Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on June 17th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Members of the committee, I see that we have quorum. Accordingly, I call this meeting to order.

We will start by acknowledging that in Ottawa, we meet on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin people.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on April 29, 2021, the committee is meeting to study the sex trafficking of indigenous peoples.

To ensure an orderly meeting, participants may speak and listen in the official language of their choice. At the bottom of your screen—this is important—you will see a globe. By clicking on that globe, you can select either “English” or “French”. When you are speaking, though, you won't have to change back and forth. If you are fluently bilingual, I applaud you, but you need to have the speaker selected on the globe. Speak slowly and clearly, please. When you're not speaking, your microphone should be on mute.

With us today for two hours are several expert witnesses. We have Coralee McGuire-Cyrette, executive director, Ontario Native Women's Association. Appearing as individuals, we have Courtney Sky, research fellow at the Yellowhead Institute, and Cherry Smiley, Ph.D. candidate at Concordia University. We also await Chris Stark, author and researcher.

Witnesses, we typically begin with your presentations of about six minutes, followed by rounds of questioning.

Ms. McGuire-Cyrette, would you like to start, please?

Welcome to the committee. Please go ahead. You have six minutes.

[Coralee McGuire-Cyrette, Executive Director, Ontario Native Women's Association]

Good morning, Chair and committee members. My name is Coralee McGuire-Cyrette. I am the executive director of the Ontario Native Women's Association.

This year marks ONWA's 50th anniversary, making us the oldest and largest indigenous women's organization in Canada. With a mandate to address violence against indigenous women, ONWA works on such key safety issues as human trafficking, missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, and child welfare.

Before I begin, I want to acknowledge the bravery, wisdom and leadership of all survivors on this issue, as they are the experts. ONWA has been working with survivors for many years. This experience forms the basis of our recommendations. Survivors and knowledge-holders have reminded us that motherhood is the oldest profession, and this is what we must reclaim in our work.

I'll be framing my presentation today based on three key points. While I do not have the time today to explore them in depth, it's imperative that they are kept in mind while we continue.

First, in 2019 the United Nations released guidelines on combatting child sexual exploitation. They state that a child under the age of 18 can never consent to any form of their own sale, sexual exploitation or sexual abuse, and any presumed consent of a child to exploitative or sexual acts should be considered “null and void”. Additionally, article 35 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states that the government has a responsibility to ensure that children are not abducted, sold or trafficked. ONWA advocates that both principles must, without exception, be adhered to.

Second, the impact of colonization has caused the fabric of strong, self-sustaining indigenous communities to be eroded. Indigenous trauma, together with more recent constructs, has fostered conditions of normalized violence towards indigenous women and girls. Direct links have been drawn between the rates of violence that indigenous women continue to face today and the paternalistic policies emerging from colonization. This systemic discrimination has not been addressed adequately in Canada. This leaves indigenous women and girls at a heightened vulnerability to experience victimization, including human trafficking.

Article 18 of the UNDRIP affirms that “Indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decision-making in matters...through representatives chosen by themselves” and to “maintain and develop their own...institutions”. From this, ONWA asserts that it is fundamental that indigenous women have the capacity to participate in a wide range of leadership efforts to support our communities, including leading the prevention, intervention and response to issues that we face.

Third, the COVID-19 pandemic has deepened pre-existing inequalities. By virtue of our gender and our race, we are, as indigenous women and girls, disproportionately experiencing the consequences of COVID-19. This results in an increased risk of indigenous women and girls being targeted for human trafficking, as well as worsening the situation for those already in trafficking situations. The pandemic has underscored that solutions to human trafficking must be part of an equitable COVID-19 recovery plan.

In 2017 we engaged with over 3,360 community members and service providers, including 250 indigenous human trafficking survivors. The storytelling that was heard resulted in the creation of a strategy, titled “Journey to Safe Spaces”, to address this issue.

Survivors taught us what trauma-informed care is and what systems need to be changed. Their intentions were clear. They wanted to protect other indigenous women and girls from trafficking. We also learned that there are often systemic failures that subject indigenous women and children to risk. The relationship between child welfare and human trafficking is complex. In our engagements with survivors, we heard many stories. In some instances, the abuse was not identified by any service provider, and children experienced horrific childhood exploitation. In other instances, sexual exploitation began after child welfare became involved.

Children must be protected from exploitation—period. This will involve systems working together to protect and ensure the safety of our children.

