Bill C-36 (Historical)

Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code in response to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Attorney General of Canada v. Bedford and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to, among other things,
(a) create an offence that prohibits purchasing sexual services or communicating in any place for that purpose;
(b) create an offence that prohibits receiving a material benefit that derived from the commission of an offence referred to in paragraph (a);
(c) create an offence that prohibits the advertisement of sexual services offered for sale and to authorize the courts to order the seizure of materials containing such advertisements and their removal from the Internet;
(d) modernize the offence that prohibits the procurement of persons for the purpose of prostitution;
(e) create an offence that prohibits communicating — for the purpose of selling sexual services — in a public place, or in any place open to public view, that is or is next to a school ground, playground or daycare centre;
(f) ensure consistency between prostitution offences and the existing human trafficking offences; and
(g) specify that, for the purposes of certain offences, a weapon includes any thing used, designed to be use or intended for use in binding or tying up a person against their will.
The enactment also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Do the legislative measures taken in Bill C-36 respect the declaration?

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

Thank you.

I have a question for NWAC, an association that I have great respect for. My son is in the RCMP and is married to an Ojibwa girl, and he speaks Ojibwa and Saulteaux actually. I've had a lot of interaction with the aboriginal population; my baby grandchildren are half and half.

Having said, I am very interested in your wise comment that it takes some time and you start to build and gain momentum. Do you feel as an organization that Bill C-36 is a really good first step to build that momentum going in the right direction? What are your feelings about it?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all of you for your presentations. They were very insightful.

This is really not a clear-cut issue. As it is often said, it's not always easy to try to eradicate prostitution and eliminate this image of abused women. That's not easy to do when it comes to conjugal violence, or when it comes to poverty and major pay inequities.

I listened to your presentation, Ms. Audet, and you brought up some extremely worrisome statistics. To my mind, prostitution is an important element, but it is only one of many injustices against aboriginal women. I agree that we occasionally need to start somewhere, and that is probably what you will tell me. However, the problem has to be resolved in the right way. It has to be done logically.

It's important for us to hear you express your opinion on this topic perhaps even more strongly. I know that you all support the Nordic model. It would be important for you to let the Conservative government know that significant social measures need to be implemented for the Nordic model to work.

I know you think that Bill C-36 is a good start. However, I think we will hit a brick wall if we fail to align those two aspects.

I will use your vocabulary to avoid reopening the debate with Ms. Walker, with whom I love arguing. Let's just say I don't have enough time for debate this afternoon.

If prostitutes are victims, why are they being criminalized? It appears that the Conservatives are not accepting amendments to fully decriminalize them, as Ms. Pate explained. So here is my question for all of you. Do you still support Bill C-36?

I want you to send a strong message, since your current message is not very strong, despite all the respect and admiration I have for each and every one of you.

I know how our Conservative friends work. They will say that everyone congratulated them for allocating $20 million. That's what I understand from your comments. You have only one small concern. Can we, as women, stand firm? If that's what we are talking about, can we say the following:

Put your money where your mouth is.

That $20 million is a joke. I would actually like to hear what you have to say about this.

If no commitment has been made regarding that $20 million by the end—so before we begin the clause-by-clause study—I would like to be able to hear from you.

Be consistent. If the women you say are victims are still being criminalized, I ask you not to support Bill C-36. Help us help you if you want us to amend this bill. If you fail to do so, once you are no longer before us and we are conducting the clause-by-clause study, here is what we will hear:

“Hey, everybody said we're awesome.” No. That's why I want to know, from the people who support the bill, but not support it that much.... So the ball is in your camp.

Kim, I want to know if you still support it if they don't amend it in the sense of what you said, if $20 million is still there. It's an easy yes or no, please.

[Deborah Kilroy, Chief Executive Officer and Legal Counsel, Sisters Inside]

Thank you, Chair.

Before I speak today, I do want to acknowledge that we are on traditional land of aboriginal people, not only here in New York City, but where you are. I reside on stolen Ngooloon Pul land, which is south of Brisbane, in Queensland, Australia.

It's important for me to acknowledge the first peoples of our countries where we travel, and acknowledge the colonization that has occurred and the impact of such colonization, as we see it played out when we walk through the prison gates of our women's prisons, children's prisons, men's prisons. The impact of that colonization has violated and abused aboriginal people—the first peoples. I want to acknowledge that history.

Thank you for allowing me to speak today and contribute.

The hearings of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights on Bill C-36 have had evidence presented and media reports that have been very divisive, even to the extent, particularly in social media, where there have been comments that have been dismissive and harmful to women with lived experience in the prostitution industry and those who take in opposing views from others.

This conversation and debate needs to be respectful and not abusive. I encourage those who want to take sides to find some common ground. Who I'm talking about and for are women who are the most disadvantaged women of all. They are not women who come from a class who think they are making specific choices, but women who are forced into the prostitution industry because they have no other choice. It's the only way they're surviving. We need to be respectful in our conversations.

We would all agree that stopping violence against women and girls is fundamental. That's where our starting point has to be, to ensure that violence against women and girls is eradicated and equality for all women and girls is ensured.

How do we get there? Some say “more legal sanctions” and some say “no legal sanctions”. The reality is that we already have laws in all countries around the world to address violence against women and girls, and we know that violence is continually perpetrated against women and girls daily around the world. We don't argue, debate, lobby to decriminalize these acts of violence against women and girls, and we don't demand that the violators are not held accountable. That would be unthinkable.

So why do we argue to decriminalize the acts of violence experienced by women and girls who are violated in the prostitution industry? Women must have avenues to hold men accountable who violate them. It is then the woman's choice to report or not, but they have a choice. Total decriminalization gives women and girls no choice.

As a woman I spoke to recently, a woman who has been bought and sold throughout her life—we were discussing Bill C-36—said to me, “If you take away a woman's right to hold men accountable, it's the same as taking away a woman's right to report any form of abuse”.

Free market capitalism is not the answer and will not stop violence against women and girls. Prostitution relies on and enforces inequality and disadvantage. The gendered nature of the prostitution industry is in fact evidence that prostitution is a practice of inequality. Legalized prostitution is government-sanctioned abuse of women and girls, and violates their rights to equality and safety.

Aboriginal peoples are the most exploited peoples in the world. If we decriminalize the prostitution industry, we will ensure that aboriginal women and girls are even more vulnerable to prostitution and trafficking. The violence that aboriginal women in Canada experience is parallel to the violence that aboriginal women experience in Australia. We want more for aboriginal women.

