Evidence of meeting #100 for Justice and Human Rights in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:50 p.m.
Manager, Alluriarniq Department: Sex Work, Exiting the Sex Trade and Anti-Human Trafficking Projects, Tungasuvvingat Inuit
If we're talking about the needs of individuals, I'm hearing on the ground every single day that we should address poverty. Poverty is the number one thing, and housing is the second thing on the list.
In terms of approaches and definitions, it's not even about the definition, it's about how a community wants to be perceived and understood. A lot of what I said was about what a community wants in that definition. Along with that is awareness of the history and of what people are bringing to the table when they're looking for supports, and also empowering the community to make the change it needs to help itself. In other words, it means investing in the community organizations and grassroots community members who are doing this work in the trenches and supporting victims, and who are victims themselves.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Randy Boissonnault Liberal Edmonton Centre, AB
These are great arguments for capacity building.
Ms. Muise, thank you for your testimony. It was particularly moving.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Thank you, Chair. It looks like I'm going to get in just under the wire here.
Witnesses, thank you for your testimony today. It's very enlightening and illuminating.
I'll start with Peers Victoria, with Ms. Forbes and Ms. Phillips.
I'm here replacing Murray Rankin, who is the member of Parliament for Victoria. He had a few questions that he wanted me to go over with you, because it's a community that he represents and is very familiar with.
When you hear someone say that selling sex is an inherent form of gender violence, how do you respond to that? At committee we've heard from previous witnesses who say there's a disparity in power between those who are purchasing sex and those who are selling it, and that it's exploitative by nature. What does Peers say about that?
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Peers Victoria Resources Society
It's a very reductive simplification of what goes on in the sex industry. It's very unusual to me to think that we could impose a definition of gendered inequality on a population that they would uniformly agree with. I find this infantilizing, and it is actually in opposition to the very notion of gender equality.
If there are people in the sex industry or trade who do not see themselves as exploited and who feel that they're exercising bodily autonomy, then it's imperative we listen to that. It's not the experience of everybody. There is a wide variety, but we have to respect that variety of experience and perspective. That is gender equity.
4:55 p.m.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
In your opening statement, you did mention some of the relationships and history in dealing with police services. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
What kind of strategies have you used in Victoria to ensure that women are safe? How can front-line organizations like yours support police initiatives, and vice-versa, how can police best support front-line organizations such as yours?
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Peers Victoria Resources Society
The starting place for our community partnerships is that we don't have active enforcement of PCEPA in particular. Trafficking legislation would be used where people experience, identify, or have convincing evidence of trafficking. I don't think it's used very much at all. We're talking probably less than five cases in maybe the last 15 years. It's about setting a stage where people don't have to worry about police harassment because they're in the sex industry and who don't have to worry about invasive raid techniques and things like that. From there, we work with two officers who are specifically trained in the sex industry and who specifically understand our philosophy.
It's very incremental work we've been doing over many years. The antagonism, I guess, that's been set up by criminalization between people in the sex industry and police is multi-generational and of long standing. We do a lot of work in terms of relationship-building. Our liaison officers spend a lot of time doing training at Peers. They absolutely have to respect the perspectives of the people who are coming forward. We work with them in staff training and in multiple areas.
We also enjoy relationships with the sexual assault centre, the intercultural association, the Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Centre Society, and the native friendship centre. In doing that, I think it's important that we're all looking at the factors that influence gender and sexualized violence in our community. They're not especially different for people in the sex industry. What's different for people in the sex industry is that they are uniquely stigmatized and are not granted the basic premise that they should be able to identify and have rights over their experience of victimization.
Those are some of the things that I think are unique to the work we're doing to address sexualized violence. We do not see sex work or the sex trade as necessarily inherently violent, but we do want to address sexualized violence.
4:55 p.m.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Thank you.
I have a publication here from the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform. They asked a series of questions and then provided their own answers. One of the questions was this: “If we decriminalize sex work, will Canada become a haven for sex tourism and exploited/trafficked women?” Right off the bat, this was the answer: “Decriminalization of sex work does not mean increased trafficking in women.”
Do you have a comment on that particular statement?
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Peers Victoria Resources Society
Well, I mean, we live in a context where there hasn't been active criminalization. I would say the sex industry has not changed much at all, in shape or form, over the last 20 years. We have the same number of people we're serving and the same number of agencies in town. In fact, we probably see fewer people on the street than was the case 20 years ago. Our own local context is one where criminalization under the law doesn't seem to be shaping the size or nature of the sex industry.
