Justice Committee on April 1st, 2022

[Naomi Sayers]

I think there is disagreement about how [Technical difficulty—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Ms. Sayers, is your screen frozen? Can you mute and unmute or turn the screen off and on?

Mr. Garrison, do you want to ask a question of somebody else? I've frozen your time. You have about 40 seconds or so.

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

I'm sorry that we have this unfortunate technical problem, but let's just proceed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Okay.

I will go over to you, Mr. Brock, for five minutes.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Thank you to our second panel for your evidence today and your co-operation throughout, and a special thank you to Ms. Smith for sharing a very personal and difficult story.

I want to thank you for sharing that, Ms. Smith. I share the comments of my colleague, Mr. Morrison. It was very difficult to hear that. It reminded me of similar cases that I prosecuted not too long ago, cases of similar young persons in your circumstances. Thank you for being a positive role model to your children moving forward.

I have a question for Ms. Smiley.

Ms. Smiley, I had the opportunity to review a piece that you wrote with Trisha Baptie. It was titled, “Quebec City murder underscores need to abolish prostitution”. With the time permitted, I'm going to ask you three questions.

First, in your view, can prostitution been made safe?

[Cherry Smiley]

No. In my view, prostitution cannot be made safe. This is because the inherent harm of prostitution is engaging in unwanted sex acts with men that you don't want to have sex with. That happens way more commonly than where women are wanting to engage. Being in that circumstance where you're engaged in unwanted sex acts over and over....

Outside of prostitution, we call that rape or sexual assault. We act as if this exchange of money or goods somehow negates that impact on women, but it doesn't.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

What do you say to those—and we've heard from several of these individuals—who support a full decriminalization of prostitution as a way to make the industry safer?

[Cherry Smiley]

It's a totally misguided...a total lack of understanding of male violence against women and how it functions in the culture that we live in today. It's not possible to make it safer.

Women who go in, I think, have different ideas about what it's going to be like, but the impact of having sex with men you don't want to have sex with every day, multiple times a day.... It is going to have an impact on you physically, mentally and emotionally. That's what prostitution is.

You can't make rape or sexual assault safer.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

This is my last question to you. In the article that I referenced, you made a point of saying that in 2014, Canada partially adopted the Nordic model. You specifically indicated that “Canada has failed to adopt the entire model and to consistently implement the law as it stands now”. You said that “the country has yet to adopt or implement robust social services and public education”.

On that particular point, what recommendations would you make?

[Cherry Smiley]

A good, solid recommendation—and I know there have been rumblings about this for years—is to have a guaranteed livable income, so that people in Canada have the income that they need to survive. I live in Vancouver. Housing here in ridiculous. If we were to implement measures so that everybody had a house to live in, and if we had services for women who have experienced male violence.... Even now, there are wait-lists for counselling and these types of things.

It really is addressing those inequalities and doing that in a substantial way. If we do that, more often than not, when women are presented with more choices, they generally don't choose sucking dicks for a living. If we set women up to succeed, I think that is what will happen.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

I'll direct a question to Ms. Sayers.

Ms. Sayers, I hope I heard you correctly in the narrative that you gave in the first five minutes that there was a disconnect between the legislation and the act of stripping.

Can you expand upon that?

[Naomi Sayers]

No, I was just commenting on that.

The DOJ in its summary cites what this bill targets. The law, in all of these discussions we're having here today, presumes to target prostitution, which is full-service sex work. That would only include sort of indoor or outdoor street-based sex work. We're not talking about other kinds of sex work. We're not talking about stripping. We're not talking about all those other kinds of ways that sex workers engage in work.

We're missing those important pieces, as well, because the police are also in those spaces and there is surveillance of workers in those spaces.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Ms. Sayers.

Thank you, Mr. Brock.

Now we go to Ms. Brière for five minutes.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank all the witnesses for being here this afternoon.

As many have pointed out, your testimonies are difficult to hear. I salute your courage and resilience. You have great strength of character.

My question is for Ms. Sayers.

So far, we've heard advocates say that only privileged people want decriminalization, because it was the marginalized people who felt the most impact or the most serious impact of prostitution being considered a criminal act.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on that.

[Naomi Sayers]

Thank you. I apologize if my Internet cuts out. I'm on my cellular data, so it's kind of shaky.

I think my brief draws out some really good assumptions as to how the law treats indigenous women in particular. It makes assumptions about who we are and about what we do.

When I walk into a mall, I'm not a lawyer; I'm an indigenous woman. I will experience racism and surveillance as an indigenous women. When I walk into a new court room, if the court security doesn't recognize me, I'm not a lawyer. I'm an indigenous woman and they will assume that I'm there as a client in a case. I'm probably one of the persons charged.

