of background, I might also suggest to the hon. member that back in 1973 when there was a minority Parliament, the House opened on January 4 and all seven opposition days were held between March 5 and March 26. Back in 1979, when the House opened on October 9, opposition days started November 6. Opposition days clearly are the purview of the government to schedule. We have scheduled all of them for the opposition parties.

The House will continue this afternoon with the second reading of Bill C-54, the first nations oil and gas bill, followed by second reading of Bill S-38, respecting trade in spirits, and report stage and third reading of Bill C-28, the food and drugs bill.

Tomorrow we will begin with Bill C-28 and if it is completed, we will proceed with second reading of Bill S-37, respecting the Hague Convention and Bill S-36, respecting diamonds.

Next week is the Thanksgiving break week and I wish all hon. members a very happy Thanksgiving.

When the House returns on October 17, we will consider second reading of Bill C-63, respecting the registration of political parties, followed by report stage and third reading of Bill C-49, the human trafficking bill, second reading of Bill C-65, the street racing bill, Bill C-64, the vehicle registration legislation, and report stage of Bill C-37, the do not call bill.

As the week continues, we will add to the list reference to committee before second reading of Bill C-50, respecting the cruelty to animals, Bill C-44, the transportation legislation, Bill C-47, respecting Air Canada, the reference before second reading of Bill C-46, the correctional services bill, and by the end of the week we hope to begin debate on the energy and surplus bills that are being introduced this week. There is also ongoing discussions about a take note debate that week.

As members can see, there is a heavy agenda and important legislation. As I said and as I laid out to the opposition House leaders at our previous meeting, in the post-Remembrance Day segment of this sitting, we will consider the business of supply and we hope to be in a position to deal with the final stages of many of these very important bills before the end of the year.

Committees of the House

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

In accordance with its order of reference of Tuesday, September 27, 2005 the committee has considered Bill C-49, an act to amend the Criminal Code (trafficking in persons) and agreed on Tuesday, October 4, 2005 to report it with amendments.

Criminal Code

[Art Hanger, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the whole issue of minimum sentences came up as a result of legislation in the past, which eliminated, or which confused, and I guess that might be a better way of putting it, this whole issue of consequences for one's actions. Before then, the law took care of that. The law said that if we broke the law or rule we would pay a price for it. That ruled the courtroom. I was a police officer during those years to see it. There was precedent. There were issues that dealt specifically with the crime. Yes, the judge had discretion, but he looked at the safety of the individuals, the safety of the community and the consequences to fit the act that was committed.

There does not seem to be that philosophy anymore in the whole issue of judicial decisions. In fact, it is almost like situational ethics. Let us talk about a lawyer. I was going to say a Philadelphia lawyer, but how about a Bay Street lawyer? A lawyer would come in and say, “Look, this guy did this because of these reasons and any normal person would do the same thing”. Maybe that is stretching it a little bit, but the argument is there: it is that situation and it warrants a different judgment so there is no consistency anymore. Once a precedent is set, even a new precedent, in any law or any case, then suddenly that becomes the issue for the entire court to follow. It just deteriorates over time.

Why are minimum sentences now the topic of discussion? Because it is the only way to hold accountable--something that our government will not do--those courts that decide these are frivolous matters and warrant only minor sentences. On this side of the House, we want to ensure that there is some sort of consequence to the action of an individual. I do not know what the members on the other side think, but that is what is behind minimum sentences. I believe that even legislation like Bill C-49 should be addressing these matters clearly.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, recently a court ruled on a sentence for someone who pleaded guilty in the ad scam scandal, in which there was theft of something like a million and a half dollars. The court said, “This man has been a good man. He has never committed crimes before. We will just send him home and we will let him give lectures on ethics to students at universities. That is what we are going to do”. That was his sentence for stealing a million and a half dollars.

I would like the member to comment again on minimum sentences. The minister says he is not going to go that way because it has not worked in other countries. Let us look at the section of Bill C-49 that was read out by the member for Winnipeg Centre. It talks about very serious offences. It says what the penalties are. It has been quoted several times. People can be sentenced to life imprisonment, but there is no minimum sentence. There is no guidance to the court, so someone could commit a very serious offence and some hotshot lawyer could come into the courtroom and say, “This is a good man. He has never done this before. Let us send him home”. And the man will spend his sentence at home.

I would ask the member to elaborate further on what he thinks about these minimum sentences that members on our side of the House have been talking about.

