Justice Committee on Feb. 11th, 2022

[Cathy Peters]

I don't know if you all know the name Joy Smith. She has introduced our three human trafficking laws. I have volunteered for her.

Anybody in Manitoba gets this issue. Alberta even gets it. You have Paul Brandt and #NotinMyCity programs there. In B.C., Vancouver has now become a global sex tourism destination, along with Tofino and Whistler.

I present to city councils all over British Columbia. I presented just this last week to a tiny community called Telkwa on the Highway of Tears. Indigenous women tell me that they're losing their girls. It's just going on and on.

I work very closely with law enforcement. I work closely with the RCMP headquarters, the Vancouver Police Department and the Victoria Police Department.

In Vancouver and Victoria, crime is spiking in both cities. There's sort of an attitude of “be scared of the police”. There is this narrative of “don't trust the police” and defund the police. That has made this all way worse. On Tuesday, the Ottawa police officer talked about the real need for liaison officers in the schools. In Vancouver, New Westminster and Victoria they've been taken out. Organized crime moves in. This is about organized crime.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you for that response.

We don't have a ton of time, so we have to ask as many questions as we can in a short amount of time.

Jennifer Dunn, I want to give you a chance to speak as well about the work at LAWC. One things you said is, “Canada needs this legislation”. You used the word “incompatible” and said that we need to continue to criminalize the purchase and sale of human beings—mostly women. By taking the step to fully decriminalize, what we're saying is that you can buy people—mostly women—in Canada.

Do you want to expand on that from your experience at the London Abused Women's Centre?

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Give a quick answer, Ms. Dunn.

[Jennifer Dunn]

Thank you very much.

This issue impacts all of society. This is not what we want for girls in our community. We need to remember that men do not deserve paid access to female bodies. The human body is not a commodity to be bought and sold.

Women report to us every single day when they come through our doors that this is not what they want for themselves. We need to recognize the impact on our community in that regard and on the women and girls who are the most vulnerable.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Mr. Moore.

Now, we go to Ms. Dhillon.

Ms. Dhillon, you have five minutes.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to direct my questions to Ms. Chevrier.

First of all, I'd like to ask you to please submit some of the literature and statistics you've mentioned throughout your testimony to the committee. We would really appreciate that.

First, you spoke extensively about sex workers and victims not being able to trust the police. They're even terrified of them. It's not the first time we've heard this. Most often, those who do the service that you do to help people bring this to us during their testimony.

Can you please tell us what can be done to encourage law enforcement officers to have compassion towards sex workers and recognize that they are often victims? Can you tell us what is wrong with the whole culture? Why is there this culture of not treating them like human beings?

If you could give us some concrete solutions, we'd really appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

[Dr. Claudyne Chevrier]

Thank you. That's a great question.

Those are big questions. I will do my best to tell you, and maybe I won't go into the research.... First of all, I will send all of the research. I will submit a brief, as well as all of the literature I mentioned. It's very diverse.

The issue with the police and people not trusting the police is very complex. Recent movement like Black Lives Matter and initiatives that seek to defund or be critical of the police have broadened the understanding that has been the reality of a lot of marginalized populations since forever. It's made it clearer for the general population, and I am thankful for that.

What would be helpful in general is a better understanding of the realities. This is something that was said to me by the people I interviewed. At the end of my interviews, I asked, “What would you like to say to service providers if I gave you a mike?” They had all sorts of things to say.

First of all, they wanted to be treated like human beings, which was devastating to hear, interview after interview. However, they also had concrete suggestions, such as having sex worker-led training for police officers and different service providers, and programs to help police officers understand the varied realities that are included in the term “sex work”. They would understand the difference between sex work, sexual exploitation and human trafficking, which are not synonyms and should not be used as such. They also asked for compassion training. I'm not quite sure how one does that with an adult, but it signifies how terrible things can be. Those would be concrete things that came from my research.

More generally, in a context where sex work might be decriminalized, it might make it easier for sex workers, when they have situations of violence in their lives related to sex work or not, to reach out to police officers or to whatever service they require, without fearing that they might be criminalized for sex work or something else, or that they might be pressured into giving their list of clients. Their list of clients might be good clients, and that's why they keep them.