We want more for all women. Prostituting women does not make us equal. It consigns us to poverty, psychological and physical trauma, verbal and sexual abuse, and high rates of homicide.

Violence against women and girls must stop.

I wanted to be brief and make the statements I've made to influence you to ensure that women and girls are not criminalized in this bill in any form, especially women and girls who are the most disadvantaged in your country. They need support and social services. And I would agree with other speakers that more money needs to be provided for social services for women who are disadvantaged, so they do have access to other income, jobs, housing, education, and to health. This is fundamental.

In conclusion, I'd like to dedicate my evidence today to a dear friend, who, while I've been away travelling on this Churchill Fellowship, was found beaten and murdered a few weeks ago. She was a woman who was bought and sold regularly.

So we are talking about women who are in the darkest places, and who are being abused, and who are being killed. This needs to be addressed. We need to not decriminalize. We need to hold men, pimps, johns accountable for their violation of women. We are not commodities, we are human beings, and we deserve to be treated as such.

Violence against women and girls must stop. Women's and girls' lives are too valuable to me, and hopefully our lives—women's lives, girls' lives—are valuable to you too.

Thank you.

[Kim Pate, Executive Director, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to start also by acknowledging the traditional territory on which I am currently, and on which you are meeting. As most of you know, I normally reside on Algonquin territory—right where you are—and this issue is very much linked to, as you already heard from our colleagues at the Native Women's Association of Canada, the ongoing impact of colonization, in particular on our indigenous women.

I have worked for the past 30 years, first with young people, then with men, and for almost 23 years now with this organization, with women who have been marginalized, victimized, criminalized, and institutionalized. It's work that has brought me every year in contact with this issue. Even though my life's work was not working with those involved in prostitution, in essence it has become thus. Through this period, I have lived with, worked with, and walked with young people, men, and women who have been prostituted and who have been criminalized largely for their involvement as individuals who are being paid for sex.

This, to me, is a fundamental equality issue. It's a fundamental issue also of violence against women.

As you know, throughout the country we are working on everything from early intervention programs with young people and families to prisons and exiting; and in mental health settings; and with homeless and addicted individuals with mental health issues. Throughout this period, our organization has worked to try to challenge both the victimization of women and their criminalization. We see this move to decriminalize women as fundamental to women's equality. We also see it as fundamental to women's equality that violence against women continues to be addressed.

It's not in my lifetime that women stopped being the property of the men who married them or who fathered them, but it is in my lifetime, my working lifetime, that husbands—as has already been mentioned by our colleague from the London rape crisis centre—were told they could no longer rape women. I think it is high time that we now say it is not okay for men to buy and sell women and children in this country. That part of this legislation we think is an important step forward. But without adequate social services, economic services, and legal supports and services, a law alone will not make women equal; nor will it end violence against women; nor will it expand the choices that are available to them.

I won't repeat some of what has already been raised by individuals on this panel before us, but one of the issues raised is that this bill will not succeed in a charter analysis. In fact, the charter does not protect, nor should it protect, the right of men to buy women for sex, nor should it protect the rights of individuals who seek to profit from the exploitation of women and children.

The provisions of Bill C-36 that would criminalize women, however, we do not support. We certainly would like to suggest to the committee that those provisions that involve any component of criminalizing women, whether it be for advertising or for being involved in street prostitution, be removed from the bill. We see that law and public policies, as well as other economic and social equality issues, need to be developed in order to ensure that the majority of women and children who are involved in prostitution because they have little or no other choice are provided with real options to exit.

You know, one of the challenges I've heard many times is that there are scientific reports that in fact there is no harm created by the prostitution industry. In fact, we know from countless other approaches, whether it be the challenges historically with violence against women, that in fact that kind of lobbying arguing there is lack of harm, when in fact the evidence is blatantly there to the contrary.... In fact, those who have argued, in my experience, both privately and publicly, have in other contexts understood and recognized and acknowledged the implicit harm and violence faced by those involved in prostitution.

In summary, regarding some of our concerns and what we would like to see the focus on, we would like to see an overarching description that just because prostitution has been widespread, it should not be accepted as inevitable. We believe that the 2005 trafficking provisions put in place are not sufficient and that those could be shorn up. We believe that the new offence of selling sexual services in a public place where a young person might be present or might be reasonably expected to be present should be removed. We see that as a particular concern for the women with whom we work, in particular indigenous women, poor women, women with addictions, and women with mental health issues. We see it as absolutely inconsistent with the notion of decriminalizing women within this context.

We also have concerns about will happen to those women who are forced to prostitute themselves within their own homes. Our view is that even though many of the women we work with have been criminalized, many of them also are struggling to support their families and children with limited options, and they should not be criminalized because they have those limited options. Some of these provisions I think also risk further criminalizing women.

We also are extremely concerned that although moneys are being earmarked—$20 million—that is precious little when we look at the overall need for things like guaranteed liveable incomes, adequate and affordable housing, adequate and affordable child care, alcohol and drug treatment options, more rape crisis shelters and women's centres. We feel very much that this bill will be ineffective if, in fact, those resources are not also put in place. To not have those resources in place means to actually relegate women further to the margins and provide them with even fewer options to exit, for those who wish to exit. Our experience has been that many women while they're in the trade, although they will be characterized as having chosen that, when they're provided with options to exit do.

The other piece, and one of the challenges for our organization, is that we see very clearly that there is a need to ensure there are adequate supports for women in order for them to exit prostitution. One of the realities is that we also need some fundamental education about what is and is not legal at the moment, regardless of what the law is now. We have been increasingly concerned, and in fact have taken a very strong position on this issue as of 2008, in large part because we started to see women who were being criminalized who believed that men were not only just entitled to buy and sell sex from them, but they were entitled to buy and sell the right to degrade them. We have far too many examples of some of the most disadvantaged and desperate women facing some of the most brutalizing and worse conditions.

The examples of how many women Pickton was able to pick up and some of the work that's been done in the Downtown Eastside have shown that men who could afford to purchase sex from much more expensive services, including escorts and destination brothels in other countries, were not choosing to do so because they were actually seeking out some of the most marginalized and desperate individual women to buy the right to abuse them. There is no right, obviously, but they were seeking to buy women to in fact abuse and degrade them. As some of you know, there are many examples of situations where men have beaten and obviously killed women. There's also evidence that that is, in fact, part of what gets promoted by an industry that is encouraged to be seen as legalized and decriminalized.