[Art Hanger, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that I can get on the speaking list in reference to this issue of trafficking in persons, Bill C-49.

It is interesting that right now in the subcommittee there is a major discussion going on concerning this whole issue of prostitution. It started out just relating to solicitation as it happens on the streets of our cities and elsewhere in the country and its impact on the safety of women, and men I guess to some degree but mostly women in this nation, as it applies to whether the laws are placing them in harm's way.

The debate widened very quickly and included the whole issue of trafficking. The reason that it took that route is because it became clear in the nations that decriminalized or legalized prostitution that the efforts to control that activity on the streets opened another door, that door being another brand of illegal prostitution springing up for those who did not fit into the pattern or the mould as set by the state. Therefore the issue of illegal prostitution expanding became the focus.

Who is involved in the expansion of that prostitution, that other aspect of illegal prostitution? There are several jurisdictions in the world that tried to decriminalize or legalize prostitution and authorities found that women were being hustled into the illegal side of prostitution and many of them from out of the country. In other words, there was a trafficking process that was set up from various parts of the world bringing women and children for that matter into those jurisdictions that had decriminalized or legalized the activity.

What is wrong with the picture? On one side, the government is moving toward the legalization of prostitution or decriminalization, whichever way it wants to call it. It is part and parcel of the debate that we are having in the committee. Once that is done, the illegal trade and the trafficking of women and children will increase in a very dramatic fashion.

Australia and New Zealand went through it. The Netherlands went through it and it is a prime example of what not to do. The only nation that did not and in fact started cracking down on those who were engaged in the activity of prostitution and trafficking, which is the organized criminal side of it, was Sweden. It not only cracked down on the pimps but it also cracked down on the johns, those who exploited women. Lo and behold, many of Sweden's problems disappeared. The numbers of women involved in that whole area of prostitution diminished dramatically because the jurisdiction took care of it. It took the money out of it and away from organized criminals.

We have Bill C-49 that proposes to step down on those involved in trafficking. At the same time this other debate is going on. For the most part I can see the real advantage of having some tough law, if we want to call this tough law. There are no minimum sentences in the law but at least it would address some of these concerns. It proposes up to life sentences for those who recruit, transport, transfer, receive, conceal harbour or exercise some control or influence over them.

On the surface it looks good, but we have the same problem here as we do with other pieces of legislation from the government. There are no minimum sentences to guarantee that the courts will deal aggressively with individuals who involve themselves this way. There is nothing to guarantee that and the argument of course on the other side is that the court must have all the discretion it needs to deal with whatever case may come up, and it is up to the judge to exercise that discretion.

We have heard that story far too many times. It washes kind of thin when we start looking at the results of legislation that does not aggressively deal with a growing problem within the international community.

Trafficking in people, just like drugs, is considered one of the largest sources of profits for organized crime. In our committee when we started talking about this whole matter of organized crime, nobody wanted to address it. In fact, it was almost a taboo subject because the issue of prostitution was considered by some, unfortunately, as a legitimate occupation to pursue and should be protected like any other legitimate occupation. It was the flawed thinking of some members within that committee. Most of them just so happened to be Liberals or NDP members who thought that prostitution was a legitimate form of work to be protected by the state.

To look at it from that point of view we would have move into the direction of legalization or decriminalization of prostitution. It would be a very dangerous route to go, I might point out, looking at the jurisdictions that have already experienced such a downtrend to this whole issue. Organized criminals step into the breach and they will reap the profits in tens of billions of dollars that it will bring, all at the expense of women and those who abuse women.

My concern of course is that this not get a foothold in this country. The bill certainly addresses a point or two when it comes to trafficking in people, but it does not deal with the issue once those individuals are here clearly in real terms engaged in an illegal activity in the nation.

Yes, we can support the bill. There are some provisions in it that deal with the reality of trafficking, the forced coercion or deception and the issue of forced labour or forced prostitution, but it does not connect when it comes to the other debate that is going on in the justice subcommittee dealing with the prostitution issue.

I have a couple of questions for the members on the other side and I want to put them on the record. If this country were to decide to decriminalize prostitution, how many members on that side would agree that it would lead to increased trafficking in persons, especially women and children?

Members on that side will probably not be able to answer that question or maybe will not want to answer that question, but it is the only question that bears the need for an answer.

