Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 4th, 2021

[Dr. Samantha Nutt]

Mr. Landry didn't get a chance to answer, so maybe it would be good if he answered the question.

[Guillaume Landry]

The question is important. On the subject of child labour, it is interesting to note that, for once, Molière's language is perhaps a little less rich than Shakespeare's.

We will make the difference between work and labour.

In French, we only talk about “travail”, a word that reminds us that work is allowed. The word “travail” implies permission. Indeed, work is not prohibited as a right of the child, being notably a means of education.

It is what are known as the worst forms of child labour that are prohibited, and that's what we're looking at this year. We want to celebrate actions to eliminate the worst forms of child labour, including prostitution and sexual exploitation in all its manifestations, as well as the use of children in armed conflict, mining, the chemical industry and agriculture using chemicals.

In this sense, you have to be careful. It is rare that slippage occurs quickly. For example, just because a school is closed doesn't mean that 10 days later a child ends up in a prostitution ring. There are patterns that lead to a gradual reduction of options, and most of the time, the child feels that he or she is the one who has made the decision to enter into an exploitative dynamic.

This notion we have that a child must have been kidnapped before being forced into some form of exploitation is often not the right one. Simply closing doors and denying children opportunities is enough to make them believe that they have made that decision themselves. However, no child should consent to his or her own exploitation: that is the basic principle.

In this regard, it is really interesting to look at an issue that was discussed earlier: the extraterritorial legislation that Canada adopted several decades ago. Yet we are one of the countries that use it the least. The solution to a problem does not always lie in new legislation, and sometimes it is simply a matter of applying existing laws.

Budget cuts at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have affected the deployment of police personnel to Canadian embassies. The result is that now one police officer must cover many countries, which automatically reduces the ability to monitor cases of child sexual exploitation in the tourism and travel industry. When compared to a country like Australia, a very small percentage of Canadians are prosecuted, convicted or found guilty of exploitative acts committed abroad. It begs the question, are Canadians better people than Australians? I'll leave you to debate the question.

You also need to look at the United Kingdom, where, over the past 15 years, Internet service providers and credit card companies have developed collaborative ways of tracking and monitoring illegal activity on the Internet. In Canada, we are just at the beginning of this conversation. I think it's important to mention that there are very concrete models that would allow us to collaborate robustly with the private sector to stem phenomena such as these.

Let me emphasize that most of the patterns of child labour exploitation occur in agriculture. We should also not forget the informal economy, which is a major factor in the sexual exploitation of children, in particular. The approach of buying a package deal from an airline to go and exploit children is no longer a reality. Before the pandemic, people would go to a site to rent an apartment in a small community and organize locally. So it is the exploitation itself that has shifted to small communities through the informal economy. They see the exploitation, but they don't necessarily have the means to respond, and that's where we have a responsibility.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

You haven't left me any time for questions. I will have to hand over to my colleague.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bergeron.

The final questioner in the first round is Ms. McPherson, please, for six minutes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for joining us today. This has been very interesting and very important testimony.

Throughout this study, we have heard over and over again that one of the big risks we're looking at during COVID-19 is that we may lose those gains, those development gains that we've made over the past 10, 20 and 30 years. We're certainly hearing that again today.

Now, as the representative who is at the end of asking questions, it appears to me that the best thing I could do to get information from our witnesses is to give you an opportunity to talk about maybe those one or two top things that you would like Canada to undertake. This is a report that will be given to all parliamentarians. I'm wondering if I could pass it to each of you in turn and if you could just talk about the one or two things that you think the Government of Canada needs to do in the short, the medium or the long term, or immediately. What are the things we need to do? What do we need to prioritize?

I'll start with you, Mr. Landry.

[Guillaume Landry]

I feel I should give the floor now to Dr. Nutt because she did that for me, and I would probably speak too much. I should maybe take the last round to be polite. I'm sorry about that.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

That's very kind of you.

Dr. Nutt, go ahead, please.

[Dr. Samantha Nutt]

Thank you.

In terms of the top things that I would recommend, Canada's contributions to ODA have been basically stagnating for many years now. We still are coming in at well under the target of 0.7% that was set by the United Nations.

My bigger concern here is that, as we go forward and endeavour to pay off the trillions of dollars in global debt that's been accrued as a result of the pandemic, we're seeing that many countries, including the United Kingdom, are already looking at cutting their official development assistance through that process to be able to make up some of those gains. I would say that one of the most important things Canada can do is to continue to buttress its ODA contributions and to make sure that for those contributions it is really thinking very strategically about what kind of aid has the most impact. The kind of aid that has the most impact is locally driven, locally supported and longer term. It is targeting the structural challenges that exist within countries, including around education, access to justice—which we've heard a lot about today—and economic development, especially for women.

