Madam Chair, hon. members, thank you for the invitation to appear.
My name is Miriam Pomerleau and I am the Director General of Échec au crime, the Quebec counterpart of Crime Stoppers.
In carrying out its mission, Échec au crime operates a telephone service for collecting information about criminal activities, in which it protects the complete anonymity of callers who make reports. The organization is independent of police services, but it collaborates with them by providing them with criminal intelligence that helps them work toward solving cases.
Échec au crime has been in existence for 25 years in Quebec. You will understand that I am not in a position to give you statistics of the same type that a women's crisis centre or shelter could. However, our organization is a very sensitive barometer of crime trends. You can see the evidence of this in the brief I have submitted that you will be able to read later.
What is obvious is that victims of sexual exploitation are staying silent and are themselves choosing not to receive the help that the system wants to give them. They are conditioned to do this: if they talk, they die.
The most effective way to keep them in servitude is drugs. That method is used to try to alter victims' judgment so they are simply desensitized, until they become mere commodities in the sex trade. The organizers and traffickers want their prey to be fragile. When they are using, they are easy to control. Drug trafficking is therefore directly associated with human trafficking, as shown in the percentage of reports received.
The traffickers' preferred drugs are opioids and psychotropic drugs.
One that comes particularly to mind is carfentanyl, a single dose of which is 10,000 times stronger than a dose of morphine. When cut with other drugs, because traffickers don't want to kill their victims immediately, carfentanyl creates almost instantaneous dependancy. The traffickers are thus able to dominate their merchandise: the girls and women by way of whom they make their profits.
Ketamine and GHB create a dissociative state. They produce a feeling of detachment from the body and lack of awareness that allows victims to accumulate traumas. The victims are in a state in which they accept absolutely everything that may be done to them.
There are also abductions. Women and girls are kidnapped, given a fictitious identity, and forced to offer sexual services. Gradual isolation is the most common method. Young women with a history of drug use are persuaded to have sexual relations for money, to pay their drug debts. They are recruited in bars, schools, youth centres, addiction help centres, bus stations, train stations and malls.
Street gangs have come up with a new approach by using the short-term accommodations offered on Airbnb. This makes the process of marketing sex even more anonymous. The victims go to meet clients in the rented accommodations and the high degree of privacy enables the traffickers to hide in the shadows and keep the money generated by the sexual services.
Unilingual 12- to 17‑year-old francophone girls from Quebec are highly prized in the rest of Canada. In Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, the demand is very strong. A lot of young women from Quebec find themselves in Ontario in a very active market, which is explained by the great ease with which the border can be crossed by land and the fact that section 65 of the Ontario Children's Law Reform Act allows young people who are aged 16 or older to withdraw from parental control.
This is a recurring problem. To eliminate it, interprovincial agreements would have to be put in place. Quebec police should have pick‑up warrants that are bilingual and contain a non-compellable statement saying that they can be executed everywhere in Canada.
In its brief, Échec au crime makes two recommendations.
On March 15, the Quebec National Assembly adopted a motion stating that rape drugs are a scourge and detection tests must be made more available in hospitals and, gradually, in pharmacies. The authorities at the top levels are waking up now, in 2023, 30 years after the psychotropic drugs used to beat and rape victims and keep them in a state of submission started being illegally marketed. This is not just inexcusable; it is inadequate. The shortage of statistics about this issue is directly linked to the shortage of people who can do the testing. That motion stands as the evidence.
Alco Prevention Canada offers reliable tests in the form of bracelets and coasters for detecting GHB and ketamine, but these products must be bought; they are not free.
This explains our first recommendation: it is imperative that a massive awareness campaign be launched to require that bars, hotels, restaurants and the organizers of big outside events offer free access to GHB and ketamine detection tests. The need is glaringly obvious. This is happening now.
Our second recommendation is this.
As the mission of Échec au crime indicates, we are dedicated to public participation. Inspired by the philosophy of Truckers Against Trafficking Canada, we recommend that a program be created to fund organizations that work to develop groups composed of members of the public whose role would be to monitor the ground transportation transfer points and work with provincial and municipal governments. These organizations could offer sponsorships to large Canadian companies that provide bus and rail passenger transportation services in exchange for training sessions for the companies' drivers and personnel, to help them detect human trafficking.
There are tremendous numbers of people who want to make a difference, so let's give them an opportunity to do it.
Thank you.
