SSLR Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Subcommittee on Solicitation Laws of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, October 21, 2003

º

1610

The Chair (Hon. Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre, Lib.))

Ms. Cherry Kingsley (Special Advisor, International Centre to Combat Exploitation of Children)

º

1615

º

1620

The Chair

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

The Chair

º

1625

Mr. Roy Jones (Director, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada)

º

1630

Mr. James Moore (Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Roy Jones

º

1635

º

1640

The Chair

Mr. James Moore

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

Mr. James Moore

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

Mr. James Moore

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

Mr. James Moore

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

Mr. Roy Jones

º

1645

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

Mr. James Moore

The Chair

Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga—Maisonneuve)

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

Mr. Réal Ménard

º

1650

Mr. Roy Jones

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

Mr. Réal Ménard

º

1655

The Chair

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

The Chair

Mr. Inky Mark (Dauphin—Swan River, PC)

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

Mr. Inky Mark

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

Mr. Inky Mark

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

Mr. Inky Mark

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

Mr. Inky Mark

»

1700

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

Mr. Inky Mark

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

»

1705

Mr. Inky Mark

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP)

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

»

1710

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

»

1715

The Chair

Mr. Roy Jones

The Chair

Mr. Roy Jones

The Chair

Mr. Roy Jones

The Chair

Mr. Roy Jones

»

1720

The Chair

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

The Chair

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

The Chair

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

The Chair

»

1725

Mr. Inky Mark

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

Mr. Inky Mark

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

»

1730

Mr. Inky Mark

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

Mr. Inky Mark

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Cherry Kingsley

The Chair

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CANADA

Subcommittee on Solicitation Laws of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights

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NUMBER 003

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Tuesday, October 21, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

º  (1610)  

[English]

    The Chair (Hon. Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre, Lib.)): I call the committee to order. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are carrying out a review of the solicitation laws.

    Today we have with us two sets of witnesses: from the International Centre to Combat Exploitation of Children, Cherry Kingsley, and from Statistics Canada, Roy Jones.

    Cherry, you have 10 minutes, and then Mr. Jones will present for 10 minutes. We'll ask you questions after that.

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley (Special Advisor, International Centre to Combat Exploitation of Children): I'm going to talk about the communicating law, the bawdy house law, some of the procurement issues, the application and enforcement of the law, and then some of the more general public attitudes, such how this discussion is starting to take place in the public forum.

    I'm going to try to represent as much as possible the perspective of young men and women in and from the sex trade.That's the perspective of the International Centre to Combat Exploitation of Children. But it's also my personal experience, as I grew up in the sex trade from the age of 14 until I was 22. A lot of my working adult life has been spent with other survivors.

    The first area I want to talk about is the communication law, which says it's illegal to communicate for the purpose of prostitution. The perspective of some women in the sex trade is that section 210 forces women to hop into cars without being able to negotiate, make kind any of agreement, or assess any kind of danger.Their perspective is that for street-based prostitution or even indoor-outdoor venues, such as escort services and massage parlours, the communication law doesn't allow for any negotiation of price for the acts to be committed or for any kind of assessment of safety, etc.

    The comment we get from the community, especially for the most visible aspects of the sex trade, is that in high traffic areas good boys and girls are often harassed. Good boys and girls are defined as those who are not engaged in prostitution or part of the sex trade. They say those in the sex trade, who are primarily women, attract crime, violence, and drugs, and they leave condoms and needles on the ground and generally put the larger community at risk. I want to dispel that myth, because it's not true. If people are being harassed, it tends to be by the johns, the men who are targeting women or children for sex. It's not the women who are targeting the larger community. If drugs exist, that's not within the control of the women who are being exploited in the sex trade. So it's an unfair pressure on the women that they should be held accountable and responsible for all of those different issues.

    But we do have to address some of the real issues of violence against women in the trade and their inability to negotiate, advocate, or decide what happens to them and for how much money.

    The other danger the community sees in high traffic areas is that people who normally wouldn't be vulnerable to the sex trade are recruited into the sex trade simply because it exists in their neighbourhood. That's one of the reasons the community often wants it moved indoors and out of sight, so that other young people or adults aren't going to be recruited or vulnerable. But the reality is that women don't control where those areas are. The women and young people in the sex trade don't control who the recruiters are. They certainly don't control who the pimps are. They don't have a say or power in the larger community. Often they don't even control where they work. That's decided by poverty, the police, the larger community, and the johns as well.

    There's a myth that if we create indoor venues, such as massage parlours and escort services, women will have an opportunity for the fair negotiation of safety, price, and the act that takes place. But because of the communicating law, they don't have that ability even in indoor venues. They can't openly communicate what they want or don't want. The expectation is that every client will receive full service, which means whatever they want, essentially. So this idea that women are safer indoors is not true. The communicating law still has a huge impact on women who work indoors. Massage parlours are considered in calls. That means that everything takes place inside the venue. Out calls would be the escort services. That's where people are going into a person's home, a hotel, or whatever. But the reality is that people in the community don't support the idea of an indoor venue being located near them, wherever they might live.

º  (1615)  

    The illegal nature of the sex trade, the stigma, and the public attitude are the primary factors that contribute to exploitation, violence, coercion, and discrimination against women, particularly in the most visible aspects of the sex trade. Because of the negative public attitude and the unfair responsibility that's placed on the women who are already being exploited, they're targeted for harassment by passersby. They're targeted for violence, rape, robbery, and murder.

    At the same time, they are being discriminated against by local community services. Often because of the hours they work, most services that might help them exit aren't available to them. They're less visible to most of the larger community. Also, even some of the most necessary services discriminate. After a physical or sexual assault, women won't access hospitals because the feeling is that they have to disclose their criminal activity in order to access a service such as a hospital or clinic. They have to describe their illegal activity in order to access some basic services.

