Evidence of meeting #88 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 trafficking.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director General, Immigration Program Guidance Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
—any information about that, but it will give us better information about people who, for example, overstay their status.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
I have a quick question.
Ms. Kim, you mentioned that you sit on the national task force combatting human trafficking.
You said that 4.6% of human trafficking involves foreign nationals. Do you think that the work of the national task force corresponded with that data? Was the majority of its focus on domestic human trafficking as opposed to international trafficking, or do you think it was a bit skewed with there being more of a focus on the foreign instead of domestic issue?
Director General, Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
IRCC is a member of the federal task force on human trafficking along with many other departments including ESDC and law enforcement agencies. I think given our participation in that task force, it would not be skewed only to domestic cases. Our perspective would bring the transnational or international aspect of that as would I think the ESDC from the Temporary Foreign Worker program perspective.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Was more focus given to foreign nationals as opposed to domestic within the task force, that's what I'm trying to understand.
Director General, Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
The task force was charged with the national action plan on human trafficking, which is looking at the full picture on human trafficking, whether it's domestic or transnational. Sexual exploitation or labour exploitation, we'd be looking at the broad picture.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Ms. Kim, while this question is probably best directed to Public Safety Canada, because you work so closely with them, I will direct it to you.
With respect to sex trafficking and the staggering statistics we have, mostly young women are involved and we have a very low rate of reporting. A criminal element is attached to it, and all the social stigmatization that comes from that. As a starting point this very isolated group of people usually is greatly distressed by law enforcement.
I realize that efforts are being made to inform the people who are in that situation of their rights, but in your discussions and in your close partnership with Public Safety, what are our front-line officers and CBSA or our police doing themselves to meet them halfway? Are any strategies being employed to try to actively form those relationships with people who are affected to encourage them to come forward? I think there's a role for agencies to meet them halfway. Can you elaborate on those efforts?
Director General, Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Sure. I can begin, and my colleague may wish to step in.
Certainly, all members of the federal task force are engaged in trying to do more outreach on this issue. For example, our missions abroad are engaged in doing some awareness activities. Mr. Massé has explained some of the activities ESDC does. IRCC and ESDC do consult quite broadly with migrant worker support organizations on the temporary foreign worker program, temporary immigration generally, and how those programs might be impacting certain communities. There's a lot outreach done in partnership that we try to be involved in, including at the international levels, with the International Organization for Migration and the International Labour Organization. These are organizations that we like to be engaged with to see how things are happening and what kind of solutions are being talked about that we may be able to be involved in.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
As a supplementary question to what Mr. Boissonnault was touching on—and maybe this is a question for Statistics Canada—because of stigmatization and fear of reprisals among this particular group, can we ever really assume that the reporting will be anywhere close to the accurate? I'm just trying to search for better ways of collecting data with this very particular vulnerable group.
February 27th, 2018 / 12:45 p.m.
Director, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
It is very hard to have a good measure of what is really happening versus what is being reported to the police. We do have a survey on victimization that asks about the victimization experiences of all Canadians. We find that only five per cent of victims of sexual assaults report their victimization to the police. When you think about robbery or assault or any other type, the proportion is much higher, and especially if the harm is more serious. However, for a sexual assault, it's much lower and there are all sorts of reasons for that, which my colleague can speak about.
As a result, there's only one step or inference we can make when looking at the victims of human trafficking using those results. But it's hard to survey people about this type of event in a general population survey to know the prevalence of victimization and compare it to what is reported to the police. I could see this as being a very huge statistical challenge, if I could put it this way.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Thank you very much.
Are there any other questions from any member of the panel?
If not, I'd like to thank all of our witnesses today.
You've all been very helpful.
Greatly appreciated.
We'd also appreciate receiving, if you wouldn't mind, Mr. Massé, a copy of the pamphlet you use.
Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day.
The meeting is adjourned.
