Yes.
Evidence of meeting #6 for Justice and Human Rights in the 44th 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.
Evidence of meeting #6 for Justice and Human Rights in the 44th 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.
2:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Randeep Sarai
Perfect, thank you.
Ms. Stevenson, you have the floor for five minutes.
March 4th, 2022 / 2:05 p.m.
Alexandra Stevenson Ford) (Speaker, Survivor and Prevention Specialist, As an Individual
Thank you for having me here today.
We know it is imperative to hear directly from survivors and those involved in the commercial sex industry. I want to highlight that hearing from people who are, were or ended up as unwilling bodies in the industry is far more difficult, not because there are fewer of us, but because we are less likely to have freedom to speak out, for reasons ranging from shame to fear to death.
As I am able to share today, I don't want to just tell you my story; I want you to walk through it with me.
I was 20 years old when I first engaged in commercial sex, and I would have been considered a consenting adult, but I did not just appear on this earth at 20, so it's critical to take a moment to understand who that 20-year-old was.
I was a precocious child advocate. At age 11, I started the first Oakville chapter of what was then a small organization called Free the Children, later to be known as the WE Charity. I was considered bright, gifted and full of potential.
Then, at 13, I was sexually assaulted, which continued for the next five years. My life went from collecting signatures for a petition destined for the federal government to ambivalence and drug use. Despite that shift, my grades never slipped and I remained engaged in other after-school activities. I buried my trauma and, even once a police investigation was sparked, the detective on the case referred to me as “put together” and “the strong one who held the others up”.
The first time I used my body to make money, it was a desperate attempt to regain ownership of my sexuality. I vehemently pushed back when anyone questioned my choices. “My body, my choice” is what I told them. I maintained my managerial job throughout the day, smiling at customers and running two locations of a business. At night I partied, occasionally engaging in commercial sex for fun and extra cash for my boyfriend and me.
I believed my boyfriend and me to be partners, but this illusion was shattered the first time I refused to perform a particular act—or attempted to refuse. In the blink of an eye, I went from being an empowered woman to a victim. With that shift, you might think that I was immediately resistant to the work or even reached out for help. I didn't. My boyfriend was violent, and my fear of him stole my voice.
Due to my inability to exit the world in which I existed, I suffered from cognitive dissonance. To relieve this discomfort, I doubled down on proclaiming loudly how much I enjoyed my lifestyle. This time, however, I was not only convincing others; I was also convincing myself. It wasn't until I nearly lost my life at the hands of my boyfriend that I fled.
Over the next 10 years, I earned several degrees in the helping and criminal justice field. I worked in shelters with males in conflict with the law and with the victim witness assistance program. Regardless of this gained knowledge and experience, I never believed my experience to be anything other than domestic violence and poor choices on my part.
It wasn't until a new friend, hearing my story for the first time, suggested to me that I was exploited that I looked at my involvement in a new light. I may have walked into the commercial sex industry as a consenting adult, but by the time I ran out it was as a victim of trafficking, condemned to a lifetime of complex post-traumatic stress. I am begging you to please end the narrative that these two are not connected.
It is impossible to ascertain that only willing bodies are working in the commercial sex industry. Some people are unable to identify their experience as exploitation. Some people are terrified of being deported or of repercussions from their boyfriends, bosses or pimps. Some workers may have chosen their work, but they chose it because they were desperate or in survival mode, and a choice made in desperation is no choice at all.
As ideological as it might be to draw a line around consensual sex workers and suggest that PCEPA must be repealed to keep them safe, it is unrealistic. The decriminalization of sex work will result in collateral damage that looks like an entire population for whom a lifetime of complex trauma will be the cost of living in Canada. I must ask who it is that you deem worthy to fulfill this population, because let me remind you: It can be anyone.
If folks truly want safety, harm reduction and the prevention of the exploitation of unwilling bodies, then the next step is not decriminalization. It is working together to pour resources into mental health issues, trauma prevention education, financial disparities, the severely inflated cost of post-secondary education, reconciliation and healing with indigenous communities and, of course, gender equality.
