Justice Committee on Feb. 11th, 2022

[Sandra Ka Hon Chu]

Thank you, Randall, for that question.

When you criminalize communication in the purchase of sex, people aren't able to negotiate the terms of the transaction in a clear and concise way to say what they're willing to do and for safer sex measures. That impedes that communication and ability to negotiate safer sex measures.

We also hear from sex workers in managed work places that they don't keep condoms and other safer sex devices on site because finding them is evidence that you're doing sex work. It's criminal. A lot of condoms and other safer sex practices are not necessarily promoted because there's that level of secrecy and concealment.

I also wanted to share a statistic with you. Research was done a couple of years ago that looked at regimes where they criminalized versus decriminalized sex work. This research found that decriminalizing sex work reduced new HIV transmissions by 33% to 46% in the next 10 years in those jurisdictions. That is a huge amount. It all circles back to the ability to negotiate, communicate and have an open workplace where workplace health and safety is promoted.

I have just one more point, if I can, Randall.

When you decriminalize, you also give sex workers access to occupational health and safety standards, employment legislation and all the things that other decriminalized sectors experience. Those promote health and safety in the workplace.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

I'd like to give Ms. Barile a chance to respond to that same question about the impact of this law for trans sex workers and HIV.

[Daphne Barile]

That's a great question. Thank you so much, Randall.

As I'm sure you all know, there are criminal laws surrounding the transmission of HIV currently in Canada. This, in combination with the criminalization of sex work, creates numerous complications for people who are surveilled by police because they are known to police as sex workers or suspected to be sex workers.

In the study I mentioned that was commissioned by the Department of Justice, there was one story that I'd like to tell on that subject. One of the participants in the study was assaulted in the context of her life as a sex worker. She reported the assault to the police and in the process of reporting, she disclosed her HIV status to the police. The police then disclosed her HIV status to her assailant. She ended up with criminal charges for the transmission of HIV when she was reporting her own sexual assault to the police.

This is exactly the kind of issue that prevents sex workers from accessing any form of safety from the police. It stems from the way sex workers are treated by the police whenever they come into contact with them. It leads to a climate of fear. It leads to a climate where sex workers are less likely to even get tested for HIV because they fear that if they are exposed as HIV-positive or if they have evidence that they're HIV-positive, it will be used against them by police in the future.

All of that becomes extremely complicated in a context where sex workers are constantly being surveilled by the police. It discourages them from getting the health supports that they need. It prevents them from accessing safer sex materials as well.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

I know I'm out of time, so let me just thank you for the important work that you and your organization do in the community. I'm very pleased to learn of the existence of your organization and look forward to working with you in the future.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Mr. Garrison.

We go next to Mr. Lawrence for five minutes.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you to all the witnesses.

I will just start with the comment that everyone should feel valued, loved and safe. If there's anyone, particularly in my riding but also anywhere across Canada, who feels they can't go to the police and are in an unsafe position, I'd personally take that call and do everything I could to help that individual. If anyone in my riding particularly is feeling unsafe and they feel like they can't go to the police, please pick up the phone and I am more than happy to help them.

That being said, I'd like to direct my question to Ms. Baptie.

First of all, thank you very much for your testimony and for sharing your story. It is greatly appreciated. I know the strength it must take to share your story and to give this testimony.

You mentioned in your testimony that you would like to see this legislation take root or to be fully implemented. How do you think we could do that? How do you think the police could help with that? How could government officials help this legislation be more effective?

[Trisha Baptie]

I'm going to talk again about the time I had in Sweden, because they had enacted the law. What they did, which is perfectly doable here, is to educate police and Crown attorneys about not only what the law is but the intent of the law. The intent of the law is to create a safer Canada and to eradicate prostitution because we don't see it as a fair and equal trade. We don't see it as something we want to continue in our society.

We need to educate everyone from beat cops right up to the Crown attorneys. We can do that in a number of ways. We have city cops, we have RCMP. It can be as simple as sending out a directive that those officers can then talk about, or it can be like a travelling panel that goes to all the different districts and does the education. Canada is a pretty big country compared to Sweden, so we might have to get a little creative with that, but I don't think it's impossible.

In our world now everything is done on Zoom. There's no reason we couldn't have Zoom calls with multiple police officers informing them, educating them, and then their going on and talking to their colleagues and the ones they're in charge of.

There's another thing they did. Not only did they do police education, but they also did social education on billboards, on the side of buses, everywhere. They explained why they had passed these laws and what the intent of these laws was. It was a social as well as political campaign that came together to help foster this change in the country.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you for that.

There's probably some very serious disagreement on this panel between what percentage it is, but I think all would admit that at least some women are being manipulated or forced into this type of work.

For that percentage, whatever that might be, and we don't need to have that debate, are there other ways we could amend this legislation to stop—and call a spade a spade, it's going to be men mostly—men manipulating in other ways and coercing individuals against their will into this type of work?

Ms. Baptie.

[Trisha Baptie]

You're asking how do we stop women from being coerced into this?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Yes. Are there amendments we could make to the legislation?

[Trisha Baptie]

I think the amendments to the legislation...get rid of section 213. They don't need to face charges for the situations they find themselves in. We've already said that in the preamble.

I don't understand the thinking that women aren't going to the police if they've been harmed. I know women who have gone to the police. I think police may need.... Police still don't really deal with issues that women live with by and large very well, like domestic violence, rape, sexual assault. We still need to be educating the police on these. I think we just need to roll in the PCEPA in all of that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you.