We have to remember that's how the law treats and sees indigenous women. Most importantly, that's how society sees indigenous women.

We have to look at what this law does and doesn't do. We also have to remember that Bedford said that if one life is lost under this law, that's sufficient. We don't say how many people benefit. We don't say whether it benefited one or two people. If one life is lost, that's it.

We've heard here today that there have been seven. There have many. I think that's what we need to focus on.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you very much.

What impact do you think decriminalization would have on the health, rights and safety of people who work in the sex industry?

[Naomi Sayers]

Yes, the one example that I gave to your co-committee member was when I was stabbed at work. I was a stripper and I was stabbed at work by another stripper. I couldn't call the police because I knew that the other stripper was a single mother. I knew that if I called the police, she and her children would also be harmed. I took myself to the hospital. I didn't call the police because I knew that I would be harmed as an indigenous woman. I couldn't apply to the victims compensation board because the law could see my work as being criminalized.

I didn't have access and I didn't have supports. Under Ontario legislation, OSHA, there was no recourse whatsoever. Decriminalization would help with that.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you.

I think I have enough time left to ask one last question. This time, my question is for Ms. Smiley.

Have you observed that the authorities, be it the police or other municipal authorities, have a different attitude toward indigenous or marginalized people when it came to law enforcement?

[Cherry Smiley]

I think that, in general, race definitely plays a role. We see with male violence across the board, whether women are in prostitution or not, there's often a problem, like “she asked for it". We see these issues of sexism.

I do want to point out that when I was in the Netherlands, I was speaking with a worker there who was going around to the women in the windows. She was told about a case where a woman had been assaulted, had gone to the police, went through the court process and the judge was actually a client of hers.

I think that we need to be thinking about this as well if we're going to do total decriminalization. Are police allowed then to just go and do this on their breaks? What about judges, decision-makers and city councillors? How does that impact us as people in Canada?

I think that's important to think about.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Ms. Brière.

Thank you to all the witnesses for your excellent testimony. It's been very informative. This whole study has been informative and all of you have contributed immensely.

Panellists, you're more than welcome to stay on or you can zoom off if you want.

I just have some housekeeping. I apologize to Mr. Moore. My own perceptions of time were not exactly accurate because I'm a novice in this position. I had estimated perhaps 30 minutes. It probably shouldn't take that long.

As you know, Bill C-5 has been referred to the committee and we have an obligation to study that. I was just getting some instructions as to committee business. I think as of Monday we were having our scheduled next study for PCEPA. The goal for the first hour is to have the witnesses come and attend and the last hour is for drafting instructions.

I believe Mr. Anandasangaree has some information in regard to the minister and departmental officials appearing for Bill C-5 on Friday.

Sorry, I shouldn't have said Monday. It was Tuesday for PCEPA. The first hour is with witnesses and the second hour is for drafting instructions. Then Bill C-5 and the study with respect to that, will be on Thursday.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Mr. Chair, we're proposing about five meetings for Bill C‑5, followed by clause-by-clause, with maybe a deadline for witnesses proportionate to how we usually do it, so maybe a witness list to be provided by next Wednesday around noon, and then the minister and the officials are available for next Friday, April 8.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Chair, I'd like to say something.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Mr. Fortin.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

With respect to Bill C‑5, I'm of the opinion that due diligence is required. I don't think we should delay this, because it's important, and I'm aware of that. However, Bill C‑5 addresses two completely different issues, one is diversion for the use and possession of certain drugs, and the other is mandatory minimum sentences.

You may recall that this led us, after first reading, to ask the Minister of Justice to split Bill C‑5 into two separate bills, in order to expedite its processing. If we had been able to agree on diversion, which I think was more likely or easier, we could have passed this bill right away, but that was not the case. I don't want to go backwards; we have to deal with the situation as it is, but the fact remains that the fear I had at the outset, when we proposed splitting this bill, is still present. I can't imagine that we're going to get this resolved in five meetings.

My colleague Mr. Anandasangaree called me about this, and we discussed it. At the time, I told him that I hadn't really had time to think about it. Since then, I've thought about it and discussed it with people around me. What I would suggest, first of all, is that we leave some room to extend the study, if necessary. For the time being, I think we could already set aside four meetings to hear witnesses on the issue of diversion and four on the issue of minimum sentences. That would be a total of eight meetings. Then we could schedule two for clause‑by‑clause.

That's what I'm proposing to you today, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Mr. Fortin.

Go ahead, Mr. Garrison.