Finally I would say that we do not support any provision that calls for mandatory minimum sentences of any sort. We do not see that as necessary. We see as necessary the naming of the behaviour as criminal and the progressive education and added supports and services that need to be put in place so women and children are not put at risk and in situations of increasing disadvantage.

I look forward to the questions from the committee.

I'd also like to take the opportunity to introduce my colleague, Deborah Kilroy. I know she is incredibly humble and never introduces herself and is not known to many of you, but she is here, from Sisters Inside. We happen to be in meetings here in New York together. She's here on a Churchill Fellowship. Some of you met with her when she was in Canada and went across the country. She has been through the United States as well, looking at alternatives to incarceration, in particular for women and racialized women.

What you may not know is that she's a women who also has lived experience. I've known and worked with her for almost two decades now. In addition to having that lived experience, she started an organization called Sisters Inside, in Australia, to work with women who were exiting all kinds of precarious situations, including prison, violent situations, prostitution, and being on the street. She is now a lawyer and runs a law firm as well, out of Sisters Inside.

She has been awarded the highest human rights award in her country, the Australian Human Rights Medal, as well as the Order of Australia. She has also completed postgraduate work in forensic mental health, and in fact was the impetus for my doing some of that work.

Mr. Chair, I don't want to supplant your role, but I wanted to say a few words about Deborah Kilroy before she spoke.

[Megan Walker, Executive Director, London Abused Women's Centre]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I would first of all like to thank all of you for the kind invitation to attend today. In particular, I'd like to acknowledge that you do have an incredible justice department. I'd particularly thank Ken Bednarek, Nancy Baker, and François Délisle for their kind assistance in helping us through this process. MP Joy Smith has been a great advocate for us, and we appreciate her as well as her executive assistant, Joel Oosterman.

I will be making reference to statistics. Those references can be found in our brief, which you will all have.

The London Abused Women's Centre provides advocacy, counselling, and support to abused women, and has been doing that for the last 36 years. During our last fiscal year, we served approximately 3,300 women and girls over the age of 12. Approximately 10% of the women and girls we serve have disclosed that they were at one time in prostitution. We do provide them with exit supports. Those supports are obviously directed by the women themselves.

We have heard that sex workers have not been consulted. I think that needs to be addressed, because in fact we do know that prostituted women and survivors have been consulted. In fact, many of the women we have served were part of the survey that was online, and in addition participated in a postcard project that we initiated at the London Abused Women's Centre along with EVE and Sex Trade 101. Postcards were sent out across the country, and 10,000 of those were sent back to MP Joy Smith.

I do want to acknowledge the incredible courage of women in prostitution and survivors in speaking out in favour of Bill C-36. It does take a lot of courage to come and speak out.

I've heard here today and yesterday, and also in the past, that prostitution has always been around. I'd like to address that, because so too have domestic violence, rape, harassment, stalking, and even murder, but we don't just say that these things have always been here and as a result we'll just throw up our hands and do nothing about them. In fact we work to change those scenarios for vulnerable people.

One thing that has always excited me has been the importance of public education and awareness campaigns and the effectiveness of those. We don't need to look much further than the effectiveness of such public awareness campaigns as MADD Canada and at how effective those have been in changing the attitudes of Canadians about impaired driving. I think we can do that with prostitution as well.

Through our work at the London Abused Women's Centre, we have seen a strong link between domestic violence and prostitution. In fact many of the prostituted women who come to see us report that their intimate partners are also their pimps. It is a coercive, controlling, and abusive relationship. The tactics that are utilized by a woman's partner and pimp, in that combined role, add to the complexities of their lives. We need to recognize that relationship in order to understand the issues and the realities faced by these women.

We've also heard a lot about how prostitution is work and should be considered legitimate employment. Catharine MacKinnon, a feminist and a legal scholar, has often stated the following:

...in an unequal world, a law against men purchasing women is called for together with no law against the people, mainly women, being bought for sexual use: “ending prostitution by ending the demand for it is what sex equality under the law would look like.”

I think we need to remember that as we go through some of your deliberations. Prostitution is fundamentally men's violence against women. Although we do recognize that there are some men in prostitution, overwhelmingly it is men who are buying women, and women who are being prostituted.

Prostitution is a human rights violation. Legitimizing prostitution as work normalizes this as an employment option, and it ignores the link between prostitution and sex trafficking. It sanctions the inequality of women and girls, and it increases the demand by promoting social acceptance of sexual exploitation.

For many years, the Province of Ontario has held a program called “take our kids to work day”. It's for grade 9 students who are about age 14, who have the opportunity to go and explore employment options of their parents. I can't imagine taking a 14-year-old girl to work that day with their mother in prostitution, nor can I imagine a father taking their child to work and having him say, “Hey, son, it's lunchtime; we're off to buy sex from a woman”. These are not options that should be made available to children or women.

The London Abused Women's Centre does not recognize prostitution or sex trafficking as work. We refer to this as “prostituted women” or “women in prostitution”. I would ask that today you respect that language when you are addressing questions to me or any of the panellists.

We've also heard that prostitution is consensual sex between adults. Fundamentally, the London Abused Women's Centre disagrees with this statement.

There's an infamous quote by former prime minister Pierre Trudeau that's often used to support this message, that “There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation”. That's from 1969. That quote is not relevant today in the prostitution discussion, or in most discussions today. In fact, Trudeau himself knew that the state had a place in the bedrooms of the nation when he passed Bill C-127, making sexual assault against one's wife an offence. He was prime minister of the day when that happened, in 1983, and it was his government that initiated and passed that bill.

We've heard many times that women enter prostitution as children. The Canadian Women's Foundation reports, through consultations with 260 Canadian organizations and 160 survivors of sex trafficking, that many girls in Canada are first trafficked into forced prostitution when they are 13 years old. I think we can all agree that children are too young to consent. If we follow that, then, a child of 17 or younger who turns 18 cannot all of a sudden be a consenting adult given their background as children in prostitution.

We often hear about power imbalances between adults in positions of power, like coaches, for instance, or teachers, who lure children into sexual relationships with them. We're appalled as a society when these things happen. How is it, then, that those same teachers or coaches can buy youngsters—young women who are 20 or 21 years of age—and because all of a sudden they're paying to have sex with these young women, it's consent? It's the exact same thing as those teachers and coaches luring those young women without paying them.

