Hello. Thank you for this opportunity.
I am speaking to you from the traditional territories of Treaty 6 first nations and the Métis people of Zone IV.
I am a neighbourhood resident in a central Edmonton community that is directly impacted by commercial sexual exploitation, drug trade, poverty and homelessness. I serve as executive director of CEASE.
This organization grew from the experiences of neighbourhood residents working together with street outreach and safe housing agencies, law enforcement and Crown prosecutors, parents whose daughters and sons were exploited, parents whose daughters were murdered, and women and men who survived their years of commercial sexual exploitation. They wanted to be part of changing the conditions that cause suffering.
At one of our meetings, we asked ourselves a question: What activity causes the most harm to the most people? We all named the source of harm to be the men cruising our neighbourhood. They were preying upon and exploiting children and adults in vulnerable circumstances. They were harassing children on their way to school. They were soliciting women standing at bus stops or just going to the local shops.
Together, we advocated with our city council and minister of justice to address the multiple impacts of these behaviours and reduce the harm by holding these men accountable. Our police made it a priority to interrupt the activities of exploitation by charging sex trade buyers, pimps and traffickers.
We advocated for more supports and services for children, youth, women, men, transgender and two-spirit persons. Together, we created the sex trade offender program for first-time offenders with no prior record of violence against women or children. The goals are to provide accurate information about the laws and sexual health, educate about the dynamics of sexual exploitation, the sex industry and sex trafficking, and build empathy through stories of impact from mothers whose daughters were murdered and survivors of commercial sexual exploitation, regardless of the venue. Two men who are former sex trade buyers co-facilitate questions about healthy masculinity, respectful relationships, sex and porn addiction, and steps to making life changes.
The Ministry of Justice designated this program an adult alternative measures program and set the fees to be equivalent to courtroom fines. They decided that the funds generated would be returned to the community to help heal the harm because it was the community who had raised awareness to police, government leaders and the public.
Together, listening to the voices of the women on our committee who had suffered sexual exploitation, we set the priorities of poverty relief, trauma recovery, bursaries for education and public awareness.
This is a form of healing, justice and transformative investment. Just as we as a country are coming to terms with the impact of our colonial history, we must recognize that Canada has had unjust laws in the past that have discriminated against women in particular, those living in poverty, those in the 2SLGBTQ community and indigenous people.
The PCEPA is not one of those unjust laws. Like any legislation, it should be reviewed and improved. PCEPA plus social investment can transform our society. We can respect the rights of those who identify as emancipated sex workers with high control over their working environment. The PCEPA does this. Persons selling their own sex services are decriminalized and immune from prostitution.
We can protect the rights of those who are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation. The PCEPA harmonizes with our human trafficking legislation and focuses on decreasing the demand that feeds the trafficking business model of buying and selling children and adults—primarily women—for profit. This is part of Canada's responsibility as a signatory to the Palermo protocol.
We need to increase enforcement of the purchasing section. Buyers can rarely distinguish between a trafficked child and adult, or between a circumstantial sex trade participant and an emancipated sex worker. We can uphold the rights of those trapped in commercial sexual exploitation by improving their socio-economic circumstances and providing resources to heal, exit and create an improved future that they want for themselves and their families.
The PCEPA cannot achieve this without social investment and public awareness. We can improve the PCEPA legislation, increase social investments and then review again in five to 10 years to see what progress we have made.
Thank you.