Status of Women Committee on June 11th, 2009

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

You said there have been 5 convictions and that between 10 and 15 others were underway. This applies to 2008 or perhaps a little before then. One of you said that at the FIFA tournament, 40,000 women were at risk of being exploited. But it would not only be women, but children as well. We have heard about children who work in construction or who do domestic work. It really is a wide-ranging issue.

Are we working on all fronts at the same time, or are we limiting ourselves to the 2010 Games?

[Supt Michel Aubin]

I will tell you about our resources. We are not moving any resources to deal with that issue. As far as the immigration and passport program is concerned, we are giving top priority to the issue of human trafficking. I also mentioned that our intelligence branch is currently assessing the threat, which will allow me to make sure that our resources are where they should be on the ground. Of course, we are allocating our resources based on what our priorities are. If we learn that human trafficking is going on, I can assure you that we will make that our priority because victims are involved. It would become a priority case. It is a matter of managing the organization's activities.

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

There are no additional resources, nor funding.

[Supt Michel Aubin]

Yes, there are additional resources. Mr. MacKillop could answer that question.

We used part of the budget we were given to create the Human Trafficking National Coordination Centre, which serves all police forces, and in particular, the coordinators of the six teams in place in Canada that will focus on prevention. For instance, I can tell you that prevention is an extremely important "p". Even though we can be even more effective in the way we conduct our investigations and our prosecutions, it goes without saying that there should always be an emphasis on prevention. For example, Canadian society was focused on prevention with regard to drinking and driving.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Given that it's 12:30, and what we have to discuss shouldn't take us that long, we could do one more round of three minutes. I'm going to be rigid about my three minutes. Would you like to do that?

I'm sorry, we still have Irene and Cathy. We may not be able to do a third round.

Irene.

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

I must say, you confused me for a moment there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm sorry.

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

That's okay.

There was discussion about efforts being made to reach out to first nations communities on the protections that young women and children might need in that regard, so talking to those communities directly. I know that the Native Women's Association of Canada is very involved with their Sisters in Spirit campaign. I'm wondering if there's a connection between what NWAC is doing and what you're doing in regard to communicating to young aboriginal women.

I'm also wondering about the 520 missing and murdered women. Not all of those cases have been solved. There's a great lack of clarity on what happened to those women. I'm wondering if there are any ongoing investigations regarding these women being trafficked. Are they missing because someone has taken them and exploited them? Are there any plans to pursue that?

[Sgt Marie-Claude Arsenault]

In terms of the outreach with aboriginal groups, again, some of our regional coordinators have done some outreach and have met specifically with the Native Women's Association of Canada. They have presented some information sessions on trafficking. It is being done at the local level with our coordinators.

As far as the awareness within law enforcement, we designed a human trafficking workshop with our partners. As I mentioned earlier, we're travelling the country delivering these workshops with federal, provincial, and municipal partners. We also have somebody from Status of Women Canada who makes a presentation during those workshops and comes with very shocking statistics on what you're discussing, the missing aboriginal women. It's an awareness, again, because often it wasn't linked to trafficking. It's to bring it to the forefront and to be able to recognize that there is a possibility that they're a vulnerable group and that they could have been trafficked.

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

Yes.

[Barry MacKillop]

I would just add that we certainly don't limit our efforts to the federal departments in what we can do. There was a question on how many resources we have dedicated to this. What we try to do, and are trying to do through our efforts, is basically leverage all Canadians, whether it's local police or whether it's everyone, to assist in this issue. We do this with other serious crimes such as child sexual exploitation, where we always have our resources and the way we implement them is to try to leverage everything.

We do have federal-provincial-territorial groups that look at this, and we reach out to the local communities in terms of sharing that awareness of prevention and that education. We do try to maximize what we have and to leverage what's out there to get as many eyes as possible across Canada and across the world on this issue, because it is a serious issue.

