Bill C-75 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to, among other things,
(a) modernize and clarify interim release provisions to simplify the forms of release that may be imposed on an accused, incorporate a principle of restraint and require that particular attention be given to the circumstances of Aboriginal accused and accused from vulnerable populations when making interim release decisions, and provide more onerous interim release requirements for offences involving violence against an intimate partner;
(b) provide for a judicial referral hearing to deal with administration of justice offences involving a failure to comply with conditions of release or failure to appear as required;
(c) abolish peremptory challenges of jurors, modify the process of challenging a juror for cause so that a judge makes the determination of whether a ground of challenge is true, and allow a judge to direct that a juror stand by for reasons of maintaining public confidence in the administration of justice;
(d) increase the maximum term of imprisonment for repeat offences involving intimate partner violence and provide that abuse of an intimate partner is an aggravating factor on sentencing;
(e) restrict the availability of a preliminary inquiry to offences punishable by imprisonment for a term of 14 years or more and strengthen the justice’s powers to limit the issues explored and witnesses to be heard at the inquiry;
(f) hybridize most indictable offences punishable by a maximum penalty of 10 years or less, increase the default maximum penalty to two years less a day of imprisonment for summary conviction offences and extend the limitation period for summary conviction offences to 12 months;
(g) remove the requirement for judicial endorsement for the execution of certain out-of-province warrants and authorizations, expand judicial case management powers, allow receiving routine police evidence in writing, consolidate provisions relating to the powers of the Attorney General and allow increased use of technology to facilitate remote attendance by any person in a proceeding;
(h) re-enact the victim surcharge regime and provide the court with the discretion to waive a victim surcharge if the court is satisfied that the victim surcharge would cause the offender undue hardship or would be disproportionate to the gravity of the offence or the degree of responsibility of the offender; and
(i) remove passages and repeal provisions that have been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada, repeal section 159 of the Act and provide that no person shall be convicted of any historical offence of a sexual nature unless the act that constitutes the offence would constitute an offence under the Criminal Code if it were committed on the day on which the charge was laid.
The enactment also amends the Youth Criminal Justice Act in order to reduce delays within the youth criminal justice system and enhance the effectiveness of that system with respect to administration of justice offences. For those purposes, the enactment amends that Act to, among other things,
(a) set out principles intended to encourage the use of extrajudicial measures and judicial reviews as alternatives to the laying of charges for administration of justice offences;
(b) set out requirements for imposing conditions on a young person’s release order or as part of a sentence;
(c) limit the circumstances in which a custodial sentence may be imposed for an administration of justice offence;
(d) remove the requirement for the Attorney General to determine whether to seek an adult sentence in certain circumstances; and
(e) remove the power of a youth justice court to make an order to lift the ban on publication in the case of a young person who receives a youth sentence for a violent offence, as well as the requirement to determine whether to make such an order.
Finally, the enactment amends among other Acts An Act to amend the Criminal Code (exploitation and trafficking in persons) so that certain sections of that Act can come into force on different days and also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Good afternoon, colleagues. Good afternoon to our witnesses.

We are now going to resume our study of Bill C-75, an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and other acts.

It is a pleasure to welcome our witnesses for the first panel.

We're joined by counsel Yves Gratton, from Aide juridique de Montréal | Laval.

Welcome, Mr. Gratton.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Thank you.

I'd like to change to English but still stick with you, Professor.

We heard earlier today some thoughts that the intimate partner reverse-onus condition in Bill C-75 doesn't go far enough and that in fact it should be changed to allow for a reverse onus if somebody, for example, is charged with two offences of intimate partner violence but doesn't have any previous convictions. Can you tell this committee what you would think of that kind of change?

[Marie-Eve Sylvestre]

I think Bill C-75 is not going far enough in terms of preventing those breaches and the accumulation of offences against the administration of justice. Many changes would need to be made, one of them being the reverse onus on people who have breached a condition. That's putting some pressure on people to be held in custody, so that's highly problematic.