In a context where it's not criminalized, it would make it easier for sex workers to be able to call the police. It would also make it easier for clients who see something that seems dangerous to intervene or to call the police. That would never happen in the context....

I want to quickly give the example of New Zealand, where sex work has been decriminalized since 2003. A few years ago, there was the story of a massage parlour worker who was able to make a complaint against her boss, who was sexually harassing her. She won that complaint and was compensated, as any other worker would be. It is unthinkable in Canada right now that a sex worker might be able to do something like that.

I wanted to end here.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Dhillon.

Next, we'll go to Madame Michaud for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This time I will address Ms. Dunn, who represents the London Abused Women's Centre.

I wonder about the impact of the pandemic on the sex industry.

An article in the National Post in April 2021 referred to an increase in clients at your centre that was attributed to the pandemic. It stated that from 2020 to 2021, the London Abused Women's Centre supported over 9,200 women and girls, 820 of whom were victims of sexual exploitation.

Could you tell us a bit more about the impact of the pandemic on your clientele, particularly on women and girls who are victims of sexual exploitation?

[Jennifer Dunn]

Thank you very much for the question.

The pandemic has had a serious effect for all Canadians. Specific to women and girls, it has been very difficult, because when we notice periods of what I'll call “lockdown” or where women and girls are told to minimize their traffic and where they are going, and schools are not open and that kind of thing, it makes it very difficult for women to access services.

This is for multiple reasons. Women might be trapped in their homes with their abusers or traffickers, and they do not have an opportunity to reach out for support. What our agency really focuses on is being able to provide immediate access to support and being available when a woman walks through our door or makes a call, so that we can provide her support as quickly and effectively as possible.

A lot of the work we do is around safety planning. If a woman comes to our door who has been trafficked or exploited, or is involved in the sex industry, we really and truly meet her where she is at and figure out what works best for her in the moment.

As I said, the pandemic itself has had a huge impact on the lives of all women and girls. Women who have been sexually exploited and trafficked are truly no different, and they are the most at risk. Women face violence and physical health issues—

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Ms. Dunn.

[Jennifer Dunn]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Sorry.

The next two and a half minutes goes to Mr. Garrison.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I will return to Dr. Chevrier. This question I was asked stretches all the way back to when I was on city council and dealing with the PEERS, the prostitutes' empowerment society located in my riding. Why don't those involved in the sex trade use the social services that are available to everyone else? Why do advocacy groups end up having to provide special services for those involved in sex work?

[Dr. Claudyne Chevrier]

I can go back to my research, but there is also extensive research on access to health and social services for sex workers all over the country. There are a lot of reasons. There are passive barriers as well as active barriers that come in the way.

Passive barriers might be things like the geographic location of the place, or the hours they're open, or the fact that they are only for a specific gender, which might make it difficult for people to access those services. It could also be stigma, fear of stigma—and it's not just people being sensitive. There are horrifying experiences of stigma in all health and social services, even in very progressive ones.

One thing that is very specific in Winnipeg that I think exists everywhere, from the literature, is that there will be specific services that are for people in the sex trade, but they will only be open to people who have a specific experience in the sex trade. For example, they will implicitly or explicitly tell people that they have to refer to their experience as exploitation or human trafficking in order to receive services. Sometimes that is something that is implied, or they will counsel people in that way. That makes it difficult for people to go there. That was the situation in Manitoba at the beginning of my research, where there were no services offered.

Finally, I would say that the context of criminalization also is a huge barrier, because it makes people worried that disclosing that they are sex workers, which sometimes is relevant to do, might lead to inappropriate involvement of different agencies or services such as law enforcement or child protection services that might be inappropriately called.

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

Thank you very much, Dr. Chevrier.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Mr. Garrison.

Thank you to all the witnesses. I really appreciate the testimony and the time you have given to this committee.

Next I'll just suspend for a few seconds while we get the next set of witnesses on. Thank you. Those who wish to log off may log off.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

We'll resume the meeting.