Until these foundational chasms are considered repaired, we simply cannot open the doors to an industry that preys on and exploits these and other vulnerabilities. If a world exists in which the sex industry can prevail without extreme levels of inequality, exploitation and predation, we must first work together to create it.
Thank you.
2:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Randeep Sarai
Thank you, Ms. Stevenson.
I'll next go to Suzanne Jay of Asian Women for Equality.
2:10 p.m.
Collective Member, Asian Women for Equality
Thank you for the invitation to present today. I'm here on behalf of Asian Women for Equality. Members of our group have lived experience of being in prostitution, and our members also have many years of working on the front lines of supporting women.
One of our goals is to advance sex, race and economic equality for women in Canada. These rights are promised to us by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This promise is plainly referenced in the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act. These rights are especially important to women who are racialized and colonized.
The sex industry is not a homogeneous group. There are the exploiters and there are the exploited. The exploiter side is composed of sex buyers, pimps and the the media platforms that support the sex buyers and pimps to connect with each other. These people are overwhelmingly men, and they have a vested, parasitic interest in growing prostitution as an industry. For these people, the sex industry is safe, and it's lucrative.
Then we have the exploited. The vast majority of women who are in prostitution would leave if they had any other way to support themselves and their families. Asian-themed massage parlours operate in every major Canadian town. The women in these venues are tremendously vulnerable to rape and other violence from sex buyers and pimps. In fact, it is their job to give men a racist sexual experience.
Now I am going to tell you why we think the act is valuable.
We support the act. The act is sophisticated. It recognizes the differences between the exploiters and the exploited, and it treats them differently. The exploiters are criminalized, and the exploited are not. The act is the only law that targets the sex buyer. You might hear opinions that a human trafficking law is enough, but that law focuses on only the traffickers. A human trafficking law gives a free pass to the man who buys sex from a trafficked woman. The advertising platforms that helped him find her also get a free pass. The act is valuable because it criminalizes the advertising of prostitution. It empowers police to interrupt the Internet platforms that package, brand and market prostitution. These platforms are crucial to growing the customer base for the sex industry and for normalizing sex buying. It is a billion-dollar industry to make racism and inequality sexy.
I'm going to move on to our recommendations.
We recommend striking section 213 of the Criminal Code from the act. It criminalizes women if they are prostituted close to a school, a playground or a daycare. We argued against this section in 2014, and we're telling you again: Keep your focus on the exploiters, and stop punishing women for being exploited in public view.
Expunge the criminal records of women charged or convicted of prostitution under the old laws. Charging them is a mistake that leaves women permanently criminalized.
We want you to show political will and leadership to enforce the law. When our justice system interferes with prostitution, it also disrupts human trafficking, drug trafficking, money laundering and other organized crime. We're not a law-and-order organization, but we still want you to make Canada less welcoming to organized crime, whether it be by Asian, European or homegrown criminal gangs.
We advise granting permanent resident status to trafficked women. Doing so will diminish the power that pimps and traffickers have over women, because women will have the same legal protections and entitlements that are enjoyed by the exploiters.
A weakness of the act is that it tries to address inequality through criminal law. There needs to be a bigger-picture approach for women to successfully exit prostitution and also to avoid recruitment altogether. We recommend making the social safety net stronger and doing this by providing everyone with a guaranteed livable income, otherwise known as a basic income. Having this would make a life-changing difference for millions of women.
The act is the only tool that allows Canada to stop sex buyers. It is one of the only tools that allow police to interfere with sex trafficking. It is the only tool we have to prevent Internet platforms from exponentially increasing the number of men who are pimps and sex buyers. If you strike down this act or repeal this act, pimps and sex buyers will have free rein to exploit and traffic.
Striking down this act will intensify the racism and sexism that's directed at all women, because they are inherent to prostitution, and this will move us further away from the equality women are promised by the charter.
2:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Randeep Sarai
Thank you, Ms. Jay.