    They also face discrimination and punitive measures within welfare, child welfare, and other kinds of systems and services. This makes it really difficult for them to access basis services that might allow them to get support as parents or to get some kind of income assistance so that they could exit. Housing becomes an issue for them. It's difficult for them to access any kind of housing while they're active in the sex trade. Because of the discrimination, not just through law but through the larger community, they're stuck in that position of being almost non-human. They often can't access basic human rights or basic human services. It has to do with the application of the law and the attitude of the larger community.

    The attitude of the public is that these are adults making adult career choices and they're informed that they have other choices in their life. But the reality is that 80% started under the age of 18, so they're not adults making adult career choices. They're 160 times more likely to face violence and violent death than any other female segment of the population.

    Children tend to be exploited within the context of the adult sex trade. Although there are people who target children for sexual exploitation, most children exist within the context of the larger adult sex trade. So you'll find pockets of children in the street trade, the escort services, and massage parlours. Moving everything indoors or legalizing or even decriminalizing doesn't eradicate the exploitation of children. It doesn't eradicate violence, health issues, mental health issues, and discrimination, and it doesn't address violence, abuse, or any of the poverty or housing concerns of women.

º  (1620)  

    The Chair: Cherry, you have two minutes left.

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: There's so much I want to cover.

    The idea is that if we were to eradicate some of the bawdy house laws, which would allow women to work from their own home or an indoor venue, it would create a safe environment and would erase some of the violence. A lot of the advocates for it think that it's going to create for women a safe, comfortable environment in which to work. The reality is that it creates a safe, comfortable environment in which men can buy sex. It doesn't empower women, and it doesn't address the health issues. If we were serious about protecting women, we'd be testing and regulating the men, and we'd be challenging the fact that people go and buy other people.

    There's an argument that it's a labour issue. We're not selling labour. We're selling people's bodies.

    There's an argument to legalize prostitution. Then government is stepping in and regulating women's bodies and saying what they can and can't do with their bodies. If we regulate, we're actually regulating women's bodies even more so. We're saying who qualifies, what the criteria are, how long they can work, how many clients they can serve, what the acts are, and what the prices are. So it creates more regulation on the bodies of women. It doesn't eradicate any of the underlying issues, and it doesn't erase violence. If we start to legalize, we create opportunities for organized crime and trafficked victims. We move everything indoors. It becomes harder to get access to them for health services, mental health services, and exiting programs. It's a cop-out. It means that we don't have to provide genuine services for people who are being exploited. The number of women who would be making that kind of choice is small. Most of the street-based prostitution wouldn't qualify for the licensing, etc. So I'm not an advocate of legalizing it.

    In the enforcement of the law, there's a gender bias. This is a human rights issue, which the committee needs to look at. We target women as to whom we persecute and whom we prosecute. The law allows for us to target the men who buy. The law also allows for police to target the men who sell sex, but we don't target the male sex trade workers in the enforcement. We tend to target women, which contributes to an environment of violence.

    In places where legalization has taken place, more than anything it's legitimized the males, the men who want to buy sex. It hasn't empowered women. In legalizing it, we have to understand that what we've done is empowered those who would procure and those who would profit. We've turned pimps and procurers into legitimate businessmen, because the chances are that women aren't going to be ones in power.

    I think that's all I get to say.

    The Chair: Thanks very much.

    Roy.

º  (1625)  

    Mr. Roy Jones (Director, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada): Thank you very much for the opportunity to come and address you this afternoon and to give you, as I was asked, an overview of trends in police-reported, prostitution-related offences. These are for sections 210 through 213. I will also mention some homicide statistics and some trends in court sentencing for those sections. I understand that I have approximately 10 minutes. I have 12 slides to present, so I'll be going through them fairly quickly. I will try to respect that time period. It's always exciting to have a statistician at the end of the day.

    On slide 2 there is a time series graphic. You can see that overall roughly 90% of the prostitution-related incidents that were reported by police in 2002 related to communicating under section 213. In total there were about 5,200 incidents for communicating, roughly 430 incidents for procuring under section 212, and fewer than 150 bawdy house offences under sections 210 and 211, most of those under section 210. Since 1985, when the communication law replaced soliciting, these have been the predominant offences that police have been dealing with. The substantial drop in the reported communicating incidents between 1992 and 1994, which is the upper bar on the chart, relates to very significant decreases in incidents reported in Vancouver in 1993, and in 1994 Calgary, Toronto, and Edmonton also reported some significant decreases in the incidents of communication.

    The very small lines at the bottom of the graphic are hard to see, but the number of procuring incidents, 430 in 2002, is up very slightly. Over the course of the 1990s, an average of about 350 procuring incidents were reported per year.

    On the other hand, the number of bawdy house incidents continues to be lower. In 2002 there were roughly 138. This is the lowest number since about 1980. During the mid- to late 1980s, those numbered in the 500 to 700 range. So we are talking about a real drop in the number of incidents reported by police for bawdy house offences.

    I should note also that any time you're dealing with police-reported information on these types of incidents, they will reflect very large fluctuations year to year, primarily related to enforcement activities, especially in areas that have targeted enforcement activities, such as prostitution and communication.

    On slide 3, this table has to do with persons charged with communicating offences. You can see the same spike-and-decline trend that was observed in the incidents. This overall trend has been consistent for both men and women, as you can see from the upper two lines. Overall, the number of persons charged with communicating has fallen nearly 50% since its peak in 1988. Just by way of profiling the last year, in 2002, 99% of the persons charged were charged with communicating offences. These were exclusively adults. Less than 1% were youth under the age of 18. This is true also of sections 210 through 212. Very few youth have ever been charged under any of those sections. Over half of the roughly 3,000 people charged with communicating in 2002 were women. About 46% were men.

    In comparison, when we talk about sections 210 and 211, bawdy houses, about two-thirds of those charged were women, and nearly three-quarters of persons charged with procuring were men. Again, these numbers are very difficult to see. The numbers on bawdy houses and procuring aren't in the graphics because they are so very small. We're talking in some cases of a couple of dozen.

