Status of Women Committee on Nov. 21st, 2006

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You have two minutes.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Okay.

Again, we're talking about places where you do your work outside Canada. The fact is that terms like “equality” are not ones you would apply in terms of the status of women and children. In places like Cambodia, Burma, and other places where you do your work, does that social lack of status contribute to the situation we see in terms of trafficking?

[Benjamin Perrin]

It definitely does, without a doubt. We published a report in 2001, which is also on our website, called “The Future of Southeast Asia”. A section of that report, which you can download, identifies risk factors.

Why does this girl or this woman or this young boy end up in human trafficking? What's special about them? What happened to them? In that country, because of the civil war, a lot of it had to do with the loss of a parent. The loss of family support is huge.

A lot of these young women were raped. There were no criminal proceedings against the men who did it and they're still free in the community. They have a loss of face and a loss of reputation. They're now sidelined and marginalized, and the next thing you know, someone comes along to offer them a job and they take it.

These are the kinds of problems we have to overcome, and sexual discrimination is definitely a big one.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you.

Ms. Davidson.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

Again, I'd like to thank all of the presenters. It has certainly been interesting information that we received from you today.

We've talked a lot about protection for the victims. We've talked a lot about the different countries you've worked in, and so on. But there's one thing we haven't talked about very much today that we heard from other witnesses. Some of them are suggesting that to successfully combat trafficking, we need to have a greater focus on the demand side of the situation.

I'm going to ask a very brief question, and then I'd like each of you to respond, if you could. What kinds of suggestions would you have for this government to work on the demand side of it so the victims are protected, but we'd be looking at decreasing the situations because we're going to be working on the demand side with johns, the pimps, and so on?

Could I hear your opinions on that, please, from whoever wants to start?

[Deborah Isaacs]

I mentioned the Swedish model where you decriminalize the victims, because in a sense they're still criminalized under Canadian law, but you don't decriminalize the pimps and the johns. In fact, you might put even more penalties on the johns than there are now.

I think they're trying this in Alberta to some extent right now. I've been reading lately about seizing cars, etc., and stronger penalties for johns. It would cut down on the demand, because if they're caught, they're going to pay a much higher penalty, especially since many of them know they're using questionable victims.

If you have people who don't really speak English and you're looking for services from these victims, you must really seriously question their background, especially since there is now talk about this question of trafficking. There is a much more conscious participation in it. You are a part of the trafficking, you're harbouring, and you're using.

[Irene Sushko]

I would reinforce that the existing legislation has to be completely enforced, and that the penalties have to be enforced as well.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Is there enough legislation now, which is just not enforced, or do we need more?

[Irene Sushko]

I'm not totally familiar with the legislation.

Obviously, legislation has to be reviewed from time to time, depending on situations and what is arising. I think a review of the legislation to make sure we are meeting all the needs of this issue is important. But certainly, what exists must be enforced. Penalties, perhaps, should be increased. We should look at that.

As well, we need to have some type of roster, such as we have for pedophiles, some way of identifying these people and making sure we know who they are. They seem to be able to skim right out of one situation and into another. I think the awareness, for the community, for the police, and everyone else, to be able to identify these people when they see them, is important.

The training that I spoke about, a service-wide, mandatory training program, should be initiated with everyone participating and being made aware.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

Barbara.

[Barbara Kryszko]

As I mentioned before, we do support the Swedish model. One thing about the Swedish model is that law enforcement has to be trained in the law. They have to receive gender sensitization when it comes to implementation. That is one aspect that would have to be part of any approach.

Certainly, as I also said, prosecution and strong penalties--probably stronger than they already are--are necessary for the buyers. There are well-intentioned programs, such as the john schools. But sometimes, someone will not be penalized and not have a criminal record because they complete the john school. If there is something like a john school, we would want that person to receive a criminal record, not just a one-day training program.

Also, we think a national education campaign is important, to infuse in different aspects of education--for example, with young boys--that women are not for sale. I think that has to be happening at an earlier age. We need to start looking at boys and saying that prostitution is not okay. They're basically growing up to see it as something that's acceptable. I think when you tackle issues like sexuality, that can be brought up: that prostitution and objectifying women are not okay.

In countries such as Sweden and in cities such as Madrid, there have been poster and other campaigns targeting men, saying that prostitution and trafficking exists because you're there, because there is the demand, and that sex is not for sale. This message, that it is not acceptable to buy women, has been spread throughout the country. We think those types of campaigns are important.