Our report provides clear recommendations for change. All changes must be underpinned by the fact that indigenous women have human rights. The recommendations from survivors provided the basis for our courage for change program, which provides the only long-term, intensive case management and support. Our program supported 176 indigenous women and girls to safely exit human trafficking from 2017 to 2019. Last year, in 2020, we saw a 37% increase in exits.

Before I conclude, I'll highlight five essential recommendations, many of which can be found in ONWA's “Reconciliation with Indigenous Women”. In this report, we recommend actions that are very specific and targeted to end human trafficking while supporting survivors. The missing and murdered indigenous women and girls national action plan does not include our report's recommendations sufficiently.

First, collaborative mechanisms must be put in place to allow for provincial and national data collection on the human trafficking of indigenous women that protects the privacy of survivors who access services with data collected by the legal reform.

Second, sustainable programs and services that address human trafficking survivor-specific needs, including wraparound support and 24-hour services for human trafficking in cities all across the country, must be implemented.

Third, specialized trauma-informed services for survivors who appear in court must be created. When charges are laid against a trafficker, survivor safety must be prioritized throughout the legal process.

Fourth, the federal government needs to clear the records of survivors of any criminal offences for prostitution-related offences and with debt forgiveness for student loans.

Fifth, additional funding is urgently required to address human trafficking well beyond the provision of funds for education-related activities only. This is to include comprehensive human trafficking exiting supports, such as mental health and addictions services, housing, specialized long-term healing and supportive services.

In closing, I encourage the committee to review our “Reconciliation with Indigenous Women” report and our “Journey to Safe Spaces” strategy in full, as they provide a road map to keep indigenous women and girls safe from human trafficking and to the supports needed to rebuild their lives.

Meegwetch.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Ms. McGuire-Cyrette, thank you so much for your presentation.

Next we'll go to Ms. Skye from the Yellowhead Institute.

Please go ahead, for up to six minutes.

[Courtney Skye, Research Fellow, Yellowhead Institute, As an Individual]

Good morning, committee. Thank you so much for having me here.

My name is Courtney Skye. I'm a research fellow with the Yellowhead Institute, and I am Mohawk Turtle Clan from Six Nations of the Grand River territory.

I want to acknowledge the Algonquin territory, where many of you are sitting, and welcome you virtually to the Haudenosaunee territory, the homeland of my ancestors and our allies.

I want to share Cora's words in acknowledging the families and the women and people who experienced sex exploitation and the reason we're here to gather and discuss today.

My research centres around ending violence and the intersection between ending violence against indigenous women and girls and leadership and governance. I have a particular interest in research around Haudenosaunee governance and invigorating and revitalizing the traditional governance systems that are inherent with indigenous laws and practices. That includes looking at research and multinational approaches.

My work around human trafficking extends back to when I was a policy analyst with the Ontario public service, working on child welfare reform through working with indigenous women's organizations across Ontario and Canada, and then working internationally with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which looks at multijurisdictional responses and policy frameworks that address all forms of human trafficking. I have a particular interest especially in the interjurisdictional issues that often impact both the legislative changes and the policy changes required to end multiple forms of trafficking.

I think it's important in this conversation to remember that there is a spectrum. While we're here to talk about sex exploitation and trafficking, it's important to remember that there are spectrums of this conversation that often get conflated or misconstrued, both in challenging the legitimacy of sex work as work and also in the many different forms of trafficking that indigenous people may experience, whether it's trafficking for forced labour, trafficking for adoption or other forms of trafficking that are known to be experienced by people who experience the multiple forms of barriers that indigenous people face.

I'm happy to meet with the committee and talk about these issues. If there are any particular topics or areas that would be useful to your study, I am here and anxious to have those conversations.

As always, I want to be mindful of some of the issues that Cora raised as well around some of the failures to implement foundational human rights frameworks that are necessary to address the reason why indigenous women are more vulnerable to different forms of violence, but also that we look towards indigenous communities themselves, their human rights frameworks and their own inherent laws and jurisdictions. They need to be revitalized to address some of the underlying issues that raise a concern around the specific population that we're here to talk about today.

Thank you so much for having me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

It's a pleasure to have you here.

I'm going to remind you to have that microphone a little closer when we get to the questions and answers.

I heard you fine. It was a very good presentation. Thank you for that.

We'll go to our Concordia candidate, Cherry Smiley.

Ms. Smiley, please go ahead for up to six minutes.

[Cherry Smiley, Ph.D. Candidate, Concordia University, As an Individual]

Thank you for inviting me to speak on this topic and thank you for studying this very difficult issue.