    I should also note that the majority of adults were charged. Only 17% were cleared otherwise. That accounts for some of the differences between the number of incidents in total and the cumulation of the males charged with the females charged.You come up with a slightly lower total. That's because not everybody gets charged. They get cleared otherwise, through a referral to a program, a warning, or something of that nature.

º  (1630)  

    I won't spend much time on slides 4 and 5 because they're fairly self-explanatory. This is the age distribution by sex for communicating offences. These are accused. So this includes both people who are charged and people who are cleared otherwise, through warnings or referrals. You will note that among the nearly 1,700 females accused of communicating in 2002, eight in ten were between the ages of 18 and 34. Female youth age 12-17 represent about 2% of the grand total, numbering less than 40. It's a very small number in one year.

    On slide 5, when we look at males accused of communicating, the distribution is a bit different among the 1,800 men accused of communicating. It's a broader distribution. On average, they're a little bit older. Again, there are very few accused reported by police under the age of 18.

    On slide 6 we're looking at incident rates per 100,000 population by census metropolitan area.

    Mr. James Moore (Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, Canadian Alliance): Are these circumstances where people are charged or just incidents that are reported?

    Mr. Roy Jones: These are reports of communication made by police that are entered into the database. So they're either charged or cleared otherwise by a formal referral. But they are logged into the police reporting system as an incident.

    You can see from the distribution that there's great fluctuation from one year to the next. Again, that reflects police enforcement activities, which change over time. There's also a great concentration of communicating incidents in just four of the census metropolitan areas of Vancouver, Toronto, Edmonton, and Montreal. They account for 60% of all communicating incidents that police are reporting. I think that's all we need to point out on that slide.

    On slide 7 we're looking at homicides relating to prostitution by year they were reported. This is from 1992 to 2002. We see the large jump in the reported numbers for 2002. This, as many of you know, reflects the 15 homicides from the Port Coquitlam area that have been designated as being against prostitutes. Overall, between 1992 and 2002, police have reported 79 homicides against prostitutes. Of these, 92% were women, 5% were men, and 3% were female youth.

    In some prior analysis we conducted in the mid-1990s, we found that nearly nine in ten prostitutes murdered as a result of their profession were killed by a client. The remainder were killed by pimps or persons involved in illegal drug trade activities at the time. Again, most of the homicides of prostitutes over the past decade have been concentrated in a handful of major metropolitan areas, with about a third in Vancouver--again, the contribution in the last year from Port Coquitlam--and 9% to 10% of the total in Victoria, Edmonton, and Montreal. In terms of context, on average, over the last decade about 1% of all homicides are related to prostitutes as victims. We certainly know that's an underestimate of the number of designations as prostitute victims.

    On slide 8 we begin to look at a quick overview of the court's data. I should mention that we don't have national coverage of adult courts. We have about 80% coverage. But it does give a fairly consistent and credible base on which to provide trend information. As with the police charging information and incident information, the number of communicating offences has declined in recent years. The number involving women in 2001-2002, the last year on the chart, is down about 50% from the peak in 1995-1996. Similarly, men are down about 40% from the peak of cases in court in 1998-1999. Over the last couple of years, that number for men has been fairly stable. What I have not shown in the graph is the relatively small number of those who have been appearing in court under sections 210, 211, and 212. Again, it's simply a numbers issue.

    From a separate survey, our youth court activity survey, we know that it's extremely rare for youth to appear in court under any section between 210 and 213. In total 19 youth appeared in court on communicating in 2001-2002 and much fewer for sections 210 through 212. I should note that for the youth who appear in court on communicating, there has been a significant decrease over the last decade. When we go back to 1991-1992, over 200 youth appeared in court on that offence. Now it's under 20. So it's down 90%.

    On slide 9 we start to look at court decisions for adults on communicating offences. We're looking here at about 1,100 males. Nearly 40% were found guilty. Most had their charges stayed or withdrawn.That is the black bar. In contrast, about two-thirds of the 850 women who appeared in provincial courts as accused were found guilty. There is a similar profile for the youth as well, but again, the numbers are so small, it's not worth addressing.

º  (1635)  

    Overall, about one-quarter of the roughly 370 adults who appeared under sections 210 and 211, bawdy house offences, were found guilty, and about 70% of those charges were stayed or withdrawn. On procuring, about a third were found guilty. So it's not far off the profile for communicating shown in this graphic.

    On slide 10 we're looking at most serious sentence. We have three categories here--prison, probation, and fine. We see that women convicted of communicating offences are dealt with somewhat more severely than men. This may be reflective of it being more likely they have prior convictions and multiple counts in their cases. Additional analysis would be required to prepare the linked files to do the prior convictions analysis. We didn't have time to put that material together. But past analysis would suggest that one of the distinguishing characteristics, when you look at the differences between men and women, is their prior conviction record. About 43% of women who were found guilty were sent to prison, compared with only 7% for men. Nearly 60% of men were fined as their most serious penalty on conviction. Again, the numbers on procuring and bawdy house offences are so small that the distributions really aren't worth presenting. I can provide those data points later, if you are interested.

    On slide 11 we're looking at sentence length information. Among the 214 women and 10 men who were sentenced to prison for communicating, 85% were sentenced to one month or less. About a third of these were sentenced to time served in lock-up. So it's an odd distribution. It's mostly lock-up, and then a few get up to a month.

    On slide 12 we're looking at time distribution for probation sentences. Here we're looking at about 140 men and about 275 women. Women were typically sentenced to longer periods of probation than were men. Men were relatively equally divided between less than six months and six months to a year. Most women received six months to one year, 60% of them, and 17% received more than one year of probation on conviction.

    On the last slide, number 13, we're looking at fine amounts from court in 2001-2002. You'll note that the vast majority are in the $100 to $300 range. Men are more likely to pay a higher fine than women for a communicating offence. Roughly one-third of men and about 14% of women were asked to pay more than $300 on conviction.