There's another thing that would need to be changed. That's the imposition of unrealistic conditions in cases of people who don't pose a serious threat to the public, to victims, and to witnesses. In our study, for instance, one of the most important predictors of breach was the number of conditions imposed. The more conditions imposed, the more likely you are to breach them, which seems logical, right? We know that on average, seven or eight conditions per bail order are imposed on people. That's a lot of conditions to comply with. Many of them have nothing to do with the offence. Many of them are not criminal offences in themselves, but just become so because they're entrenched in the bail orders.

We really have to release people unconditionally when they're not posing any threat. That's what the Criminal Code has been saying since 1970. The Supreme Court of Canada has been saying it and the Canadian charter has been saying it. It's still not applied by judges and peace officers. I think we have to strengthen the language in Bill C-75 to make sure we get rid of these many offences against the administration of justice.

[Arif Virani]

In that vein, just to continue with that thought, one aspect of this legislation that we've heard evidence on is the administration of justice offences and the rethink we're doing with respect to that. Again, you have minor breaches of conditions that don't result in danger to society but do result in, as you said, six infractions for bail, whereas the original infraction for the original crime was much more minor. You get a sort of knock-on multiplier effect.

I'm wondering if you can comment on the administration of justice changes we're proposing in Bill C-75, and in particular how it connects to the indigenous community, the racialized communities, women, and other people you mentioned in terms of this group of vulnerability.

[Maria Mourani]

Certainly.

As to the recommendations, let me repeat what victims and the police told me. Victims are waiting for Bill C-452 to come into force, which received royal assent in 2015. For three years, the government has refused to bring this law into force.

Having been a minister, Mr. Clement, you know that it takes more than a day for a ministerial order to be issued to bring a law into force. As you also know, the House voted unanimously twice, at second reading and at third reading of this bill. Even Mr. Trudeau, who is now the prime minister, voted for the bill.

The current Minister of Justice says Bill C-36 would create problems for consecutive sentences. I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate the previous government for passing this major piece of legislation on prostitution. You will recall that Bill C-36 received royal assent on November 6, 2014, while Bill C-245 received royal assent on June 18, 2015, nearly a year later.

Everyone voted for it. Why does Mr. Trudeau seem to be changing his mind now that he is prime minister? Victims are very frustrated by this, especially families with children who have run away or who are in prostitution networks, and who are told by police officers that they cannot take action without testimony or a complaint, even in the case of girls who are minors. The government must declare this act to be in force immediately without waiting for Bill C-75 to be passed or receive royal assent.

[Tony Clement]

I want to thank all of the presenters, of course. It's a very harrowing topic. It's very upsetting to all of us—more than upsetting.

I don't know whether this is appropriate: I am a male but I also have a wife, a mother, a sister, and two daughters. This affects all of us. I know obviously I cannot speak from the experiences that all of you have come across, but it's important to have this on the record, so thank you, all of you, for doing that.

I'm trying to figure out how. You've all offered some prescriptions. Some of them have differed in their remedies. In terms of our consideration of Bill C-75, I think we're hearing that either through this legislation or through a companion piece of legislation, there have to be more remedies than are provided.

I understand, Chair, as I've heard around the table at my first meeting ever that as a committee you have been doing some work on human trafficking and you're working on a report.

[Megan Walker]

Bill C-75 is very difficult to wade through, which makes it inaccessible to almost all victims, and particularly women who've experienced violence or sexual exploitation. For the most part, sexually assaulted, tortured, prostituted, and trafficked girls and women have no idea that the government is even discussing these issues at this moment.

We do have some recommendations.

We would like you to develop a consultation tool to allow women's voices to be heard, particularly those impacted by prostitution, trafficking, exploitation, and male violence, so you can incorporate their feedback into the legislation. We know how to do those tools for you. We need you to reach out to these women and girls.

We're asking you to re-examine the issue of legislating non-state torture as a criminal offence. We're asking that you legislate an opt-in process for online pornography, so that, similar to online gambling, only those over the age of 18 can access it. We're asking you to address the systemic failures that discriminate against women, preventing them from either accessing the criminal justice system or remaining involved in it. At the very least, we ask that you stop using the term “gender-based violence” and call it what it is: it's male violence against women, and women have been invisible for too long. The time has come to continue to talk about them.