We've heard a lot about public communication for the purpose of prostitution and how it's important for prostituted women to be able to have that sense of security. Well, that is a false sense of security. The prostituted women we work with us tell us that no amount of communication with a john will make their lives safer. In fact, they often are given only 5 or 10 minutes—or even at the outset 30 minutes—to communicate with a john. At that point, really, there's no opportunity to interview properly for safety. Prostitution, as we know from the government's preamble, is inherently violent and dangerous, and it is johns and pimps who place the lives of women in danger.

We believe that Bill C-36 is very powerful in its preamble. We believe that if you look at the New Zealand model, which has been much touted, it promotes increased prostitution, increased numbers of children being promoted for prostitution. We know that it puts women into unfortunate situations of underground prostitution because they don't have to be regulated in their homes where there are fewer than four women. We know the prostitution collective in New Zealand has reported, in Christchurch, two women dead in a six-month period of time, murdered by johns, and increased violence—147 women violated brutally. When you compare the model they are promoting, I would suggest that is exactly the reason we don't want that model in Canada.

There are three recommendations that I would make to you with respect to Bill C-36.

One is that we would like to see women decriminalized in all situations. We know johns and pimps are criminalized under all circumstances, and in fact face additional sanctions when purchasing women where they ought to know there are children. I think that is enough of a deterrent. We want to end demand, and by ending demand it will allow prostituted women to exit. I think criminalizing women is inconsistent with your preamble. I also know from running exit programs that criminalizing women, detaining women, or arresting women are barriers to exiting.

I would also suggest that as much as I am grateful for the funding of $20 million over four or five years, that you give some consideration to increasing that funding. As we place that funding across the country, it may not be sufficient to provide women with the provisions they need to exit safely.

Finally, I would like to address an issue around torture—this is 30 seconds, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate it. The Criminal Code, section 269.1, currently defines torture as “any act or omission by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person”. Unfortunately, it is specific only to officials. We would suggest to you that prostitution is torture in every sense of the word, and we would ask that you amend that clause by stating every person, not just officials, would be held criminally responsible for torture.

I appreciate the extra time you have given me.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Very good.

Is everyone good? Okay.

Let's go on to today's witnesses for our second panel on Bill C-36. We are actually waiting for two folks, and I'm hoping they will arrive.

From the London Abused Women's Centre, we have Megan Walker, the executive director. From Rising Angels, we have Katarina MacLeod, by video conference. There are two people at the same location, though they're two individual presentations. From the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, we have Kim Pate. And from Sisters Inside, we have Deborah Kilroy, chief executive officer and legal counsel.

We'll have the witnesses who are here with us first. Then if our other witnesses join us, we'll introduce them appropriately.

Our first witness, with 10 minutes, is from the London Abused Women's Centre.

The floor is yours.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Ladies and gentlemen, I call to order meeting number 36 of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

We are here as per the order of reference of Monday, June 16, 2014, for Bill C-36, An Act to amend the Criminal Code in response to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Attorney General of Canada v. Bedford and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

Madame Boivin, before the meeting started you approached me about speaking. I'll turn the floor over to you, and then we'll get to the introductions of the witnesses.

[Chief Rick Hanson]

I would have to say no. There hasn't been a comprehensive, integrated approach to address this issue like we have with so many other issues that used to be deemed to be criminal issues. Now with the focus on prostitution, I think it's the time to start to coordinate those services in a way that they act in the best interest of the sex worker. Because I can tell you that in my personal experience, from our officers dealing with young girls, young ladies, who become addicted to drugs for the sole purpose of then being manipulated into prostitution, issues of mental illness that are undiagnosed, and again there's an issue around self-medication, it will take a far more coordinated, collaborative approach to address the issue. The fact that we finally have this on the national agenda is going to be able to provide an opportunity to effectively address this, just as Mr. Bota said. I was fascinated by Mr. Bota's comments.

That's what it takes. As with anything else, it requires a made-in-Canada solution, and I think what Bill C-36 does is provide a made-in-Canada solution that may be different from elsewhere, but provides those collaborative approaches that have proven so successful in many jurisdictions in combatting homelessness, which is drug addiction and mental illness.... There is even the fact that there are criminals in our prisons and jails who are undiagnosed as mentally ill and addicted. We're punishing them because they support themselves through crime, but we're ignoring the real, foundational issues.

I look at this as being finally an opportunity to put what is a serious issue on the national agenda and to actually put the resources and efforts into addressing this instead of little band-aids, which is all I've seen in 39 and a half years of policing.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

So under the new act that we are proposing, it will be a strict summary conviction offence for those who are caught communicating in a public place.

I'm curious to ask you, from the perspective of that new offence under this Bill C-36, a question that is twofold. One is that as the police are normally the first point of contact in a lot of instances under this type of investigation, I want you to take me through the discretionary powers of a police officer when it comes to this type of an offence. What they try to do at all costs, in my opinion, is rather than sending the sex worker to jail, they truly want to give this person help. So I want to hear from you about what the discretionary powers of the police officer are.

The second part of that is, because it's summary conviction and there are no fingerprints and no photograph, does that give power to the police to use that discretionary power?

[Casandra Diamond]

Yes. I still have hope in Bill C-36.

This is a hard-working bill, in fact. We can't throw out 95% of its benefits for the 5%, but what we can do right now, what you guys can do, is really look at it, take it and turn it inside out and flip it around to figure it out. That's why I'm talking about equality, and I think we are talking about the same thing.

When we're talking about equality, we are addressing poverty. We are addressing the systematic issues and abuses or scenarios of life that keep women involved in sex for hire.

When we look at Bill C-36, for example—

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

I get your point. Thank you. Time is of the essence.

You've opened the door for me, in a sense, and for the other members of the panel, in terms of one of the key successes of the Swedish model being the fact that it was in parallel, at the same time, to very strong social democratic measures.

My question is for Ms. Diamond.

I agree with you. A preamble is very important. It gives you the story that you're going to read.

I found there were things missing. It might be a start, but there are things missing. For me, that's where it gave me the impression of what the law from the government was all about. What was missing, and I don't know if you agree, is that we should also in the preamble address the questions of poverty, of housing conditions, health care needs, and other social measures. That would have given me the impression that we wanted to address everything.

At the same time, there's the fact that everybody on every side of the equation believes that at no time should the prostitute be criminalized in any consideration. The fact that it is.... With the fact that the Minister of Justice yesterday said to us that it's an intrinsic part of the bill to protect communities, I didn't sense, and I'm not quite sure and convinced, that we'll be able to amend it.