    So in 10 minutes or less, those are the overview highlights of some statistics.

º  (1640)  

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Jones.

    Now we'll open it up to questions.

    Mr. Moore.

    Mr. James Moore: Sorry, I came in late during your presentations. My poor planning, and I apologize for that. But I did catch the tail end of your presentations.

    I'm not sure, Cherry, if you've seen the slides. But I would invite you to have a conversation between yourselves as part of this discussion.

    Along with some of the data, particularly slides 9 through 13, you mentioned at the end of your opening remarks the clear gender inequality with regard to policing and prosecutions and this entire area--

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: And enforcement in general, which doesn't necessarily lead to formal charges, prosecution, and then convictions and sentences.

    Mr. James Moore: You ran out of time at the end of your presentation. If there's something further you'd like to say, I'd invite you to take a couple of minutes now to do that.

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: The environment of enforcement falls mostly on women, because they're the most visible aspect of the sex trade. They're the ones who are stationary and visible to the community, the police, and the larger public. A lot of times enforcement isn't just police enforcement but an environment of enforcement. Typically, the community views them more as criminals than they do the consumers who drive around. The same is true for the underage people who work in the sex trade. But enforcement also impacts them in accessing services, such as welfare. It impacts them if they have children and whether or not they are going to seek help or support for their children, because they're afraid that their children will be taken away from them. It creates a whole climate of enforcement and criminalization of the women. When people get angry about the visibility or the impact of the sex trade on the community, the police target the women and try to move them into other areas. Because they are the most visible, they feel the enforcement.

    Mr. James Moore: Mr. Jones, I invite you to comment on this as well, particularly with regard to slide 9. I know that statistics is not an exact science, and being a statistician with regard to criminology is really not an exact science. With regard to slide 9, which shows the percentage who were acquitted and where charges were stayed or withdrawn and that dramatic discrepancy between men and women, you said that part of it could be due to prior convictions rolling forward. Could you comment based on any research you have?

    Maybe, Cherry, you can speak to this as well. Could having poor access to legal aid be part of that? What are some of the things that contribute to this, or is it just the overall climate where police officers are mainly male?

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: For a lot of the women in the sex trade it's not just communicating they get charged with. Sometimes it's breaches or failure to appear. Sometimes as part of their sentence they get red zoned, so they're not allowed in certain areas. It would be considered a breach of some sort. Or it could be a drug-related offence. The women in the sex trade are often targeted by enforcement, but they're not always charged specifically under a communicating law because that requires actual stings where the cops pose as customers or consumers.

    I didn't hear the question. Sorry. I was looking for the stats. Does that answer the question?

    Mr. James Moore: It helps. It's a contribution to a discussion. I don't think there's a correct or wrong answer.

    There's a clear discrepancy with regard to the staying or withdrawing of charges after being found guilty. I'm not sure if you have a copy of Mr. Jones's slides. Slide 9 is the one I'm referring to.

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: I just received a copy.

    Mr. Roy Jones: I'll just make mention of a couple of things. I mentioned that we can't quantify today with regard to prior conviction having an impact on the difference in conviction rates. On the stay/withdrawals, a good portion of the referrals to programs are post-charge activities. Charges will be laid, and in particular with regard to men being referred to programs, those charges will either be withdrawn or stayed on completion of the program.

    One of our difficulties in quantifying this whole area is that the communication law itself is not particular as to whether it's a client or a prostitute that's the principal in the incident from the police perspective, and we don't have the community information at the microdata level in the corrections area to talk about community programming and who is going into these programs of diversion and what have you. For men or women, but in particular for men, it's a matter of our trying to figure out what's going on with that stay/withdrawal. But that's our suspicion.

º  (1645)  

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: There is the john school. This is where they go for half a day, and there's no real record of it. They can tell their employer or wife that they have a dentist appointment . They pay a small fine and go to a john school for half a day. A lot of the guys get diverted. They don't even go to court. There's a john school in almost every city. But there's no half-day diversion program for women. A lot of times the women would require more than half a day of any kind of programming. It's so unfair to call it programming.

    Mr. James Moore: Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Moore.

    Mr. Ménard, five minutes.

[Translation]

    Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga—Maisonneuve): Thank you.

    I have two questions.

    The graph on page 2 is quite startling. It clearly shows a low number of bawdy house incidents, and a higher number of communicating incidents. Between 1990 and 2002, the number of incidents, even section 213 offences, declined steadily.

    Do you have any data for us that might explain why only a small number of persons are charged with bawdy house offences, versus the higher number for communicating offences? Is it possible that Canadians are more willing these days to accept that what takes place in private between two consenting adults should not be deemed illegal?

    Finally, it's not that people are passing moral judgment on prostitution . What really offends members of the community is to see such behaviour occurring in public. For instance, I represent Hochelaga—Maisonneuve and my riding is home to nearly 150 sex-trade workers. People want this profession to be regulated and for prostitutes to ply their trade indoors. That's why I was taken aback by Ms. Kingsley's comments concerning legalization.

    Here is what your data is telling us. The disturbing thing about prostitution is its public face. Why the low number of bawdy house incidents, despite the fact that these are venues for prostitution? That's my first question.

[English]

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: I can answer from an anecdotal perspective. For a lot of people, the indoor venues they work in are massage parlours and escort services, which don't tend to have the calls happen right at the agency, or people work as independents in their own home. A lot of times they try to conceal that from their neighbours because they face eviction. On the back pages of the newspapers there are hundreds and hundreds of ads, plus the ones in the Yellow Pages. There are the ones that don't advertise in either of those places and all the illegal venues that aren't listed anywhere but are just more subversive. And they have to repeat. Doesn't the exchange of sex for goods or services have to happen more than once for it to be considered a bawdy house?

