Nicole Demers

[Labour, October 2nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Labour is confusing the right to refuse to work with preventive withdrawal. Under the Quebec system, women have a 90% salary replacement whereas women working in a federal jurisdiction in Quebec are not entitled to anything.

Rather than leaving these Quebec women to fend for themselves, will the Conservative government take action and come to an agreement with the Quebec government to allow these women to be covered under the Quebec preventive withdrawal program?

[Labour, October 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, that is valid until a physician says yes or no, which could be in an hour or a day.

The minister must know that some Quebec employees working under the Canada Labour Code are covered against all occupational injuries and diseases under the CSST.

What is keeping the Conservatives from reaching an agreement with the Government of Quebec to allow pregnant women working under the Canada Labour Code to enjoy real preventive withdrawal?

[Labour, October 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Labour says that pregnant women may take advantage of preventive withdrawal in federally regulated businesses. The salary, however, for the two groups of women is not the same, since Quebec's CSST pays 90% of an employee's salary, whereas there is nothing like this for women working under the Canada Labour Code.

Does the minister realize that this salary difference creates two classes of female citizens in Quebec?

[Labour, September 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is missing the point. The most shocking thing about this is that, under the Canada Labour Code, Quebec companies already have to provide their employees with CSST coverage for workplace accidents.

Why refuse to do the same for pregnant women working in Quebec who are calling for preventive withdrawal?

[Labour, September 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, in answering a question on preventive withdrawal, the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development said that it is important to her government to treat men and women equally. The minister could start by ensuring that female workers in Quebec are all treated the same way.

Does the minister plan to implement a preventive withdrawal program for female workers in Quebec who work under the Canada Labour Code?

[Criminal Code, September 29th, 2009]

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.

[Criminal Code, September 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, we will soon come to the end of this debate, and we will have to vote on this bill. That is why I first want to assure all my colleagues that, like all the members of the House of Commons, the Bloc Québécois believes that child trafficking is a horrible crime that warrants the stiffest sentences for offenders. We are confident that judges feel the same way.

However, the Bloc takes issue with this bill because it targets all forms of exploitation of minors, not just trafficking of persons under the age of 18 years, as the bill's title indicates. When they talk about this bill, the Conservatives always talk about “child trafficking” to justify their proposed minimum sentences of 5 and 6 years.

It is true that children are under the age of 18 and therefore fall into the category of persons under that age, and it is true that child trafficking is covered by the broader concept of exploitation of minors. But child trafficking is probably the worst and most advanced form of exploitation of minors. Many forms of exploitation of persons under 18 are not as horrible as child trafficking. People who engage in certain forms of exploitation do not deserve the same sentence as child traffickers.

[Employment Insurance, September 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I will rephrase the question.

With H1N1 on our doorstep, every pregnant woman in Quebec working under Quebec's jurisdiction can go on preventive leave in order to protect their health and that of their unborn child.

Does the minister plan to do the same for pregnant women working in Quebec under federal jurisdiction?

[Employment Insurance, September 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, a young female truck driver in Quebec was stunned to learn that the CSST could not grant her preventive maternity leave since trucking is a federal jurisdiction. She was asked by her doctor to stop working for her own well-being and that of her child.

What does the minister intend to do to ensure that female Quebec workers enjoy the same rights and benefits, regardless of the level of government that regulates their occupation?

[Ovarian Cancer, September 17th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, September is ovarian cancer awareness month. In 2009, some 2,500 Canadian women will be diagnosed with this form of cancer, and 1,750 will die because of it.

Ovarian cancer is the deadliest form of gynecological cancer affecting North American women. The five-year survival rate is 35% or less. The few symptoms are difficult to detect, and the survival rate could decrease considerably because of the medical isotope shortage.

Quebec's Coalition Priorité Cancer, which represents close to a million people, believes that the radio-isotope crisis is the result of negligence and lack of respect for people, as well as lack of vision and consideration for what people with cancer go through.

That is why we, like the coalition, are urging the government to do what it takes to improve the odds for people with cancer.