Mr. Speaker, it does not give me much pleasure to speak to this issue because such issues are never fun to talk about. Nor am I very enthusiastic about it, despite the enthusiasm I typically exhibit, as our Conservative opponents have often pointed out. However, we do have to talk about this issue, and time is of the essence.
The Olympic Games to be held in Vancouver in 2010 will offer many people an opportunity to visit a very beautiful part of Canada for the first time. British Columbia is certainly a beautiful place. However, we know there have been a number of cases of human trafficking all over Canada and Quebec. Human trafficking, which also victimizes children, happens on every continent, whether it is in Thailand, the Dominican Republic or even Tanga, a small kingdom that I had the opportunity to visit recently.
Elected officials in various countries are worried about this issue because the number of human trafficking cases is growing. Children and women are being treated like livestock and stripped of their rights. They are often taken under vile conditions to countries they do not know and from which they will probably never return.
It is easy to see how this can lead to a sense of paranoia. As parents, as fathers and mothers, we all worry about our children. I am sure that this goes for parents in the countries that victims of human trafficking come from too. All parents want their children to take advantage of the freedom and rights they enjoy so that they can explore their childhood and develop their personalities with no fear for their safety.
Unfortunately, that is not what is happening. When a child is taken from its parents or a woman from her family under false pretenses, and that person is then taken to another country to be subjected to the base instincts of another, that is a very serious crime. We have to put a stop to this criminal activity. We have to put an end to the sad fate of the more than 2.5 million victims who are taken from one country to another every year to be used for sexual purposes and menial work—in short, for slavery. We have to put an end to this.
The staging of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver provides an excellent opportunity to establish measures to eradicate this scourge. I would remind the House that the World Cup in Germany was the setting of a number of incidents involving human trafficking. We do not want the same thing to happen in Vancouver, British Columbia, just as we would not want it to happen in Quebec.
We have already heard reports of certain municipal bodies in British Columbia that would like to develop areas where people who practice non traditional professions, such as prostitution, can ply their trade in relative security. We can already detect an undercurrent of sexuality associated with the games. This undercurrent must be inhibited in order to prevent any undue influence on the practice of human trafficking any more than in other situations.
Any time a large number of people travel to a specific location, naturally, the temptation for human traffickers is even greater.
Certainly, people who engage in human trafficking, those who benefit and make money from it, are more tempted to go to places like Vancouver during the Olympic Games because they know there is a great deal of money to be made there. There can be no victims without a victimizer. Unfortunately, that is another problem that needs to be addressed.
As my colleague was saying earlier, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration already implemented some measures in 2006, when we joined the Palermo protocol. The Government of Canada, through the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, promised that victims of human trafficking would benefit from the protocol and that they would be taken care of. That constitutes the most important aspect of our action. In fact, if we really want to be able to eliminate human trafficking, we must ensure that the women and children who are victims, the ones who are found and who denounce their aggressor and the people who exploited them for trafficking purposes, are adequately protected.
I know that at present, these victims are allowed to stay here for 120 days to decide what they are going to do with their lives. I know that they can have their case reviewed to determine whether they qualify for political asylum. I know that all that is done and that the victims receive medical care as well.
But we must not forget that women and children who are used for months or even years are in a very fragile mental state. I hope that the medical care they receive includes psychological and psychiatric treatment.
I also hope that when these people have to face Canadian citizenship and immigration officials, they can take advantage of the refugee appeal division. But this poses a problem, however: the refugee appeal division is not yet in place in Canada. It is all well and good to say that people can claim refugee status, but that does not mean much if there is no one to rule on refugee claims.
I am also aware that the problem of human trafficking has existed for a number of years. In Quebec, however, we were not as aware of this problem, even though there were cases of child abduction and rape, because we knew that there were people who willingly worked as exotic or erotic entertainers, for example, without being forced. It is not the same situation when children are abducted.
We did not really know that human trafficking was so widespread. The advent of the Internet has opened our eyes to the fact that now, crime and organized crime have no borders or boundaries. This means that from now on, we must be increasingly aware of these situations and concern ourselves with the fate of women and children in other countries.
In recent months, two Canadians have been arrested in Thailand for purchasing the sexual services of children. We cannot escape this reality. We can never escape this reality. Sexual abuse and human trafficking have no borders and so we have to educate anyone who may come into contact with the victims. This must be carried out not only at the local, municipal and provincial level, but also at the national and international level.
It is important to remember that awareness and information are the most important tools we have to put an end to this trafficking. If we do not take action now, if we do not immediately take steps to ensure that, in 2010, Vancouver will be a good place to be, a place that people will choose to go to and where they will have the necessary security to enjoy the Olympic Games, we will find ourselves in a situation where there will be many victims. It is best to take action now. It is best to ensure right now that we have taken all the necessary measures and that we have all the tools at our disposal to eradicate human trafficking.
I will have to stop, as I can no longer speak. I regret that very much.