Public Safety Committee on Feb. 1st, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I call the meeting to order.

I understand a couple of people are in the room although I'm not seeing them. I'm obligated to note that we keep to two-metre physical distancing, wear non-medical masks and maintain proper hygiene.

Before I ask for the two witnesses, Josianne Grenier and Sandra Wesley, I want to entertain a motion. At the subcommittee meeting we arrived at four decisions, and the report of the subcommittee has been circulated to members. I ask for a motion to adopt the subcommittee report. Pam is moving it.

(Motion agreed to)

Thank you very much. I won't go into any detail because we are running really tight.

With that, I'll welcome Ms. Wesley and Ms. Grenier, and ask you to speak in the order that you are listed on the notice.

We are running very late as you can see, so the overall hour is going to become 45 minutes. I'm going to arbitrarily take a minute off everybody's time. I apologize to the witnesses. I know it's difficult to get here, but we are dealing with the realities of virtual parliamentary proceedings.

With that, Madam Grenier, you have six minutes, please.

[Josianne Grenier, Development Assistant, Projet Intervention Prostitution Québec Inc.]

Good afternoon. Thank you for this opportunity.

I represent Projet intervention prostitution Québec, or PIPQ. We work specifically to address sexual exploitation and prostitution on three fronts.

First, we provide a place where people can go for their basic needs.

Second, we work to prevent youth sexual exploitation. We provide workshops and education not just in schools, but also in places where youth are more vulnerable such as youth centres. In those settings, we focus on protective factors such as self knowledge and healthy relationships.

Third, we are active on the ground, reaching out to those on the street who do not have ties to an institution. We provide support based on their needs. We also work directly in settings where sex work takes place, such as strip clubs, escort agencies and massage parlours, including the one where Marylène Levesque worked.

The PIPQ also does a lot of work with community agencies, schools, and the health and social service network, as well as prosecutors, the Quebec City police service and researchers. Through that co-operation, we can contribute our knowledge and expertise, and examine the prostitution phenomenon from all angles.

The PIPQ is ideologically neutral on the matter of prostitution. We maintain that prostitution covers a spectrum of realities, from exploitation to full consent, and everything in between. It is up to the person experiencing the situation to define and name their reality, and we help them accordingly. If the person wants to leave prostitution, we support them through the process. If they want to practise prostitution, we make sure they can do so as safely as possible.

It is out of respect for this wide range of realities and concern for the safety of the people we help that we are in favour of decriminalizing prostitution.

It was from that perspective that I wanted to appear before the committee. In light of the case that has brought us together today, I think it's essential to take a broader look at what happened, beyond the parole aspect.

Marylène Levesque's murder received considerable media coverage, not only because she was a beautiful woman with blond hair and blue eyes, but also because the circumstances surrounding her murderer revealed potentially glaring institutional failings. Many sex workers are killed in Canada, ranging from indigenous and racialized individuals to people who are trans and those living in poverty. Their cases, however, do not draw the same media attention, and the authorities may not try quite as hard to find the perpetrators. It is clear, then, that other factors need to be examined if the safety of all sex workers really does matter. One of those factors is the legislation governing prostitution—legislation that has undeniably fallen short of its objective, protecting workers.

The ideology behind the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act is clear from its name alone. The act's very existence and some of its objectives perpetuate the stigma around sex work, suggesting that it is necessarily wrong and shameful, that it should be hidden or even that it should not exist at all. The stigma is nevertheless a direct cause of the dangers associated with sex work. If you remove the stigma, sex work is not inherently dangerous. The danger stems from the fact that the person talks less about it with their family and friends. No one knows what the person is doing or where, so their circle of protection is small. Furthermore, people often see sex workers as objects, instead of women, making violence against sex workers somewhat socially acceptable.

The act also suggests that those who practise sex work are necessarily exploited, representing a significant value judgment. Here, the spectrum I mentioned earlier is important. When the legislation, policies and programs that receive funding deny an entire reality on the spectrum, or a major part of one, regardless of people's values, it is a recipe for failure: a segment of the affected population is cast aside. It's easier to put on the blinders and forget that those people exist. In doing that, the government is lending credence to a value judgment that overrides people's safety.

