Evidence of meeting #71 for Justice and Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was prostitution.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chair, Walk With Me Canada Victim Services
That would be my recommendation, if I were going to add something: that the presumption be the opposite—so I say it's upside down—and that if you are testifying on this list of offences, you can testify by video link or.... It's by a screen, rather than an application.
The people we serve would be ecstatic to have that change, I would think.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace
Thank you for your questions and thank you for your answer. Mr. Wilks likes to ask quality questions—not a lot of questions, but quality ones.
Madame Boivin.
NDP
Françoise Boivin NDP Gatineau, QC
I'll try to do so as well.
Those are always interesting avenues, I think, if I can add a comment, because....
It is important for the accused to be able to confront the person who accuses them, but this must be made a little easier in certain types of cases. I have had enough of people not testifying because they are terrorized.
I initially had a few questions about the bill. My questions were similar to what Ms. Murray was saying earlier about the presumption. You answered the questions about the presumption at the hearings on Monday and in your two appearances.
I do not think the argument is valid. Surely this involves a reverse burden of proof, but, in the circumstances, and since this is already provided for in the code, it is not as though we were inventing something. So I am comfortable on this point.
As for the issue of consecutive sentences, I do not know whether you read the evidence of the police officers who appeared before us on Monday. Mr. Mai said this earlier, and that is one of the things that Detective Sergeant Monchamp said.
I am a practical woman. I very much like legislation. As a lawyer, I have spent my entire career working with legislation. There is the practical side of the matter.
Detective Sergeant Monchamp said that, regardless of the number of consecutive sentences, and despite the best of intentions, one fact remains, and that is that we will see a lot of plea bargaining. I made a joke on this point while he made that comment.
He said that an accused facing eight counts could receive a minimum sentence of six years in prison and consecutive sentences. I would be very surprised if he received a sentence of 48 years in prison upon a review of his file.
As he said, there are so many ways to counter all that. So are we really achieving our goals? Some are concerned about the imposition of consecutive sentences. That is the danger we face because the courts will be handing down shorter sentences that will nevertheless yield virtually the same result as previously.
To my mind, the elephant in the room is the very concept of prostitution. I have not yet formed an idea on the subject, and I am still open in that regard. On the one hand, people are advocating for the rights of sex workers, and, on the other hand, we are trying to pass this act. How far can we go with this kind of bill in a society where certain types of behaviour are not necessarily deemed unacceptable? I wonder about that, and I am curious to hear what you have to say on the subject.
Responsible for communications, Concertation des luttes contre l'exploitation sexuelle
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would need a few minutes to answer that excellent question. People often talk about women's right to security, whereas that is out of the question when we talk about the prostitution of others. Based on that fact, it would be better to enact legislation to protect the women involved in prostitution and all those it affects, perhaps at the risk of interfering with a right that does not exist, the right to prostitute oneself or to incite someone else to do so.
The bill does not all run counter to our position which is that the women involved should be decriminalized and the customers and procurers criminalized. Thus, if we attack supply and demand, we let the women do what they have to do and we help them improve their situation.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace
Thank you very much.
Our final questioner for this hour is Mr. Armstrong, from the Conservative Party.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here. I believe this has been a tremendous session, and I know this committee has learned a lot.
Our committee recently studied Bill C-394, criminal organization recruitment. It was introduced by Parm Gill, one of our colleagues. The bill proposes to create a new indictable offence that would prohibit the recruitment, solicitation, encouragement, or initiation of another person to join a criminal organization. We're talking about street gangs, for the most part.
The offence would be punishable by a maximum of five years' imprisonment, with a mandatory minimum penalty of imprisonment for six months if the individual who is recruited is under the age of 18.
In my opinion, from my experience as an educator, a link can be made between harmful actions of street gangs and the trafficking of women. Unfortunately, street gangs are more and more using the trafficking of women to help their repulsive trade prosper.
Would you agree with that statement? Are you seeing a lot of action by street gangs that are recruiting women into the sex trade?
Chair, Walk With Me Canada Victim Services
Yes.
There are certainly independent operators, but there's a fairly organized model out there. You can go on the Internet and actually learn how to do it, if you choose. There's actually a book on the Internet on how to get into the business.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Wow. I wonder if we could track down the publisher of that book.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
That's a different private member's bill.
Can you explain a bit about the link between the trafficking of women and street gangs? I know there are different levels of street gangs; there are different operatives within street gangs.
From your background, are you aware of how they do this? What's the structure they use to try to attract women into street gangs to practise in the sex trades?
