I don't believe that legalizing the industry would have protected the girls from Pickton in any way. I believe that the comments that have already been submitted to the committee, where we're told that the prostituted women will be nervous and have to make a decision on their john very quickly and not be given time to assess whether or not he is dangerous, I think is ludicrous, to be honest. They are not, on a street corner or wherever, going to be able to assess whether somebody is dangerous or not. That's simply not going to happen. In law enforcement we have enough trouble assessing whether or not people are dangerous with all the tools of law enforcement at our disposal, so I don't think that has any real meaning.
I think one of the points that we can speak to from a policing standpoint from the Pickton file is that there is a sense that the police in the early parts of that investigation really dropped the ball and did not adequately investigate those crimes, that the women were not considered valuable. They were considered transient; they were disposable. All kinds of accusations were made, and I think there is some truth in terms of early police opinions there.
What I can speak to very clearly is the investigation component. When we got involved in that file, those of us who were involved became very passionate about trying to defend these girls. I had their heads, their feet, their hands, their ribs, all that kind of stuff in freezers for a long while. I worked particularly with their heads, which had particular forensic significance. Under most cases, as you know, you refer to exhibit numbers. It's a very abstract process. Even in that I would refer to them as the women, I knew them by name. This was a very personal thing and a lot of people in that investigation were very passionate about trying to protect women and bringing justice to the situation.
So I think it's been a huge learning curve for police to personalize this and make it human, and if there's a silver lining to Pickton I think that's perhaps it.