Safety-wise, the act is especially problematic in two ways.

First, criminalizing clients of the sex trade has done nothing to end the demand, or even curb it, for that matter. Truth be told, it puts sex workers at risk because clients, who are scared of being caught, bring workers to places that are more isolated—places where help is not available and it is harder to escape. It also prevents workers from taking the time to vet clients before getting in the car with them, since the client is in more of a hurry.

On top of that is the fact that the act is seldom enforced. In Quebec, for instance, just 233 clients have been charged since 2014, fewer than 40 clients a year. It can't be said that the legislation has had a positive impact. All it has done is prevent sex workers from better protecting themselves.

The same is true for the criminalization of third parties who may benefit from the sex work of others. In fact, that aspect of the legislation was deemed unconstitutional by an Ontario judge less than a year ago.

That brings me to a study that came out on Thursday, by Anna-Louise Crago, a researcher at the University of British Columbia. It reveals who sex workers turn to for help when they are in danger. The findings are telling and range from one extreme to the other.

To begin with, more than 40% of the sex workers surveyed said they turned to other sex workers or those in the sector, such as security staff or managers at the establishments where they worked. That means sex workers feel safest around their co-workers and third parties—those considered criminals under the act.

Consider this. Had Marylène been able to meet her client at the massage parlour, in the presence of a third party who was keeping watch, it is reasonable to think that the perpetrator would not have had time to stab her 30 times and kill her, regardless of his criminal history or the conditions of his release.

The study also revealed that only 5% of sex workers turned to police for help because they wanted to protect third parties.

The criminalization of third parties forces sex workers to choose between two options: forgo police protection in an emergency or put themselves, their co-workers or their bosses in potential legal jeopardy.

That means violent clients are not reported, and the knowledge that they won't be reported gives clients a sense of impunity, something that can prove extremely dangerous for sex workers.

Those were a few—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Madam Grenier, I hesitate to interrupt, but we're at six minutes at this point. I apologize for that, but we are under some pressure for time.

If you could wind up your remarks, I would appreciate it. Is that good?

[Josianne Grenier]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I apologize for that.

Madam Wesley, if you would look at the chair from time to time, I'll give you some indication of how much time is left.

With that, Madam Wesley, please go ahead.

[Sandra Wesley, Director General, Stella, l'amie de Maimie]

Good afternoon.

I had planned to give my presentation in French, but given how little time I have, I will give it in English. I'll be able to get through it faster.

I'm the executive director of Stella, l'amie de Maimie. We're an organization by and for sex workers. We were founded in Montreal 25 years ago. Every year we make, on average, between 5,000 and 8,000 contacts with sex workers here in Montreal. We are fully by and for sex workers, meaning that our staff, our board, our members are sex workers ourselves. We represent and are accountable to our community.

As you probably know, in the Bedford case of the Supreme Court, criminalization of sex work was declared unconstitutional on the basis that it violated our rights to health and safety.

That right to safety which the Supreme Court talked about is precisely the right to not be murdered, the way Marylène Levesque was. The response of the government at the time was to fully criminalize sex work for the first time in the history of Canada and create a set of laws that does not aim to protect us, that does not aim to improve our working conditions, that does not aim to make sure we can screen clients appropriately. The only objective of this law is to eradicate sex workers from Canada. When we have a government that chooses as an objective the elimination of sex workers, we cannot be surprised when aggressors choose to be violent towards us and take up that call to eradicate sex workers from Canada.

It's pretty rare that Parliament cares about sex workers and invites us to speak, and we know there has been no such committee for the dozens of other sex workers who have been murdered since this change in the law.

Specifically in the case of Marylène Levesque, many parts of this story are very clearly tied to the criminalization of sex work. We can look at the fact this man had been a client of a massage parlour on several occasions and had been banned from that massage parlour because he was violent. It was impossible for that massage parlour at the time to call the police or to call the Parole Board because sex work is criminalized and calling the police on a violent client usually means maybe people getting arrested, people losing their source of income, attracting more police repression to our workspaces. As sex workers, it's not possible for us to do that. If they had been able to contact the police or the parole officer when he first acted violently towards a sex worker, he would have been sent back to prison and would not have had the opportunity to escalate his violence and murder Marylène Levesque.

