Madam Speaker, Bill C-49 comes out of a reality which I suppose none of us really want to accept.
I always think that I am optimistic in my viewpoint of humanity and progress in the world. One of the points I always make in that regard is that we conquered slavery, slavery that was part of any number of institutional and government makeups from time immemorial. We beat that one. We progressed. We outlawed slavery right across the world. Unfortunately, when we come to the question of human trafficking, the reality is that we have not. There still is a small part of the world, individuals mostly involved in organized crime, who are engaged in what in effect is slavery. There is no other way to look at it.
When I was looking at Bill C-49, I thought, do we really need this bill? There are provisions within the Criminal Code that would deal with what oftentimes is kidnapping, hostage taking, assaults, and more serious violent crimes against individuals. When we look at the scope of the problem, the ultimate conclusion we have to draw is that we do need the bill.
I cannot help but bring this home to my own riding. We have a major crossing in Windsor and Tecumseh and Essex County. In the last five to seven years we have had a series of incidents of trafficking in humans.
We so often hear about young women in particular, and sometimes young men but almost always young women, who are being trafficked for the purpose of the sex trade. But there are others who appear to be used to provide cheap slave labour in the garment industry, the farming industry, which is all in the U.S. There are even people in the service industry, in restaurants and hotels. These people work at way below minimum wage in working conditions that oftentimes are horrible. They are doing so because of threat to their personal safety and oftentimes threats to their family members in their country of origin. We have seen that.
We have had some tragedies in Windsor as a result of this type of crime. There is a train tunnel that crosses between Windsor and Detroit. In the last five to seven years I think there have been three deaths as people were being smuggled through the tunnel. We think at least on one occasion it was one of the smugglers who was killed. The other two were victims of these crimes.
We have seen from some of the victims who have been apprehended that they come from all over the world. They come from Asia, China, Vietnam and India.
As we heard earlier from the Bloc member, a large number of people, especially young women, come from the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe. Some come from the Middle East. Interestingly enough a number of people come from Central and South America. They come up to Canada usually by boat along Canada's shores and then they are smuggled into the United States as what in effect will be slave labour.
There is no question about the problem. We heard from the parliamentary secretary the figure of 700,000 people a year that are trafficked. I have heard figures as high as a couple of million. The problem is there. Canada is one of the countries that is a recipient of this trade, mostly as a conduit into the United States. We have to deal with this problem.
Turning specifically to the bill, we have to ask the question, does it properly address the creation of new crimes? It makes sense to make the offence of human trafficking a specific crime. It would be much easier for our prosecutors and our police forces to obtain convictions if there was a specific charge.
Similarly, the additional charge that is being created which would make receiving a material benefit a crime under our Criminal Code makes sense. That one is often very difficult to establish. It may be taken into account in the sentencing, but right now, simply by showing that somebody has trafficked in humans, perhaps in the form of kidnapping or hostage taking, and then trying to prove that it is a separate crime because one has received a material benefit does not exist in our Criminal Code. The creation of the additional charge makes sense.
Often the victims' passports, travel documents, visas, and personal identification documents are removed from them as another means of control. By creating that specific offence, as is done in this bill, it would attack that conduct and convert it into a serious criminal offence punishable by what I consider to be fairly severe penalties.
I suppose I am speaking not only to the other members of the justice committee who will be reviewing this bill but also to the Canadian people more specifically when I say that one does have to be careful. The bill has significant limitations in terms of how it would be used. In order for us to comprehend that, we have to understand the nature of these crimes.
The vast majority of these crimes are perpetrated by organized crime around the globe. Because of the nature of the traffic in this country, a great deal of that organized crime, and in particular the ringleaders of those crime syndicates are not here in Canada because the crime originates elsewhere, for example, in the former Soviet Union, in Vietnam, or in China. It is in the country of origin where the crime originates. That is where the organized crime head pins tend to be situated. A great deal of the traffic that goes on here is by underlings. I will not say that for the biker gangs which we know are involved in the trafficking in the sex trade. We know that a number of those principals are here in Canada. The bill, if passed into law, would be useful in getting at them. What we and the Canadian public have to appreciate is that we will not get at the kingpins who are elsewhere, whether they are in the United States, in Europe, or in Asia. We will not be able to get at them with this bill.
We do need to take a more proactive position internationally on combating crime at its source. At least since the second world war we have done a reasonably good job of interacting with Interpol in dealing with crimes that are coming out of Europe. We have not been nearly as successful in other parts of the world. That is something we need to work on.
I do not think it can be done with legislation. It is one of those things where as parliamentarians we like to think we can resolve all problems. Maybe the Conservatives do not believe that, but I think the rest of us from time to time think we can resolve all problems by passing laws in this House. This is one of those times when it is clear it is not. This problem is only going to resolve itself, and I say that probably in the majority of cases, by getting to the source back in the countries of origin. That means international cooperation with governments across the globe.
It also speaks to another point. I want to raise the issue of terrorism and the amount of effort we have put into combating that. We have learned a lot about how to prevent incursions into Canada, as the Americans have in the U.S., those ideas, those thoughts and those enforcement mechanisms that we have developed to fight the agent who is coming into Canada on a clandestine operation or the terrorist bent on committing a serious crime. We have become much better at getting at that.
We have not done the same at stopping the flow of human traffic, but we have learned. We can apply those same new thoughts, principles and mechanisms to help fight human trafficking, to stop it from happening in Canada.
We can only do that with international cooperation with police forces around the globe. A good deal is being done at the UN at this time. We have to insist that more be done by countries that look the other way when young women are trafficked out of the former Soviet Union or young workers out of China, Vietnam or India. When governments look the other way, when local police forces and local enforcement agencies look the other way, we have to call them on it. We have to tell them that this problem which originates in their countries is being foisted on us and we are prepared to deal with it here, but we should not have to deal with it, that it should be stopped before it gets to our shores. A great deal of work needs to be done on this issue by our foreign affairs department and through our security services internationally.
I would like to make one more small point with regard to Bill C-49. I have drawn this issue to the attention of the parliamentary secretary. One of the clauses in the legislation is probably going to be redundant, if it is not already, in that it has already been dealt with in Bill C-2, the child protection act which passed in the House and the Senate and is waiting final implementation. There are a couple of other technical matters in Bill C-49 which I have some concerns about as well.
The NDP will be supporting this bill subject to those minor changes, recognizing that it is not a panacea. It is not going to resolve half of the problems we are faced with in this country with respect to human trafficking. Our government has to do more at the international level to effectively combat this problem.