A lot of the issues we've been talking about—recruitment of young people into armed forces, sexual abuse and sexual exploitation—all come down to a lack of protection, a lack of protection infrastructure, a lack of justice, a lack of education and a lack of opportunity. If our aid dollars are being mobilized to go beyond short-term band-aid type solutions and if we're thinking about education as part of a humanitarian infrastructure and not as something that happens after food, water, shelter and blankets, but something that happens at the same time because it's so critically important and because it helps deal with children's vulnerability then we're going to see that we're able to make a long-term difference in the lives of these kids.

I've taken enough time and I want to pass the floor over, but that's what I would say. Let's not let aid be the first casualty of our deficit-cutting when we get to that day, because it's really important.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you so much for that.

I'll pass that over to Ms. Canjanathoppil.

[Anu George Canjanathoppil]

Thank you.

I have just three points to share. I come from the field. I've had to make decisions about whether or not to go on a rescue operation for want of funds. The areas that IJM has been working in have been slavery, online child sexual exploitation and other atrocities that are happening across the world.

At this point, I think the most important investment needs to be made in the space where we can directly address the problem of slavery by investing in the supply chain, and we need to make sure that with regard to all things that impact Canada directly, we're investing in that space and identifying industries that force us into consuming things that we don't want to be buying from people. That is one place.

The other place is the partnership. There is already limited partnership between the governments of Canada and the Philippines. If there is an investment that is possible to make sure that we can increase the investigations capacity in the Philippines specifically, because that is where the largest online sexual exploitation is happening, if we can invest there and if there can be a partnership there, these two things would probably lead to protecting 70 million people in the next 10 years. I'm happy to provide a plan if the committee would be willing to respond.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you so much.

Mr. Landry, it looks as though you have one short minute left.

[Guillaume Landry]

Thank you.

Stable government support is important. More than ever, we see the importance of working on prevention and building local capacity that can help us respond to unforeseen events, emergencies, pandemics, armed conflict or natural disasters. In order for us to truly define endogenous child protection systems that can respond to these challenges, whatever their nature, we need to stay away from politically salient hot topics, avoid constantly upsetting priorities and stabilize our approach with long-term support. These are the most important tools. Perhaps we should also debureaucratize the project launch processes, which are very long and hamper efforts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you so much, Ms. McPherson.

Thank you very much, Mr. Landry.

We will now go to our second round of questions. The first speaker will be Mr. Diotte for five minutes.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you so much.

I know that we've covered a lot of ground. I thank all of the witnesses for being here. It really is fascinating stuff and vitally important.

Right now, of course, everybody is talking about vaccines and COVID. I'm going to ask a fairly broad question. I'm wondering if it concerns any or all of you that, following the failures regarding of our own vaccine procurement, our federal government right now is ordering the COVAX vaccine that was meant primarily for developing countries.

I'll just leave it open to whoever wants to weigh in first on that.

[Dr. Samantha Nutt]

I don't mind speaking more in my capacity as a public health doctor on this front. Quite apart from Canada's decision to execute its options through the COVAX program, which would provide us with additional vaccine supplies by the end of June, hopefully our own vaccine procurement will have accelerated before then and we won't need those supplies and we'll able to ensure that countries that are actually still desperately holding out for additional support will be able to receive it.

The bottom line here, though, is that we have now 70 low-income countries that are very unlikely to have access to vaccines in the foreseeable future and in the countries in which War Child Canada is operating, we are looking at best at a scenario where one out of every 10 people is vaccinated by the end of this year and possibly into early next year.

What concerns me the most is what conversations are taking place to ensure that we do have a much more aggressive strategy around ensuring that particularly vulnerable, high-risk communities have access to the vaccination, that that vaccine is being deployed, that the capacity exists to be able to vaccinate. I'm thinking very specifically around issues of migration and displacement. We are one of the few organizations very active on the border between Sudan and Ethiopia in response to the arrival of Tigrayan refugees that took place over the last couple of months. Many tens of thousands of them are arriving. The more you have this kind of displacement, the more vulnerability, the more crowded conditions.... You've got very few humanitarian organizations that are on the ground, implementing there right now, because of the constraints related to COVID. You are talking about parts of the world where COVID could really become entrenched, where new variants can emerge, and it is a threat to all of us.

My own position on this is that we understand, as Canadians, as much as anyone else right now what it feels like to watch other countries get vaccinated while our seniors face real consequences in long-term care homes. We, I hope, will not endeavour to do that to any other country on this earth. I hope that we will be thoughtful and [Technical Difficulty-Editor] moving forward on this issue and that we will recognize that it is in all of our best interests to ensure that the most vulnerable, and especially those living in impoverished, crowded conditions, are vaccinated as soon as humanly possible and have an equal stake and an equal share in that opportunity.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Excellent. Great answer.

Would anybody else like to wade in on that one?