We also know that hotels have been targeted by police repression when it comes to sex work. In the summer of 2019 police forces across Quebec launched RADAR to encourage hotels and other tourism businesses to detect sex workers and to report them to police under the guise of potentially protecting them from exploitation. We know that when Marylène Levesque walked into that hotel on that night she was preoccupied with making sure she was not detected as a sex worker. She could not tell the receptionist she was seeing a client and that if she wasn't seen in an hour or two could she be checked on. She couldn't make any arrangements for her protection because that would have led to being detected, being kicked out of the hotel and possibly arrested or having her money seized.

We also know as sex workers that when we're victims of violence, when a situation is scary with a client, we might not scream. We might try to de-escalate on our own, because we know that if we make a scene in a space like a hotel, we will face the consequences of the criminalization of sex work.

It's very clear that the criminal laws against sex work that are in place put Marylène Levesque in a position where she was not able to screen her clients. No client will agree to provide ID and go through a background check before booking an appointment in a context where he can be arrested for buying sex.

We also see in the reaction to this murder that the response from Corrections Canada and the Parole Board have been mostly to say that they are against the purpose of sex, period. Once again we're focusing on sex work as the harm instead of the actual violence that someone has experienced.

I don't have a lot of time, but one important point I want to make is that this is not a tragedy; this is not irrational or hard to predict. This is the direct effect of the decision the government made in 2014 to criminalize sex work. It is the continued impact and it is to be expected. More sex workers will be murdered if we keep these laws.

The only recommendation this committee needs to start with is the full decriminalization of sex work.

I represent thousands of women. A lot of us have been victims of violence. A lot of us could have been Marylène Levesque.

We know for a fact that if Marylène Levesque were sitting in front of you today fighting for her rights to work safely, you would be dismissing her the same way you've been dismissing sex workers for over 40 years and refusing to give us the rights that we should have.

I encourage you to make sure that the work of this committee leads to actually respecting sex workers, understanding that we will continue to exist and continue to work, and giving up this foolish and problematic quest to eradicate us from Canada. We need to be talking about our rights as workers.

We need to be making sure that we don't just pass the blame to the Parole Board of Canada and Corrections Canada, because in many cases this murder could have happened with no involvement from Corrections Canada, the same way that many sex workers have been murdered in the past few years. I would even add that on the same night Marylène Levesque was murdered in Quebec City, another young sex worker was murdered in Montreal. No one has been talking about her death, and there hasn't even been a proper investigation.

That is the reality of all marginalized sex workers across Canada. We die. We hold vigils for ourselves and try to be resilient, but Parliament maintains the position that we should be criminalized.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Wesley.

Mr. Motz, you have five minutes, please.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

Ms. Grenier, it appears that the government is very reluctant to make this full report public. Did your organization ask to see the report and would your organization be interested in seeing the full report?

[Josianne Grenier]

Of course, we would like to see the report. From our standpoint, however, parole is really just one aspect of the situation. As mentioned, we feel it is much more important to keep the focus on decriminalization.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you for that.

The board's decision to release this offender despite his violent history put people at risk. While it's easy to say in hindsight, the experts I've heard from, including former Parole Board members, have said that there's no way this offender should have been placed back out on parole before a thorough review of those risks. That should have included a review of the risks to the facility he had been frequenting, including to the women who were there.

Do you think it reasonable, Ms. Grenier, that Corrections and the Parole Board should try to determine if the offender had been violent prior to his day parole being renewed?

[Josianne Grenier]

It's hard to say. What I do know I read in the papers, and since certain things published on other subjects were not necessarily true, I don't know whether I can answer your question on the basis of the information I read. That said, the perpetrator, like any man who commits femicide, should certainly have undergone a risk assessment, in my view.

[Sandra Wesley]

May I add something to that?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Go ahead.

[Sandra Wesley]

I took the time to read the Parole Board decision. I've also read everything I could find in terms of the reports on this situation. It seems very clear in this case that this man was not given proper rehabilitation services for the whole time he was incarcerated and that the evaluation of his risk to reoffend was not done in any serious way.