Let us talk about sentencing. It was not long ago when an issue of drugs entered the debate in the House and in fact it even hit the media in this fashion. Some suggested that the serious drug dealer, the one who makes sure that crystal meth and others are distributed to our youngsters, receive a life sentence. There was outrage from members on that side and they said, “A life sentence. How absolutely archaic”. That mantra was kind of picked up by the media. Fingers were pointed to members on this side, accusing them of being somewhat extreme, or dinosaurs or whatever.

I see drugs destroying the lives of many of our young people in this nation. In fact, that has happened and continues to happen. There is no serious legislative effort to shut it down. I am talking about the bills and the suggestions about decriminalizing marijuana for one and really seriously dealing with the grow op situation in the nation. We have no national drug strategy. In fact, we do not even have, and again this relates directly to this bill, any organized crime strategy. How are we going to deal with the organized crime issues?

I find it appalling that there is so much organized criminal activity. I have seen it creep into my own city over the last five years in very real terms and how insidious it is, how devastating it is to a community, and how many police resources are involved in trying to combat this kind of not only violent but insidious type of crime that works on prostitution, drug distribution and the like. There is no clear national strategy on drugs.

Now we have an issue dealing with people and again, it is organized crime that is at the foot of it, the foundation. I have a concern because the Liberal cabinet and the majority of members over there cannot put this into perspective. I would like to know why?

However, getting back to sentencing, it states that for the purposes of anyone who recruits, transports, transfers, conceals or harbours a person or who exercises control or influence over the movement of that person for the purposes of exploiting them or facilitating their exploitation commits an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for up 14 years or life imprisonment if the accused kidnaps, commits an aggravated assault or sexual assault, or causes death to the victim.

I do not feel exactly confident that this matter is being dealt with in real terms again. A life sentence was pooh-poohed because a life sentence was suggested for drug traffickers and now all of a sudden, it appears here in another form. But again, it is at the discretion of a judge, and who knows where it will end up. Even if all of these heinous acts are committed against an individual or a group of individuals, there nothing to suggest that individual would receive a life sentence.

Then it comes to the section on money, the issue that makes this organized criminal activity go round and round in circles. It is involved in the drug business. It is involved in the prostitution business and of course the issue of trafficking in people.

We know that even cross-border trafficking is taking place. It was pointed out to the Liberal government that this had been going on and even where it had been going on, and still it was never addressed over all the years. It continues on to this day. There is a fee. There is a charge for moving a person across the border.

Even though that is the illegal side of it, there is a legal side too that is also playing hand in glove with those who want to traffic in people, and that is our immigration department. What is the immigration department going to do? If it is willing to open the doors to strippers and prostitutes of various kinds and claim what they do to be a legitimate form of work, then it is a party to what happens afterwards. I find that appalling, given the fact that it is a government department. I might also point out that ministers of the past here, ministers of the Crown, have even gone to bat for this so-called legitimate occupation. That is where the thinking is.

I urge my colleagues on the other side to deal with this in a much more effective manner. There seems to be a cross purpose of one side wanting to legalize prostitution, knowing that it will increase trafficking in women and children, and the other side wanting to crack down on some of the traffickers, if that in fact can even happen. I would like to see how the final playout of this legislation really does come about when it hits the law books and the enforcement agencies in our nation.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a specific question about Bill C-49 and I preface it only by saying that my colleague from Mississauga is aware of how rare it is for white collar crime to earn jail time. Much of his speech was about sentencing and jail time and a lot of us were shocked at the relatively light sentence that Mr. Paul Coffin received. Maybe all those jail cells are needed for some Indian guy who steals a loaf of bread. Maybe there is no room in the prisons for a white collar criminal who steals $1.5 million.

I will ask my colleague to contemplate Bill C-49 specifically. I would like to read one clause and then I will ask him about it. Clause 279.01(1) reads:

Every person who recruits, transports, transfers, receives, holds, conceals or harbours a person...for the purpose of exploiting them...is guilty of an indictable offence and liable

(a) to life imprisonment....

How often do we see that as a penalty in our Criminal Code?

Does my colleague believe that clause in Bill C-49 should apply for instance to those involved in the exploitation of women and the Canadian strippergate visa scandal if proven guilty?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think I understand where the member is coming from. I am not sure that the member is aware of what I have been doing on this but I can assure him that I have had these conversations with the justice minister and the Deputy Prime Minister in her role in terms of security issues.