My name is Cherry Smiley. I'm from the Nlaka'pamux Nation in B.C. and the Navajo Nation in the southwestern United States. I'm currently a Ph.D. candidate at Concordia University, where my research works to help end male violence against indigenous women and girls in Canada, including prostitution. I'm the founder of Women's Studies Online, a decolonizing educational platform for research, education and action.

As part of my doctoral project, I did field work in Canada and New Zealand on prostitution. Before beginning the Ph.D. program, I worked at a rape crisis centre and transition house for battered women and their children.

There is, of course, a lot to say. I know that my friends here today, and the others who've spoken before this committee, have given a solid overview of the dire circumstances of indigenous women and girls in Canada related to sexual exploitation.

I will address two topics today. First, I'm going to talk about the difference between sex trafficking, prostitution and sex work. Secondly, I'm going to talk about issues when it comes to doing research on sex trafficking. I'll conclude by making some recommendations.

Language matters. This issue is a controversial and political one. The term “sex work” implies that some women are obligated to provide “sexual services” to men for money. This is not a term I use and I hope most others don't use this term here either.

Janine Benedet has described the difference between prostitution and sex trafficking as follows: Sex trafficking always involves a third party—a trafficker, a pimp or a brothel owner—while prostitution can, but doesn't necessarily involve a third party.

Prostitution and sex trafficking are more similar than they are different. The impacts on women bought and sold are the same. The men who purchase sex acts from these women and girls are the same. The men don't care how she got there.

Secondly, sex work researchers try to make a distinction between chosen sex work and forced sex trafficking. This isn't a realistic or helpful way to look at the issue. What it ends up doing, actually, is harming victims.

Sex work researchers have adopted a very anti-woman and anti-feminist theory of sex trafficking that narrowly constructs a false perfect victim. It is a woman who, for example, may not speak English or who is kept locked to a bed in chains. There is absolutely no doubt that women are sexually exploited in this way. I've met women who have been exploited in that way. In the same way that patriarchy has constructed a false narrative of the perfect rape victim who fights off her rapist in just the right way, or the perfect battered woman who, of course, never goes back to her battering husband, few women, if any, would fit the definition of the perfect sex trafficking victim.

Does this mean that women haven't been sex trafficked? No, it doesn't. This means, actually, that there's a profound and, I would argue, deliberate lack of understanding about male violence against women and a lack of feminist research being conducted on this issue today.

We've already seen what's happened in New Zealand. A lack of understanding about male violence against women has resulted in the decriminalization of men who pimp and buy women. In turn, this means that women who don't very obviously and distinctly label themselves as trafficking victims and accept whatever help comes their way aren't trafficking victims.

Trafficking doesn't exist in New Zealand, according to the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective. This is an outright lie. Sex trafficking absolutely does exist in New Zealand, only the police have less ability to investigate potential cases of trafficking. Cases of sex trafficking are reclassified as family violence, for example, to bolster false claims that decriminalizing men who pimp and purchase sex acts helps women in prostitution. Women and girls who are in prostitution and who have been sex trafficked have no support services available to them. There are no exiting services in New Zealand. Services for women who have been assaulted by men in New Zealand aren't equipped to work with women who have been sex trafficked or prostituted, because they don't understand prostitution as a form of male violence. It's simply a job like any other.

I'll conclude by saying that sex trafficking and prostitution are linked. One of my recommendations, like that of Diane Redsky, is that we keep and improve on the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act.

Buying sex must remain illegal, and women must not be punished for their prostitution. If PCEPA is repealed, we as a country say that it's okay to purchase that group of women in prostitution over there but not this group of trafficked women over here, and that's just completely unacceptable.

We also need a guaranteed livable income. We saw how quickly the government recognized the economic impact of the pandemic on Canadians and acted accordingly. A guaranteed livable income recognizes the economic impacts of patriarchy on women in Canada and acts accordingly. Women must have more economic options that don't include sucking dicks for 10 bucks.

The third recommendation I'll make is that, while culturally relevant services are essential, what's more essential is that non-indigenous organizations and indigenous organizations have a feminist understanding of the impacts of colonization on indigenous women and girls. There's a whole body of knowledge out there that feminists have created on male violence against women, and this is where we need to start.

Feminism is the only theory, practice and social-political movement that always prioritizes women and girls, and we need to learn about this and put into practice a feminist understanding of sex trafficking and prostitution. Without this understanding, it's too easy to blame and shame women and girls for their prostitution and too easy to let men off the hook for their unacceptable behaviour.