The decision was based mostly on his behaviour with other prisoners in prison. We know that men who are violent towards women and only towards women and only in intimate and sexual settings tend to be well-behaved around other men, and that's not in any way an indicator of their risk to reoffend.

It seems pretty clear that this man was a particularly high risk and that it was considered acceptable to put sex workers in the position of facing that risk, while other women were not considered to be good candidates for being around this man.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

That leads in to my next question. Do you believe that the Parole Board or Correctional Service took any consideration of the actual threat to sex workers from this offender when they recommended that this individual, who had a history of violence against women, engage in procuring sex, or in the subsequent actions and decisions that they took?

Obviously, Ms. Wesley, you feel that they did not.

Ms. Grenier.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

On a point of order, Chair, the Parole Board did not say this man could solicit sex, so I just want to correct the record on that.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

The Parole Board allowed him parole, knowing that was going to happen. They have the final authority on parole—

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

They didn't authorize that though, Chair.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Chair, could my time stop, please?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Your time has stopped.

I think you are probably asking questions that may be a little beyond the expertise of these two witnesses and may be better directed to people who are familiar with the Parole Board and prison services. I'm going to allow the questions under the circumstances and just ask that the witnesses comment within their realm of knowledge as opposed to the realm of speculation or hearsay.

With that, I'm going to allow Mr. Motz to continue.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

It would appear that no one warned the massage parlour this offender frequented that he was a threat to the workers there. Do you feel, given the work you both do and the background you have in helping individuals, that this is something that should have happened, or that this facility should have been warned since they knew he was frequenting one place? Should they not have been told that this person had this history and that he was a threat to the people who worked there, especially the women?

[Sandra Wesley]

Yes, absolutely. They should have been notified, but, once again, sex work is fully criminalized in Canada. That creates a huge barrier to sex workers' being part of receiving that information and being treated with dignity and respect. We see it in the reaction now from Corrections Canada and the Parole Board, in this blanket statement that no former incarcerated person should buy sex. We're seeing that there is no intention to actually address how sex workers can be warned and can be partners in our own safety.

It seems to me that the Parole Board's decision was not in any way based on any consideration whatsoever for the lives of sex workers. If anything, the objections that the Parole Board seemed to have about this man purchasing sex were rooted in a general sense that sex work is wrong and not a sense that sex workers are women who could be put in danger if they interact with him.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Motz.

With that, I'm going to ask Madam Khera or Mr. Lightbound, one or the other.

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

It will be me.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being here and for all the work they do.

I want to once again give my sympathies to Ms. Levesque's family and loved ones.

My question is for both of you, Ms. Grenier and Ms. Wesley.

StatsCan reported approximately 294 homicides of sex workers in Canada from 1991 to 2014. We heard from Correctional Service that it does not condone offenders seeking sexual services; there are no strategies and there have been no other similar cases to the one that took place. We also heard from Parole Board of Canada, which states that 99.9% of those on day parole do not reoffend violently.

Given the laws you spoke about, particularly for sex workers, is it possible that these incidents are not reported because there may be legal repercussions for sex workers?

[Sandra Wesley]

Yes, absolutely.

We know that sex workers do not report most instances of violence to police. At Stella we have a bad client and aggressor list that we've been running for 25 years. Sex workers report to us incidents of violence so that we can share that information with the community and protect ourselves. We know that since the change of law in 2014, it's even harder to denounce anything to police, and we know that police won't necessarily help.

It's also important to point out that, in terms of women who are incarcerated, a large proportion of incarcerated women are sex workers, former sex workers or future sex workers. We're very concerned about this general anti-sex work sentiment that's coming out of the investigations into this murder and about the effects this will have on women who are also coming out on parole and might be punished if they engage in sex work if there's this big anti-sex work attitude.

As you said, the vast majority of offenders are not violent and are not a threat to sex workers. This man was a threat to sex workers, not because he liked to purchase sex but because he was a violent man who targeted women in a very specific way. As sex workers, we need clients. We like the clients, and any attempt to restrict good clients from accessing our services only puts us in a situation where we have fewer good clients and more need for money, and we end up having to make compromises on our health and safety.