I had long discussions with members from the audience at the end of the day yesterday. They were saying, we're counting on you to amend it. We'll try very hard, but honestly, if it's part of the essence of the bill, I do not have much hope.

For you, is your support of Bill C-36 still there, even if we cannot amend it and we still criminalize prostitutes, sex workers, at the end of the day?

[Robyn Maynard, Spokesperson and Outreach Worker, Stella, l'amie de Maimie]

Thank you.

My name is Robyn Maynard and I'm an outreach worker at Stella. Stella is sex-worker led, a “by and for” sex worker organization. We offer service and advocacy to Montreal-based sex workers. Stella has been around since 1995.

Because there were a few comments levelled yesterday really talking about how sex workers' organizations push people to stay in the industry, I did want to address that. I think that is something that is not accurate at all about the way we work. We have a listening line. We have a drop-in centre. We do daily street-based outreach. Some of that—at least two shifts a week—are with nurses from different community organizations because sex workers are often isolated in the way that they work from the legal system and they face a lot of stigma. We work specifically with street nurses doing outreach.

We also do regular workplace visits to escort agencies, to massage parlours, to dance clubs. We have a medical clinic, and we also have an anti-violence program in which we support sex workers who are in violent situations whether that be with a boyfriend, an abusive working situation, or anything like that, and based on their own defined needs, we'll really help to support them in that violent situation. Sometimes that could mean coming forward against someone who committed an aggression against them. It can mean a variety of different things, but it's a really important project to us as well.

In 2012-13, we had 500 visits to our drop-in, answered 5,000 calls on our listening line, met thousands of sex workers in their workplaces, and accompanied almost 250 sex workers to health, legal, and social services.

The opinions that we have around the effects of the laws are really based on what we see on a day-to-day basis. I'm a street outreach worker. I'm often working until midnight on the main strolls where sex workers are working. We can really see the effects of the laws as they play out on sex workers. We talk to them on a daily basis.

The work that we do is important in the context of criminalization especially because sex workers face so much isolation and stigma and fear of outing themselves because of their fear of losing their children, losing their apartments. A lot of the accompaniments that we do are legal accompaniments because of that, because of criminalization and also because of the situations that people are facing because of their work being criminalized. A lot of the calls we get are around people who are afraid of being arrested.

We operate on principles of harm reduction, which is extremely important for us. There is a lot of talk about money going toward just exiting programs. Often there are sex workers who want to leave the sex industry, who should be supported. We often help people to write their resumés and things like that, but often also people just need basic legal information and help with youth protective services, just to understand the laws better, to have education around, say, hepatitis C or HIV prevention. There are many different needs that sex workers have beyond just the idea of exiting, and it's very important for us to be able to provide all of those.

Many sex workers will eventually go on to do other things, but Bill C-36 really does seem to be saying, “Get out of the sex industry or you'll make your work more dangerous, or potentially be arrested.” It does not actually provide other viable options at the same time. Our communities have diverse backgrounds and lives and working conditions, and there are many different needs that sex workers face. None of these are addressed by Bill C-36.

The Supreme Court of Canada struck down many provisions that criminalized the sex trade because the laws had the unintended consequence of endangering the lives of sex workers. That is why these laws were struck down. The decision was seen by many sex workers as a human rights victory because it was found that sex workers should not have to be unduly exposed to danger because of the criminal laws surrounding their work. Originally these laws took place in the name of combatting public nuisance. Now we are really seeing a re-creation, with many similar laws and going even further. Now it's under the name of protecting vulnerable communities, but these same laws that were used to combat public nuisance are really being brought back in to apply to sex workers again.

Living in a legal vacuum is dangerous and the danger is quantifiable. We know that for people living in a legal vacuum who are criminalized, the rates of murder and violence toward sex workers is abhorrent in Canada. The Supreme Court did find this directly related to the laws, so the laws are very important to sex workers' lives.

It's fine for any member of Parliament, any person living in Canada, to have the right to their own personal opinion on the sex industry and the morality of the sex industry, and whether or not we think it should exist and what we think it means, but imposing morality at the cost of human lives is not something that is acceptable.

What is the cost of passing laws trying to abolish the sex industry? The cost is extremely dangerous. Even if we look at trying to abolish what we see as a social harm, there are actual physical harms to people's physical safety and their actual lives are endangered by these same laws that try to abolish the sex industry.

We can look to Sweden and Norway, countries that have brought in what people often call the Nordic model, where the purchase of sexual services has been criminalized. The National Council for Crime Prevention, the Swedish National Board of Health and Social Welfare, and the Swedish National Police Board have reported that sex industry activity has not dwindled but has actually shifted venues in order to evade police detection, and has actually increased the dangers faced by sex workers.

There is more in the brief, so I won't focus too much on this. You can actually see that in Norway, violence towards sex workers has actually increased. Evidence shows that sex workers who are homeless or substance-dependent are actually more dependent now on individual clients. Here in Canada, though, we actually already have a lot of evidence that shows us what happens when we criminalize sex workers working on the street and also when we criminalize the purchase of sex.

Emily mentioned that the police in Ottawa for a while now have actually not been criminalizing sex workers on the streets. That same thing has been true in Vancouver, as was just documented. It's also been true, from what I've been seeing, in Montreal. We've seen a lot fewer arrests of sex workers working on the streets, but the client sweeps haven't stopped and police posing undercover hasn't stopped. We also see that violence has not stopped in this way. This model has already been imposed and applied. The police have already had this power and have been using it. It hasn't been working.

First, I just want to talk specifically about the law recriminalizing sex workers who work on the street in a public place where there could be minors, which is anywhere. This one is very scary. As I was saying, sex workers who have been working on the street this entire time have lately actually had a break from the fear of arrest, the fear of prison, and the fear of losing their children. For many women I've been talking to, they are terrified of this coming back and of having to all of a sudden face this threat again.

I really think that many people know very well what the dangers are of criminalizing sex workers on the street, but I think less attention has been paid to just the ability of criminalizing client-worker interactions. These have unambiguously been shown to endanger sex workers' lives and safety. Two different reports commissioned by the Canadian justice ministry, in 1989 and in 1994, really showed the direct link between the criminalization of sex workers' negotiations and ability to screen clients. They showed that this caused displacement and increased violence towards sex workers.