[Translation]

    Mr. Réal Ménard: But how do you explain the fact that the number of incidents under section 213 now total 3,000, compared to 6,000 in previous years? In the interim, the Fraser Commission tabled its report. Something happened to compel Crown prosecutors to look at prostitution in a new light. The way in which law enforcement agencies view prostitution has changed. According to your statistics, fewer prostitution-related charges are now being laid. How do you explain that phenomenon? Hasn't the time come to decriminalize prostitution? This is a political question, one that I realize you won't answer, but from a statistical standpoint, what is your take on the situation?

º  (1650)  

[English]

    Mr. Roy Jones: That is a difficult one for us to respond to for two reasons: one, we're not in a position to talk about any changes outside of the formal reporting from police sources. So these numbers would not reflect informal diversions that don't get recorded in police systems. Where there has been a change in behaviour on the part of police or enforcement agencies with regard to communicating that may have increased the number of people who were diverted prior to creating an incident record and reporting it through the police and to Statistics Canada, those numbers are excluded uniformly from this time series. We don't have good information on those types of behaviours from police services.

    With regard to the overall decrease, I mentioned the four major cities where we saw the major drop in incidents being reported by police. Those are Vancouver, Toronto, Edmonton, and Calgary. Those relate specifically, one would suspect, because they're so precipitous, to the level of enforcement or perhaps a change in directive within those municipalities. But I'm not in a position today to suggest why that happened or whether or not there were some sorts of specific directives given on what they would proceed with.

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: I want to add to the comment I made. I think that there has been an enforcement shift in Canada. The community and police are happy to see it move indoors. But I think that it's based on an assumption that an indoor venue implies choice and that it's two adults, and it also implies freedom from violence, coercion, and any other aspect of exploitation. But as you know, there was a recent case in Toronto where a sex trade worker who worked indoors was murdered. They're very hidden. It doesn't mean that there's always choice.

    I think that the community perspective is just get it off our streets, and the police are responding to property owners. They're not responding to the violence against the women in the sex trade. They're not responding to the rape, the robbery, the murder, the continued harassment and discrimination, and the targeting of young people for sex.That's not typically what police are responding to. You're talking about a very marginalized, disenfranchised population, which doesn't have a lot of legal status in Canada and certainly doesn't have access to different kinds of services and doesn't qualify for legal or human rights advocacy.

    The police are definitely responding to the community and saying, if you guys are indoors and you're quiet, we're going to leave you alone, as long as you don't bother your neighbours and don't make a mess and as long as no condoms or needles are found on the ground and there are no cars driving around targeting children. I think that from the community and police perspective, they just choose not to enforce any aspect of the law. But that doesn't mean that there aren't children, trafficked people, or victims.

[Translation]

    Mr. Réal Ménard: One of the Fraser Commission's main recommendations, which obviously wasn't implemented... As you will recall, the recommendation was to allow sex-trade workers to work out of their own home. I have two goals in mind: to prevent violence against sex-trade workers and to ensure peaceful communities. To achieve the latter, prostitution will have to be confined to designated areas. Of course we need to concern ourselves about the plight of young women. If either young men or young women ply their trade in a environment in which there is violence, then that will be unacceptable. However, I do believe that we need to get prostitutes off the street. Prostitution will always exist and people will continue to turn to this profession for all kinds of reasons. However, it would be a positive move, up to a point, to designate certain specific areas for this purpose. I have no problem as a legislator with escort services and with whatever goes on between two consenting adults. Far be it for me to pass judgment on prostitution, or on those who seek out the services of prostitutes, provided their behaviour does not pose a public heath risk and their actions do not constitute a public nuisance.

º  (1655)  

[English]

    The Chair: Mr. Ménard, there is one minute left for the answer.

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: I agree that we have to address some of the violence issues, that there are real safety issues, and that women on the street are vulnerable to all kinds of things.

    But what I worry about is the legalization of an indoor venue. First of all, it provides a legal framework for recruitment. It means that women and children have to prove consent or no consent. They're going to have to prove that there was no coercion or there was coercion. It means that the burden of proof again falls on those who are most exploited. What we've done is legitimize pimps and those who profit and procure. Chances are that it's not going to be women who are empowered in those invisible situations. It allows for open recruitment for people in the sex trade. It means that we've legitimized it as a form of business in our community. We've mainstreamed it.

    I think that people, particularly in the media, have this romanticized or eroticized vision of what that looks like. It's going to look like Amsterdam, or it's going to be a red light district. If we move things indoors, it doesn't mean that it's going to be sequestered in one area and away from other kinds of communities and that it's necessarily going to be this visible section of downtown. That's not likely to happen.

    What it's going to mean is that anybody who has an apartment, a home, a back room in a store, or whatever can potentially have that kind of business and can defend themselves legally against whether or not they're exploitive, violent, etc. Again, the burden of both protection and legal proof falls on the women and children as to whether or not there was consent.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Mr. Mark.

    Mr. Inky Mark (Dauphin—Swan River, PC): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: Can I make one more comment. If we want to offer women safe housing, free from violence and exploitation, we can do that without asking them to provide sex.

    Mr. Inky Mark: I want to thank our witnesses for being here today.

    Actually, you give us a very enlightening perspective on this whole business of sex for sale.

    My first question relates to the industry. I know that the tables we have are on reported incidents. Do we know how large the industry is at this point in time?

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: No. There are estimates that the street-based trade is about 10% to 15% of the entire sex trade. People assume that those are adults. The statistics say as well that 80% of adults in the sex trade started under the age of 18. So we have no idea of the kinds of numbers we're talking about.

    Mr. Inky Mark: Do we have any data on what's happening in the States in terms of the industry?

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: The estimate is that 300,000 children are involved in various aspects and that 20,000 people are trafficked into the United States every year for the purpose of sex.

    Mr. Inky Mark: So on the dollar side, we don't know the value of the marketplace.

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: In the United States it generates more income than basketball, baseball, and football combined. It is reported that 17,000 pornography sites are created daily, and many of them involve children or youth.

