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.