[Benjamin Perrin]

I'll be brief, since I think we're almost out of time.

It's important to distinguish the types of sex users we're talking about. There are essentially two types. There are the occasional sex users, who are people driving down the street late at night and for whatever reason decide this is the night they're going to pick up a prostitute. Or, in Cambodia, for example, they are tourists and backpackers. We've seen them, actually. These are young men, my age, who will just decide to walk in so they can tell their friends they did it. Those are the occasional people. These are the people you can really target with a deterrence message and for which programs such as john school can work. We think that you really want to focus your efforts on them, the majority of the sex users.

Then, be very, very clear when you're targeting the habitual users, especially pedophiles. At sentencing, there need to be expert submissions as to what harm is done to a child when they are abused. I think that's how you'll ratchet up your sentences. It's not necessarily by increasing the maximum penalty; it's by getting that information in front of a judge who's making the ultimate decision. That's something our police and prosecutors could work on. It certainly could also be considered an aggravating factor if the victim has been trafficked.

These are ideas I'm throwing out for the committee to consider. I'll leave it at that for now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'm going to thank all our members. I think we've all had a very informative session here today and have learned a tremendous amount from your presentations. I want to thank you again very much for coming, for helping us to put our report together.

We have a variety of committee business issues to take care of, so I will suspend the meeting.

Ms. Bennett.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

I just want to tell the witnesses that today the young McGill women are on the Hill, and I think a number of them are here. I think your presentations have done nothing but enhance their view of Parliament and the reason we as parliamentarians adore having people like you, who are totally encyclopedic on your file, come here to actually make better public policy in Canada. I just can't imagine a better panel for them to have heard.

I just sneaked a peek at your website, Mr. Perrin. You need to tell the story of how your group got together, in that I think it's probably totally inspiring for everybody, as to how you actually have focused on an issue and then made an organization happen.

So thank you all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We will suspend briefly to allow the witnesses to get up and leave the table. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Order. Could we get our committee members back to the table, please, so we can take care of a few items of committee business that we have here?

As you all know, we have a very busy schedule over this next couple of weeks. We were to have Ministers Toews and Blackburn come and speak to the committee on December 7, but that is also the meeting where we want the analysts to have the time to start to work with us and go over the reports. So could we meet from eleven until two, which would give us an hour to hear from both ministers and two hours to work on our draft report? We would have sandwiches brought in. I thought I'd do that ahead of time. Our budget is still good.

Would that be okay for December 7? We'd be meeting with the ministers and working on our draft report from eleven until two.

Ms. Minna.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Are we talking about witnesses at all yet?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Not yet. I will in one second. That was strictly the December 7 meeting to deal with our human trafficking report and the two ministers who will come before us.

On the issue of the meetings we're having on the cuts to Status of Women Canada, today at 5 p.m. is the cut-off for witnesses, as we had indicated before. So if anyone still has names to submit, we have to cut the list off at 5 p.m. So far, from just the committee members, we have 58 groups that have submitted their names, and that's without the government's submission yet, so I'm not sure where that number will bring us to. We also have about 70 or 80 groups that have simply sent in their names--there are 125--and want to come in.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Is there any overlap?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

What I'd like to suggest here is that we ask the analysts, after we have them all in at 5 o'clock today, to do a cross-section of groups. We've put aside two evenings for these sessions and we want to be able to make sure that we have a cross-section of Canada and interests, and so on. If the analysts would compile the groups that were submitted by the committee members and others into a suggested list for those two evenings, if that would be acceptable to the committee, I'll come back with the list to you that the analysts have recommended for the two evenings that we have put aside for Status of Women Canada.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

What evenings are they, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

December 6 and December 13.

The December 6 meeting was going to go from 3:30 to 6:30, and on the 13th, I'm suggesting 3:30 to 5:30. If need be, I guess we could add another hour to the December 6 meeting, if everybody would be agreeable to that, or we could just stay at three hours on December 6 and two hours on December 13.

We have a very tight schedule between now and the next four weeks we're here, in order to accomplish everything we want.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

I think we should leave it at 3:30 to 6:30, because I know we have a special kids' night that we have to be at. And then for the 3:30 to 5:30 on December 13, let's just go with it and we'll attempt to get as many groups in as possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Yes, we can always do things in January or February, or we could suggest to any of the groups that can't get in to see us that they give us briefs.

Ms. Neville.