    Mr. Inky Mark: I think that the assumption the public has, including myself, is that women are safe indoors. But you say they're not.

    From what I've heard today, you're basically saying decriminalization is really not the answer. Are we at a point in this society that it's either we can tolerate it or we can't? Where do we put the human rights issue in this whole thing? In other words, if we respect the human rights of women and men, does this mean that we need to abolish this business in its entirety?

»  (1700)  

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: My background is not law, so you can't rely on me to create wording or anything.

    I don't think that we can consider not criminalizing people who are buying or profiting or even those who are facilitating. I think that the perception on the part of the public and the TV perception is that the people who profit are the pimps. It is entrenched in our communities. It's in hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, bathhouses, and bars. There are so many different aspects of the community that both facilitate and profit from the buying and selling of people. We have to challenge that in the businesses. Dr. Fry and I worked on a tourism campaign, and we tried to negotiate with hotels and different entertainment and tourism industry people, but they were pretty reluctant. It's hard to engage the private sector in addressing this and not allowing, facilitating, and profiting from the buying and selling of people. Then there are the consumers of it. We have to begin to challenge that.

    We can't legitimize it. People have the idea that legitimizing, legalizing, or even decriminalizing is going to empower women and eliminate children. It's not. It's going to legitimize and mainstream the use of the women and children.

    Mr. Inky Mark: Last week we heard from the systems people. I found out that we've been studying this for over 20 years and trying to figure out how to deal with this issue. It appears that even after today, it's still undetermined in which direction we'll head. I would say that along the party line, the interest in and care for human beings is probably the first motive. I think that should direct us down whatever path we choose.

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: We can look at it as an extension of violence against women and children. We have transition houses and different protocols that have been developed with police, hospitals, and social agencies. When it's a victim of domestic violence or abuse, there's streamlined access to different kinds of emergency services and then follow-up, after-care, referral, and all of that. Definitely in all cases of children, we can't consider not criminalizing the people who profit, facilitate, or consume. But for the women, and the men as well, we can try to consider it an extension of some of the other kinds of violence that happen.

    I get so frustrated. I grew up in the sex trade for eight years. There's this notion that it's just another form of labour. I want sometimes to be really blunt with people about what labour they're talking about. It's not labour. It's a body being sold. Most of us start as juveniles. To consider me on my 18th birthday to be all of a sudden empowered and making a career choice is so unfair. For the advocates that are pro-sex trade, don't think that you're doing me any favours. Don't think that you're fighting for my human rights. You get your ass out there. It's not fun. Our lives are filled daily with violence, discrimination, and brutality by anybody who wants to brutalize us. We don't even profit. We're not even the ones who are generally making the money. It's the hotels, the restaurants, the pimps, and the taxi companies. It's a multi-billion dollar industry. It wasn't me who was the empowered one living it up. I still lived in abject poverty.

»  (1705)  

    Mr. Inky Mark: Thank you.

    The Chair: Ms. Davies.

    Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): Thank you very much for coming today.

    It is a pretty complicated issue.

    There's one thing I would like to pick up on. You talked about prostitution becoming mainstreamed and what that is. I think that one of the contradictions we're facing is that some parts of the sex trade have become very mainstream in terms of the escort services and the massage parlours. This is a big problem because the focus of law enforcement has been basically on the people who are the most vulnerable, and that's the on-street sex trade.

    You spoke earlier about how the law produces a stigma and from that comes discrimination and violence, and I really agree with you on that. I want to look at the law itself, never mind whether we agree with legalization or decriminalization. I don't think we're even at that point.

    The statistics we have today from Mr. Jones are very helpful. They certainly show a huge gender bias in terms of enforcement against women. But I think we have to recognize that these statistics, if I'm not mistaken, only reflect where there has been enforcement in terms of an indictment, a conviction, or something that became a record. So it doesn't even include what I would call enforcement that is more akin to harassment.

    I want to ask Mr. Jones if he has any other statistics that deal with enforcement around sexual assaults. You have some statistics on homicide, but perhaps you have some that include other forms of violence. That's one question.

    In terms of the enforcement that goes beyond what's on these pages, one of the concerns I have is that because the people who are most at risk are “illegal”, the last people they're going to turn to are the cops. If you've been assaulted or you're being harassed or violated, are you going to go to the cops? The likelihood is that you're not.

    Perhaps you can speak about the enforcement in terms of what we see on the street. I agree with you. It's very complaint driven. Even though the statistics show us that there's a big decrease in enforcement of the communicating law, there still is enforcement going on. Perhaps you can look at enforcement and talk about it from the point of view of your experience or the experience of the women you work with.

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: A lot of the women and young people are stopped by police. There are things called D.I.S.C. programs, which try to identify people who are active in the sex trade. They take their photograph and mark down identifying features. That wouldn't be included in the statistics because no charges are laid. Solicitation doesn't take place. Women are jacked up on a daily basis. That's what we call it, jacked up. They're stopped and told to move on or identified in some way. That happens all the time. So when you're living under those conditions, you're living with the identity of a criminal.

    Women get red zoned. They get stopped for breaches or failure to appear or to pay their fines. So even though a woman may have one soliciting charge, she may have seven other charges that have to do with breaches or failure to appear or pay her fine. It doesn't indicate how many times she has actually been in court or had a conviction. It may stem from one soliciting charge, but she may have encountered the justice system seven, eight , twelve, twenty-six other times. Because of the overlap between the street trade and the drug trade, many times the charges stem from drugs. Or it can even be stupid things such as loitering or jaywalking. Police will generally stop the women for anything, depending on the mood of the community. If it's a high profile issue in a community, that drastically affects the lives of women, and it impacts the level of violence, discrimination, and harassment, not just by police, but by anybody.

