Status of Women Committee on May 4th, 2023

[Melissa Marchand]

Thank you.

Definitely the funding should be made available. Along with spreading the word in general, I think that would be the most critical and feasible approach going forward.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I appreciate that.

Thank you to all of you for being here. This is obviously an important discussion. Like my colleague from the NDP, I'm visiting this committee today. I don't regularly sit on it. I come from Kenora, also in northern Ontario, so I'm happy to see there's a northern Ontario contingent here today, but unfortunately, Kenora knows the issue of human trafficking all too well. It is part of the corridor between Thunder Bay and Winnipeg and it has really been getting a lot more attention in recent years. I think all of our community members have had their eyes opened to the issue that has been there for many years.

I would like to start with Mr. Flynn from the northern Ontario Angels. I'm curious to know a bit more about your organization. Does it operate solely within Sudbury, or are you doing work as well in other areas of northern Ontario, such as Kenora, for example?

[Derrick Flynn]

We're based in Sudbury, but we have clients all through the north. A lot of our work is done remotely by Zoom, of course, especially throughout COVID. We have support groups and peer support groups that we meet with on a weekly basis throughout the north. Throughout Ontario, we have a client base that we meet with. That's the majority. We do public education workshops as well throughout the north and in the indigenous community.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I appreciate that. Thank you.

I also noticed, just looking through your website and learning more about your organization, that there's certainly a component of indigenous culture within the counselling you provide. I think that's incredibly important. I don't have the statistics, unfortunately, for a number of the reasons that were mentioned earlier, but based on what we've been able to gather, we know that the overwhelming majority of women and girls who are trafficked in the Kenora region are indigenous. I'm wondering if you could speak to that.

I'd like to get others to comment as well on how important it is to have that cultural component when it comes to counselling. That's for whoever wants to jump in here.

[Tiffany Pyoli York]

Absolutely. Cultural sensitivity and cultural supports for any culture of an individual who is leaving a trafficking situation or who is going through a trafficking situation are so integral. We are the only non-indigenous organization to sit on the restorative justice committee with one of our local bands in Sudbury. That allows us to have those elders and that different restorative justice approach in a human trafficking situation. That really flips things from the regular narrative we have, which is that victims and survivors are very separate from the perpetrators. It's definitely an indigenous perspective on healing and making that come full circle.

Just to speak to your connection with Kenora, I also sit on the northern alliance against human trafficking, and we have members in Kenora as well. We share our resources. We're sharing our school protocols and we're sharing our pathways so that if someone comes from, as Mr. Flynn said, a different jurisdiction, we're able to say that this is my friend in Kenora, these are the services and this is what we can offer in that place. Maybe there's a place of safety there, or maybe we're going to head down south and I'm going to connect with my resources there.

I think breaking down those silos is so very important. Whether it comes from an indigenous perspective, from a settler perspective or from an immigrant perspective, whatever that survivor and that victim needs, that's what we try to provide for them. Sometimes it's flying by the seat of your pants and going, “Okay—this is what this person needs. How can we make that happen?” We're very fortunate within our victim services portfolio to really be able to work with our victim quick response program and to bring those survivors and those victims what they need.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thanks so much, Tiffany.

We're now going to pass it over to Marc Serré.

Marc, you have five minutes.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the four of you for being here today. Your testimony will help us with our recommendations.

Mr. Flynn, I'm really sorry for your loss. Thank you for your courage to explain about your daughter and the work that you're doing.

Obviously, Tiffany Pyoli York, thank you for the recommendations. You have provided us with seven recommendations here.

I want to ask this of both of you, to start off. We talked about 20 counselling sessions and one shelter bed. You talked about needs and the patchwork of services. What can we do as a federal committee here?

Mr. Flynn, you mentioned jurisdiction and being tired of hearing that aspect, but what can we do as a federal government, working more closely with the province, to look at the wraparound services the victim needs?

[Derrick Flynn]

First of all, just to be clear, I want to reiterate that the loss I spoke about was the daughter of one of our survivors.

We also are getting tired of the silos—trust me. The frontline workers are screaming at the top of their lungs. After this many years, we shouldn't have to anymore. We need to recognize what....

You know, play it out. A young girl is extracted by the police. They bring her to the police station at three o'clock in the morning. Now what? There are fewer than 20 beds between the GTA and here in Ottawa for specifically human trafficking survivors. As Tiffany mentioned, human trafficking survivors are unique in that they have suffered trauma that is unlike anything else. You can't put them in a typical shelter. It's dangerous to the shelter workers, it's dangerous to the other women and children who may be at that shelter, and it's dangerous for the survivor to be placed there. It's a failure every time. It's unconscionable that we have fewer than 20 beds from southern Ontario for human trafficking survivors. That's critical.

As I mentioned in my speech, typically it takes about seven attempts to exit. If they have nowhere to go, we give them a couple of nights in a hotel, a Tim Hortons card and a cellphone. Three or four nights down the road, they're back out on the street with survival sex. I guarantee you that within a week they're going to be trafficked again. It just becomes a never-ending cycle.

I hear from survivors all the time that they expect us to fail them, and we're doing a pretty good job of failing them. They're not really good at platitudes and shrugged shoulders; they want results. It's our responsibility to provide them with that.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Tiffany.

[Tiffany Pyoli York]

Thank you.