Next we have Amber Lindstrom, from SafeSpace London, for five minutes.
2:15 p.m.
Program Coordinator, SafeSpace London
Thank you.
My name is Amber Lindstrom. I'm program coordinator and peer support worker at SafeSpace London, a collective by, with and for sex workers, allies, women and non-binary folks in London, Ontario, that's been operating since 2009. Many of our community members experience intersectional marginalization, including street-based sex workers, indigenous, racialized, trans and queer sex workers, sex workers experiencing housing instability or homelessness, and sex workers who use substances.
In London there is an entrenched anti-sex work lobby pervading social services, law enforcement and politics. London is an example of what happens when PCEPA is enforced. The experiences of our community within this criminalized environment show that not only does PCEPA not protect sex workers, but it actively harms us.
PCEPA hasn't reduced demand for sexual services in our area; however, it has forced sex work further underground, leaving no time for street-based workers to talk to the client ahead of time about condom use, payment or the location of services, because both client and worker are rushed due to fear of legal interference. It results in increased violence, because workers now have to work alone in secluded places and clients' cars due to the criminalization of their work. We have heard repeated stories of workers being driven to the outskirts of the city to evade police, only to be assaulted and left stranded.
Sex workers deserve safe working conditions and criminalizing any aspect of our work takes away that security. As one sex worker accessing the Space wanted to share with you today, “It's real work. If it was decriminalized we could have safe places for workers to work, and [we] would be able to charge higher wages. Like the workers on the street right now, with how it is, [we] can't, with how it is right now”.
Under PCEPA, government funding has also been given predominantly to anti-sex work organizations. This results in folks who actively engage in sex work not being allowed in many shelters and facing barriers to accessing community resources. This is something we see frequently in London. Unless sex workers conform and say that they're exploited or trafficked and willing to leave sex work, they are not allowed to access some shelters and programs.
As one sex worker who accesses said, “We're kind of actually considered a plague, ok, to other shelters.... They'd say 'no' [you do not fit the criteria for an 'abused woman']. You're a working girl—you're not allowed in here'. And I thought, 'Well, where the hell am I supposed to go?'” This narrative that you do not fit is a symptom of the stigmatizing, criminalized environment of PCEPA.
Sex workers in London also experience stigma and barriers when accessing health care and social services. We see medical staff refusing street-based sex workers adequate treatment and sex workers being flagged in social work systems. The stigma perpetuated by PCEPA also magnifies the harms done to workers who are members of already marginalized communities.
At SafeSpace, we offer services like peer support, harm reduction services and system navigation to help address the systemic harms of this law, but we do not have the resources available to us to provide the full scope of support needed when harm, surveillance and stigma are being perpetrated at all levels of care in society by the directives of PCEPA.
It is not safe for people who do sex work to report to police under PCEPA. Instead, workers create our own in-community “bad date” reporting systems. At SafeSpace, that includes a bad date reporting line and a bad date information flyer.
We experience ongoing reports of police harassment and assault, and when workers attempt to report incidents, police have instead found a way to charge them using PCEPA, like through “blocking traffic” charges, third party charges or saying that they're working in an illegal area.
PCEPA also magnifies systemic racism at the hands of police. As one indigenous sex worker wanted us to share about the law, “They don't care about us. Like we're people too. There are like 6 or 8 (indigenous) workers missing right now [in London] and they don't care. I don't see posters, I don't see posts, I don't see police combing.”
This is a problem of systemic marginalization by PCEPA. More police training will not help. The police are guided by PCEPA to criminalize and eliminate sex work, an undeniable facet of which is the elimination of us as sex workers. If you want sex workers to have a better relationship with the legal system, the first step will always be full decriminalization of sex work.
PCEPA claims to protect the dignity and equality of all Canadians; however, it perpetrates real harms against the people it claims to help by surrounding sex work with criminal consequences and conflating trafficking with sex work. PCEPA gives society the message that the government wants us eradicated—that sex workers and our jobs are affronts to society. Sex workers are not a threat to your communities; we are members of your communities.
