Evidence of meeting #43 for Justice and Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was workers.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
David Wilks Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to the witnesses for being here.
Mr. McConaghy, some have depicted Bill C-36 as the Pickton bill. I wonder what you think about that.
4:25 p.m.
Founding Director, Ratanak International
I think the Pickton file illustrates for Canada, in it's most grotesque form, where this stuff ends up if we don't deal with it forcefully. Obviously he is on the extreme end, killing so many individuals who really had no hope once they got into his clutches. I think what is very clear from Pickton is that we have to do something. To allow a prostitution industry to grow is going to contribute to circumstances that allow more of these individuals to prey on women. The percentage of them that will lead to homicides, etc., we don't know. But this is a whole industry that exacerbates this kind of social behaviour that is really dangerous, and Pickton, while extreme, I would hold him up as an example of the kind of people we have to protect society from.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
David Wilks Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC
I guess the reason I ask you that question is that some have said that Bill C-36 will exacerbate and create the next Pickton. Can you tell me what you think about that, and also how it makes you feel as one who, obviously, worked on the Pickton file. I'm also retired from the RCMP and I'm quite familiar with that file.
4:30 p.m.
Founding Director, Ratanak International
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.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
David Wilks Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Thank you.
Mr. Stamatakis, thank you for being here today. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions. You had mentioned in your remarks “discretion in the pursuit of their duties”. You've also mentioned that you represent 54,000 law enforcement officers across Canada. There are a couple of things I wanted to ask, and on one thing if you may be able to find the information for this committee and provide it, it would be great.
We heard from York Regional Police that they have not laid a charge under what was section 213 in the past five years. We heard testimony today that Victoria city police have laid few charges, if any, with regard to 213. We've heard from other units that say that section 213 as it was, was very rarely used, but it was used as a tool by police for discretionary powers. In fact, Surrey detachment has used it in the past but specifically focusing in on johns, and then diverting those people to john school through Surrey detachment.
I wonder if you could give us the experience from Vancouver city police.
4:30 p.m.
President, Canadian Police Association
Yes, what you've described is very accurate. I can tell you as I meet with my colleagues across the country, that's certainly how they describe the experience in the various jurisdictions across the country. I know in Vancouver specifically, my home service, we have a vice unit, or it's not called the vice unit anymore. We're one of the few departments across the country with a dedicated group of officers who deal with issues related to human trafficking, the sex trade.
It's been more than five years, probably closer to 10 years since we moved right away from enforcing what was then 213. So I would just echo what the testimony has been. I don't know the last time that a charge was laid under what was 213 previously.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
David Wilks Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC
If I may, I heard Mr. McConaghy say with regards to 213 that maybe we should look at that. I look at it probably from a different angle and that would be from the perspective of discretionary powers from a police officer because it's a summary conviction offence and it provides them with a tool that may or may not be able to get a person out of trouble if they were in it.
I'm just curious to hear comments from both of you on that, starting with you, Mr. McConaghy, and then Mr. Stamatakis. Then I have a quick comment if I have time for Ms. Allison.
Thank you.
Go ahead, Brian.
4:35 p.m.
Founding Director, Ratanak International
Yes, I recognize that 213 does present a problem, and I don't have an easy answer for it because I fully recognize that the police, appropriately, want to have tools by which they can protect women who are in very vulnerable situations, to remove them from the danger, to remove them away from the context of pimps or those who might control them, to give them time to just think things through and give them options. I fully appreciate that. I'm really concerned that the use of the Criminal Code is a very blunt instrument for that. I don't necessarily have an answer for how you tackle that particular issue, so I recognize there's conflict there.
I totally understand from a policing standpoint how those tools are valuable. I just can't get past the disparity within the legislation where you have a girl who is consistently and appropriately treated as a victim and then for this particular clause, based on location, her activities are criminalized, when I believe it's clearly demonstrated that they are not necessarily in control of their activities so they don't necessarily have the mens rea, if I could put it this way. The action is there but the intent may not be, so I don't know how to answer that question and I think that is a problem.
4:35 p.m.
President, Canadian Police Association
I agree with your earlier comments from a policing perspective, a front-line policing perspective. It is a tool. It gives us an opportunity to engage with someone who might be in a vulnerable situation, being exploited by a pimp or someone else. So I think it's a useful tool for police.
But as I said earlier, it's a complex issue and it's controversial. But from a policing perspective, it's a valuable tool.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace
Thank you very much. Thank you for those questions and answers.
Our next questioner from the Liberal Party is Mr. Casey.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
I'd like to come right back to Chief Stamatakis on your last answer, sir.
It's an appropriate tool or a necessary tool for the police to have to be able to detain under threat of conviction someone who's been victimized. Is that what we're to understand?
4:35 p.m.