[Trisha Baptie]

This is not about punishing women; this is about changing men's behaviour.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Ms. Baptie.

Thank you, Mr. Lawrence.

I'll next go over to Ms. Brière for five minutes.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the people in front of us for giving personal testimonies. We know that it can be more difficult, so we are very grateful to them.

Obviously, the aim of the committee is to protect sex workers and improve the situation.

In January of this year in Winnipeg, we put an end to the licensing of escort agencies and massage parlours, among others. Human rights advocates were pushing for the repeal of these licences. They felt that these changes were necessary to stop sexual exploitation and abuse. Conversely, women workers in the industry were opposed to this measure because they feared negative consequences. For example, they felt that the repeal of licences could drive them underground, increasing their concerns about their safety.

Ms. Baptie, I would like to know your opinion on what happened in Winnipeg.

[Trisha Baptie]

I think the problem is that we keep talking about this as work, as if this were inevitable. We're working towards the end of it, just like we're working towards the end of domestic violence, the end of rape and the end of all these things that plague women and society. I want to work towards the end of prostitution, so hear me out.

When they pulled the licences, what should have been implemented is what women need in order to not be in those situations. A lot of the women I work with and others work with are in it because of economic inequalities. Welfare isn't enough. They're not getting enough child support. They're not getting whatever they need. We need to look at what women need to be brought up to a level where they don't need to rely on that for their economic viability.

My sister and brother-in-law own an auto mechanics shop, and three doors over from them is a licensed brothel, a massage parlour. It's disconcerting. We hear what happens through the walls. We see men going in and out all the time. That's just not good for society. Once you put it in an office space, once you put prostitution behind doors, how do we know who is behind those doors? What is happening behind those doors? Who put those doors there in the first place? How do we know they're safe? How do we know they're not trafficked? How do you know they're over age? As soon as we lose the ability to monitor what's happening, it kind of turns into the Wild West and will just keep increasing and spreading when, for equality's sake, we should be working to end it.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you very much for that answer, Ms. Baptie.

You talk about a Wild West situation. My next question, which is for Ms. Barile, is about that very thing.

During the pandemic, we have seen a significant increase in violence. A street worker from an intervention agency in Lévis, Quebec, described the situation of women in the sex industry as a zoo. With COVID‑19, lockdowns and curfews, women have changed their ways. Regardless of the methods chosen, most have had to turn to self-employment or virtual work.

Do you think that, in a self-employment context, these women find themselves even more isolated and at risk of even more violence?

[Daphne Barile]

Absolutely. Thank you for the question; it's really important. Certainly in the Quebec context, many of the COVID-19 measures seriously affected sex workers' capacity to do their work in a safe manner. Ultimately those sex workers had no recourse for any kind of income support during that period. In fact, even continuing to do their work was dangerous, because the only work they could get would have risks of either their clients or themselves being in contact with police who were policing COVID-19 measures.

Now if sex workers had the same—

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Ms. Barile. We're slightly out of time.

I'm going to ask for the quick consent of the committee to go for another five minutes. That will be about four minutes over, so that I can get Madame Michaud and Mr. Garrison another two and a half minutes each.

Do I have consent? Are there any objections? Okay.

Go ahead, Madame Michaud, for two and a half minutes.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank my colleagues for their consent. My colleague, Mr. Garrison, and I will have a little more time to ask questions of the witnesses.

I will end with you, Ms. Baptie.

There are several reasons for an increase in sexual exploitation, including globalization and the lack of regulation of the Internet. There is also a lack of law enforcement: not all laws are necessarily good, nor are they always enforced. In addition, there is a lack of preventive education.

You talk about putting an end to all this.

What do you think we can do as parliamentarians to better prevent sexual exploitation?

[Trisha Baptie]

We need to tighten up our laws when it comes to sexual assaults and rape. We need to stop putting the onus on the victim. We need to give victims more confidentiality and things like that.

One of the most important things we need to do is have a conversation with the men in our lives about how they treat women. Do they buy sex? Why do they think that's okay? I have three sons. We have had this conversation. It's part of our discussion at home. We need to be having it with more and more men, because we're able to hide our behaviours more and more behind screens and in isolated ways like that.

We need to bring this out in more conversations. We had the #MeToo movement. We've had Weinstein and Bill Cosby. It's entering the conversation, but it needs to enter in a more meaningful way from the top down.

We need to have the space, as women, to have those conversations among ourselves as well.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you very much.

My time is almost up, so I thank you for your testimonies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Madame Michaud.

Mr. Garrison, you have two and a half minutes.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to my colleagues for this brief extension.

Both Ms. Ka Hon Chu and Ms. Barile mentioned the impact of these laws on migrant sex workers and I would ask that they make sure to include that issue in their written comments, since we don't have time to deal with that today. I think it's very important.

I'd like to close with a trafficking question to Madame Ka Hon Chu. Can you comment on the equivalence or line that's been drawn between these provisions of the existing law, which harms sex workers, and the presumption that they do something about trafficking?

[Sandra Ka Hon Chu]

Yes, and I thank you for that question.

What I said before is that when you characterize everything as abusive and if you characterize all sex work as a form of exploitation, there's no distinction to be made between sex work and abuse of labour practices or trafficking. The legal definition of trafficking requires a fear for one's safety.

There's clearly some precision that has to be made to distinguish these two. As long as you criminalize sex work, you're going to have a much harder time identifying people who are suffering, experiencing exploitation or facing human trafficking. This conflation does not help sex workers and it doesn't help people who experience human trafficking.