Justice committee  I do not know much about that program, but as far as I know, it is an investigative group made up of police forces from various regions. In your case, it would involve the Montreal, Longueuil and neighbouring police forces. The officers involved were investigating members of stre

Justice committee  I do not know where the funding came from.

Justice committee  Those are tools that have been put in place and are extremely useful. We use them on a regular basis. They are all extremely important to victims. It might not seem like much to you, but publication bans are a good example. For a victim who is involved in prostitution and who do

Justice committee  I would like to raise another point. This is a situation that we do in fact run up against. There are a lot of cases that involve intimidation, even at trial. This is happening at trials to this day. There is intimidation of witnesses, threats and attempts to bribe witnesses. Th

Justice committee  As far as I understand it, the joint regional street gangs squad is currently dismantled. That, as far as I know, is a provincial program.

Justice committee  I won't give you a personal answer but I can speak to our experience in terms of minimum sentences. Even when minimum sentences are imposed, it is always possible to avoid them. If it doesn't happen through a judge, it can happen through negotiation or by reducing charges. In ot

Justice committee  First of all, I would like to emphasize that this bill is useful because, as I said, the main concern of victims is their safety. As a matter of fact, in the vast majority of cases, when the victims testify 5, 6 or 15 times in court and it all ends with a 5-year prison sentence—w

Justice committee  Exactly. That is part of the approach. Given the circumstances, these are investigations for the purposes of corroboration. We never just simply compare the victim's word to theirs. It's never their word against ours. Our work consists in supporting that testimony by going into

Justice committee  Yes. We have seen how it works and in any case this is something that has been proven over several years in the case of procuring.

Justice committee  I hope not. That is inconceivable for me. I can't see how a one-year sentence could be used to avoid that situation. I would be extremely disappointed if that were the case. Regardless, I cannot comment on that aspect. However, it certainly will act as a deterrent. Currently, i

Justice committee  I don't think that could be a direct effect of presumption. In my opinion, that is a direct outcome of the kind of control these individuals have over their victims. We already see it on a daily basis in these cases. These kinds of incidents or situations occur on a regular basis

Justice committee  These are extremely complex investigations that are not only based on victims' testimony. That forms the basis. What is most important is the testimony of these victims. However, it's important to understand that these victims are dealing with serious post-traumatic shock, fear

Justice committee  Currently they are charged with two offences. In the case of trafficking, the advantage is that we do not have to prove prostitution or knowledge of prostitution. You have to understand that traffickers adapt. They will use middle people to train the girls, break them, in order t

Justice committee  Yes, but we should not have to meet the burden of reasonable doubt, which sets the bar extremely high.

Justice committee  Yes, absolutely, it helps us. That is what determines whether we can lay charges or not. For example, if the first victim testifies in her own case that she was kidnapped and that the five other victims were also in the same situation, then she can explain the context and the cir