Without this feminist foundation, even culturally relevant services won't be of much service to sex-trafficked women and girls. As my friend Fay Blaney mentioned the other day, we need core funding for autonomous indigenous women's organizations so that we can do this work and do it more easily than we do now—on shoestring budgets or, in my case and in the case of many other women, with no budget at all.

Last, patriarchy and what Adrienne Rich and Carole Pateman call the “male sex right” are the sources of harm in sex trafficking and in prostitution. In addition to preventative programs aimed at girls and women, we need preventative programs aimed at boys and men to stop them from sexualizing women and girls, feeling entitled to do so and exploiting them in the first place.

Sex trafficking and prostitution are issues of sex-based inequality. Men are overwhelmingly the buyers, and women and girls are overwhelmingly the sellers of sex acts, so we need to approach this issue using feminist theory.

My final recommendations are to stop watching porn and perhaps, for example, to propose that MPs and others in government pledge not to pay for sex acts from any women or girl, trafficked or not. Treating all women with respect is a reasonable requirement of leadership in Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thanks very much.

Mr. Clerk, I don't see Chris Stark on the grid yet. If we can get a connection, we will work on it at the time, but right now we're going to move on to a round of questioning.

Witnesses, thank you for the excellent testimony.

Our first round is for six minutes each for Mr. Viersen, Mr. Powlowski, Madam Bérubé, and Rachel Blaney.

Arnold, please go ahead for six minutes.

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

Thank you, witnesses, for being here today. I really appreciate your testimony.

Ms. Smiley, perhaps we could just dig into the situation in New Zealand a little bit more. That's really interesting. The situation in New Zealand is similar to Canada's in terms of having a similar kind of basis in law. I'm just wondering how changes in law in New Zealand have affected their first nations communities.

I know that Maori indigenous people account for a percentage of New Zealand's population that is about the same as the percentage within Canada's population of first nations, Inuit and Métis. The correlation is fairly similar, other than the fact that New Zealand is an island nation and not right next to the United States.

I'm just wondering if you can outline a little bit how laws have changed there and what the effect on the indigenous population has been.

[Cherry Smiley]

Sure.

I spent almost four months in New Zealand researching prostitution and the changes in the law they had there. They fully decriminalized. They decriminalized women in prostitution, but they also decriminalized the pimps, the men who sell women and the sex buyers.

The thing I noticed most in what I learned in New Zealand was that sex work does work if you're a man who wants to exploit women. It really doesn't work for women. I met with women who had tried five, six, seven times to leave prostitution and they couldn't, because there were no services that recognized the trauma of being in that circumstance day after day after day. You're being penetrated by however many men every day. That's your job. You do it, whether you feel like it or not.

Definitely Maori women have not benefited at all from the decriminalization laws there. There's ample evidence that you're seeing more Maori children or Maori girls entering into street prostitution at a younger age.

I know that there's a challenge coming. A Maori woman and an ally of hers are challenging the prostitution legislation, claiming that the prostitution legislation didn't consult with indigenous women before it was implemented—which they didn't.

In New Zealand, there's this cover.... There are so many people there who are afraid to say anything. They were afraid to speak with me. They were afraid that people were going to find out that they were critical of prostitution, or they had questions or doubts. It was incredibly difficult. You have the government. You have non-profit organizations. You have women's organizations. Everybody has kind of come together and decided that sex work is work, so there are consequences for women who have doubts about that.

What we hear coming out of New Zealand is overwhelmingly positive, but the reality is not that at all.

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

Switching to Ms. McGuire-Cyrette, the national hotline for human trafficking victims has been up and running now for a couple of years.

Do you have any experience with it, and has it been achieving its stated goals?

[Coralee McGuire-Cyrette]

I don't know much about the hotline. I do know that it's beginning to collect data.

Really, the gap is if a trafficked woman or girl or child need to access services. That's the gap, all across Canada. There are no specialized services across Canada.

ONWA started up one of the first comprehensive exiting programs in Thunder Bay. When we began to do the work, we recognized, in Ontario, that there's a triangle of trafficking indigenous children and youth and women, from Thunder Bay to Toronto to Ottawa. That's the triangle, and that's just across the province.

Women call us all the time from other provinces, and there are no specialized services on the ground to help them. Nobody is reaching out to the youth to help them. The fact that children and youth have an expectation to keep themselves safe is a systemic failure in our communities and in our society.

I echo what my fellow leaders here are saying and speaking to. The violence against indigenous women and children has become so normalized that we need to have this conversation. Really, we need to make sure that this stays illegal, period.