Chair, Walk With Me Canada Victim Services
Mr. Chair, as we have experienced in the last century of organization of crime, there are levels. There are people doing the recruiting at the lower end of the echelon, who are shaking the bushes in northern Ontario and in Inuit communities and telling people to come and prosper in the urban areas.
The second part is that with the places where this is more apt to happen, and I want to be fair—massage parlours, exotic dancing places, not that it's exclusive—we experience that they have a network. If there are women who are being trafficked in the Mississauga–Peel area, a month later you will find they have been traded to Niagara. Then they sometimes have a stint to a colleague in the U.S. They're moved around.
If Ms. Nagy were here, she would argue much more strenuously than I that it is very systematic.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
With the systemic nature of street gangs and their activities and how organized they are, do you think that would surprise most Canadians?
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
I would think it would.
I'm going to give the rest of my time to my colleague, Mrs. Smith.
Conservative
Joy Smith Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
I'll address this to Mr. Hooper.
The question keeps coming up as to why don't we have the statistics. We all know that in 2005, Mr. Cotler, one of the members from the Liberal Party, passed Bill C-49, and that Imani Nakpangi, the first offender, was convicted in Canada. Then my bills came in—Bill C-268, in June 2010, and Bill C-310, in June 2012—so there was very little time....
People sometimes get human trafficking mixed up with human smuggling. Can you define the difference between human trafficking and human smuggling?
Mr. Hooper, could you perhaps answer the question?
Chair, Walk With Me Canada Victim Services
I think one sometimes leads to the other, but the smuggling, in my specific experience of seeing it, may be a payment to get somebody to what is purported to be a better life. Sometimes that better life does end up being human trafficking—not always—in labour or sex. The trafficking in humans for sex and labour quite bluntly is exactly that: it's slavery of people who are working in trades and not being paid.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace
Thank you very much.
I want to thank our panellists for coming today.
First, on behalf of the committee, I want to thank you individually and the groups you're representing here today for all the work you're doing for victims of this crime in this country, and the work you're doing to make sure that we're aware and we're making laws to curtail this activity.
We are going to go to our next panel, but before we do, a reminder to committee members that we would like your amendments, if you have any, by Friday afternoon, if possible.
For your information, there has been some discussion, and on Monday we will be dealing, for the first hour and 15 minutes, with witnesses, because we have three witnesses. We'll do a half-hour of clause-by-clause, and then we'll do 15 minutes regarding agenda and procedure. We'll set the agenda for the next little while.
This means that next Wednesday there will be no meeting. I know you're all shocked and shamed, but if we can make that happen, that's what will happen.
With that, I will suspend for about three to four minutes.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace
I'm going to call this meeting back to order for our second panel.
I want to welcome, from Maison de Marthe, Madame Dufour. We also have, from Association féminine d'éducation et d'action sociale, Madame Duval and Madame Bourget. We welcome you here as witnesses.
Both of your organizations have 10 minutes.
Madame Dufour, the 10 minutes are yours.
Rose Dufour Director, Maison de Marthe
Good afternoon.
I am the director of a very small non-profit organization, the Maison de Marthe, in Quebec City. I have been working in the field every day for 12 years with women who are engaged in prostitution.
I am a trained nurse and anthropologist with a specialty in public health. First I worked with those women for five years, helping them restore a balance in their lives so that I could then intervene appropriately. I am in the capital, in Quebec City.
I discovered a tragedy so terrible that I decided to conduct the first ever investigation of male prostitution customers in an attempt to understand why they used prostitution. I subsequently conducted an investigation of two procurers to identify the three principal players involved in prostitution. A book has been published on the subject and I have brought a copy of it here to leave it for reference purposes.
After that, I thought I would retire, but I ultimately got caught up in the work I had done. The following thought came to me: the most important thing is not how you enter prostitution, but how you leave it.
There is no social policy designed simply to assist women when they are involved in prostitution. We have all kinds of programs for women suffering from violence, sexual and other types of abuse, but there is no social policy to assist women or simply to work with them or even offer them the opportunity to leave prostitution.
In view of that situation, I decided to continue the work I had started. I opened a small office in 2006, and volunteers and funding automatically appeared. The Maison de Marthe has been in existence for seven years. Its anniversary is today. It is simply a reception centre to assist women in every possible way in all the stages of the process of leaving prostitution.
Today I would like to offer my expertise to your committee. Rather than start in immediately on the matter of amendments to the bill, I would like to speak to you about the central character in prostitution, who, contrary to what one might generally think, is not the prostitute, since she is its victim.