I'll ask the witnesses, starting with Ms. Baptie, to speak for five minutes. After Ms. Baptie, we'll go to Ms. Hon Chu and to Ms. Barile after that, and then we'll have some questions.

We'll go over to you, Ms. Baptie.

[Trisha Baptie, Founding Member and Community Engagement Coordinator, EVE]

I want to thank the committee for giving me this opportunity.

I would like to convey quite a few thoughts, and I'll be speaking a bit fast, so feel free to tell me to slow down.

I sit here before you as a survivor of 15 years of prostitution from the ages of 13 to 28. For the first six years, I was viewed as a minor in need of support to transition to a healthier life. At midnight on my 19th birthday, I was an empowered woman choosing this, with no regard for my history or the fact that I knew nothing else, like so many others involved in this.

For the most part, you will not hear me use the term “sex worker”, as we do not believe it can be a job. Whether you call it “sex work”, “sugar baby” or “escort”, it all ends in the same thing: acquiescing to men's sexual demands. Men's role as the root problem of prostitution is often lost in all the other noise that goes along with prostitution, and that is the behaviour I want to focus on today, as that was the goal of PCEPA and why we support PCEPA. I encourage you to read the preamble. We find it encouraging and really a blueprint for our country.

I'm from Vancouver. In the nineties, I lost some of my friends to Canada's worst serial killer. We also dealt with other forms of physical and sexualized violence that too many in prostitution know intimately. I want to be clear here. It was not the law and it was not stigma that beat, raped and killed me and my friend: It was men. It was not the location we were in that was unsafe: It was the men we were in that location with that made it unsafe. It was not just one type of man: It was men from all walks of life.

The demand is not for a 40-year-old woman with a degree. It demands a steady stream of preferably naive young women. I know that human trafficking is not the focus here, but to ignore the connection does a disservice to the multitudes of women and girls facing that very real threat. We do not traffick young women for nursing or to be an MP; they're trafficked to fulfill men's sexual demands. If we fully decriminalize or legalize prostitution, we will always have beds that will need to be filled, for which young women are saying, “We'll do that.” If we choose decriminalization or legalization, essentially we are saying, “Yes, we'll always have a place for you to purchase sex.” Do we really want that for Canada, for our girls and our young women?

All this begs the question: How are men being able to pay for sex helping to create an egalitarian society? How does men purchasing sex foster a safer society for all women and girls?

How do I know women and girls aren't safe? Because there are parts of my city—every city—where men they feel they have the right to ask anyone on the street if they're working—grandmothers, teenagers, anyone. If we're even more honest, it's typically the poor and racialized parts of town.

I'm going to go over four quick points in PCEPA and then wrap it up. This is what it says:

Whereas the Parliament of Canada has grave concerns about the exploitation that is inherent in prostitution and the risk of violence posed to those who engage in it; ...Canada recognizes the social harm caused by the objectification of the human body and the commodification of sexual activity; ...it is important to protect human dignity and the equality of all Canadians by discouraging prostitution, which has a disproportionate impact on women and children; Whereas it is important to denounce and prohibit the purchase of sexual services because it creates a demand for prostitution;

This is not about hating sex workers or wanting them eradicated. This is about ending a practice that relies on inequality, sexism, racism, colonialism, mental health issues, addictions and other issues.

We are here to discuss the five-year review of this law, but this law has not been applied across the country in any uniform way. It has not been given an opportunity to create real change or benefit those who need it.

There is no way we can have reliable statistics on the effect of this law when there are some parts of the country that still haven't even heard of it. We need more time with this law to watch it grow, to have it fully take hold and to help change society.

Thank you very much for hearing me out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Ms. Baptie.

I'll go over to Ms. Ka Hon Chu.

[Sandra Ka Hon Chu, Co-Executive Director, HIV Legal Network]

Thank you for having me here today. I'm a lawyer and co-executive director of the HIV Legal Network, an organization which has worked alongside sex workers since our inception almost three decades ago to advocate for laws and policies that uphold their human rights.

