Bill C-308

National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking Act

An Act respecting the National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking

This enactment requires the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to maintain and update the National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking and address the harms caused by human trafficking. It also provides for review and reporting requirements in respect of the National Strategy.

Human Trafficking Awareness Day

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, February 22 is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. Whether it is forced labour, forced marriages, sex trafficking, organ trafficking or cybersex, it is hidden in plain sight right here in Canada.

Statistics Canada reports that in 2019, 97% of human trafficking victims were girls and women, 89% were below the age of 35 and 50% were indigenous. Human trafficking is vicious, profitable and growing. All Canadians have the opportunity to make a difference by doing the following: listening to survivors; learning the signs; advocating for change; supporting Bill C-308; and supporting Bill S-211, which will have its third reading on March 6.

Not all modern slavery involves human trafficking, but all trafficked persons are slaves. On National Human Trafficking Awareness Day, let us take the necessary steps to end this scourge in our country.

Judges Act

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, with respect to the fight against human trafficking here in Canada, I am working hard to have Canada declare zero tolerance for human trafficking. I know that in Canada we have a national strategy to end human trafficking and modern-day slavery, which was put in place by a Conservative government back in 2012. It was not funded from 2016 to 2019. The Liberals have re-funded it now.

I have a bill that I just put on the Order Paper, Bill C-308, which would mandate a national strategy to end human trafficking from now into the future. It would also require the Minister of Public Safety to issue an annual report on what the government is doing to fight human trafficking with measurable deliverables.

National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking Act

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-308, An Act respecting the National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking.

Mr. Speaker, human trafficking is a major problem here in Canada. It is very profitable; it is brutal and it is growing.

Fighting human trafficking must always be a priority for the Canadian government, and the bill I am introducing would introduce a national strategy to combat human trafficking. The bill would ensure that Canada undertakes a long-term approach to ending human trafficking and centres on the voices of survivors, providing robust supports, putting more traffickers in jail and empowering Canadians to tackle this crime in their own communities.

The national strategy to combat human trafficking act would require that the Government of Canada maintain a national strategy to combat human trafficking, that this strategy have clear objectives and timelines, that there would be a review every five years, and that there would be an annual report that would be tabled on behalf of the government to Parliament on the government's progress in combatting human trafficking. The Minister of Public Safety would have to make every reasonable effort to fulfill these obligations under the key international conventions that we have signed relating to human trafficking.

I am honoured to have the support of victims and victims' groups from across the country, anti-human trafficking organizations and frontline service providers, including Timea's Cause, the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking, the Joy Smith Foundation, #NotInMyCity, BridgeNorth, Next Step Ministries, the Allard School of Law International Justice and Human Rights Clinic, and the All-Party Parliamentary Group to End Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking.

Canada must take a zero-tolerance approach to human trafficking and prioritize the voices of survivors, and this bill hopes to do so.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)