Public Safety committee  Good afternoon. I had planned to give my presentation in French, but given how little time I have, I will give it in English. I'll be able to get through it faster. I'm the executive director of Stella, l'amie de Maimie. We're an organization by and for sex workers. We were fo

Public Safety committee  May I add something to that?

Public Safety committee  I took the time to read the Parole Board decision. I've also read everything I could find in terms of the reports on this situation. It seems very clear in this case that this man was not given proper rehabilitation services for the whole time he was incarcerated and that the eva

Public Safety committee  Yes, absolutely. They should have been notified, but, once again, sex work is fully criminalized in Canada. That creates a huge barrier to sex workers' being part of receiving that information and being treated with dignity and respect. We see it in the reaction now from Correcti

Public Safety committee  Yes, absolutely. We know that sex workers do not report most instances of violence to police. At Stella we have a bad client and aggressor list that we've been running for 25 years. Sex workers report to us incidents of violence so that we can share that information with the com

Public Safety committee  As long as the Government of Canada has as an objective the eradication of sex workers from Canada, it's really hard to think of anything that can be done in any government institution to protect us. The government needs, instead, to have an objective to give us good working cond

Public Safety committee  All right. I'd be glad to answer all your questions. As far as third parties are concerned, under the current criminal law regime, anyone who helps a sex worker practise is considered a pimp, or procurer. Therefore, if I work with a friend, one of us could be considered the othe

Public Safety committee  Yes, there are many things. I think the first mistakes in this case date from the very first time this man was ever arrested for violence against women and from every time after that. From what we've seen from the record, he was essentially warehoused in a prison for 15 years an

Public Safety committee  They could have prevented it to a certain extent. This case is such a clear-cut example of someone who should never have been allowed to be anywhere near women, but it could have been a case that's not so clear-cut. It could have been someone who's not particularly violent toward

Public Safety committee  First, the legislation criminalizes not only the purchase of sexual services, but also all activities related to sex work. This means that the sex worker commits a criminal act every time she sells her sexual services. This is much broader than simply criminalizing clients. The

Public Safety committee  Our organization is a member of the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform. Three years ago, we released a report, which I sent to your clerk, with very detailed and clear recommendations. In the report, we proposed that consultations be held with about 30 groups across Canada

Public Safety committee  We only receive reports from sex workers and disseminate them to other sex workers. We don't go to police, because most sex workers don't. In the current context, even if that massage parlour had contacted the cops, the likelihood of it being taken seriously and any meaningful ac

Public Safety committee  It's the complete opposite of that. There has been absolutely no evidence of any rehabilitation in this case. I know there seems to be a desire to turn the death of the sex worker into some sort of indictment of the criminal justice system, to have a more repressive and punitive

Public Safety committee  We absolutely would be interested in being consulted. At Stella we've been working in prisons with incarcerated women since the beginning of our organization in the 1990s. We see first-hand the overrepresentation of marginalized people and the lack of meaningful rehabilitation. T

Information & Ethics committee  Hi. My name is Sandra Wesley. Normally, I would testify in French, because we are a Montreal group. However, due to interpretation issues and time constraints, I will do it in English. I am very sorry; I apologize to Ms. Gaudreau and other francophones. I'm going to continue i