Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the 55th meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on Tuesday, February 1, 2022, the committee will commence its study on human trafficking of women, girls and gender-diverse people.
Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.
I'd like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members.
Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, and please mute yourselves when you are not speaking. For interpretation for those on Zoom, you will have the choice at the bottom of the screen of floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel. All comments should be addressed through the chair. For members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. For those on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function.
As usual, we're going to do our trigger warning, because that's what we do here in status of women. Before we welcome our witnesses, I would like to provide this trigger warning. This will be a difficult study. We will be discussing experiences related to abuse. This may be triggering to viewers, members or staff with similar experiences. If you feel distressed or if you need help, please advise the clerk.
Just like we have done in the previous studies, if there are any issues at any time, just let us know and we can work together to move forward.
I'd now like to welcome our guests for the first panel. From the Canada Border Services Agency, we have Daniel Anson. He's the director general of intelligence and investigations. From the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, we have Michelle Van De Bogart, director general, law enforcement. From the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we have Superintendent Kimberly Taplin, director general, national crime prevention and indigenous policing services. As well, we have Captain Jennifer Demers, national human trafficking section.
We'll be providing you each with five minutes. When you see me start rolling my pen around, that means you have about 15 seconds to wrap up. If we can keep that as close as possible to five minutes so we can get all of our questions through, that would be wonderful.
To start our presentations, we will pass it over to Daniel Anson.
Daniel, you have five minutes.