Justice Committee on July 7th, 2014

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

But there's more than anecdotal evidence that the prostitutes who do exercise their profession in public places are the most vulnerable, the most inclined to be victimized. Letting alone the extraction of information, as you might have said, what about the possibility of taking them into your confidence, of finding out a little bit more about them, of introducing them to a social worker, of introducing them to a victims group and somehow opening the door of getting help from them?

You know, you can't help those who don't want to help themselves, and if there's no legal authority to apprehend them and to somehow incite them to get the help, where do you go?

[Andrew Swan]

The prostitution diversion program continues to run in Manitoba, even though very few charges are being laid and very few threats of charges are being made. It is our intention that even if Bill C-36 passes as amended, we will continue to run that program, and we will be able to find victims of sexual exploitation who want to take that program. Again, the program is three days' long right now, which is barely enough time for somebody who has been working the streets in the north end or the west end of Winnipeg to get themselves to that window of being able to see that maybe there is something more.

I would love to expand that program: the number of days, how often we offer it, and perhaps to provide more meaningful assistance up front to assist people in making that change.

I wouldn't quite phrase it that you can't help people who don't want to help themselves, but what I've learned from organizations like Sage House, the Salvation Army, and TERF in Winnipeg is that the best we can do is to provide a platform and a safe place for people to start to make that decision to change their lives.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you very much for those questions and answers.

I want to thank the panellists for being here today. It was a very interesting panel, and I appreciate all your responses.

We will be continuing to study this for the next three days, until Thursday, so stay tuned. We are televised, and we are always open for visitors.

Thank you very much.

With that we will call it until tomorrow morning.

The meeting is adjourned.