I want to talk about a study I co-authored three years called, “The Perils of 'Protection'”, which explores sex workers' experiences of law enforcement in Ontario. We spoke to Black, indigenous, Asian and other racialized sex workers, migrant sex workers, trans and 2-spirit sex workers and sex workers who worked in conditions of extreme precarity. Some participants worked independently and others worked with third parties, such as managers, drivers, peers, translators, security, bookers, webmasters and receptionists who provided them with critical support and infrastructure to work safely.

Universally, our study participants told us that the enforcement of the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, or PCEPA, which continues to criminalize sex workers' public communication, has fuelled stigma, violence and exploitation against sex workers, challenging the fallacy that the law protects them. Moreover, the law has not accomplished any of its stated objectives.

For example, sex workers continued to work after the passage of the law. Criminalizing sex work has not changed the reality that sex workers still need access to income to support themselves or their families. While they continue working, sex workers described the negative financial impacts of their encounters with police, who are empowered by the law to surveil them.

As one woman described, “[The police] want to put our clients in jail. So it affects us greatly.... And then because it affects our financial, it affects all other aspects of our life…our basic needs like shelter, food, clothing, love.

Additionally, some sex workers described how criminalization limited prospects of employment outside of the sex industry. A 2-spirit sex worker who had previous sex work criminal charges described to me about being unable to pursue a career in nursing, because vulnerable sector screening revealed those convictions.

Participants also shared how criminalization forces sex workers to put up with poor working conditions and incidents of violence. Criminalization has forced third parties and workplaces to conceal sex work, so sex workers can neither access decent working conditions nor report harassment or violence, because their employers and peers are consequently scrutinized as third parties or human traffickers.

According to one participant, “A woman was blackmailed and robbed by many gangsters, so she tried to call the police to stop the violence.... The police came in and the officer did not investigate the blackmail or the robbery, but gave them a warning that they needed to move out immediately. The police did not ask, “What did the robber look like?” but “Who rented the place to you? Who introduced you to work here? Who helped you do the advertisement?”

Another participant explained how constant police surveillance has led some women who can no longer work independently in public spaces to work for third parties that they don’t know.

As you've heard other speakers describe, the PCEPA has discouraged reporting of violence by sex workers. This is reinforced by multiple research studies. Most sex workers we spoke to indicated that they would never go to the police for help, especially if the abuse happened in the context of their work. Some sex workers, and particularly racialized sex workers, were criminally charged when they contacted law enforcement for assistance. Several participants described how reporting violence to the police resulted in their workplace being investigated or shut down, forcing them to move to remote areas without access to their safety networks and putting them at greater risk of exploitation.

Knowing that sex workers and their employers are unable to seek police assistance, one participant described how predators frequently target sex workers’ workplaces for robbery.

All sex workers shared how the laws and law enforcement presence have led to their isolation, increasing their risk of targeted violence and other abuse. Many described how the prohibition on purchasing sexual services has scared clients, who request to meet in more secluded locations, and has forced hurried encounters. This hampers sex workers’ ability to take measures to promote safety, such as screening, communicating about the terms of service and negotiating conditions to sexual activity with a client.

This undermines sex workers’ ability to establish consent to the sexual activities in which they engage. As one participant shared, “[Clients] don’t even want to have the initial conversation on the road, which is a lot more dangerous for girls, because you want to have your agreement before you get in.”

Another participant described how the advertising prohibition affected her safety: “If I can’t do the communicating that I’m used to doing online then it’s going to force me [to communicate] in that moment when I meet that client. Boundaries are important.... If you’re not able to communicate ahead of time, it puts you in a rush to go through your boundaries, your prices, and everything.”

More broadly, criminalization has contributed to sex workers’ experience of numerous other harms, including workplace and residential eviction; repercussions on family life and child custody; limitations to sex workers’ mobility, because their identity as sex workers comes up in database searches by border control agents; detention and deportation for migrant workers found to have contravened immigration regulations prohibiting migrant sex work; and impediments to practising safer sex.