I raised this issue because it came up in debate. Even the justice critic from the Conservative Party raised the matters of the sentence and stuff. I do not accept the rationalization that mandatory minimum sentencing does not work and is not a deterrent. I am not as concerned about deterrence as I am about someone who commits a serious violent crime. They need to be in jail to have the cold shower that being incarcerated brings. They need to know that as a society we believe that what they did was abhorrent and that this is part of the penalty. We know that a guy like Roszko, should not have been on the streets. The system let the families down because it did not deal with Roszko, the way he should have been dealt with.

I raised this issue and I am asking other members to join with me to ensure they do what they can in whatever venues they can to influence the discussions, even at the justice committee when this legislation comes before it, so that the issues that are ancillary or related to Bill C-49 may bring some movement in terms of effective legislation and amendments to the Criminal Code.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

This is important. It is not just the RCMP. We are talking about the official provincial police and regional policing authorities that have to enforce the Criminal Code. This is at all levels of government. It is one reason why I wanted to raise and debate the whole question about the criminal justice system as it relates to sentencing, and I hope the committee will deal with it.

The linkage here is to the four slain RCMP officers. Reverend Schiemann spoke to the MPs yesterday about this in our brief meeting. He has said that the person who perpetrated these murders. Mr. Roszko, and I use the word “Mr.” very loosely, has a criminal record that would make any common sense person say that he is someone who has a deep problem. The recidivism rate already has been very high. He is a threat to society. Everybody in the community knew that the person was a problem. He had been charged, convicted, put away for a couple of days, then let go and he was back on the streets. It became a game.

How can Canadians have confidence in the laws of Canada if they know that the application and the defence of those laws only goes so far as the police will lay charges and the person will have a criminal record, but the individual will be back on the street again?

I understand very well why the families are saying that they need the federal government to help them make reasonable changes to the laws so that dangerous people are not out on the streets, that they are not there to perpetrate even further crimes to do the damage to these families, their friends and their communities such as happened with the senseless murder of four RCMP constables, human beings with families.

Members of the justice committee are here today. Notwithstanding that Bill C-49 prescribes that there are penalties to a maximum of, et cetera, it is about time we have some real discussions about mandatory sentencing.

There was an incident in Toronto not too long ago. It was just discharged by the courts. It involved a police officer who was charged with sucker-punching a refugee. Right out of the blue, he gave him a whack. The officer received a sentence of 30 days in jail. It should have been a lot more given the circumstances. He denied it, but someone came forward with a film of the incident. Now the police unions are going to appeal this because he is a good guy and his wife is going to have a baby. I understand there are always mitigating circumstances, but when a person in a position of trust violates the rights of a human being, we need to deal with that firmly. A 30 day sentence says to that person that he is going to jail for a sucker punch.

If we look at Mr. Roszko's rap sheet, we see how much time he has spent in jail. The system basically said that he had a problem, that he had done this or that and that his criminal record was very long. However, he was out on the streets before we could blink. He went back into the community and was a risk to people of his community. Everyone knew it would happen again, but no one knew it would be that bad on March 5 when four RCMP officers were slain needlessly because the criminal justice system and the courts let them down.

We are the legislators. We are the people who make laws that affect the Criminal Code. This is affecting the Criminal Code. The bill does not talk about sentencing. We do not have a lot to do other than prescribing maximums. More and more members in this place comment on grow ops. People who have grow ops with 3,000 plants get slapped with an $1,800 fine and a suspended sentence. We know very well that major grow operations are generating cash for organized crime, for serious criminal activity. When people have more than a plant or two, it clearly is not for their own use. I do not want to debate where to draw the line, but when there are hundreds and thousands of plants, I want to see people go to jail.

We seem to have an aversion to putting people away when they commit serious crimes. We do not talk about this enough. Would someone please make a case to the Speaker that we need an emergency debate, or at least a take note debate, on the sentencing in the criminal justice system. Let us talk about it and see what our parliamentarians have to say. This is a very important issue because families are hurting each and every day.

I do not want to start picking holes. We all understand that we collectively are the lawmakers of Canada. I believe it is a priority. We should talk about this and put it on the table. When the judges and people in positions of trust and authority hear what Parliament has to say about the sentencing track record for serious and violent crime and how we feel about this, even without passing a law, they will look twice and think twice.

We need to take some leadership, too, if things are not happening in the courts and through our judges. I believe very firmly that we can make a difference, and I wanted to raise it in this debate. It is not really a major part of Bill C-49. It is not.