I'll just get to the final one. We'd like to see a strong appeal by the House of Commons to the Senate to quickly pass the amendments to the Judges Act. It was a unanimous vote in the House of Commons, and it's been stuck in the Senate now for about two years. Women are anxiously waiting to have judges who are trained to address sexual violence.

It is difficult to discuss our problems around male violence against women, oppression, and human rights violations in front of a committee with 11 male members and one woman. That's hard, because as well-meaning as all of you are, as men you have power and privilege that women don't have.

The term “nevertheless we persist” is valid, because women have to fight every day to be heard and to survive and to be believed. I appreciate the opportunity to be here, and to present some facts around trafficking and some recommendations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

You'll have to get to your recommendations on Bill C-75.

[Marie-Eve Sylvestre]

Good evening.

Thank you for your invitation. My remarks will be exclusively concerned with interim release.

Allow me to begin by telling you the story of Martine.

At the time when our research team met her in 2014, Martine was a homeless young woman in her mid-thirties. She was undergoing treatment to curtail her addiction to opioids, and living with HIV.

In April 2008, Martine was arrested for the first time for having communicated with people for the purposes of prostitution, an offence under paragraph 213(1)(c) of the Criminal Code, the functional equivalent of current paragraph 213(1.1) of the Criminal Code which criminalizes sex work.

Because of her priors, Martine was detained by a police officer and appeared in court the next day. The Crown opposed her release and Martine was remanded until her judicial release hearing, held three days later.

Martine spent four days in a pretrial detention centre. That is a typical scenario in Quebec. In Ontario, the period is longer. This centre is overcrowded and people are detained there who often have not been convicted of any crime. Moreover, Martine had not consumed any drugs for four days. She was suffering greatly as a consequence and experiencing several withdrawal symptoms.

It was under these conditions, and attempting to merely survive, that she accepted the release conditions imposed by the prosecutor and approved by the judge. Those conditions included not consuming alcohol or drugs and not being in a area covering all of the Centre-Sud district of Montreal and Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, an area of about 12 square kilometres. That is equivalent to the distance between Parliament Hill and the Rideau River, or from Bronson Avenue to Elgin Street.

Martine was not in a position to challenge the conditions of her release, among other reasons because it is impossible for her to stop taking drugs from one day to the next; she often resides in a motel on Saint-Hubert Street and goes to get groceries at the Fondation d'aide directe-SIDA Montréal, and also goes to Méta d'Âme, an organization that helps people who are addicted to opioids, where she receives treatment for HIV and accesses social services. All of these places were located in the perimeter she could no longer be found in.

She agreed to anything because she wanted to get out of there as fast as possible.

Her trial was scheduled for the month of July. Since she does not keep an agenda on the street, Martine did not appear in court. She was accused of failing to appear and a warrant was issued.

A few months later, she was arrested and immediately detained. After having spent 48 hours in a detention centre, she appeared and pleaded guilty to the communication offence, to breaching her release conditions and to failure to appear. She was sentenced to 30 days of imprisonment, which was followed by a probation period of one year with the same conditions.

Two months later, Martine was caught in her prohibited perimeter in a state of intoxication and in the process of communicating with someone. This was a new offence and she was once again accused of breaching her release conditions. This time, Martine was excluded from the entire Island of Montreal. She was forced to take therapy in a suburb, a condition she will not respect, once again.

From one instance of non-compliance to another, from failure to appear to failure to appear, Martine over two years accumulated seven administration of justice offences for two predicate offences. During all of that period, she felt constantly watched. She experienced a lot of stress. She played a game of cat and mouse with the police. She consumed more drugs than before. She lost her apartment. In the suburbs, she told us, she was starving to death.

During the period she was banished from Montreal, she could no longer receive her HIV treatments, which were not available outside the city. Finally, she was allowed to go to her medical appointments on condition she find a means of transportation that would deliver her to the door of the medical centre. Asked to comment on her situation, Martine was very direct: “They are about to ask me to walk on my hands”, she said.

Martine's case is not exceptional in our justice system. I told you her story to illustrate the following facts.

