Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for this excellent question.
Unfortunately, for the past five or six years in Quebec and Canada, street gangs have been becoming more and more involved in trafficking in young girls. Those groups used to recruit girls to dance in biker bars or to sell them to organized crime, but now these gangs have trafficking networks across Canada. These networks are very present in Niagara, an area I know very well. These networks no longer need biker gangs or the mafia for escort agencies, massage parlours or street prostitution. Their child prostitution networks are so sophisticated that it is basically their trademark.
Some gang members do nothing else. They no longer sell drugs. They do only that, because it is extremely lucrative and it is really hard to gather enough evidence to lay charges against them.
For instance, in the RCMP's most recent report with the latest figures, it clearly states that the first charges for human trafficking in Canada were laid by Peel Regional Police in 2008. That was the first time. Yet human trafficking has existed in the Criminal Code since 1995. But the first charge was not until 2008 by Peel Regional Police. That is unbelievable.