Public Safety Committee on Feb. 1st, 2021

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Grenier, do you have anything to add?

[Josianne Grenier]

I agree. The numbers are certainly low, first, because the reporting rate is low and, second, because certain murders are not necessarily linked to the sex trade when, in fact, the two are connected.

To comment on a previous question, I would say that I don't think it's necessary to prevent all former inmates from seeing sex workers. As Ms. Wesley mentioned, Marylène Levesque's killer had a specific problem.

Even if massage parlours had been warned about him, what would they have done? Parlour owners do not have relationships with police; otherwise, the parlour could be shut down, or the girls working there could be arrested or lose their jobs. That is the problem.

We know that the man frequented another parlour on Quebec City's south shore that same day and absolutely nothing happened.

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Thank you.

Could you talk about suggestions as to how the criminal justice system...? You talked about decriminalization, and I know the Department of Justice has a mandate to review the law. Could you perhaps suggest how the Correctional Service of Canada and Parole Board of Canada systems could be improved to specifically protect the lives and safety of sex workers who may be put at risk by violent offenders?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have about 30 seconds, please.

[Sandra Wesley]

As long as the Government of Canada has as an objective the eradication of sex workers from Canada, it's really hard to think of anything that can be done in any government institution to protect us. The government needs, instead, to have an objective to give us good working conditions and to protect our safety. Once that is in place, laws and policies can follow. Right now, in the context where buying sex and selling sex and everything around that is a criminal act, it's hard to think what the Correctional Service of Canada can do to address that other than simply have respect for us as human beings.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Madam Khera.

Ms. Michaud, you may go ahead. You have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here. I very much appreciate their participation.

I'm going to start with Ms. Grenier.

You said in your opening statement that Marylène Levesque's case had probably received so much media coverage because she was a beautiful woman with blond hair and blue eyes. Unfortunately, you're probably right. Another reason, though, is that the case brought to light egregious errors by the government institutions involved, and that is what interests the committee. Errors were made both by the Parole Board of Canada and by the Correctional Service of Canada. At any rate, parliamentarians should pay more attention to the potential tragedies that can befall sex workers.

Specifically, I would like to follow up on a question Mr. Motz asked earlier.

You said that case management teams were not in the habit of alerting massage parlours even if they knew the offender frequented the establishment. It likely has to do with the fact that parlours fear retaliation by police.

Is it common for individuals on day parole or parole to see sex workers? Do you have any information on that?

You mentioned sex workers having access to third parties. How might that work?

I'd like to hear your comments on that.

[Josianne Grenier]

I'm sure Ms. Wesley will have a lot to say.

Earlier, I didn't mean to say that the Correctional Service of Canada should not notify massage parlours. What I meant was that, even if parlours were warned that someone like that was out there and was likely to frequent their establishment, they wouldn't necessarily have the tools to do anything about it. They would not turn to police because that would put them at risk.

It is really important to give women the freedom to decide how to protect themselves. People often picture pimps exploiting the women; they see sex work as violent and sex workers as unwilling participants. It really doesn't have to be that way, however. There are sex workers who do what they do because they want to, workers who manage themselves in an organized way. For example, they may hire someone to protect them or split the costs and revenues from their establishments. They have the right to say no to certain client requests. In short, they are truly able to make their own choices and set their own working conditions. Obviously, when you work for someone else, they aren't always willing to negotiate those things. Be that as it may, those are some of the ways to make sex trade working conditions better. The important thing is it has to come from the worker.

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

Before we get to Ms. Wesley, I have another question about that.

Had Marylène Levesque known about her murderer's history of sexual violence, or simply history of violence towards women, she just may have refused to take him as a client. That leads me to wonder.

Since Mr. Gallese's case management team had the information, should the team have notified the massage parlour? That way, the information would have been available to everyone, and Marylène Levesque could have refused to take him as a client.

[Josianne Grenier]

Indeed, she could have said no to meeting him at a hotel. Passing on the information can't hurt—that's for sure—but it can't work miracles, either.

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

Thank you.

I'd like to hear Ms. Wesley's take on it.

[Sandra Wesley]

All right. I'd be glad to answer all your questions.

As far as third parties are concerned, under the current criminal law regime, anyone who helps a sex worker practise is considered a pimp, or procurer. Therefore, if I work with a friend, one of us could be considered the other's pimp. A driver or receptionist could also be considered a procurer. Basically, under the definition of procuring, anyone who contributes to our work is considered a criminal, even if they aren't earning any money. Benefiting financially from sex work is a separate criminal offence.

Of course, third parties tend to be people who are very helpful in the practice of our work. Thanks to them, we can implement all kinds of safety measures and establish a dynamic where we have more power over clients and would-be attackers. They see that we are protected and that someone will know if anything happens to us.

In Marylène Levesque's case, I think the perpetrator was very aware of how important it was to her that no one at the hotel realize she was a sex worker. All kinds of things could have happened. For example, if she was naked, would she risk running out into the hall and being found out, only to realize that the situation wasn't as dangerous as she had thought? Those factors make a big difference.

As for how many former inmates see sex workers, it's impossible to know. There aren't any statistics on that. Keep in mind that people from all walks of life and every occupation see sex workers for a variety of reasons. Parliamentarians are just as likely as former inmates to seek out sexual services, in a wide range of circumstances. What's more, those circumstances tend not to revolve around exploitation or violence.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, we're going to have to leave it there, Madam Michaud.

