Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate. For members who move motions and introduce bills, it is an important time because we generally do so with a great deal of conviction, and that is certainly the best way to call political attention to an issue that we care about.
As my colleagues know, I am a strong proponent of private members' business, and I hope greater importance will be attached to this particular aspect in the near future. I thank all of my Bloc Québécois colleagues who support me in this endeavour to raise the value of what MPs do.
As I think we said during the first hour of debate, the Bloc Québécois will not support this bill. Although we are extremely concerned about the issue of human trafficking and we realize how important this issue is, we have a problem with the proposed remedy.
I was in this House in 2005 when we passed the provisions to be added to the Criminal Code concerning human trafficking, and I was also in this House when my colleague from Québec, who is now deputy leader, led the fight against the exploitation of women in the sex trade.
There are linkages between trafficking in women, exploitation, the sex trade and globalization. It is extremely demoralizing to know that human trafficking, one of the most horrible and atrocious practices, does take place. It is incredible that individuals would organize and carry out the marketing of human beings and that this phenomenon has grown in recent decades on all five continents.
I was reading that a UN agency estimates that between 700,000 and 4 million individuals are victims of human trafficking world-wide. This phenomenon is very disturbing.
Human trafficking represents a loathsome violation of human rights because it is a practice that is incompatible with human dignity. When some individuals assume the right to traffic in human beings, they reduce a human being to a mere object of trade. That is what trafficking in humans represents. The human being is reduced to a slave who is vilely exploited. That is not acceptable. It is carried out with all types of schemes involving trickery, corruption, violence, constraint, confinement, blackmail, deprivation of freedom, and even more troubling, identity theft.
In 2005, the legislators of this Parliament were well advised to include in the Criminal Code a specific offence enabling crown attorneys to bring charges.
I would like to provide a few statistics.
Canada is not untouched by this phenomenon. One would think that this phenomenon does not exist in countries as rich and prosperous as Canada, which operate under the rule of law and where freedoms are protected, and where there are courts of law and charters of human rights to guarantee freedoms. However, that is not the case.
I managed to get some statistics from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We made a conservative estimate, and by “conservative”, I mean prudent. I would not want anyone to think that these numbers came from the Conservative Party. These are prudent numbers that prompt us to be particularly circumspect when discussing this phenomenon.
A conservative estimate suggests that every year in Canada, 3,600 people fall prey to human traffickers. This is not a marginal phenomenon. Of those people, 600 are victims of trafficking for sexual purposes: pornography, prostitution, exotic massage and sex tourism. Another group of people in Canada fall prey to human traffickers in connection with drug trafficking, forced marriage or domestic labour. People are brought to Canada by force, assigned to a residence and denied their freedom. That is also a form of human trafficking. Examples of this have made the headlines in Montreal. This phenomenon exists.
Eight hundred people are victims of human trafficking in connection with drug trafficking, forced marriage, domestic labour, and work in the manufacturing and clothing sectors. More troubling still is the fact that yet another group of people is being bought and sold. Between 1,500 and 2,000 people who are bought and sold pass through Canada. They are brought here to large urban centres, then moved to other destinations where they are to be sold.
There is something wrong with this bill. I believe that the bill's sponsor had good intentions. He has worked very hard on the Standing Committee on Status of Women. However, the Bloc Québécois is not convinced that the Criminal Code provisions that permit charges to be laid need additional listed violations and mandatory minimum sentences.
Parliamentarians here will acknowledge that the Bloc Québécois' positions are consistent. We have never been comfortable with mandatory minimum sentences. There is a lot of literature on the subject, even in the Department of Justice. I have studies conducted by Justice Canada showing that mandatory minimum sentences are not the magical deterrent some people think they are. Not only that, but they can be quite negative when it comes to plea bargaining.
The Bloc Québécois has been a leader in the fight against organized crime. I am not the sort of person who likes to blow his own horn, but when I have to, I will. I introduced the first anti-gang bill in this House in 1995. The former member for Charlesbourg, Richard Marceau, a bright light, an enlightened jurist and a great man who served the people of Charlesbourg well, recommended that the $1,000 bill be removed from circulation and, in the dying days of the Martin government, got a bill passed to reverse the onus of proof for proceeds of crime.
The Bloc Québécois is uncomfortable with mandatory minimum sentences, because we believe that they needlessly tie the hands of the people who administer justice, such as judges and all those involved in a trial. This is not the way to achieve our objective.
It is not that the Bloc Québécois is not sensitive to human trafficking. In 2005, the Bloc Québécois supported the proposed amendments to the Criminal Code. We therefore will not support the bill, and I am certain that our constituents understand our rationale, as I have explained it.