The central character of prostitution is the customer, for whom this fabulous market of human sexual merchandise is created. Who are these people who look for female prostitutes? They are customers, sexual buyers, men, but not all men. These are certain men. Who are they?
I would like to tell you about them because, if we want to understand prostitution, we cannot do so unless we examine the demand for prostitution, men's motivation in this regard, and consider what is being bought and what kind of relationship they have with these women.
It is constantly stated in the literature that male users of prostitution are ordinary people. However, I want to tell you that they are not ordinary people because ordinary people do not pay for sex. They get up in the morning and they conquer women. After all, we make enough of an effort to please men that it is normal for them to do their share in trying to conquer us.
Real men do not pay for prostitution. Not all men are prostitution users. Studies have produced estimates in an effort to determine how this is done in various countries.
Professor Månsson, a Swedish researcher, has estimated that only 7% of men in Great Britain use prostitutes, whereas the figure rises to 19% in Switzerland, where prostitution is legalized, and to 39% in Spain. The reference is cited in my brief.
What is the difference between all these men? It is not their libido or sexual desire, but their culture and upbringing. It is relations between men and women and the manner in which they have been brought up and constituted culturally.
I can tell you, based on the investigation I conducted, that the first and most important motivation for male prostitution users is non-commitment. They want sex, but they do not want the responsibilities that entails. They say they want a woman in their arms, but not on their hands. I will refrain from commenting on that terrible expression.
They want prostitution because it is easy and it is not a commitment. They do not even want a mistress because they find that burdensome and embarrassing and feel that it raises a host of problems. I could quote you their comments, but I do not have the time. I also think that sex is an irrepressible physiological need for men. In their minds, prostitution is a necessity and a right. Some even feel that the purpose of women is to serve them sexually. You would think we were in the Middle Ages.
They show a distinct preference for a form of sexuality that does not involve a relationship. It must be clearly understood that, in prostitution, there is no preparation for the act. Lubricants and all kinds of tricks are used. They do not want to build a relationship. That moreover is characteristic of prostitution. Nothing could be further from love than prostitution. I feel it is not even sexuality, since sexuality is the giving of what we have that is most precious and intimate. There is no gift in prostitution, and the female prostitute does not give herself. She plays a role, just as the customer plays a role. Prostitution is a sham the sole purpose of which is the man's ejaculation or pleasure, as quickly as possible. As the women say, it is not like marriage. It is urgent and it has to finish quickly.
What male users of prostitution like is sex for the sake of sex, genital contact. I would say it is the McSex of sex. Pardon the terrible expression, but they order up a woman as they would order up a pizza. They call, say what they want and take delivery at home. They have a choice. That is where we stand. They justify their actions by saying that all men use prostitution because their wives do not like sex and they are sexually unsatisfied. However, I determined in my investigation, based on the information they gave me, that that statement is entirely false. From the 84 customers with whom I spoke, I selected 64 for the purposes of the investigation, and only 15.6% of them said they were unsatisfied by sexual intercourse with their wives.
I asked those men whether they had spoken with their wives about everything they told me about their sex lives. They all answered in the negative. I told them that that was the problem, that they should talk about the subject with their wives and win them back. I told them to do something, to take a course, for example, because prostitutes could not be a good substitute.
The analysis also shows that they have a disturbed sexuality. These men suffer from sexual dependence or sexual disorders that involve all kinds of other problems, such as financial and professional problems. They also have problems in their relationships with their wives. In some cases, their deeply disturbed state causes them to transfer or project their psychological problems onto their wives and to resort to violence in order to humiliate and degrade them. They maintain a number of beliefs and prejudices about themselves, about women in general and about female prostitutes in particular.
I have already used up all my speaking time. Do I have one minute left?
Director, Maison de Marthe
The first thing they will say about themselves is that they have a much stronger libido than average and that they are absolutely certain they perform very well sexually. They also have fantasies about female prostitutes.
I will stop there because I want to conclude on the subject of this bill. After all, I am here to talk about that.
Lastly, of all the clauses in the bill, I want to point out one aspect that particularly drew my attention since I work with these women every day and am very familiar with their life histories. I was particularly interested in the presumption issue—you have elaborated on all the other questions at length—not only because of the reverse onus, but even more because I think the amendment introduced here is very important.
Despite all the types of exploitation and violence that these women suffer—and I can tell you what we hear is absolutely pathetic: their procurer is very often their spouse—and despite all the suffering they endure, they do not want to report them. The bill is interesting because its purpose is, in a way, to protect them, in some instances almost in spite of themselves.
I will stop here since my allotted time is up.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace
Thank you, madam.
Our next presenter is Madame Duval.
The floor is yours.