PCEPA does not encourage sex workers to leave sex work. Instead, it gives us this message, “Stop and obey or we will make this so difficult and dangerous that you die.” And that has been happening: This law has been marginalizing and killing us.
Sex workers are impacted by this law every day, and it's essential that our voices and perspectives are centred in this discussion. We are asking you to fully repeal PCEPA and decriminalize sex work.
Thank you.
2:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Randeep Sarai
Thank you, Ms. Lindstrom.
Now I'll go to SWAN Vancouver Society and Alison Clancey.
Thanks for coming back. Last time, we had some technical issues, I think, and we couldn't have you here.
You have five minutes.
2:20 p.m.
Executive Director, SWAN Vancouver Society
Good afternoon, committee members.
My name is Alison Clancey, and I am the executive director of SWAN Vancouver.
For the past 20 years, SWAN has supported newcomer, migrant and immigrant women who do indoor sex work. SWAN is a member of the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, an alliance of more than 80 organizations from around the world working to end trafficking. As such, SWAN is deeply familiar with both sex work and trafficking.
I would like to begin by addressing the idea of keeping PCEPA but improving police training as a way to address the complex issues before the committee.
For 10 years I have trained police on sex work and human trafficking. I have worked with police on sex work and trafficking investigations and related police policy and practice. However, I no longer do this work for two reasons.
First, police training is futile in a criminalized legal framework. The police enforce the Criminal Code. PCEPA is part of the Criminal Code, meaning the police role is fundamentally at odds with ensuring sex worker safety.
Second, the police have severe and well-documented systemic racism issues. Until these issues are resolved, any PCEPA-related training is futile. In fact, until we admit that racial profiling sits at the heart of PCEPA criminalization of immigrant and migrant sex workers, and until we can have an explicit conversation about that, no amount of police training can make a difference.
Society now understands that an increased police presence in the lives of racialized individuals is deeply problematic, one example being mental health checks and another being street checks. Thus, it is confounding and downright dangerous for carceral feminists to suggest that a police presence in the lives of racialized sex workers via increased PCEPA enforcement is acceptable.
Now I will address anti-trafficking.
In the 2014 hearings, trafficking took centre stage. Here it is again dominating the discussion. Apparently, due to the incessant trafficking rhetoric, Canada still cannot have an evidence-based conversation about the sex industry.
At these hearings, we've had testimonies framed as being parts of an ideological divide as if to suggest there are two equally weighted perspectives. Let us be clear: Doing this is simply an effort to distract from a vital discussion.
Sex workers have unequivocally outlined the impacts of PCEPA on their lives. Sex workers have presented empirical evidence on PCEPA's harms. Sex workers are once again fighting constitutional challenges in courts, this on top of the unanimous Supreme Court decision in Bedford, which established that criminalizing sex work is dangerous. What more will it take to repeal PCEPA?
A shaming morality, masked as anti-trafficking protection and supported by disinformation that has been debunked time and time again, is still being given equal weight. I can offer concrete examples of this in the question period.
What does trafficking disinformation mean for real progress on the issues before us? It means in Canada we cannot move forward with a labour-centred dialogue on sex work. It means anti-sex work perspectives, which fuel the stigma that kills, are still given a national platform.
Trafficking is an issue that needs to be addressed, but you do not have to jeopardize sex workers' lives through PCEPA to address it. At SWAN, upholding sex workers' rights and addressing trafficking are not mutually exclusive.
PCEPA criminalization inflicts harms not only on immigrant and migrant sex workers but also on those who are trafficked. Immigrant and migrant sex workers experience multi-layered criminalization via municipal bylaws, PCEPA, anti-trafficking enforcement and the immigration prohibition on sex work.
PCEPA is often the entry point for police into immigrant and migrant sex workers' lives via investigation of clients, neighbours' reporting of sex work activity, or other reasons. With PCEPA as the gateway, the women SWAN serves have only ever seen two outcomes after initial PCEPA-related interaction with police: The woman herself becomes the target of an anti-trafficking investigation or she is arrested, detained and deported.