First of all, our prisons are full of people like Martine who are detained pretrial for extremely minor offences—shoplifting, obstructing the work of police officers, misdemeanours, drug possession, common assault, and countless instances of failure to respect conditions. These people are detained longer before their court appearance than they would have been if they had been sentenced immediately. Moreover, the reversal of the burden of proof when charged with failure to respect conditions only increases their likelihood of being detained.

Although people sometimes think that the justice system really deals with serious crimes, we see that in reality administration of justice offences make up more than 25% of all cases heard by the courts every year. Forty per cent of the cases heard contain at least one of those offences.

These figures are even higher among indigenous persons, and more indigenous persons are in prison.

Our justice system produces repeat offenders, but they are not criminals. They are people who are unable to comply with unrealistic and arbitrary conditions.

The most common offence against the administration of justice is non-compliance with release conditions, or breach of release conditions. When people are released, judges impose conditions in 95 to 100% of cases. The conditions that are most often violated are those related to abstinence or not being at a certain place.

Bill C-75 is a step in the right direction, especially the planned addition to sections 493.1 and 492.2 of the Criminal Code. The bill does not go far enough in addressing these problems, however, to make sure that our prisons and courts are not primarily places that manage misery and poverty, to make our justice system address what is essential, and to uphold the rights of marginalized persons, especially women and often indigenous persons.

I propose a series of amendments, most of which are in my brief.

First, the term “vulnerable populations“ in the new clause 493.2 must be defined. Otherwise it would be incumbent on the person appearing to prove that they are disadvantaged.

Further, police officers must be required to issue unconditional notices to appear for persons who do not pose a real and imminent threat to the safety of victims and witnesses.

The new subclause 501(3), which pertains to the reasons for which police officers can impose conditions, must be amended to require them to consider the seriousness of the alleged offence, in particular as to the need to ensure attendance in court.

The grounds for detention set out in subclause 515(10) must absolutely be amended to prevent justices of the peace from detaining a person and imposing conditions on them to ensure their attendance in court when required by the seriousness of the offence and when the person presents a real, serious, and imminent threat to the safety of a witness or victim.

A provision must also be added to prevent the detention of a person if it is unlikely that they will be sentenced to prison.

All reversals of the burden of proof must also be eliminated, specifically as provided in paragraph 515(6)c) in the event of breach of conditions.

Additional precautions must also be taken for two types of conditions: those pertaining to abstinence and geographic conditions. For conditions pertaining to alcohol and drugs, the police officer and judge must consider the person's degree of dependence to see whether the condition imposed is realistic under the circumstances. Further, a harm reduction approach must be taken in all cases. On October 17, cannabis will be decriminalized in Canada, but there is a risk that it could be criminalized again by the back door if it is included in release conditions.

The power of police officers to impose geographic conditions must also be eliminated unless the safety of a person or victim is at risk.

Finally, the parallel procedure in clause 523 pertaining to minor breaches must be eliminated; in my view, it is not a good idea. People will continue to appear before judges and overload the courts. That is already the case in provinces such as British Columbia, where defendants appear before judges, are given a warning, leave, but keep appearing before the courts again. The way the procedure is structured could increase the number of individuals who previously had no charges against them. Finally, activities related to drugs, and not just cannabis, and sex work, must be decriminalized so that the life and safety of persons is not endangered.

This is the first time in 50 years that Parliament has had the opportunity to amend statutory provisions regarding release. Every effort must be made to reduce the pretrial detention of persons who are not dangerous and eliminate the pointless conditions that discriminate against marginalized persons. In its present form, Bill C-75 does not go far enough.

[Maria Mourani]

Thank you Mr. Chair.

Good evening, everyone.

It's always a great pleasure to be with you. I thank the committee for its invitation. I also want to greet my former colleague Joy Smith, with whom I worked extensively on this issue when I was an MP.

As you can probably imagine, I will not discuss all of the provisions contained in Bill C-75, which is quite long. I will simply address the provisions that concern my bill on human trafficking, which is Bill C-452, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (exploitation and trafficking in persons). The bill was tabled for first reading on October 2012, and passed unanimously at second and third readings, as you know. It then passed all of the stages in the Senate and received Royal Assent on June 18, 2015.