Most trafficking victims are under the age of 18. Those who are over the age of 18 also need support, wherever they're at on the spectrum. There's no fine line between whether you're into prostitution or being trafficked. Each day it definitely does differentiate, but the main point is that we need to have supportive services. We have to change this here in Canada, and there is nothing on the ground.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thanks very much.

That brings us to time.

Mr. Powlowski, for six minutes. Go ahead.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I'm going to direct my questions to my fellow Thunder Bayan or Thunder Bayite. We don't even know what to call ourselves, unlike Hamiltonians or Torontonians.

Cora, you mentioned the route for sex trafficking: Thunder Bay, Toronto, Ottawa. It leads me to think gangs, right away. How much of this is related to gangs? I know in Thunder Bay we have a lot of gangs: indigenous gangs, Toronto gangs and Ottawa gangs. How much does this problem all swirl around and involve the gangs?

[Coralee McGuire-Cyrette]

It's not as much as you would think. It's more around “violence knows no boundaries”. When there is organized criminalized activity involved, they don't have policies to follow or bureaucratic processes that they need to change in order to do different tactics. They're very organized. They read the news. I wouldn't doubt if some in organized crime are watching our testimonies here today in order to figure out the tactics and to come up with new strategies.

There is an organized crime aspect to it, definitely. With indigenous women and girls, there's also the history of colonization that also impacts. Indigenous women and girls have to negotiate their safety for their basic human rights to meet their basic needs. There really is a comprehensive oppression. We have to look at how we stop sexualizing our children and our youth. Where is the sexual violence programming in all of our communities?

If you look at a map of Ontario, and you see where there are sexual predators, it's across the entire province. The #MeToo movement actually stopped in indigenous communities, because it's not safe to talk about and to disclose sexual violence. That's one of the root causes of trafficking, from what we've seen with the women we're working with.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

You're saying it's organized crime, but not necessarily gangs.

[Coralee McGuire-Cyrette]

It's everything. When you look at why there are such high rates of trafficking, it's because there are so many different parts of it. It is organized crime. It is gangs. It's families. It's communities. Violence against indigenous women is happening from everyone in society. We have to stop that normalization of people approaching a young child on city transportation, who's just trying to get to and from home, and you have a perpetrator targeting children and youth online. It's one part organized, one part crime and one part our society.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

How much does this problem also involve drugs, and getting people addicted to drugs, and therefore financially obligated to someone else?

[Coralee McGuire-Cyrette]

That's one part of the control. You get what are called “gifts with invisible strings.” One part of control is around addiction. Here on the ground, in the city, barrier-free access to mental health and addiction services is very rare. I would say that across the country we're seeing that as another gap. The lack of instant, barrier-free access to the services that they need, including for addiction, makes it very difficult for us to help support exiting.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

The gift is to give someone drugs to get them hooked, and then to pay back they have to do something for whoever is using them. Is that how this works?

[Coralee McGuire-Cyrette]

That's one part. Another part is that here in the north there is no transportation. We have to look at transportation services. Women are being trafficked in order to get to a medical appointment, if they're from a northern community, to get into the city. That's another piece of this puzzle.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

This is quite a depressing topic, but I was interested that one of the things you suggested was debt forgiveness for student loans, which certainly suggests that at least some people are getting out of this kind of “work” and getting educated. Can you give us any good stories about people who have managed to transition out into a better life?

[Coralee McGuire-Cyrette]

Yes. Prior to the pandemic we started a ride-along with the Thunder Bay police. The part of the ride-along was actually directed to us from survivors. They said that we needed to build a relationship with all services in order to comprehensively address this. In our ride-along, we were actually able to connect with two children who had just gotten onto the streets during that time, and we safely exited them within days of their getting onto the streets. They are now safe.

We know in terms of the recovery time, the healing time, the sooner that we can help with exiting strategies, the sooner the women are able to reclaim their lives. That's the part that's missing here. We need those specialized programs and services, as Ms. Smiley had talked about, which don't exist. You can't just have regular victim services to do this work. They do not work. We need specialized programs and services.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Go ahead, Ms. Bérubé. You have six minutes.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Ms. McGuire‑Cyrette.

I'm going to continue along the same lines as Mr. Powlowski. You talked about colonization, systemic discrimination and support for communities.

According to your research, what can we do to better support communities in response to human trafficking?

[Coralee McGuire-Cyrette]

We need everything from policies to programs. We need to ensure that the legislation keeps this illegal. We need to protect women and children in our society. We need to say, as a society, as leaders, as Canada, as a community, that this violence is not acceptable, so we need political will and we need local will. We need communities to say, “How are we going to keep indigenous women safe in each of our communities?”