If somebody gets up on a point of order to say that this is not relevant, it was very relevant to the families yesterday. I went there to support them personally. I listened to them. I do not support Bill C-17, which includes the decriminalization of marijuana. I voted against it the last time and I will vote against it again. That is only part of it because that gives the wrong signal.

I think we also give the wrong signal through our legislation. Even though the amendments to the Criminal Code must prescribe penalties, we need to have some real direction to the courts through the criminal justice system. I do not know from where it is being driven. I am not a lawyer. I am not a member of the justice committee. I listened to the people yesterday and I listen to my constituents. I know there is a legitimate concern that should be dealt with in Parliament, and I want that.

I am sorry that what I said has not been relevant to the bill, but I wanted to raise the issue because it is important to Canadians.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the debate all day yesterday and today. I do not want to address the former speaker's comments any further. I think he is just incorrect in his analysis.

I did have the opportunity yesterday to attend a meeting with the families of the four RCMP officers who were slain in Mayerthorpe on March 5. There are a couple of points I would like to make.

This is debate at second reading. The bill will go to committee after this. Debate at second reading is intended to give members the opportunity to put forward some points of view that they would like to have considered at committee. It is extremely important that members, as they hear the debate, participate and ask questions, if not make suggestions for changes as to how we can have an effective piece of legislation. This is a very important bill.

As background for those who may be following this debate, Bill C-49 proposes amendments to the Criminal Code specifically to prohibit trafficking in persons in Canada. This bill is part of our commitment as a government to the protection of vulnerable persons and the ongoing strategy to combat human trafficking which is not only an international activity but also is a domestic activity.

Currently the Criminal Code contains no provisions to specifically prohibit trafficking in persons, although there are a number of offences that are related, such as kidnapping, uttering threats, or extortion, which also play a role in this crime. There is some overlap, but the Criminal Code does not have a specific prohibition on this trafficking.

Yesterday a couple of points were raised that the description of trafficking in persons seems to suggest that these are people who are being bought and sold like slaves. It is more than that. In fact I have suggested that we need to continue to put in the word “exploitation”. This is about the exploitation of people. We are talking about the vulnerable, the poor, those who are unable to defend themselves, those who can be coerced. We talk about these issues all the time. We talk about vulnerable seniors, seniors who are abused, seniors who are defrauded of their money. We talk about children's issues and children who are used for pornographic purposes. These are the vulnerable in our society who deserve protection.

There are also people who are subject to these pressures by those who see the weakness, those who see the poverty, those who hold out some hope for someone, take advantage of them and put them in a situation which is certainly no better.

This bill goes beyond the focus of immigration which the prior speaker was talking about. It contains three notable provisions. There are three new indictable offences specifically to address human trafficking.

The main offence is called trafficking in persons. It would prohibit anyone from engaging in specific acts for the purpose of exploiting or facilitating the exploitation of a person. It would carry a maximum penalty, I stress a maximum penalty, of life imprisonment where it involves kidnapping, aggravated assault, sexual assault or death, and imprisonment for 14 years in all other cases.

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

The third offence would prohibit the withholding 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.

From the debates yesterday and today, it is clear that this bill has the support of all parties to pass second reading and to go to the committee for its exhaustive study and to hear witnesses to make absolutely sure that this bill is effective.

I am not going to repeat their information, but many members articulated how serious this problem is. In the magnitude of 700,000 people a year may be subject to these trafficking activities.

The United Nations has been a leader on this. Canada finally will play a role by having this legislation in place. One reason is only Canada, the U.S., New Zealand and Australia are taking new immigrants into their countries. There are about 30 other countries that are rampant with the activity of taking advantage of people. With the other three countries, we become the sites of many of these crimes that have been perpetrated. We cannot overstate the seriousness of the problem.

While the parties are very supportive of the bill, and it is important for us to be involved, the debate has included a substantive component of a matter which is beyond the scope of the bill. I am not sure whether it should be, but maybe the committee will be. This is one reason why I wanted to speak.

As I said at the beginning, I had an opportunity yesterday, with a number of our colleagues from the other place and here in the chamber, to meet with the families of the four RCMP officers who were slain on March 3 in Mayerthorpe, Alberta. I want to remind Canadians of their names: Constables Anthony Gordon, Leo Johnston, Brock Myrol and Peter Schiemann.

The families had some messages for the legislators. During the debate, the issues that came up were the frustrations about the criminal justice system. I raised this point in the debate yesterday. Do we have the resources and the means at provincial and federal levels to enforce, to protect and to defend in Bill C-49, should it become law?

