Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak against Bill C-36 at report stage. I am really glad to have an opportunity to do so despite the Conservatives' use of time allocation once again.
I remain opposed to the government's rush to recriminalize sex work in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's decision in the Bedford case. Once again with Bill C-36, the government has refused to listen to the Supreme Court, which sent a clear message in the Bedford decision that sex workers have the right to safety and should not have their situation made more dangerous by having new proscriptions put in the Criminal Code.
Like most Canadians, I could not tune in to all this summer's justice committee hearings, but I did hear and see a great deal of testimony, and I read much more of it. I was struck by two things. The first was the selective nature of the government's witnesses, most of whom had experienced a great tragedy concerning a family member who had been involved in sex work or who themselves had been victims of crime while involved in sex work.
Each of these stories, for me, had a common theme. I do not in any way wish to diminish the extent of the harm suffered by those individuals who testified. In each of these cases, the harm done was the result of a criminal act that was and would remain a criminal act whether or not there are restrictions placed on sex work in the Criminal Code. Murder remains illegal. Assault remains illegal. Human trafficking and coercion remain illegal.
I draw a different conclusion from these tragic stories than members of the government side. What these stories tell me is that we ought to do everything we can to make sure that sex work is safer. That is the theme of the Bedford decision from the Supreme Court.
The second theme I noticed coming from both government witnesses and from government members themselves was the tendency to label all sex workers as victims, to see them as poor, unfortunate people who need to be saved.
Most of the sex workers, themselves, who testified rejected this label of victim. Many asserted that they chose sex work, some entirely freely and some as a result of the limited choices they had in front of them, but the vast majority of sex workers emphasized their own choice, their own autonomy, their own control over their lives, and they have been very clear that they wish to retain or enhance that freedom to choose for themselves.
Just this week, we had an important research study released, which had been funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Researchers interviewed 218 sex workers in six communities across the country, plus 1,252 clients and 80 police officers. This is actual evidence with regard to sex work. The researchers found that sex workers, in general, overwhelmingly rejected this characterization as victims, with more than 80% of both sex workers and clients saying that sex workers control the terms of these transactions.
There was one other thing I noted in these hearings, though perhaps even more in the Senate pre-study hearings. I must say at times I felt that sex workers who appeared were shown an astonishing lack of respect by Conservative committee members. This has been communicated back to me as a member of Parliament directly by more than one witness who appeared.
As I said in debate at second reading, I have long had contact with sex workers in my riding, stretching back to my days as a city councillor. In my community, we are fortunate to have a sex worker-run self-help organization called PEERS. PEERS is an acronym that probably still means something formal but in our community it has simply come to mean an organization that cares for and helps those involved in sex work.
PEERS has offered everything from bad date lists to a drop-in centre to education and housing assistance. Unfortunately, like many valuable organizations in the community, PEERS is now struggling with severe funding issues. The amount the government has allocated, $20 million, will do little to help out these organizations in their very important work.
As a result of my contact with PEERS, I have had several opportunities to meet with sex workers to discuss the Bedford decision, both before it came out and then after it came down, as well as this legislation before it came to second reading. Before speaking today, I was fortunate to be able to participate, last Friday, in a community forum organized by PEERS, called “Decriminalizing the Sex Industry: Beyond the Myths and Misconceptions”. The format was a diverse panel of eight members responding to audience questions after some brief opening statements. The panel was moderated by Jody Paterson, one of the founding sisters of PEERS, and someone I much admire for taking her journalism and turning it into advocacy for sex workers.
I have to say I was surprised to find more than 120 people in attendance at a panel on a very sunny Friday afternoon. I was privileged to be one of the panel members as it gave me a chance to interact with seven real experts on sex work, and to learn from their experience. There were three sex workers, or former sex workers, on the panel: Catherine Healy, the national coordinator of the New Zealand Prostitutes' Collective; Natasha Potvin, a PEERS board member; and Lisa Ordell, a Métis woman and registered massage therapist. The panel also included Staff Sergeant Todd Wellman, head of the Victoria Police Department's special victims unit; and Gillian Calder, a professor of family and constitutional law at the University of Victoria.
