There are a number of options open to the government. One option is to actually strengthen the PRA process and provide specific policy guidelines that trafficked persons do qualify as people who are at risk. That could be done.
We could also provide guidelines under the “person in need of protection” possibilities. That requires, as you said, going before the Immigration and Refugee Board that now has dual jurisdiction over refugee claims and persons in need of protection under section 107. That's a possibility.
I think, though, that the factual determination you need to make in terms of a trafficked person might not require the whole complexity of the Immigration and Refugee Board. Work permits are clearly one possibility.
Certainly, I think the three-month temporary resident permit is just not adequate. I think a program with specific guidelines that transparently sets out who's eligible for the work permit and under what basis, and the possibility that it could lead to permanent status in Canada would be very, very helpful.
One of the problems for trafficked persons, and particularly women, that the settlement agencies have documented is the social stigma attached with being a victim of trafficking. Return to their home country means not only an increased re-victimization and re-stigmatization because of being trafficked; it also sends them back to the conditions that created the trafficking in the first place. There's a dual problem, which in fact makes it worse to return the women. Ultimately, the women need to be given a real choice as to whether they are returned or not.
I think a work permit and some type of status that could eventually lead to permanent status in Canada is the way to protect the victims.