I have a good relationship with my chief of police. I know we have a relatively affluent community. Yet our chief of police would say that they do not have enough police officers even to follow up on the reports of suspected grow house operations. Not only can they not investigate and prosecute, they cannot even check them out.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pretty sure the member will get a chance to respond.

I do not think we should mix things up. We are talking about a visa issue. We are talking about the reality that there are strip clubs in Canada and the reality that more strippers are being brought over periodically to provide the services in these institutions. They are coming over under visas. They are providing these services and then they are going back. That is not forced services. He suggested that immigration authorities went over to Romania to somehow force these people to do something.

We should keep Bill C-49 in perspective. We are talking about a very serious issue and the member talked about it to some extent in his speech. We are talking about people who are vulnerable, who cannot protect themselves from these things, who need some way to survive and people take advantage of their vulnerability. That is not the same case. The member, in fairness, should differentiate between visas for people coming over here to work on a part time basis and those vulnerable people around the world and domestically who have been taken advantage of by those committing these abhorrent crimes.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will take this opportunity to speak to Bill C-49 to perhaps develop the concerns that I raised.

Let me preface this by saying that I am proud that Canada is taking on the global issue of trafficking in human beings. I had some experience with this as the immigration critic for my party when not too long ago boatloads of Chinese immigrants were washing up on the shores of British Columbia. To some consternation, there seemed to be waves of humans being smuggled, some 600 in total.

As we investigated this rash of illegal migrants, it became clear that they were being smuggled in a very organized and structured way by groups of Asian organized crime known as snakeheads. This is a reprehensible practice. People's hopes and ambitions were being exploited by these snakeheads who I suppose offered opportunities or hopes of a better life.

However that is only one example and that perhaps is a more benign example of the type of human trafficking that is a growing problem around the world.

In that case, those people were cheated and undertook a very dangerous practice of being smuggled across the seas, often in shipping containers, or through other methods where they could risk their lives. That was bad enough but the type of human trafficking, the type of modern day slave trade trafficking that is being contemplated by Bill C-49, is of another scale and dimension altogether. It is almost too horrible to imagine.

We recently saw a documentary on one of the news magazine programs in Canada. Some very good investigative journalism has been done showing how vulnerable young people are being seduced off the streets in places such as eastern Europe and some of the Asian countries with offers of opportunities, sometimes being misled and offered legitimate jobs in their destination country, and sometimes being overtly kidnapped and forced into this.

This used to be the stuff of dime store novels where we would hear this kind of thing happening. It is to our shock, horror and dismay to have to admit that in the year 2005 it is commonplace and in fact it is growing in practice. In developed nations, modern, contemporary countries such as Canada, it is incumbent upon us to lead the way by passing legislation that condemns this practice universally.

However the contradiction that I was trying to raise with my colleague from Davenport is that Canada has been enabling this very practice for years. Through three successive ministers of immigration, all very strong women, this practice was allowed to continue. I know for a fact that some of them tried to intervene and put a stop to the exotic dancer visa program.

One of the owners of the hotels, a famous immigration lawyer in Toronto who owns one of the strip joints, one of the biggest beneficiaries of this program, was actually interviewed by Immigration Canada. When asked about the condition of the employment of these women who were being called in to dance, he said, “Don't worry about it. Tell the minister that they are treated like fine race horses”. That was the Toronto immigration lawyer's attitude when asked to explain the terms and conditions of employment. In other words, he is keeping a stable of exotic dancers, of strippers.

We know that as many 500 of these women have been lost. They have literally slipped through the cracks at Immigration Canada. They were corralled in Romania and Hungary, where Canadian immigration officers, to enable the demand for these exotic dancers by Toronto immigration lawyers, were sent to actually recruit dancers. Taxpayers' money was spent for immigration officers to actually station themselves in Romania and sign up as many as 200 of these exotic dancer visa applicants at a time.

Then, when the women do in fact come to Canada, they find that over time their papers are taken away from them. This is the accusation made. We heard testimony to this effect on that news show which was recently broadcast. This would be a violation of and a crime under Bill C-49. As for their working conditions, they are told that their travel is restricted and they have to stay in a certain hotel. Often they are locked in certain hotel rooms, and exotic dancing leads to lap dancing, which leads to pornography and has led to prostitution, and then the women disappear.