President, Canadian Police Association
Well, I guess what I'm saying is that we need legislative tools or mechanisms where we can intervene, where in the typical circumstance when you're on the street dealing with a sex trade worker who's in a vulnerable situation, if we don't have some ability to give that person an excuse to talk to us, how do we find out if that person is in fact being exploited? The fact is that the practice—certainly it has been in Vancouver—is that we can have time or we can isolate that person away from the pimp or the male that's exploiting the vulnerable female. That's how we find out that the person actually needs some help and they want to get the services.
Frankly, we then take whatever steps we can to try to get them to the services that are available to get them assistance. Sometimes it's just simply a case of getting them to a place where they can have some food, maybe some shelter, or where they can get some rest.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
It seems a little bizarre that you have to put somebody under the cloud of a criminal conviction to be able to get them food.
However, I don't want to dwell on that. I understand your position and we've heard it from some others in the same business as you're in. So I understand your position; I just don't agree with it.
I want to thank Mr. Kirkup—
4:40 p.m.
President, Canadian Police Association
What would you propose as an alternative, I wonder? Because these are women who are being.... These are the most vulnerable women—
4:40 p.m.
President, Canadian Police Association
—and they're usually drug-addicted, and I'm not sure how else we could ever get them to a place where we can have a discussion with them to see how they're being exploited or how they can be helped.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
I want to thank Mr. Kirkup and Ms. Ka Hon Chu for their plea for evidence-based public policy. We'd like to see more of that around here.
In fact, give the government credit. In the course of putting together this legislation, they actually did some scientific research in the form of a poll that they paid $175,000 for. We'd like to have that poll before we do a clause-by-clause examination, but the minister won't let us see it and the committee has voted against asking for it. I asked for the author of the poll to appear. He's not coming.
So, given your plea and your support for evidence-based public policy, given that the bureaucrats, the lawyers within the Department of Justice, said that they found this poll to be useful information in the course of putting together the legislation, I wonder, first, Mr. Kirkup, and then I'll come to you, Ms. Ka Hon Chu, what value a scientifically performed poll such as this might add for us in the course of reviewing this legislation line by line.
4:40 p.m.
Trudeau Scholar, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, As an Individual
I'll start, I guess. I would raise a first concern with what I have called the survey monkey that we do have, which is, the government sets up an online page and asked a series of questions, and then folks on one side or the other email it around and people put in responses. I have deep concerns about using that for any kind of a sound discussion because there are so many problems: the sampling bias, the ways in which the questions were drafted, and so on and so forth. It's unworkable.
So I would also urge that it would be very useful to at least have all of the evidence in the coffer before you make decisions about such an important issue, but I would also be careful about making sure that public policy is not guided by the mores of the majoritarian concerns of Canadian society. Historically, those very same kinds of majoritarian concerns have been used to criminalize, for example, LGBT people. If you had taken a poll in 1969 about whether or not the Canadian government should decriminalize homosexuality, I think that you would probably have found the results were not terrific. So I would say the evidence should be in the coffer, but I think we should also be deeply skeptical about relying too heavily upon it.
4:40 p.m.
Co-Director, Research and Advocacy, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network
Yes, I agree with Mr. Kirkup on that point. I think the government should look to the Bedford decision as their guiding principle, to human rights principles, to the charter. We talk about evidence-based public policy. There is peer-reviewed research in Canada. There was a report released in Vancouver early last month about the impact of the criminalization of the purchase of clients on sex workers and the disastrous impacts it could continue to have that would replicate all the harms that the Supreme Court of Canada found in Bedford. So I would also caution against using the outcomes of a poll to guide public policy.
We should look to the charter and to research.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
Thank you.
Mr. Kirkup, you spoke in your opening remarks with respect to the constitutionality of this legislation. Most of what you had to say focused on a section 7 analysis, as did the decision. During the week we've heard concerns about the constitutionality of this bill from the viewpoint of section 15, equality rights; section 2, freedom of expression; and paragraph 11(d), the presumption of innocence.
Given that these are out there, and in particular, your emphasis is on the problems in section 7, what would be your view of simply referring the bill straight to the Supreme Court for an opinion?
4:45 p.m.
Trudeau Scholar, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, As an Individual
I think it would be an important intervention to have at this stage. Because throughout this week we've heard so many times “Bedford said this” and “Bedford said that”, I think it would be very useful to ask the Supreme Court whether or not this new legislation passes constitutional muster.
But again, one of the many problems we have with references is that they're often not based on a strong evidentiary record, are they? So there is a concern about passing this legislation and then, I suppose, waiting until the same harms that we identified in the pre-Bedford era emerge again. To me that's unconscionable.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
Ms. Allison, you were there. I realize that you've stated from the outset that your expertise is in the area of employment law, so I don't want to put you on the spot, but I'll ask you whether or not you're comfortable in passing opinion on that question, the advisability of a reference.