The most marginalized sex workers, who already face racial and social profiling, faced the most severe impacts of the PCEPA. These findings are also reflected in an extensive body of research comprising numerous peer-reviewed studies and investigations from human rights organizations and multiple UN agencies. They consistently confirm that the criminalization of any aspect of sex work undermines the human rights, autonomy, health and safety of sex workers.

We urge this committee to centre on the experiences of sex workers, who have been profoundly harmed by this legislation, and we recommend a repeal of the sex work offences.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Ms. Ka Hon Chu.

Next is Daphne Barile for five minutes.

[Daphne Barile, Coordinator, Québec Trans Health Action]

Thank you, members of the committee, for giving me the chance to testify today.

I work as the coordinator of ASTTeQ, a community group in Montreal by and for transpeople.

Since 1998, ASTTeQ has offered services, accompaniment, legal information and peer support, particularly to transwomen who are homeless, migrants, and those living with HIV and/or sex workers. ASTTeQ is the only organization primarily devoted to working with trans sex workers in Quebec and, as far as I know, in all of Canada. ASTTeQ's work with sex workers is funded by the federal government.

The sex workers I work with every day are not asking us for help to leave sex work. They want to continue doing sex work for diverse reasons, some in order to attain economic self-sufficiency or to support their families; some to supplement social service payments, which aren't enough to make rent; some because they experience transphobic or racist discrimination in legal labour sectors; and some because their immigration status prevents them from working in other jobs.

The women who frequent ASTTeQ are asking us, rather, for help responding to problems caused by the criminalization of their work. They come to us because their landlords are threatening them with eviction after finding out they do sex work from home. They come to us because constant police surveillance in their spaces has left them with criminal charges, which could lead to incarceration in a men's prison or could imperil their immigration status. Many of the women ASTTeQ work with are newcomers to Canada who have come in search of a life safe from anti-trans hatred, discrimination and violence, yet PCEPA has denied many of these women the life they were promised by forcing them into unsafe working conditions and by exposing them to the harms of constant police presence.

PCEPA has not and will not eliminate sex work in Canada's trans communities. Instead, it has simply made sex work less safe. The majority of the transpeople who frequent ASTTeQ experience poverty and live in precarious circumstances, and PCEPA has made their lives even more precarious by pushing them into dangerous, unlivable, working conditions. They cannot work together with other members of their community for safety or develop collective measures to screen clients. The threat of police and criminal charges has forced them to work in isolation, far from the city centre, where there are no community resources. Even for those who are never charged with a criminal offence, the constant threat of criminalization forecloses their possibilities in life and prevents them from creating even basic forms of stability and safety for themselves.

ASTTeQ recently conducted research for a qualitative study commissioned by the Department of Justice Canada on a wide range of serious legal problems faced by trans, two-spirit and non-binary people in Canada. The content of the report has been approved by the Department of Justice, and it is awaiting translation before publication. Our research found the following:

For many participants, the criminalization of sex work obstructed their access to stable income, safer working conditions, trans community supports, and/or gender affirmation. Several participants explicitly identified the current criminal legislative framework related to sex work as a source of unsafe work conditions or of fear (e.g., fear of contact with law enforcement, repercussions on other aspects of their lives such as their immigration status, housing, and income taxes).

One of the aims of PCEPA was to reduce violence and exploitation in the context of sex work. In this, too, it has utterly failed. Many of the trans sex workers in our study avoided police contact at all costs, including after being assaulted at work, because contact with the police and being known to the police as a sex worker created a cycle of worsening legal problems for them, such as criminal inadmissibility within the immigration system, increased barriers to housing and employment and escalating criminal charges exacerbated by constant and sometimes violent encounters with the police. Improved police training or access to legal resources would not resolve these women's legal problems, because PCEPA itself has caused these problems. It's PCEPA that gives police the power to enter their homes and workplaces.

In recent years, the federal government has made numerous efforts to expand basic rights and protections for transpeople, but these rights and protections are totally inaccessible to the poor and marginalized transpeople I work with and will be until PCEPA is repealed and sex work is decriminalized in Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you.

For our first round of questions, I'll now go to Mr. Morrison, for six minutes, please.