This is horrific, whole scale, widespread exploitation of women that not only involves human trafficking but is modern day slavery. As for the fact that my own government, the Government of Canada, was facilitating this, I find it hard to get my mind around that. The fact that it was allowed to continue by otherwise progressive and feminist ministers of immigration is mind-boggling to me.

I have to rise and ask my colleague from Davenport how he squares that in his own mind. The Liberals have a Minister of Justice doing and saying all the right things internationally about trying to be at the leading edge in putting a stop to the international trafficking of human beings, whereas our own recent experience right up until a few months ago was that we were actually engaged in what I call the human trafficking and exploitation and sex slavery of women from East European countries.

God knows what happened to the 500 women who have disappeared. Maybe they have been smuggled out of the country again. That is most serious form of trafficking. Even if it was not illegal trafficking to get the women here, it certainly became illegal trafficking when they were moved across another border into the United States or God knows where.

There is an underworld that exists for this international trafficking of human beings and clearly that underworld exists in this country. I accuse that Toronto immigration lawyer of being part of that underworld. These people know who they are. They are very well known. They are in the Yellow Pages. I could tell this House their names, but I will not bother in this place because it is not worth the hassle of agitating lawyers.

In actual fact, Canada has been complicit in this international trafficking of human beings in recent years. I do not know if we have the right to be pious about our introduction of Bill C-49. When I raise this issue, it is not to be critical of the intentions and the goals of Bill C-49. These are laudable concepts. I would expect nothing else from a country such as Canada but to put in place perhaps the toughest human trafficking legislation in the world. I would be very proud.

There is one thing about Canada and our adherence to and ratification of international conventions and treaties. I have always been very proud that we do not ratify international conventions and treaties unless we actually intend to comply with and abide by them.

It has actually held us back in some respects. I have always been a little bit embarrassed that Canada has never ratified the international convention against child labour. Canada has not done that for specific reasons. In some of our prairie provinces it is not unusual for kids to be taken out of school at harvest time and seeding time to help their families around the farm. Even though we do not consider that child labour, that would be in slight violation of the literal interpretation of ILO convention 183 against child labour. We have not ratified that convention.

I raise that only as an example. I have found it a source of pride that when Canada participates in an international convention or agreement we do it with our eyes open and with every intention of complying to the letter of the law.

How, then, do we work with our partners and colleagues internationally to stem this rising tide of the trafficking of human beings when we knowingly and willingly allow this horror to take place with our eyes open?

I say “allow it to take place” because it has been at least five years since I have been aware of this stripper program, this exotic dancer visa immigration special deal to supply the pornography and sex trade with fresh, young, vulnerable women from desperate circumstances. That has been Canadian policy. It has been a big chunk of the immigration department that has been allocated to this one program. I am not trying to say that it is a third of the department's budget or anything, but it is to the point where full time officers were sent to Romania and Hungary to meet with and interview women specifically for that program.

I would argue that more care and attention have been put into the stripper program, the exotic dancer visa program, than the live-in caregiver program that provides domestic help from places like the Philippines. These programs are on a comparable scale. The difference is that on the one side we are condemning someone to sexual slavery and exploitation and on the other side we are providing a legitimate, hourly paid job at above minimum wage with Saturdays and Sundays off. This is a glaring contrast.

How could anybody in all good conscience allow this number of years to go by and be complicit with and in direction and control of a program that is tantamount to modern day sexual slavery? It absolutely boggles my mind.

As we dwell today on Bill C-49, we are talking about introducing stiff penalties for things like seizing workers' travel documents and passports. Under Bill C-49, that would be a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. That is a heavy penalty. That is far more than one would get for stealing money in the sponsorship program, so obviously the Government of Canada frowns on the idea of seizing someone's personal passport and not allowing him or her to travel.

Yet it has overlooked this in the stripper programs for years, forcing these women into labour conditions that may resemble slavery more than anything. That would be a penalty punishable by Bill C-49. What I mean by this is modern day bondage, where persons have to pay back their bond before they are allowed to begin earning a normal income.

This is exactly the structure of the exotic dancer program, which was allowed to proliferate for so many years. The women are brought over here and are told they have to pay off their travel costs first. It is a classic organized crime structure. That travel costs figure seems to be never ending. It seems to compound. They have an impossible task. They can never seem to pay it off. Therefore, their servitude and their bondage extend and extend. It is in fact modern day slavery.