»  (1710)  

    Ms. Libby Davies: I'm noticing this more, but I'm interested in knowing if you are. Because it's complaint driven and because of this continual cycle of harassment, the sex trade workers get pushed more and more into areas that are not safe. There is an impact in residential neighbourhoods, we know that, and those concerns are very legitimate. But what happens is that the on-street trade gets pushed into blocks where maybe the lighting is not very good or it's an industrial area, and that actually increases the level of risk. Are you noticing that?

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: Yes. With more and more enforcement and increased frustration on the part of the community, women get moved into industrial areas. Because of the communicating law and the whimsical ways in which they enforce, using stings or sweeps for a week at a time, a month, or whatever.... With the coming of the Olympics to Vancouver, you can bet that for the next while the streets are going to be cleaned up, and they will charge women for whatever they can come up with. It's not all soliciting, but it'll be women in the trade who are targeted.

    I want to make two comments. First of all, I agree that enforcement and its strategies stem from the attitude of the community. But that also implies that we were hatched out on the street. I come from the community. I grew up in a community. I wasn't hatched out on the street. I'm not some other kind of entity. The idea that these women aren't part of the community and therefore don't belong in the dialogue or don't deserve the same level of protection as somebody concerned about their property value.... I think that if property owners spoke about human rights and freedom from violence and rape with the same amount of zeal they talk about their backyard being clean, it would be great.

    The indoctrination into the sex trade itself forces a lot of marginalized people to negotiate their abuse. I know this from my own personal experience. A lot of us grew up in conditions of violence, poverty, and discrimination. I'm aboriginal. I'm pretty stereotypical. I grew up in the child welfare system. I had 20 different homes. Basically, I wasn't an empowered person to begin with. So it's not a big surprise that at 14 I was exploited in the sex trade. The indoctrination by other sex trade workers and pimps, mostly, is this idea that all of a sudden I'm in this position of empowerment where abuse is going to happen anyway, but now I get to negotiate what that abuse is. Now I get paid for it. I sometimes think that the legalization/decriminalization dialogue is putting us in that same position. It's forcing us to continue to have to negotiate our abuse. Just let us move indoors, then, or away from the railroad tracks. Maybe this segment of the population gets to harass us, but now the community and the police will leave us alone. But it's still part of the continuum of abuse. From my perspective, I think that it's unfair to force people to negotiate their own abuse, and at what price?

    The Chair: There is one minute left for both the question and answer.

    Ms. Libby Davies: What would you like to see different about the enforcement?

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: I'd like to see more enforcement around the pimps and the people who recruit--I think that's really important--and not necessarily enforcement in the sense of charges being laid and convictions being sought. I think that we need to challenge some of the businesses that facilitate and profit indirectly from the sex trade.

    Looking at it from my perspective at age 14, when I sometimes worked 18 hours a day in slave-like conditions with 8 to 10 clients a day, you have to consider that there are a lot more men than woman involved in the sex trade. Even though some of the numbers may look even, they're not when you consider how many people participate in the sex trade who are part of our larger community. So I think that we have to challenge the consumers. We have to challenge this notion that we need to make it more comfortable and to move it indoors and to make it more anonymous. I think that continues to empower the consumers, the procurers, and the profiteers, and it still puts women and children at risk. I don't think that it addresses violence. If you want to address violence and to provide us with a safe place to live, then just give us a safe place to live. Don't set it up as a brothel.

»  (1715)  

    The Chair: Thank you.

    With the committee's permission, I will ask a question. It's for Mr. Jones. I notice that slide 2 shows a very low number of incidents for procurement. Are you talking about procurement with regard to adult prostitution, or are you also talking here about the procuring of youth and children?

    Mr. Roy Jones: Those figures include everything.

    The Chair: You do not break them down. You don't disaggregate them at all.

    Mr. Roy Jones: I mentioned that we have some microdata from an incidents-based survey, which has been implemented in part of the country for police. We do get information on the age of victims, and we're able to do that. But we don't have estimates for this at the national level. The numbers are so small for the jurisdictions we do have that we have not been publishing information at the level of specific ages.

    May I respond to a previous question that was directed to me?

    The Chair: Certainly.

    Mr. Roy Jones: That was with regard to detailed information beyond homicide. We don't currently have information on nature of occupation for other types of offences, other than in the homicide survey. We have relationships between victim and accused for violent offences, so we would know whether it was a relative, a stranger, or a business acquaintance. But we would not be able to determine the type of business relationship the accused and the victim had. So we would not be able to do that.

    Where we have information on shelters for abused women, for example, we don't have a resource program to provide us with information on individual cases as to why they were entering, other than the fact they were in need of some type of shelter because they were fleeing from abuse, financial hardship, or housing hardship.

    On the legal aid front, we have a resource program to collect some summary information from the provincial legal aid programs. We're developing a microdata survey that would collect information at the Criminal Code section level so we would at least know which types of services are being provided by the legal aid programs and by what types of counsel for people who are appearing on those types of offences.

    The Chair: It would be interesting if you could get us that information on the relationship between victim and accused. That would be an interesting piece of information for us to have.

    There is a second question I want to ask. I noticed that when you talked about the offence of communicating, you said that there was a very small percentage of people under the age of 18. One of the things I've heard in some of the fora I've been involved in with Ms. Kingsley is that today a lot of the young people who are commercially sexually exploited are on the Internet. They are not on the street. Have you taken that into consideration when you look at the number who have been caught communicating? Are you using Internet sources for communicating in this database?

    Mr. Roy Jones: These would reflect any type of communication, whether it's cyber communication or on-the-street communication. There's no distinction here. Everything the police have reported based on their investigations, where they have enough information to proceed and lay a record, is included. So everything is there.

»  (1720)  

    The Chair: It doesn't bear out all of the anecdotal information I have about youth and children being exploited. It would seem that they're a very small percentage, but in fact we have heard very clearly over the years that they constitute a very large percentage.

    Ms. Kingsley, you wanted to respond.