I can definitely echo the sentiments of Mr. Flynn that survivors are expecting us to fail. When those calls come in at three o'clock in the morning to the police station, or they bring a young person there.... A few months ago, that call was coming to me. Every call made by the greater Sudbury police and the OPP covering our jurisdiction in terms of human trafficking comes to me and my team. We're there at three o'clock in the morning and we're back in the office at eight o'clock in the morning.

I commend everyone who works in victim services in anti-human trafficking, because it's a hard job. We're faced with a survivor who says, “I need this. I need safety. I need a shelter bed where the people there understand that I will be waking up screaming in the middle of the night, remembering them branding me.” They need a place where they won't be disturbing other people who have their own challenges and their own trauma.

As Mr. Flynn said, human trafficking is so unique. It's making a commodity of a human being. That trauma doesn't just end in one year, in 365 days.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

I have 20 seconds left.

Stats Canada will be coming to the committee to testify, and you talked a bit about data. Can you provide the committee in writing with some of the data that you need to collect in order to better understand some of the elements? When we meet with Stats Canada, we can follow up with them.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much. I think you almost have a timer with you there, Marc.

I'll now pass it over for two and a half minutes to Andréanne Larouche.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

As I was saying at the end of my previous round, we talk a lot about prevention and help for victims, but we don't talk about how to detect and recognize cases of human trafficking.

Mr. Flynn, in your opening statement, you talked about the lack of resources, among other things. You also said that certain organizations obtain funding when they shouldn't have. I'd like to give you the opportunity to clarify your position on that point.

I also have a question for you: why are the numbers on human trafficking going up so much, in spite of measures taken in the 2019 action plan? Is it due to a lack of resources? You talked about a lack of communication and coordination between different departments and levels of government, for instance.

In short, I'd like you to confirm the information about organizations who should not have received funding and for you to answer my first question. I will ask the rest afterwards.

[Derrick Flynn]

That's a good question.

Human trafficking is an umbrella term, but supporting survivors of sex trafficking is not. It's very specific in the requirements. When we throw lots of money—funding—under that umbrella, it doesn't always trickle down to where it needs to go.

Education and awareness will always be a major part of the process in preventing sex trafficking and in serving survivors, but we need to make sure that under that umbrella the right amounts of resources are going to supporting the survivors in their recovery and helping them reintegrate back into society. That's what's lacking now.

There are people who are jumping on the bandwagon who are getting funding. It's not that their hearts are not in the right place and it's not that they are not worthy. However, in terms of priority, we need to prioritize the survivors and their recoveries.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have 10 seconds.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Ms. Marchand, you didn't get a chance to answer my questions. Would you like to add something on the importance of prevention? Why, in spite of the action plan, is the number of human trafficking cases still so high?

[Melissa Marchand]

We're in agreement with what's been said by the agencies beside us as well. More funding needs to go directly to survivor support and the understanding of the nature of the survivor and the layers that are incorporated into the healing of that survivor. It goes beyond just—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I'm sorry. I thought it was going to be a very short answer, but it wasn't.

I will pass the floor over to Lindsay. Lindsay, you have two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you.

In terms of finding independence if someone can get through and out of that lifestyle, I heard from many people within that system that a lot of things await survivors once they are able to get out, and some of that is their being indebted. Their traffickers will take out huge loans in many different forms in their names. There's a bill in Ontario that is trying to adjust for that.

You're nodding like you know about it. Could you talk about the importance of passing that bill, and also where the federal government can ensure that we play a role as well?

[Tiffany Pyoli York]

I was fortunate enough to be able to sit in a conference with the major banks in Ontario talking about the FINTRAC proposal. I think that's something amazing that's going on in Ontario. That's great for me, because I'm from Ontario, but what about the rest of Canada?

As I said earlier, the problem of human trafficking isn't specific or unique to one province or one community. If we can have this at a national level, that would be helping Canadians, not pigeonholing the people from Ontario as being more important than people from the north, the west, the east.

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

I probably don't have enough time to ask....

Go ahead, Ms. Douglass.

[Kathleen Douglass]

One of the things we have not really talked about are the newcomers and the international students. Certainly in Peel and in the Brampton area, we have thousands of international students coming in. Quite often, because of the background they have when they come to Canada, they are not prepared for what they are going to see. They are very often the victims of trafficking from well-meaning aunties, people from their villages and people coming in.... Understanding that they have rights and do not have to be trafficked because they have to pay back loans and are obligated to provide for their families has to start right from when they are coming into this country.

I think we also need to look at international students as being a prime target for trafficking. That is a GTA-Peel region issue.

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

Well, in London we actually have a case of people coming from Ukraine who fell into that trap. It was really quite disturbing, so I appreciate that point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you all—Derrick, Tiffany, Kathleen and Melissa—for coming and providing your expertise on this issue.

We are about to suspend.

We're going to suspend very quickly, because we have everybody online. We just have to check the mikes.

We'll suspend for about one minute.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Welcome back for our second panel. I would like to welcome everybody on our panel for the second half.

Today we have, from Statistics Canada, Kathy AuCoin, chief of analysis unit, Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics, and Lucie Léonard, director, Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics. We also have Shelley Walker, chief executive officer, Women's Trucking Federation of Canada.

You may have heard that we had a bit of a connection issue with our fourth witness.

I'm going to pass it over to Statistics Canada now for the first five minutes. You have five minutes to share.