I will focus more specifically on clause 389 of Bill C-75, since that clause establishes the coming into force of clauses 1, 2 and 4 of Bill C-452, and stipulates that clause 3 must be the subject of an order. Its coming into force is thus subject to an order, which is to say that this depends on the government's will to do so; the government clearly expressed its opposition to this clause at the time.

I know that several members around this table are new and were not members of Parliament during the previous Parliament. So I want to provide some explanation about how this bill came into being.

The bill was the result of a consultation that lasted several years. Many groups were consulted, including women's groups, victims' aid groups, victims themselves, and police officers—several police forces were consulted. The bill was also reviewed by criminal law jurists in Quebec. And so it was studied and studied again, and developed into the bill you see now.

A criminological analysis was also done of the phenomenon of trafficking in persons in Canada, which led us to understand that there were gaps in our Criminal Code that need to be filled in. Our observations led us to the following conclusions: first, trafficking in persons is very, very lucrative. People who pursue this criminal activity make a lot of money. The phenomenon is not unique to Canada; it is global. In fact, several experts believe that the proceeds from this criminal activity are second only to drug trafficking, and that it is even more lucrative than arms dealing. It's appalling!

Not only is human trafficking lucrative, it causes incredible suffering for the victims. I can tell you that in the course of my professional work, since the end of the 90s, I have met many, many victims. What they have to say, the suffering of these victims, is unimaginable, and defies description. It can sometimes even make you wonder if it is real. You react by thinking that this can't be, how can such things happen here, in Canada?

The most common form of trafficking in persons in Canada is internal trafficking. So this directly involves our girls, girls who are moved all over Canada to be subjected to the the most prevalent form of trafficking in the country: sexual exploitation. This is what I will focus on. There is also, of course, some trafficking involving forced labour. To my knowledge, organ trafficking is not happening in Canada, but it's possible that it is. It may simply be that we haven't caught the perpetrators yet; I don't know.

Trafficking in persons for the purpose of sexual exploitation is not only the most prevalent form of trafficking, but it generates billions of dollars for the sex industry. For instance, it has been determined that 11% of men in Canada have purchased the services of prostitutes. Comparison can be comforting, as the saying goes: in the Netherlands, that figure is 60%. In Germany it is 66%, and in Cambodia, 65%. In Sweden, where the approach is completely different, it drops to 8.5%. Don't forget that when prostitution is legalized, trafficking increases, as does consumption.

Human trafficking in Canada and internationally mostly involves women and children. The average age of entry into prostitution in Canada is about 14. I have met victims who became prostitutes at 13. Others were forced into prostitution at 10 or 11. The average however is 14, 15, and 16. And yet we aren't in Thailand, we are in Canada.

For a five-year period, from 2007 to 2013, 40% of victims identified as such in Canada were minors. This confirms the global trend, where an increase in the statistics involving minors has been noted. The victims are of course mostly girls rather than boys.

The cities that are reputed to be trafficking hubs are Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto. Canada is recognized as a transit country, a country where recruitment takes place, and a sex tourism destination. These observations were made by the RCMP and the American State Department. What is very compelling is that on average, a perpetrator who exploits a victim sexually can make between $168,000 to $336,000 per year from one victim. These are RCMP figures, once again. As I said, trafficking is very lucrative.

Bill C-452 had two objectives: to make trafficking less lucrative, or not lucrative at all, and to protect the victims. Our consultation made us realize that trafficking is a crime that needs a victim; we need the testimony of a victim. However, as you know, the victims are either terrorized or in love with and under the spell of their pimps. They suffer from PTSD, Stockholm syndrome and all sorts of psychological ailments. But without victims, it is extremely difficult to conduct investigations.

We also saw that when we managed to get investigations done that led to convictions, the penalties did not fit the crimes. The victims said that quite often the traffickers were charged with three or four offences and were sentenced to the full extent of the law, as that is the system we had. The victims did not understand. A pimp was charged with trafficking, pimping, aggravated assault, attempted murder, and in the end, the offender was sentenced for the most serious offence, but this was a light sentence as compared to the gravity of all of the crimes committed. Consequently the victims felt that they were subjected to another injustice at the hands of the system. They wound up feeling that there was no point denouncing the trafficker and having to go through all of that judicial process.