Even when I go out on a street work shift on, say, a Thursday night, when the police are extremely present, that keeps clients away. Sex workers just end up moving to alleys and to other parts of the city where there are fewer peers and other people around. They're still trying to seek clients, but this is becoming more and more difficult. We know that this kind of isolation is really putting people in danger.

In Montreal our bad clients and aggressors list receives more reports of violent incidents directly after the police do large-scale client sweeps. Over a three-month period during the massive client sweeps in 2001, Stella documented a threefold rise in violent incidents and a fivefold rise in incidents with a deadly weapon.

In Vancouver, where there is one of the most mediatized amounts of violence towards sex workers, the Vancouver Police Department had actually already only focused on arresting clients. A report that came out from the British Medical Journal Open and the Pivot Legal Society also found that sex workers were still exposed to danger, again because of this reduced screening time when they had to move to darker areas.

It's just that the displacement that comes from criminalizing client and sex worker negotiations, even if it's just on the side of the client, does put sex workers in danger. We really need to look at that more than the idea of what it means to criminalize the johns. If criminalizing the johns means that people are having to place themselves in danger, then we need to re-evaluate the point of that law. Justice Wally Oppal also reaffirms the harms caused by this criminalization in the report from the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry .

As well, because women of colour, indigenous women, and those who are substance-dependent are overrepresented at the street level, that does mean that these harms would be levelled at these groups at a larger rate than for other groups in society. That's something that we also need to think of—the most marginalized people and how they'll be affected by the laws.

Emily already discussed really well the harmful effects of Bill C-36 on sex workers who work indoors, but I do just want to mention, on this idea that still places where sex workers work indoors, like massage parlours and escort agencies, the ability for sex workers to be able to negotiate with their clients and the ability for sex workers to have condoms on site in these places. If these indoor locations are still criminalized, and are still trying to purposely avoid law enforcement because condoms can be used as evidence and things like this, we are really still putting sex workers at risk with this part of the law.

Again, the way that sex workers share their bad date list often is online. The safe practice of escorts to actually get the personal information from their client would be extremely difficult.

I have a quote by a sex worker we interviewed for a project called Stella Deboutte, which we haven't released yet, who says, “Because clients are scared and nervous, I think I lose business. One reason I work alone is that clients are often more afraid of arrest when we work in pairs, which essentially would make us more safe. But because the client has fears, I feel as though I have to kind of accommodate those fears and that those win out over my safety, essentially.”

What would a more positive law reform look like? I think we can see that these criminal laws are not the way to address the sex trade. They're really re-endangering sex workers, who have already been placed in undue danger for decades now and who really deserve something better. We already have laws against exploitation, robbery, extortion, bodily harm. Importantly, there are also specific criminal laws and laws in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act on trafficking. UN Women has put out a statement specifically saying that if you treat sex work and trafficking as the same thing, instead of treating them as separate kinds of abuses, then you're putting sex workers at danger of human rights risks and trafficking victims are not being helped.

Can I have one more minute?

[Chief Rick Hanson, Chief of Police, Calgary Police Service]

Thank you very much, honourable members and guests. I very much appreciate the opportunity to present from the perspective of a police service. When I speak of police service, I'm talking particularly about the Calgary Police Service.

I want to start by providing a bit of context of what we face. I'll start with a story that relates to a mother who was raising, in her words, a beautiful intelligent daughter, who in elementary school was brilliant. She was a star of elementary school because when you're smart and pretty everybody loves you. Then, as she got into junior high school, being smart wasn't as cool, and by the time she hit high school she was beautiful but being smart got you no points.

In late high school, she went to a party—and this did not happen in Calgary but it ended in Calgary—and somebody offered her a joint. It's harmless, right? You hear about it all the time. She didn't know it was laced with crystal meth. She became addicted to crystal meth. She wound up working for an organized outlaw motorcycle gang in a downtown west coast city, where she was abused and working the streets and addicted. If you would have asked her, she would have said that she chose this life. It's what she wants.

Now, the mother tried to get assistance from other agencies, and she was told that when she hits rock bottom, she will come home; don't worry about it.

I would ask any parent in this room if you'd be prepared to accept that and let her continue to do that until she hits rock bottom. The sad part about this story from this perspective, from the starting point, is being the police service of jurisdiction where that mom, that family, comes to you and says they need help. “We need to extract our daughter from this. We know she's addicted. She knows she's being manipulated. She comes from a good family.” The police service of jurisdiction and the agencies involved in that area say you just have to wait until she hits rock bottom. Well, I come from a jurisdiction where I don't believe you have to succumb to that and wait for that.

The mother and some of her friends had to take extraordinary measures to remove her from the situation and deliver her to a place in Calgary where they have addictions treatment. I'll finish the story at the end of my presentation here.

The Calgary Police Service believes that Canada's public policy should be the complete abolition of prostitution, and passing Bill C-36 is required in order for us to reach this goal. It is our firm position that the purchasing of sexual services from an adult should be a criminal offence for the following reasons.

Research shows that many prostitutes were the victims of exploitation as children and youth, are currently the victims of exploitation, or are otherwise vulnerable to exploitation because of drug dependency, FASD, emotional problems or mental illness, or economic disadvantage. Prostitution, therefore, is not simply the delivery of sexual services for money or other consideration, but it is instead sexual exploitation.

There's a need to discourage sex tourism. We need to reduce the number of prostitutes and associated harms, reduce the demand for the sale of sexual services, detect and eliminate the human trafficking of persons, reduce the risk of violence and homicides, and address the overrepresentation of aboriginal women and children in prostitution. We need to eliminate the commodification of persons for sex, reduce and eliminate negative community impacts, reduce gender bias in our society, which is really important, and discourage that it's acceptable or normal to solicit the service of a prostitute.

Research and our working knowledge of the sex trade tells us that regardless of what regime, model, or laws are implemented, those who sell sex are exposed to violence, exploitation, degradation, and unpreventable harm. Sex trade workers are overrepresented by aboriginal people and youth, the mentally ill, and those suffering from addictions. The only safeguard for those trapped in the sex trade is removal and support.

We acknowledge that all efforts must be taken to not further victimize those trapped in the sex trade through criminal charges. Instead, apprehension powers should be used to remove sex trade workers from oppressive situations and connect them to counselling and support services. Canada should develop a national strategy to first reduce and ultimately eliminate prostitution.