[Anu George Canjanathoppil]

I'm happy to.

COVID struck us at a time where we had to deal with something that was not in our expertise, but it aligned with what we were doing, which is delivering things that needed to be delivered to those in vulnerable communities. We have partnered with nearly 340 organizations, institutions and NGOs and provided over 38,000 people with direct crisis relief due to COVID; provided emergency supplies, groceries; reached over four million people through awareness-raising efforts about vulnerabilities from COVID-19; helped over 3,000 survivors receive ongoing aftercare services; implemented nearly 570 new violence response or mitigation efforts alongside our partners; provided over 358 cases of remote assistance to [Technical Difficulty-Editor] public justice officials including provision [Technical Difficulty-Editor] assisted in consultations.

All of these things were in just a few districts. I'm taking these numbers from memory of a particular state. The need just increases with the vulnerability. It is important to note that we need to be able to respond to those who are in segments of society. It requires being aligned with the government and that's what we have been doing thus far, making sure that they get the benefits they deserve.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Mr. Diotte.

Next is Ms. Saks for five minutes, please.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all of our witnesses who have come today. This has been a really important discussion on so many of the aspects that feed into the lack of safety of children in conflict areas and what's going on during COVID.

I previously, in my life before being an MP, worked with organizations dealing in trafficking, particularly in relation to women and girls. I do understand the realities and the complexities of trying to stop the human trafficking chain and also rescuing and rehabilitating victims of it. During the best of times it's really challenging and especially during a pandemic.

During the pandemic, we know that children are at home, but we also know that criminal networks are still out and about in these areas and involved in what they're trying to achieve. Has the exploitation industry changed in the past year in terms of the pandemic? Our Minister of International Development, Karina Gould, committed $1.6 billion towards the COVID response in January of this year. We know there's a shadow pandemic of gender-based violence and sexual exploitation. What should we be considering in terms of adapting our approaches to the COVID response in relation to gender-based violence and human trafficking?

[Anu George Canjanathoppil]

If I may specifically call on the example of how we started our work in certain countries, we started by addressing sexual exploitation of minors. This was in private homes. This was in brothels. This was in places specifically designated for this. We started by reducing violence in those places, and we succeeded. We were able to bring down the prevalence of minors being forced into prostitution from 88% to 1.6%.

We saw that as the perpetrators realized this investment was going in a different direction, they got creative. That is how they moved to the online space. Now with the pandemic, we have seen they have become more creative than ever. They have realized they can explore different sites and make sure they make them a lot more challenging to navigate, identify and rescue, or even get the perpetrator who is exploiting children this way.

We have relied heavily on technology to make sure we are a step ahead of the perpetrators, to make sure we can impact change. Investment in that space is so crucial. Now more than ever, everyone is relying on this high bandwidth Internet, which makes it so easy and so cheap to access, plus the time.... The fact that everybody is working from home also makes it possible for them to have this as a side hustle in generating income and also exploiting children. So yes, that is a crucial investment.

What I think is important is also to be able to influence the space where the government can influence, ensuring that countries that are using certain websites that very categorically invest and ensure they are having online explicit content that is exploiting children. There are ways we can halt those like Pornhub, for instance. It took years before Pornhub and the issues around that were addressed. I think now is the time to invest in that space and also address the problem.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

I'd like to move in a bit of a different direction with this and talk about the victims, the women and children who are victims of human trafficking and this type of sexual exploitation, whether it's happening at home or through criminal networks. Also, perhaps you could talk about the challenges of addressing trauma and helping victims, especially in the COVID space we're in now.

[Anu George Canjanathoppil]

You bring up a brilliant point. It's incredibly challenging, because these are victims. Even if you're rescuing them, they are not able to get out of the victim mentality. They feel they don't deserve a life of freedom. It is almost impossible not to have these conversations or take them to a child care home where people are dealing with the challenges of the pandemic. Yes, that has been very difficult.

How we have been able to tackle this problem is that a lot of these initiatives are led by survivors who have been there, done that, having conversations with children who have been rescued. It is not easy. It has been an extremely difficult task for IJM to address this in the midst of the pandemic. We have been creative, is all I can say.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

It looks as if the chair is signalling that we're nearly out of time, so thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Ms. Saks. I appreciate it.

Mr. Bergeron, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I would have liked to discuss the issues of release and diversion with Mr. Landry.

I find it interesting that this is one of the effects of COVID-19, but it seems like a default effect to me. I am concerned about whether these youths are actually being taken care of when they are released or their cases are diverted, so that they don't end up in the hands of employers who will exploit them, or worse, pimps.

Mr. Landry will not be very happy to hear me ask him about the particular situation in the Tigray region, which is home to refugee camps, two of which remain closed to the staff of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Mr. Landry, what do you think of the situation and fate of children and women in the context of this conflict?