So basically, we had to find a way to remedy all of this. I felt—and this was supported by my various partners—that if we could make trafficking less lucrative it would be less attractive, and involve a lot of risks for the traffickers. This would create a balance. First, we had to do something that still does not exist in our system, and that is an aberration, and that is to confiscate the proceeds of criminality. This is done in the case of big drug traffickers, but not for human trafficking. So we added that.

Someone who gets caught and is convicted must demonstrate that all of his assets are not derived from trafficking and the sexual exploitation of girls. On the one hand, the state may take away everything he owns. In addition, given the reversal of the burden of proof, investigations can be held without the need for the testimony of a victim. This is due to the victim protection process. They are not obliged to testify; the police officers are the ones who must gather the necessary evidence to charge a trafficker.

[Joy Smith]

Oh, sorry about that. I don't have a stopwatch here. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Anyway, I think it's an issue that needs to be taken very seriously, and I don't think Bill C-75 reflects that the way it should.

Thank you for this time that I've been able to give input to this committee. I appreciate it.

[Joy Smith]

Thank you, Chair. I thank the committee for examining this Bill C-75.

I also want to say hello to my colleagues. I was a member of Parliament for close to 12 years. I know how hard you all work on this committee. I'm glad to have some input into it.

I have to say that Bill C-75 concerns me greatly. I think there are some strengths in it, but I want to address the part about human trafficking.

I don't think a lot of people understand human trafficking. Human trafficking is when young girls, mostly, are targeted and groomed in such a way that they sometimes get confidence in their predators, and then they eventually end up trafficked.

When I look at Bill C-75, I have concerns. You can see through this bill that the understanding of the global and Canadian issue of human trafficking isn't here. There are a lot of things that are not addressed. There are laws that are being.... The criminals actually get a bit of a break in what they do.

I want to talk about human trafficking so that you understand it. I've dealt with hundreds of survivors of human trafficking. They live a very horrible existence. Predators target their victims.

I'll give you an example. I know of a young girl who was very beautiful. She lived in a very good family. She was very knowledgeable in her school studies and everything; she did a great job. She went to a summer program at a community centre, and some cute guys showed up.

There were five of these girls who had been friends for a lot of years. Now, people would say that only the most vulnerable or people who don't have good families are the ones who are subject to human trafficking. That wouldn't be true.

Anybody who is a girl—and boys as well, but mainly girls—can be targeted and trafficked and eventually lured into the sex trade through no fault of their own. This particular girl came from a very nice family. Her parents dropped her off at the community centre. They gave her a cellphone to call them when she went home, but what happened to this girl is typical of a lot of trafficked victims.

Some cute guys showed up and sweet-talked the girls. The girls were 14 and 15 years old, and they quickly fell in love. The traffickers took them to parties. The girls were told to tell their parents that they were at sleepovers. They weren't at their friends' places at all; they were at parties with these cute guys, or what they thought were cute guys. The guys were giving them fancy restaurant meals, taking them in limos, giving them gold chains, making them feel very special, telling them that they loved them and that someday they would get married.

The whole scenario changed one night, and the tide suddenly turned. One night the guys got together and said to the girls, “You know what? You have to pay us back for all the gifts we've given you, and this is how you're going to do it.” The girls objected, especially Malana, who objected very much, and they beat her very badly. She was threatened. They told her they were going to go to her school and that they were going to go to her parents and tell them what she'd been doing. She'd already been servicing some men for her boyfriend, because the boyfriend had told her they were trying to get some money for a house, that she had such a beautiful body, that dancing in the strip bar just meant that it was art and everyone would watch her.

This is the deceptive part of human trafficking. What happened to her eventually is that she was gang-raped. She was sold to another trafficker.

Five of them went through very similar experiences. The other four have disappeared. My foundation helped the fifth one through many years of rehabilitation and reschooling, getting her in school again, because a lot of these survivors of human trafficking miss a great deal of their education—four, five, six, seven years if they survive that long.

