Our organization actually was founded out of Edmontonians saying to our city, our mayor, our justice minister that we have to do something about the demand side of prostitution and exploitation.
I live in a community where street prostitution and drug trade activity had overrun our lives, and we got involved as citizens. Thirteen years later, that is still our cry, that our nation needs to do something about the demand side. It is the demand side that is fuelling the sexual exploitation of vulnerable people and human trafficking.
In 2005, when the parliamentary subcommittee on solicitation was in place, we actually dreamed of a different law than the current law in this country. We said, what would it be like if our nation was so bold that we said we will not, as Canadians, stand for the exploitation of vulnerable persons or persons in vulnerable situations, and we will target those who are profiting, preying upon, and exploiting? That's a visionary statement.
You ask, should prostitution be legalized? We both said no. We would actually like our country to take a different stance with a vision about what kind of a country we wish to live in.
Furthermore, I had the opportunity to go to the Netherlands, which is often quoted as an example, and to meet with a vice detective there. He said they thought they were being pragmatic--making it safer, all that kind of thing--but what they did, he said, was create a haven for the Russian mafia and for human trafficking. He also reflected that when the state legalized and regulated in that way, it let other citizens off the hook to care, to ask questions, to mobilize, and to become engaged in going after the root causes of social injustice and exploitation.
So we are still calling for that different stance where we educate young boys that it is not acceptable to grow up and use young women. Our organization has started what we call a “men of honour” award every year, because we want the men who are honourable citizens of every ethno-cultural community to be celebrated. Right now, the only men who get the headlines are those who rape, kill, traffic, and exploit. We want to be engaged in the education of young people, to hold up a different vision of what it means to be a person and to be in a community.