We have not seen a major impact from that report. The UCCM doesn't even have a human trafficking unit. A lot of the women who end up missing from our communities are being human trafficked. For those who are not aware of what a human-trafficking unit is and the intricacies of those units, when you're dealing with victims of human trafficking, you're dealing with the ultimate in a victim. They are sexually assaulted, financially assaulted and physically assaulted—every kind of assault you can think of—and it goes on for years. When those victims are unable to co-operate—and a lot of them are unable to co-operate—the reason is that they are mentally and physically controlled by their perpetrators.
I used to run a human-trafficking unit. I was the head of it in Sudbury, and it was a successful human-trafficking unit. It would be very shocking for people to understand, but Sudbury had one of the most successful units. We had, I think, five convictions. It doesn't sound like a lot, but to get someone to come on side and be able to testify.... We had people who would be on side and give their statement, and then they would show up in court, see their perpetrator and turn and run. You can't get upset with that. It's absolutely terrifying. Being the victim of a one-time, one-moment sexual assault is horrific, but it's that one moment, and then they are able to hopefully move on from that.
A victim of human trafficking is victimized over years. We, in our place, want a human-trafficking unit that concentrates specifically on that. We are aware of a number of women who have gone missing who we would want to be able to concentrate on and to go and work with to convince them to come back to their home communities and to convince them to try to get out of that lifestyle. We would want to be able to give them what they need in order to survive outside of that violent relationship that exists with their trafficker.
We have not seen a huge increase in those recommendations at the UCCM. I can't speak for the other police services, but I don't think they have specific and concentrated human-trafficking units. It would make a massive difference in our community.