On Tuesday, June 29, Bill C-268 was signed by Justice Rothstein and read by the Speaker of the Canadian Senate, receiving Royal Assent by written declaration, and thereby becoming law in Canada. This is good news!
C-268 is a private member’s bill that was introduced by MP Joy Smith (Kildonan—St. Paul), amending the Criminal Code to enact minimum sentences for persons involved in trafficking children under 18 years of age.
Successful passage of any private member’s bill is no small accomplishment, but for MP Smith it is the rarer occasion of an amendment to the Criminal Code that was not a government initiative. Bill C-268 is the only private member’s bill passed in the current session of Parliament. Last to pass was MP John McKay’s (Scarborough – Guildwood) Bill C-293, the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act, in May 2008. In the last ten years, just 34 private member’s bills have been passed by Parliament.
But C-268 is significant not simply because it toughens existing Criminal Code provisions relating to child trafficking, or because it is one of those rare private member’s bills that makes it to the finish line. This bill has already proven terribly important because it – or more accurately MP Smith’s seemingly tireless efforts in promoting it – has brought much-needed attention and profile to the issue of human trafficking across and within Canada’s borders.
Estimates from the RCMP suggest that approximately 600 women and children are trafficked into Canada for exploitation in the sex trade alone, and at least 800 are trafficked within our borders for exploitation in the drug trade, domestic work and forced labour. Perhaps even more shocking, the RCMP estimate that between 1,500 and 2,000 people are trafficked from Canada into the US each year, making Canada a net exporter of trafficked human beings.
These numbers may be just the tip of the iceberg. The trafficking of persons has become nearly as lucrative internationally as drug and weapons trafficking. Trafficking is, for the most part, well hidden and poorly understood. We hear mostly of women and children trafficked in and through Canada for exploitation in the sex trade, but many more are lured with the promise of work or education only to find themselves trapped in highly exploitive forms of labour – in previous times referred to as “slave” labour or “sweat shops.”
Trafficking does not require an international border to be crossed, or even necessarily movement across any border. It can take place within communities, within and across provinces as well as across international borders. Simply, the trafficking in humans is about the exploitation of one person for the financial gain of another.
Trafficking in persons first became a recognized offence in Canada during the fall of 2005, when then Justice Minister Irwin Cotler (Mount Royal) introduced amendments to the Criminal Code. The following year, Citizenship and Immigration Canada introduced measures to protect foreign victims of human trafficking by providing them with temporary residence permits and access to health care. And now, MP Smith’s bill introduces mandatory minimum sentencing for those who traffic children under the age of 18, unfortunately an age group for which traffickers have already been arrested in several Canadian cities.
But this is and can only be the beginning. There is much yet to be done. C-268 has opened the door for the government to begin to look seriously at the issue of human trafficking and the role that Canada must play in responding to this ‘modern day slavery’ that is taking place within and across our borders.
There are other private member’s bills to consider, such as the Hon. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grace—Lachine) Bill C-269, which seeks to unhinge the issuing of a temporary resident permit to victims of human trafficking from their participation in an investigation or legal proceedings.
A coordinated, multi-level strategy is required to identify and prosecute perpetrators, identify, rescue and support victims, and to curb the demand for human servitude, sexual or otherwise. Curbing this demand will require a serious look at additional measures to combat human trafficking (see Human Trafficking: A Report on Modern Day Slavery in Canada) and Canada’s existing laws on prostitution, because the close linkages between human sex trafficking and prostitution are undeniable. This is a topic for another blog to come, but you can read more in Selling Ourselves: Prostitution in Canada – Where Are We Headed?.
Bill C-268 has provided a gathering place and focal point for a broad range of groups and agencies that are actively working to fight human trafficking or seeking to find ways of doing so. It has put this important issue on the parliamentary agenda, and provided Canadians a push to let Parliamentarians know we are concerned and want our government to take action and show leadership on this issue. This is perhaps the greatest victory of Bill C-268. Thanks Joy, for your persistence.