On exploitation in terms of pornography and the smuggling of children, I have a researcher in Ireland who follows the human sex trade trafficking issue. It is his full time occupation. He phoned our office saying that some of the women who were imported into the exotic dancer visa program and who came to Canada were in fact under age and using false documents. In fact, this Irish non-profit organization is accusing Canada not just of trafficking and smuggling human beings in order to pimp for the underworld, but of trafficking in children, in underage, young, vulnerable women. This is information we will have to collaborate on, but it is not beyond the realm of possibility that a young woman desperate enough to come to Canada to change her circumstances may in fact have been casual about the age she put on the application.

I condemn in the strongest possible terms the Toronto immigration lawyers who own the strip clubs and who convinced the Liberal government to allow them to import these many hundreds of women.

I condemn the government for allowing this program to exist. I cannot believe how callous and uncaring it must be.

I am sympathetic to the immigration workers, some of whom have complained to me how terrible they feel about the fact that part of their job was to enable and facilitate the importation of these women under this visa program.

I have never yet met anyone who was actually stationed in Romania and Hungary, but I have met co-workers who have told me about one particular woman who was stationed there and whose job essentially was to gather up fresh meat for the pornography and prostitution industry in Canada. They have told me how sick to her stomach she felt in exploiting other women in that way, all of it with the royal seal of approval of the Government of Canada.

I am not speaking today in an effort to make us feel bad about ourselves, but I am asking us to take a long, hard look at ourselves. We may feel good and puff our chests up with pride that today we are debating a bill that will in fact address trafficking of humans. We also may say all the right things at public forums and international conventions on this subject. We would be the first at the United Nations to condemn this in the strongest possible terms, I have no doubt, but let us take a hard look at what we have allowed to happen in recent years.

Let me go back again to the one human trafficking issue with which I have in fact been directly involved. That was the issue of what we called economic migrants, who were washing up on the shores of British Columbia, sometimes literally. Sometimes they jumped out of boats which were in fact tied up just a few hundred yards offshore. They were swimming ashore 600 at a time. Those people all claimed refugee status. It took a number of years to work through whether in fact they were legitimate refugees seeking sanctuary or whether they were economic migrants seeking economic opportunities.

As the interviews went forward and as we found out more about these groups, it turned out that they were in fact being trafficked. They were being transported across the world for a fee of as much as $30,000 to $40,000. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration took a group of us as a committee to the Chinese port in Fujian province that these people left from, which we had envisioned as a small village where people perhaps had rice paddies with water buffalo and wore those straw hats. In actual fact, it is a city of five million people and has skyscrapers that compete with downtown Toronto's.

The economic migrants being trafficked by illegal snakehead smugglers had the $30,000 or $40,000 to give the snakeheads, my point being that it is a very lucrative and profitable enterprise. In fact, there are not many other criminal activities one can undertake in developing nations and third world countries that would pay that kind of return. In a country where $350 is the average annual income, $30,000 rivals any trafficking of drugs.

Trafficking in humans, I argue, is more lucrative than the trafficking of any kind of contraband substance, with the possible exception of medicines. I understand that some medical products in fact exceed the profit margin one can make on human beings, but trafficking in human beings is an ancient and evil concept and is certainly one that I support abolishing.

The international community should unite in condemning and squashing the international trafficking and trade of humans, but let us as Canadians go into this with our eyes open and acknowledge and apologize to the international community for the role that we have played in supplying Toronto immigration lawyers with strippers that they could then sell into prostitution and pornography. God knows what has happened to them.

As I condemn those lawyers and I condemn this government, I apologize to the women who have been exploited by the Government of Canada through the exotic dancer program. I hope they are well and have survived their ordeal.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a brief follow up. The member for Davenport specifically cited aspects of Bill C-49 that had strict penalties for things like seizing the travel documents of foreign workers so that they cannot leave and forcing them into labour conditions that more resemble slavery.

I ask my colleague to reconsider his remarks. Surely he followed the Toronto Star and the widespread journalism coverage of specific bars in Toronto that had visitor work visas for exotic dancers but the women were in fact treated like sex slaves. These women had their travel documents taken away from them and they were forced into activities that they did not wish to go into, pornography and prostitution, and their wages were withheld. It was human bondage.

Will my colleague at least concede that this has been an extended problem within his own jurisdiction in Toronto stemming from Canada immigration policies that have been at least enabling and facilitating the trafficking of human beings with the government's exotic dancer visa program?