I would like to make a comparison. I would ask my colleagues on the other side of the House to show the same respect they expect when they are speaking.
Tigers are very dangerous animals. They are also felines. But not all felines are tigers. Cats are also felines, but they are not dangerous animals.
I share the view that everyone who has ever exploited minors deserves to be punished. But the sentence must reflect the seriousness of the exploitation, its duration, the form it takes and all the other circumstances a judge has to consider in handing down a sentence. Not all offenders deserve the sentence the member for Kildonan—St. Paul, who introduced this bill, intended for child traffickers.
To fully understand our position, hon. members should first read the most important clause in this bill:
279.011 (1) Every person who recruits, transports, transfers, receives, holds, conceals or harbours a person under the age of eighteen years, or exercises control, direction or influence over the movements of a person under the age of eighteen years, for the purpose of exploiting them or facilitating their exploitation is guilty of an indictable offence—
The key thing here is exploitation. The clause describes a number of ways to commit the offence, but what all of these have in common is that they must have been committed “for the purpose of exploiting them”. Not for the purpose of trafficking in children.
Yes, as I already said, trafficking in children is a form of exploitation, but it is not the only method of exploitation. Members can read the entire bill and will not see a single mention of “trafficking in children” or “child trafficking”. The bill covers something much broader than the trafficking of children.
In everyday language, the word “exploitation” is a very broad term, but in this case here, it is defined in the Criminal Code. Let us see if it limits the scope of the legislation to child trafficking.
The bill lists the proposed offences to be added to the Criminal Code between sections 279.01 and 279.02.
The current section 279.04 provides a definition for the word “exploitation” found in clause 279.011 that I quoted in part just now. It states:
279.04 For the purposes of sections 279.01 to 279.03, a person exploits another person if they
(a) cause them to provide, or offer to provide, labour or a service by engaging in conduct that, in all the circumstances, could reasonably be expected to cause the other person to believe that their safety or the safety of a person known to them would be threatened if they failed to provide, or offer to provide, the labour or service—
It certainly cannot be said that this definition applies only to human trafficking. We are talking about causing a person to provide labour or a service by use of intimidation. That is a definition that certainly covers human trafficking, but many other things as well.
Let us compare this definition to the way the UN describes human trafficking. In its Global Report on Trafficking in Persons published in February 2009, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime wrote:
The term trafficking in persons can be misleading: it places emphasis on the transaction aspects of a crime that is more accurately described as enslavement. Exploitation of people, day after day. For years on end.
The use of the word “exploitation” in referring specifically to the phenomenon of trafficking in persons is inadequate. This is something much more serious. The comparison with enslavement is significant. Slavery goes beyond exploitation and child trafficking goes beyond exploitation, even though both are forms of exploitation. What concerns us is the application of sentences that were meant for child trafficking to all other forms of exploitation, .
Reading this interesting report gives us another reason to condemn the use of minimum sentences. Is there any other country that has minimum sentences for child trafficking or even human trafficking?
We learn that:
—a disproportionate number of women are involved in human trafficking, not only as victims, but also as traffickers. Female offenders have a more prominent role in present-day slavery than in most other forms of crime.
The authors of this report add, “This fact needs to be addressed, especially the cases where former victims have become perpetrators”.
Is that not the best reason to give judges the necessary latitude to take into account the specific circumstances of each defendant? Should victims who are forced into prostitution and end up playing a role in trafficking get the same sentence as those who profit from this crime?
Some might say that judges could hand out more than the minimum sentence. Nonetheless, if we trust judges to give more than the minimum in cases where that is justified, why not trust them to give a fair sentence in cases where a minimum sentence is not justified?
We know that large criminal organizations involved in the trafficking of young women procure them in countries where the poverty rate is very high. Under various pretexts, and sometimes by force, they are brought to rich countries where various means—sometimes even drug addiction—are used to force them into prostitution. If one of these young women is now at least 18 years old and accepts her situation, and if she has agreed to harbour other young women who speak the same language or are of the same nationality, are under 18 years of age and have been recruited as she was, who is to say whether she deserves the minimum sentence of five years under this bill?
When a trafficking network that deals with individuals under the age of 18 is uncovered and the police charge all those who were involved, the judge must have all the latitude required to ensure that the sentences reflect the role of each accused.
Therefore, there are two fundamental reasons why we must vote against this bill.
The first, is that the definition of the offence envisaged is much too broad.
The second is that even if it did not apply to individuals involved in child trafficking, there would be cases—and there already are plenty—where a judge would need a great deal of latitude to issue a fair sentence.
We must remember that, in Canada, it is impossible to become involved in child trafficking without committing at least two crimes that come with serious punishments: kidnapping and false imprisonment.
We found this important sentence quoted by France's foreign affairs minister, Hubert Védrine, when he spoke in the French Senate on December 5, 2001, about the bill to ratify the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children. He said:
The protocol states that exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
That is clear. That is what a law should clearly state when it supposedly deals with the issue of human trafficking.