Repeatedly women have told SWAN that they fear police more than predators. Therefore, the women do not report violence.
PCEPA has been a gift to predators and traffickers. PCEPA criminalization not only puts immigrant and migrant sex workers' lives at risk; in no way does it support racialized women in the sex industry who are trafficked either.
Thank you.
2:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Randeep Sarai
Thank you, Ms. Clancey.
I'll now go to questions, beginning with Mr. Brock for six minutes.
2:25 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, ladies, for your participation this afternoon. All of you have presented some very passionate arguments that will assist this committee in this very important study.
The time I have permitting, I'd like to ask a number of questions, starting with you, Ms. Stevenson.
I must say, Ms. Stevenson, that your story is a powerful one, and I'm glad you started the preamble by asking us, in recounting your life journey, to walk with you.
For someone who has spent 30 years in law, and in particular the last 18 as a Crown prosecutor, dealing with similar victims, it is quite reassuring to me to hear from you that you have found your voice, that you have not just been patronized by the police for your strength you exemplified during the prosecution, and that you are now not only a survivor, but you're also an advocate. You should be very much congratulated for that. I'm very proud of you for your attendance today and what you have to share.
The gist I got from listening to you very carefully is that part of your strategy is all about educating the public. I'd like to hear from you specifically on your ideas with respect to those who propose repealing Bill C-36, and those, such as you and others you've heard from today, who feel that this is a very important piece of balanced legislation. How does education fit within that equation?
2:25 p.m.
Alexandra Stevenson Ford
Thank you for all your kind words.
I would love to speak to that. My area of focus is in prevention education. I think we need to highlight the importance of widespread education, not just for police and not just for certain areas, but for entire communities.
I think that anyone who truly wants harm reduction cannot deny the integral helpfulness of this widespread education. More education means less victimization. More education means more overall comprehension of repercussions from the industry. More education means interrupting the commercial sex industry at all points of engagement: the buyer, the third party profiteer, if there is one, and the seller.
It is imperative that we recognize that widespread education not only helps to prevent the victimization and exploitation of unwilling bodies, but it also helps to prevent the creation of exploiters, of traffickers and of buyers.
A non-profit that I co-founded in Wyoming did some sting operations with law enforcement there. They actually were able to talk to buyers at the time of arrest about why they were purchasing sex. Each one of them spoke about missing something in their lives. I think this points to us needing to invest in boys and men and to make sure we're understanding that they're able to access education on how to handle emotions, how to communicate properly and how to access therapy when they need it. That way, they're not seeking out the purchase of another human body to fill a void that they don't know how to properly fill.
2:30 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Thank you.
You heard a witness this afternoon, Ms. Clancey, speak to issues such as how “police training is futile”—her words—and how police work is “at odds” with the sex worker's safety. Do you agree with that statement? If you do not agree with that statement, please explain why.
2:30 p.m.
Alexandra Stevenson Ford
I don't agree with that statement. I believe that police officers deserve to have a complete understanding of the mental, emotional, psychological and cognitive processes of the people who they will be offering aid to.
I totally hear and understand and have heard from people in the industry who say that they are “at odds” with police. I think that comes from how this education needs to be starting well before someone enters into becoming a police officer: having it in all public schools everywhere so that we have an understanding of exploitation, healthy relationships, consent and all of that.
Then, once someone enters officer training, they need to have a deeper understanding of those things I pointed out—the emotional, the cognitive and the psychological effects—and why someone might enter this work, what kind of help they might need should they ask for help and what resources you can provide them if what they're looking for is not direct help.
This way, we can create a foundation where people who are in the sex industry and officers can find a way to coexist, work together and help each other.
2:30 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Perhaps I could stop you right there as I have a few seconds left to ask one further question.
In your prepared speech, you talked briefly about the impact of decriminalization of this particular industry. I want to bring to your attention to a previous witness statement on that particular issue. It was by Cathy Peters. She testified February 11, 2022. She indicated that if this happens, “Canada will become a global sex tourism destination and America's brothel. Indigenous women and girls will be the first casualties.”