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

The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women has suggested that sometimes, with all of the heightened awareness and hype, the media gets involved and there are other consequences that may not be quite so favourable. For example, migrants might be prevented from coming into the country—quite legitimate people might encounter difficulties. I'm wondering if that's a concern you have. If so, what do we need to do to protect migrants from that kind of repercussion?

[Rick Stewart]

Are you referring to exploitive consultants, if you will, or third-party intermediaries who are trying to bring individuals here to the country and what we can do against them?

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

No, I'm--

[Rick Stewart]

In terms of our business abroad, our immigration officers are trained. Their day-to-day job is to evaluate what we refer to as the bona fides of somebody's intended purpose in coming here. Are they really who they say they are? When they indicate that they're coming here, is their story credible, and does it really seem to be why they're coming here? Is there a sense that they're being coerced to come here? That's the day-to-day business of our immigration officers for whatever applicant comes in, whatever applications we receive.

That's why in working closely with our partners, the training tools that they're using specific to human trafficking are important for our officers to have as well. We do the same training with them, so they are trained to identify the signals or the things to look for. They are trained to know how to engage with people in order to get answers from individuals as to their real purpose for coming here. Through that process, we're trying to discern whether somebody is being forced to come here against their will, and, if they are, to make them aware that there are alternate opportunities for them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Sorry, Ms. Mathyssen, your time is up.

Ms. McLeod.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

As someone who is relatively new to trying to understand this issue, I've really appreciated hearing from you today. If I have time, my colleague would also like to have a minute or two.

We know that our colleague has introduced a private member's bill, but are there any other legislative gaps that you might know about in terms of helping you deal with this issue effectively?

[Supt Michel Aubin]

From a law enforcement perspective--and CBSA will probably have some points on that--right now we're working with the legislation. We have legislation under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Criminal Code, both of which provide us with a wide variety of legislative measures, if you will.

We recently had what we call our national workshop of the people who are working our programs, and there were no issues that were brought to our attention in terms of legislative gaps at this point in time. Our focus right now is working with the prosecutors to get them engaged and understand these provisions, and looking at these cases to see where human trafficking offences could apply, as compared to other offences, such as prostitution and what not. Right now, our efforts are toward working with the legislation.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you.

[Rick Stewart]

Perhaps I can add to that.

The changes I spoke about, which we introduced in 2006 and 2007, we did through a combination of what we call ministerial instructions and the use of the discretionary provisions that are in the existing Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to make changes or put in place directions to our officers in the field for public policy reasons.

Our act has a fair degree of discretion that can be exercised in certain circumstances, and we used that discretion in recognition of some of the challenges victims were facing, to put in place measures to help address them and help to support their needs. The benefit of using the existing discretions that are in the act is that it gives us a fair degree of flexibility to be able to respond in a timely manner.

We put in place some measures in 2006. As we started to encounter victims, we discovered that the length of time of the permit we were offering to them was not sufficient to fully meet the needs they were facing. So we took the decision to extend the time duration of that permit to offer them a longer period of immigration status. The benefit of extending that time was that it also permitted them the opportunity to apply for a work permit, which hadn't been the case before.

That was done in response to the kinds of challenges we were seeing being faced by individuals. We maintain that flexibility. And as we continually monitor this, if we find that the services we're offering are still not sufficient to address the needs of those victims who are coming forward, we will certainly look at what further changes we may need to make in response.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Ms. Hoeppner.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Are victims more likely to speak to law enforcement officials if they know for certain that the predator is in jail, or will be going to jail? Is that a factor in them speaking with law enforcement officials?

[Supt Michel Aubin]

I think I can approach that question from a more general perspective in terms of law enforcement. We're looking at victims of crime in general, and the answer is yes, if they know they're protected and if they understand that they need to be protected. That's probably something particular about this area: many victims don't realize they're victims. There is a bit of time or work that needs to be done with this. But when they know they're insulated from those who are mistreating them, there could be more willingness to cooperate. We've seen that in many areas of criminality in which we're dealing with victims or witnesses, or individuals.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

You're saying there's a correlation between, at a minimum, knowing that the predator is in jail and victims speaking out--there's a correlation between those two facts.