Mr. Harris, you have five minutes, please.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank both of the witnesses for their very important evidence. I think we haven't heard that perspective before this committee on this issue.

Clearly, it seems to some extent we may be barking up the wrong tree when it comes to the kind of questioning we've been placing before the CSC and the Parole Board, for example. I think it's good that there is a point of view we haven't considered in this context.

Thank you very much for your presentations, both of you.

I know it may be very difficult to answer from your points of view, Ms. Wesley and Ms. Grenier, but is there anything the Parole Board or the CSC should have done differently? As was pointed out, mistakes were made, decisions were made that led to this very unfortunate consequence for Ms. Levesque, and there is clearly some blame to be placed on the CSC and the Parole Board for their actions.

Is there something you can suggest that could have been done or should have been done differently that may have prevented this death?

[Sandra Wesley]

Yes, there are many things.

I think the first mistakes in this case date from the very first time this man was ever arrested for violence against women and from every time after that. From what we've seen from the record, he was essentially warehoused in a prison for 15 years and then let out without any meaningful rehabilitation. We don't believe in a punitive carceral approach. We believe in serious meaningful rehabilitation and in finding ways to make sure that if someone has been incarcerated, on the day they come out they are in a different position.

When it comes to violence against women, it's an area that's particularly mistreated in the criminal justice system at every step. We are in solidarity with a lot of the demands of women who experience intimate partner violence, in terms of the criminal justice system simply not being able to address that. A lot of men are violent towards women and only towards women, and that's not addressed.

We're glad there will be training on intimate partner violence. However, that doesn't address the case here of Marylène Levesque, who was a sex worker who was murdered at work, so not in the context of an intimate partner relationship. We think that should be included. When I heard about this training, my first thought was that obviously, once again, they will talk about us without ever consulting us regarding what should be said in that training and how that should be implemented.

I think it goes beyond training. We need actual policy changes. We need to review why we incarcerate people, what we do with them while they're incarcerated, how we identify those who can't be rehabilitated, and what conditions we can put on them.

I'm quite concerned that one of the outcomes of this will be to make it harder for inmates to get out on parole. We know that a majority of people trying to get parole are in prison because of poverty, colonialism and racism. We know that indigenous people are overrepresented and Black people are overrepresented. Is the outcome going to be that the actions of this one white man will lead to more problematic incarcerations of Black and indigenous people? We're quite concerned about that.

We need meaningful reform, not simply training and statements against the sex industry.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you for that very fulsome response.

Yes, we need programs in the prisons themselves. We all know that the prisoners will eventually get out, and it needs to be safe for people when they do get out. That involves programming that is often absent.

Ms. Grenier, would you like to add anything in response to my question?

[Josianne Grenier]

I think that Ms. Wesley covered everything.

There must be training. It's necessary to ensure that part of this training focuses specifically on sex workers. It's also necessary to consider any intersectionality that may exist.

In addition to the training, the human being who made this decision—

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

This training that was talked about in our committee was training for the correctional officers, not what happens to the prisoners inside the prison.

Do you believe there can be effective programming in prison for people like this?

[Josianne Grenier]

In this case, training doesn't seem sufficient. This requires a great deal of work.

I'd like to talk about training for Correctional Service of Canada and Parole Board of Canada employees.

The person who gave the man permission to see sex workers should have realized that this didn't make sense. In addition to training, as Ms. Wesley said, it's necessary to work towards a comprehensive culture change.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I think we're going to have to leave it there, Mr. Harris.

Colleagues, I had anticipated ending this meeting at 5 p.m. With some discipline with the witnesses and ourselves, I think I could squeeze in another round of two-minute questions, if that's of interest to colleagues.

Is that of interest? Okay.

Could I have a Conservative questioner for two minutes, please.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

I believe I'm next, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Van Popta, you have two minutes, please.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

I'll try to keep it to two minutes.

Thank you so much to both witnesses for coming here and sharing their wisdom and professionalism.

I also want to reflect on how difficult this must be for the friends and family of Ms. Levesque and for all sex trade workers who are murdered. The statistics in Canada are terrible.

In retrospect it all seems so obvious when we look at the reports showing that Mr. Gallese was a dangerous man and should not have been allowed to go unsupervised with Ms. Levesque. The board of inquiry found that there were many pre-incident indicators in this man's life that he was dangerous.

Ms. Wesley, maybe this is a question for you. You're saying that it's not helpful to blame everything on the Parole Board or Correctional Services Canada. Do you place any blame on them at all? They could have prevented this.

[Sandra Wesley]

They could have prevented it to a certain extent. This case is such a clear-cut example of someone who should never have been allowed to be anywhere near women, but it could have been a case that's not so clear-cut. It could have been someone who's not particularly violent towards women.

It's important to make a distinction. They made a mistake in allowing this specific man to be around sex workers. They also made a mistake in assuming all sex work is wrong. Their objections to him seeing sex workers and the objections that still seem to be talked about in terms of why he shouldn't see sex workers is that sex work itself is wrong and no delinquent should ever see a sex worker. That's also a big mistake that was made.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Fair enough.

I have a very short period of time and would love to hear an answer from our other witness to that same question. Is there any blame at all to be placed?