Do you agree with that statement? If so, why?
2:30 p.m.
Alexandra Stevenson Ford
I think it's fair to say that if there are barriers to access in one area, say the U.S., and you don't have barriers in Canada, people are going to go where there are fewer barriers to access what they're looking for, which is the purchase of sex. Decriminalization is a short-term solution to help sex workers now, but it is not a long-term solution to keeping our communities safe.
2:30 p.m.
Conservative
2:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Randeep Sarai
Thank you, Ms. Stevenson.
Thank you, Mr. Brock.
Next I'll go, for six minutes, to Ms. Brière.
2:30 p.m.
Liberal
Élisabeth Brière Liberal Sherbrooke, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank all our witnesses for being with us this afternoon.
My first question will be to Ms. Lindstrom.
Ms. Lindstrom, your organization calls for the decriminalization of sex work. You also alluded to the impact of municipal bylaws on the safety of sex workers. Can you elaborate on this?
Then you could tell us about the police. Would the decriminalization of sex work make sex workers feel more comfortable reporting cases of violence or trafficking that they detect in the field?
Thank you.
2:30 p.m.
Program Coordinator, SafeSpace London
Thank you for your question. In terms of our local experiences, with local laws and bylaws, we encounter a lot of difficulties as sex workers. At one point the police tried publishing the names of clients who were caught and arrested. This seriously endangered and impacted us as sex workers, because if clients think their names might be published, they don't feel comfortable providing us with their real names when we're seeking to vet them and make sure they're safe clients in those initial discussions. We had to protest that, and it was a difficult process.
We also saw during COVID that our strip clubs were closed much earlier than other clubs were, which pushed sex workers working in strip clubs to find other avenues for sex work. Workers in our community were also heavily impacted by COVID bylaws, and the police heavily enforced those on the sex workers in our community, including things like, when the curfews were in place, not travelling from one place to another after 8 p.m. We actually had street-based sex workers who weren't able to access our services because police would stop them if they were out walking to or from their home or the place they were sleeping outside to access us.
As for decriminalization, at SafeSpace London we really support that because we really see the impacts of this law locally, in terms of our relationships with the police, because the police here do support and work through a PCEPA context.
We cannot improve our relationships with police until decriminalization happens, because as long as there is criminalization, the police will be working through that lens of focusing on sex workers and our job. Right now, we can't go report to police. As a peer support worker, when somebody comes up to me and gives a bad date report, I always ask them if they would like to report it to the police and I offer to go with them to the police station. Even when offered peer support, they still do not feel comfortable going.
That is the extent to which we do not feel safe. We keep hearing a narrative that training the police will help, but it cannot take place until decriminalization happens, because the police cannot be educated to support us until they are no longer working to eradicate us.
2:35 p.m.
Liberal
Élisabeth Brière Liberal Sherbrooke, QC
Thank you very much.
Now, I'd like Ms. Clancey to talk about amendments to the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act that would better protect sex trade workers and also combat human trafficking.
2:35 p.m.
Executive Director, SWAN Vancouver Society
Thank you for the question. PCEPA needs to be repealed in its entirety. No amendments that could be made would protect sex workers.
As I stated previously, for the population of sex workers we work with—newcomer, migrant and immigrant women—PCEPA acts as the gateway and the entry point into multi-layered criminalization. Police, through PCEPA, work in a tag-team approach, either with municipal bylaw officers or with Canada Border Services. Making sex work safer cannot be done through PCEPA. PCEPA has to be repealed in its entirety.
2:35 p.m.
Liberal
Élisabeth Brière Liberal Sherbrooke, QC
I understand what you are saying and I listened carefully to your presentation. However, if the act were to be repealed completely, what could we do about human trafficking?
During the various testimonies, we were told that there was the sex worker industry and that there was human trafficking. Many people do not make the distinction, but many separate the two concepts.
What is your view on this, Ms. Clancey?