Support services should aim to improve the lives of sex trade workers through initiatives that focus on prevention, education, intervention, and exit. To aid in the aim of this national strategy, law enforcement requires legislative authority to interdict and intervene in attempts to reduce the inherent harms associated with the sex trade, and to address the resultant community harm.

The legal regime in Canada should not discourage any prostitute who has been the victim of human trafficking, assault, sexual assault, robbery or other offences to be able to come forward and report the offence to police, or otherwise seek assistance, intervention, protection, or exit. In fact, in a report commissioned by the Home Office in the U.K. called “Shifting Sands: A Comparison of Prostitution Regimes Across Nine Countries”, the authors note, and I quote here:

We also found little strong evidence that different prostitution regimes affect willingness to report assaults. It seems more likely that enhanced reporting is the outcome of local climates of trust built between women who sell sex and state agencies/individuals/services.

I would also like to address the issue of community impact. Communities are negatively impacted by prostitution. These harms include a reduced perception of safety within communities; an increased perception of social disorder; public nuisances such as condoms and needles in public parks, parking lots, and sidewalks; increased noise and vehicle traffic; public sex; the unwanted sexual proposition of citizens; and public health concerns. Criminal law prohibitions will continue to be needed to control and reduce these harms. This is the experience of almost 40 years in policing, where we are, unfortunately, the ones who have to deal with the issue of strolls when they're in places that are frequented by the public.

Economically benefiting from prostitution, other than for those reasons mentioned in Bill C-36, should be a criminal offence. In order to meet the concerns expressed by the Supreme Court and others respecting the need to eliminate or reduce the exploitation of persons and to enhance the safety of prostitutes, Canada should work with provinces, municipalities, and social agencies to develop a national strategy to reduce and abolish prostitution and improve the lives of those affected through initiatives that focus on prevention, education, intervention, and exit.

Here I have to say that the $20 million, over five years, is woefully inadequate. If you were to bring that down to a provincial level, Alberta has roughly 10% of the population, or a little more, in Canada. This would mean that for a province like Alberta that would be $40,000 a year for the five years. If you divide that into Edmonton in the north and Calgary in the south, and the other jurisdictions, a place like Calgary, with a population of 1.25 million people, would be dealing with the social aspect of it with the addition of about $125,000 a year. It's woefully inadequate. If there's a commitment to deal with this in an effective way, then I think we have to look at the exit strategies and adequately resource them.

I want to say that over 40 years of policing for a number of years there was nothing I enjoyed better—-as I still do today—than walking into schools and talking to kids. In those 40 years I've never had a young kid come up to me and say, when I grow up I want to be a drug addict, a criminal, or a hooker. It never happens.

I want to also talk a little bit about human trafficking, and the fact that it's a $3-billion-a-year industry worldwide. Let us not pretend or ignore the fact that if Canada changes its course in this regard we will be a place where this becomes more and more prevalent. We can all beat our chests and wail about what happened in Nigeria with the kidnapping of almost 300 young school girls, but the reality is those girls are going to wind up sexually trafficked and could very well come to this country, like they go to other countries. We've visited Scandinavian countries to study the Nordic model. East European girls and those from Africa are disproportionately represented.

There are two other points I want to make. There's been the belief that somehow you can pick out serial killers. I can tell you from 40 years of policing and studying jurisdictions across North America where killers have done their thing, people like Jeffrey Dahmer or the Green River killer in Washington, you can't pick out a serial killer. You can't interview him and say, “That person is a serial killer”. They come across, they present like you or me until they get captured.

I just want to conclude with the story that I started with. This young girl was brought back to Calgary. She was put into a program for addictions, and it was a battle, but this woman today is a second-year medical school student. She is in medical school, second year. Yet had her parents not taken steps that technically they shouldn't have had to take, this young girl would be a woman on the streets and if interviewed today, she would say, “Of course, it's my choice. Of course, I'm here because I selected it.”

I'm not saying that in each and every case there aren't those who voluntarily choose it without being abused or having backgrounds of abuse. I'm not saying that, but our experience is that the vast majority of them have. All we're asking for is the legal authority to intervene in a way that allows us to target organized crime and johns, while using the law as an opportunity to extract and provide services for those who are the victims of prostitution, the service providers.

Thank you very much.

[Emily Symons, Chair, Prostitutes of Ottawa-Gatineau Work Educate & Resist]

Thank you.

My name is Emily Symons. I'm the chair of POWER, which stands for Prostitutes of Ottawa-Gatineau Work Educate and Resist. We are a sex worker-led organization founded in 2008, and we advocate for sex workers' human rights and labour rights. We envision a world in which people can freely choose to do sex work or to not do sex work and in which those who choose to do sex work are able to do so in safety and in dignity. We are completely unfunded and entirely volunteer-based. Our membership includes people of all genders working as escorts, erotic massage providers, street-based workers, erotic dancers, and webcam performers.

I'm here today to present the expertise of our membership on how Bill C-36 will impact the safety of sex workers. I would like to say that I believe we are all here today with the safety and well-being of sex workers at heart. I will say that sex workers are the experts, and sex workers know better than anyone else how these laws will impact their work and their safety. Sex workers who are currently working are also the ones who will directly experience the impacts of any new laws that are put forward. For this reason, we must privilege their voices and experiences.

The Himel decision and the decision that came down from the Supreme Court of Canada explicitly outlined the dangers of criminalizing street-based sex work as well as third parties. For this reason, I'll focus on the two sections of Bill C-36 that criminalize the purchase of sex and criminalize advertising. I would like to show how these laws will contribute to violence against sex workers.

I will start by discussing the criminalization of purchase of sex on the streets. This law, if it's put forward and becomes law, will replicate the same harms that we see under the communicating provision. We know from sex workers in Ottawa currently working on the streets that criminalizing the purchase of sex puts them at increased risk of violence.

I will say that there is a common misconception that sex workers don't have a voice and therefore other people must speak for them. In fact, sex workers can speak for themselves. Sex workers do speak for themselves. The issue is that we aren't listening.

In March 2014, POWER facilitated the women of the Oasis drop-in in Ottawa to participate in the government's online consultation. This is just one drop-in centre that POWER collaborates with. Twelve women who are currently working on the streets as sex workers participated. Their unedited responses are available on our website at powerottawa.ca. Much of what I speak about will be drawn from their experiences.

Criminalizing clients is not something new. In fact, Ottawa police have been enforcing the communicating law against clients, and not sex workers, for the last few years. We therefore already know the impact it has on sex workers working on the streets.