It also included two scientific researchers on sex work: Dr. Sarah Hunt, a Kwagiulth researcher who has done work with first nations women involved in sex work for more than 20 years; and Chris Atchison from the University of Victoria Department of Sociology, one of the researchers on the study that was published this week.
I spent a lot of time describing this panel in the House today because this panel, and indeed virtually every person attending the forum, agreed on some common themes and a common conclusion. Their conclusion was that Bill C-36 would make the lives of sex workers even more dangerous.
Professor Calder made it clear that the Supreme Court sent us in the House a clear message that it was our responsibility not to re-criminalize sex work, but to legislate it in a way that makes sex work safer and provides greater protection for the rights of sex workers.
I have already spoken of Chris Atchison's study and its rejection of the argument that sex workers are ipso facto victims. He also spoke eloquently of the direct connection between sex workers being able to communicate openly with their clients and the safety of their work. His research shows how criminalizing johns would make that communication inevitably more furtive, more hurried and therefore make sex work more dangerous.
Staff Sergeant Wellman spoke eloquently from his perspective as a 27-year veteran police officer and his five years as the head of a special victims unit. He identified the importance of sex workers feeling able to communicate freely with police. If that is not the case, he stressed, investigating things like violence and exploitation of sex workers becomes even more difficult for the police; and preventing the kinds of tragedies that many government witnesses spoke about becomes nearly impossible. Clearly those provisions in Bill C-36 that criminalize sex workers would make police work harder.
Dr. Sarah Hunt challenged us to ask those national first nations organizations that have expressed support for this bill to demonstrate that they have actually spoken to first nations women involved in sex work or in sex work research and support roles. She challenged their right to speak for first nations without doing this work. The very presence of two first nations women on this panel spoke volumes about whether those claims to speak for all first nations women should be accepted.
Catherine Healy, in turn, challenged us to ask those who cite New Zealand as a negative example of the impacts of legalizing sex work to present their evidence. She clearly showed that the evidence in fact shows a reduction in violence against women in the sex industry in New Zealand. She challenged the assertions made before us in this House that there has been an increase in underage women in sex work in New Zealand or an increase in trafficking of women to New Zealand as entirely without foundation, as simply false.
Let me begin to close by citing just two more things from the forum. One was the importance of a safe space it created for sex workers, like Natasha Potvin and Lisa Ordell and members of the audience, to tell their stories. There was moving testimony in the form of Lisa Ordell's mother simply showing up and identifying herself as “Lisa's mother” in order to support her daughter. There was moving testimony from audience members about the stigma attached to being a sex worker, and the resulting social isolation, making their struggles to escape alcoholism, addiction and violence even more difficult.
My conclusion is that our decision on Bill C-36 should not be about whether any of us like or do not like sex work. Instead, it should be based on what would make these women, men and transgendered Canadians who are already involved in sex work safer, whatever their story, however they arrived there.
I want to close with some questions we must ask ourselves as members of Parliament before we vote on this bill.
As a result of Bill C-36, would sex workers be able to conduct negotiations with potential clients in ways that allow them to be sure of who they are dealing with and in ways that help them avoid bad dates? This would help keep them safe.
As a result of Bill C-36, would sex workers be able to communicate openly with police when they need protection against violence, coercion and exploitation? This would help keep them safe.
As a result of Bill C-36, would sex workers be able to participate in society without the stigma attached to their work denying them access to services and rights that the rest of us enjoy without a thought? This would help keep them safe.
As a result of Bill C-36, would there be less violence against women in Canada?
For me, Bill C-36 clearly fails on all these counts. I am sorry that this bill will pass this Parliament. I am even sorrier for the harm that will result in the time it will take to challenge it in court, and the time it will take for the Supreme Court to rule it unconstitutional, just as the Criminal Code provisions that preceded it were invalidated in the Bedford decision.