In terms of trafficking, if we look across internationally at places where they take more restrictive laws against the sex trade versus more permissive, I don't know that it's necessarily clear that the law actually shapes the size of the sex industry. I think there are probably more important social factors at play in terms of poverty, proximity, and migration patterns.
I don't see decriminalization as necessarily giving rise to much change in terms of the sex industry in Canada.
May 31st, 2018 / 5 p.m.
Liberal
Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the committee for undertaking this important study.
Thank you to all the witnesses who spoke here today. It's a very, very difficult subject to talk about.
I represent the Northwest Territories. I was glad to hear from some people that we're talking about issues in the north. Human trafficking is not a highly visible problem in the north. It exists, but it's below the surface, for the most part. Most people have to come to the south to get trapped into this whole nightmare.
We have a lot of issues in our communities. My riding is over 50% indigenous, and a lot of our youth have real challenges because now they have to live in two societies. They have to try to live in an indigenous society and also the modern world. It really causes a lot of problems in the communities, so we've started to see outmigration. We've really noticed the numbers increase over the last while with our youth going into regional centres to get away from the challenges in our communities. We have many, and many were raised here today: housing, lack of opportunities, and abuse. We have a lot of abuse. We have a lot of sexual abuse. We have a lot of residential school fallout and cultural disconnect. All these things are compounding the stress that's placed on our youth.
We've had a lot of studies happen in the last while. We've had the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which came out with a bunch of recommendations. I personally sat on the indigenous affairs committee which studied suicide in indigenous communities, and saw that many of the issues we're talking about here, which are causing despair in our communities, are resulting in suicide. In my riding, we had three suicides last week. One was one of my friend's sons. It's difficult. It's really a difficult issue to have ongoing, having to deal with this whole crisis that's happening.
We've had the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report with recommendations and the suicide study that the committee did, and there were recommendations. The murdered and missing indigenous women and girls study will have recommendations, but there's starting to be a pattern. The recommendations are all becoming similar, and they are pointing to issues that are deep-rooted in our communities.
I know that maybe some of you don't deal with indigenous people, but I'm wondering if there are any of you who have recommendations that this committee should really consider that maybe are not part of what we're hearing with all the other studies, or if there's just something that is very important that you need to raise. I'm wondering, is there anything specific to indigenous people that you can recommend to try to deal with this issue?
5 p.m.
Liberal
5 p.m.
Manager, Alluriarniq Department: Sex Work, Exiting the Sex Trade and Anti-Human Trafficking Projects, Tungasuvvingat Inuit
I can start.
In terms of recommendations, a lot of the things we're seeing on the ground right now are because there's a lack of conversation happening around human trafficking. Historical events and experiences, even sexual abuse and suicide, are all things that are definitely interconnected and interwoven. I think that a starting place, something we do a lot with our youth here, is having these conversations. They're real conversations that their parents and elders will not have with them about what trafficking looks like, how being on the Internet and someone's buying your ticket to come down south is potentially your being groomed to be trafficked or lured to be trafficked.
My strongest recommendation is to have youth be peer leaders and champions in their own right to have those conversations with adults and elders. That conversation's not happening beyond them right now.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT
I'm really interested in hearing from Julie. Could I get Julie to answer?
5:05 p.m.
Prof. Julie Kaye
Sure. I also sit on the legal strategy coalition on violence against indigenous women, and we just submitted a report following the recent UN review. One thing we indicated in that was that there was a study done of the number of recommendations that have already been advanced. Fifty-six reports were reviewed, and we have over 700 recommendations. It was analyzed as to how many of those recommendations have been fully implemented, and there were very few, under a handful.
I would suggest that you're correct in that we do have a significant body of recommendations that have gone unaddressed within these areas, and they do intersect quite heavily, overlapping from the experiences of missing and murdered indigenous women and targeted violence within this context of colonial gender violence. Looking to those recommendations and moving forward towards implementing them will encompass a number of the solutions that have been discussed, and they overlap with what is being recommended.
In terms of your question around what we do, well, we have 700 recommendations there and a number of violations of international law that we continue to not address. Starting that as a starting point would be a very wise decision.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Thank you very much. We're almost out of time. Does any member have a brief question they want to ask that they didn't get at?
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Okay. I would like to thank all of the members of the panel. It was very much appreciated to hear from all of you today. I thank you for joining us from Victoria. Thank you to those who came to Ottawa to meet with us here. I wish you all a wonderful night and a wonderful week-end.
The meeting is adjourned.