What we know from street-based sex workers is that criminalizing their clients means rushed negotiations. It's very important for a sex worker working on the streets to take the time to evaluate a client before jumping in his vehicle. This may include smelling his breath to see if there's alcohol, doing a scan of the interior of the vehicle, and checking their bad date list to see if he's on it. When clients fear being criminalized or the police are around, it's very difficult for sex workers to screen their clients. When clients are criminalized on the streets, this means they don't go to well-lit and well-populated areas to pick up sex workers. So in order for sex workers to access their clients, they are pushed into the shadows, into unlit and unpopulated areas. This puts them at increased risk of violence.

Sex workers working on the streets work in groups or in pairs in order to protect themselves. They can watch out for each other and take down licence plates. When sex workers' clients fear being criminalized, they don't approach sex workers working in groups or in pairs. They approach sex workers working alone.

So when we criminalize clients, we're essentially replicating the same harms of the communicating law in which sex workers don't take the time to screen their clients, they can't work in well-lit and well-populated areas, and they must work alone.

We also see that when we criminalize clients, we end up taking away a lot of the sex workers' good clients. They may move to a different part of the city to pick up sex workers where there's less policing. They may move indoors. When there are fewer and fewer clients, it becomes harder and harder for sex workers to say no. It's very important for a sex worker to be able to say no to a client and to know that there will probably be another one coming up soon. When you decrease the pool of clients, it becomes more difficult for sex workers to say no when they have bills to pay.

Sex workers also generally stay out until they have made the money that they need. They will have a certain amount in mind that they need to pay their rent or to buy their groceries for that week, and when the police are out arresting clients this means that sex workers are out on the streets for much longer in order to make the money they need. This puts them at increased risk of encountering a predator, and it can also increase tension with community members who are offended by the presence of a prostitute.

I will now discuss criminalizing the purchase of sex indoors. This will continue to undermine sex workers' ability to protect themselves. The key way that both independent sex workers and agencies protect sex workers is by requiring personal information from a client generally in the form of a phone number. So, if you were to go online where sex workers advertise, you will frequently see “no pay phones” and “no blocked calls”. This is because sex workers require personal information about their clients so that if something would happen, she has information to give the police. Now, she may not feel comfortable calling the police but this serves as a deterrent to the client because the client knows that if he commits a criminal act then she has his phone number to give the police.

What we see when clients fear criminalization is that they don't want to provide this information for screening, which makes it very difficult for sex workers working indoors to be safe.

When clients are criminalized sex workers don't feel comfortable calling the police. Sex workers rely on sex work to provide their income and to support themselves. Sex workers don't want the police to come and arrest their good clients and take away their income. Therefore, sex workers don't feel comfortable calling the police when they've experienced an assault because that could have their location of work targeted as a hot spot.

Clients are often the first to know when exploitation is taking place. In fact, here in Ottawa there was a situation where there were underage girls who were being forced into the sex industry. It was actually a client who facilitated getting her back home to her parents and facilitated the situation being reported to law enforcement.

When clients fear being criminalized, they don't want to report this exploitation to the police because they fear being arrested themselves.

I will now move on to talk about the criminalization of advertising.

What this will mean for sex workers is that sex workers will begin to advertise in code, both because of the ban on advertising and the ban on the criminalization of clients. So what this means is that sex workers will start to say things like, “It's $100 for a happy ending” or “It's 200 roses for my companionship for one hour”, without explicitly mentioning sexual services. This means that sex workers cannot post their restrictions—sexual acts they are not comfortable performing—and their safer sex requirements. If you go online today and look at advertisements of sex workers working indoors, you will see a list of acronyms. These acronyms represent the sexual acts that the sex worker is comfortable performing, the acts she is not comfortable performing, as well as her safer sex requirements.

Now, when sex workers start to advertise in code and can't explicitly discuss safer sex practices or what they are not comfortable performing, then this can lead to misunderstanding where the client can show up expecting something that she is not offering, which can be a very scary experience.

We know that the safest way to work as a sex worker is to work indoors. There is much less violence indoors than on the streets. Criminalizing advertising poses a significant barrier to sex workers being able to work indoors.

Places of advertisement like cerb.ca are about more than just advertising. They provide a “sex worker only” space where sex workers have their own board and can talk to each other. They can provide references about who the good clients are and they can also post “bad date” lists. There is an extensive “bad date” list on cerb.ca, which is probably the primary place sex workers advertise currently in Ottawa. There has been a lot of talk recently among sex workers in Ottawa about what we will have to do when the five years of the “bad date” list is taken down.

There is also a lot of talk about how the advertising isn't going to target sex workers because it's not going to be a criminal law to advertise your own sexual labour, but in fact, this law will criminalize sex workers. It's very common for sex workers to advertise duos, to offer two women with one client. If you go to sex workers' personal websites, you will often see a links page where sex workers post their friends, and these are the people they share references with. So they will call up their friend and say, “Hey, did you see Bob? Was he a good client?”

Sex workers will also frequently perform administrative tasks for each other for a fee, which can include renting an in-call location to see clients, or hiring someone else to do your advertising for you.

My understanding is that this law will criminalize sex workers advertising duos, criminalize sex workers advertising their friends, and it will criminalize sex workers performing administrative tasks for each other. These acts facilitate working collaboratively. Working collaboratively is safer. Performing in duos is safer, being in a group of two sex workers. Sharing a workspace is safer. Sharing bad date information and providing references are safer. This law will chip away at a sex worker's ability to work collaboratively.

I will finish by briefly talking about funding. I'm very disturbed to learn that only exiting services will be funded. What this tells me is that women who choose to exit prostitution are worthy of human rights, and women who don't wish to exit prostitution are unworthy of human rights.

Some of the services that benefit the safety and health of sex workers include having someone compile bad date lists for street-based sex workers and distributing them to sex workers; health services for sex workers; Grandma's House, which is a location to bring clients where there is supervision, and if a sex worker screams there is someone to intervene; outreach workers; and safer sex supplies. These are services that help to keep sex workers safe and healthy, and it's a shame that they won't be funded.

I'll finish by saying that Bill C-36 is irredeemable, and in all its parts it will put sex workers at increased risk of violence. We need to start from scratch, and we need to take the lead from New Zealand. We need to meaningfully engage with sex workers to develop a legal regime that prioritizes their health, safety, and well-being.

Thank you.