Human trafficking is very lucrative. Traffickers make between $260,000 to $280,000 a year. This is a horrible inflicted pain on very young girls. Why do they pick people who are underaged or very young girls? It's because they're easy to intimidate. They're easy to scare. They pick the very young and they can brainwash them over and over again.

When I look at Bill C-75 and I see some of the penalties that are very light, I would suggest there be another study on human trafficking, and particularly the harm it does to these young people. They are forever changed. To put it out there that prostitution is an industry is wrong: no, it's the greatest affliction against women. I haven't met any young girl who wanted to be in this at all.

The perpetrators and the others around this crime make a great deal of money out of it, and that's why they do it. I know when I was in Parliament for 12 years it was my responsibility to stand up for the most vulnerable. People have to understand.

When I look at the committee today, I see primarily men around this committee and I see a couple of women sitting at the end of it. There's Maria.

Maria, thanks. It's so nice to see you. She's done very good work on the human trafficking file. When I see Megan Walker and others who have worked so long, so many years, with victims and survivors of human trafficking, and some of the things that we see along the way.... I worked 23 years in total trying to stop it, and my foundation now still works to educate the schools and the school children about how predators work and how they can protect themselves.

To me, this Bill C-75 is building a new philosophy around human trafficking. It's almost like this is okay. The criminal charges are lighter. It seems to me there's a lot of misunderstanding about human trafficking. I would suggest it is imperative that parliamentarians actually find out about it. Talk to survivors.

There is a segment of women who make a lot of money in the prostitution field, and they lure other young girls in, but these are not the trafficking victims. These are the people who, it's been my experience, make a great deal of money off the innocence of the very young. I think when parliamentarians are around the table, they have to have a view of respect for women. It has to have a view that there is no glass ceiling. Women have a right to be safe. They have a right to be honoured. I don't see this in this bill to any great extent.

Human trafficking keeps going on. I know. I've been in schools. Our foundation now goes to schools all over the country, and I don't make any money off the foundation at all. I do it as a labour of love, because I've fallen in love with the survivors and the very many survivors who told me their stories. I've fallen in love with the people who have stood up for them for years. I think this Parliament now has to take this very seriously. I know that in the schools, no matter what school I go into, when I talk about human trafficking and how the predators work, I have several girls coming up.

I was in a school last week. There were a lot of students there. I spoke to grade 5 right up to grade 12. From each grade, ladies and gentlemen, students came up once they found out how predators work, and said, “You know what? I think my boyfriend is grooming me.” I asked them why they thought that, and they would tell me things. They would say, “Well, I fell in love with him. He's so wonderful.” A couple of them said that they intended to get married, but actually the boys were suggesting things that kind of shocked them.

They wanted to get some money, but—

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for really putting that gender lens onto Bill C-75 and its impact.

We've heard from previous witnesses who've come forward that the reverse onus with respect to intimate partner violence would further increase the under-reporting of intimate partner violence and domestic abuse. Do you agree with that?

That's for Ms. Smithen, Ms. Sheehy, and then Daisy.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Fair enough.

Professor Sheehy, you provided some statistical evidence of breaches by individuals who are charged with intimate partner violence. One aspect of Bill C-75 is the establishment of judicial referral hearings when dealing with administration of justice related offences, which could include, obviously, breaches of bail conditions imposed. Do you have any concerns about the judicial referral hearing process, at least in the context of intimate partner violence?

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Fair enough.

Now, I certainly support the reverse-onus provisions of this bill and I am certainly open to looking at potential amendments to broaden the scope of how those reverse-onus provisions would apply.

That said, others, including the CBA, have taken the position that there's really no need for reverse onus. In that regard, they point to the fact that Bill C-75 would provide two criteria that judges must pay attention to in making a determination on bail. They include whether an accused was charged with an offence involving violence, or the threaten or attempt of violence, and, secondly, whether an accused had been convicted of a prior offence that is broader than simply an intimate partner violent offence.

I wonder what your take on their position would be, or what your response to the CBA would be on that point.