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: I think a lot of people have accepted for way too long that intervention for women and children happens through police charging them, jailing them, or something like that. I think that the statistics in terms of the young people are not accurate in the sense that young people get charged for a variety of things. Sometimes police will charge them with whatever they can. They won't necessarily communicate with them for sexual purposes, which is how they would be charged with soliciting. They'll chat them up for a variety of reasons. I think that as parliamentarians and legislators you can't accept that is how we intervene in the lives of children, by criminalizing them when they're in situations of exploitation. We can expect intervention, but I don't think that it has to happen through their criminalization.

    It would be interesting to know how many of the young people in custody in recent years have been involved in the sex trade. I think that would be more telling than how many have been charged with soliciting itself. That requires a cop to actually pose as a john and solicit a young person, which most cops aren't comfortable with. They'll try to catch them on other things.

    I think that we should get beyond accepting the criminalization or arresting of women and children as a form of intervention. We have to get serious about housing, welfare, and outreach and exiting programs. We don't have exiting programs in Canada. We have no exiting strategy. If we're talking about prostitution being a choice, then I would like us to have the choice to exit as well. The government has to fund some exiting program somewhere so that it's truly a choice.

    The Chair: I wanted to ask you a question, Ms. Kingsley, about choice. I think that you've made a very eloquent plea about the fact that the bodies of these women are being used and this is in fact abuse. However, I practised medicine for 23 years, and I had patients who were in the escort business and who went into it knowingly because it was a great way for them to make money to pay for their university or whatever else they were doing at the time. They did it for a short period of time. They were going to do it for four years, get money, go through university, pay for their schooling, etc. They were doing it through the escort services, because it was seen as a chic way to really indulge in the sex trade. How do we as parliamentarians deal with the fact that there are some women who choose to do this, who are in control, and who work within something like an escort service and there are other women who are obviously abused and non-empowered and simply have no other way out? This is a choice question that a lot of people are asking.

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: First of all, those circumstances are so rare, you have to admit. It's so rare that it's somebody who's getting their medical degree or law degree--

    The Chair: I did not mean me, Ms. Kingsley.

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: But you know what I mean. It's so rare. I'd rather see access to student loans being increased than all these people who want an education being funnelled into the sex trade. Let's increase access to student loans before we increase access to the sex trade for people who want to access education. I'd rather see the government promoting that.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    We will have to go to the House for votes. But we have time for a five-minute round, if anybody would like to go again.

    Mr. Mark.

»  (1725)  

    Mr. Inky Mark: It goes back to the whole issue of what is legal, what should be legal, and what shouldn't be legal. In terms of the rest of the world, such as Europe and the United States, is it too late to take a prohibition approach to this industry?

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: I don't think prohibition helps women, either. They're the most visible component of the sex trade, and the way you enforce prohibition is going be against women. It's certainly going to push the children farther underground if we approach it only from an enforcement perspective.

    I know this is a weird balance, and you're going to have to get a lawyer who can balance legalese. I think that we have to stop criminalizing the women and children. But I don't think that we can only emphasize the criminalization of both the consumers and those who profit, the pimps and the procurers. We need to continue to criminalize them, particularly in instances of coercion, violence, child exploitation, and things like that. We have laws against that. But I think that if we focus only on enforcement without developing support services, advocacy, and welfare for the women and children, then we create a climate of violence, secrecy, and stigma. But I don't think that shaming johns works, either.

    I think that education and a public dialogue would work. I know that people have the assumption that the sex trade has always been here and it probably always will be. But why do we accept it? Let's talk about that. Why do we honestly think that we need it? People have this idea that people, particularly men, need this outlet for their lust or rage. For many of us, it was not even about lust. We were just targeted for rage. Why does the community feel that they need that outlet? And why did I get picked as an outlet? Because I was aboriginal, poor, and had already been abused. We have to understand that typically most of the people are already vulnerable. I'd like to see that as part of the public dialogue and then laws created that protect children. I know that you are reviewing Bill C-20, which I think you have done well. But also protect adult women and men and begin to challenge this idea that this is a legitimate outlet for people.

    Mr. Inky Mark: But that's the question. What is the balance between making it legal or decriminalizing it under a set of conditions and basically doing the opposite of not having it around and providing outreach programs, access to social services, and education? Can you do both at the same time?

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: I don't understand all the nuances of law. You are responsible for a dialogue on human rights as well. But I think that if we can begin to approach it as a human rights issue, a poverty issue, and an equality issue and begin to have that kind of dialogue.... For instance, if police happen to walk into a situation where people are running a bawdy house or if through their different sweeps they encounter people communicating for the purposes or through hospital encounters, outreach workers, health clinics, drop-in centres, or shelters--there are so many other people who can come into contact with that population--and we begin to address it as a poverty or violence issue or whatever the different needs of those people are.... I think that we focus too much on it as a criminal issue. We're trying to figure out who is responsible and who is the criminal. I think that we have to broaden that dialogue.

    I think that legislation can support community accountability for those who profit and facilitate. But that doesn't necessarily always have to result in criminal charges. I think that businesses should be held to standards. Does that happen through criminalizing them? I don't know because my background is not in law.

»  (1730)  

    Mr. Inky Mark: But do you want the industry to go away?

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: Yes, eventually. I think we have to--

    Mr. Inky Mark: That's the big question. How do you make it go away?

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: I think we have to challenge the demand. That's the reality.

    Ms. Libby Davies: Cherry, when you say that you don't want to see women who are involved in what I would characterize the survival sex trade, where women are incredibly exploited, and to further criminalize them is a huge problem.... But by the same token, if there's a debate about what decriminalization means, to just equate that somehow to the promotion of the exploitation of women doesn't help. We are actually grappling with a really difficult question. I know that there are groups that do that. They basically say unless you take a strong prohibitionist stance, you're advocating the exploitation of women, which is completely false. I think that needs to be said. I can understand from the people you work with and your own experience that criminalization is not helping women in the sex trade. As a matter of fact, it is hurting them.

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: It's killing them in some cases.

    Ms. Libby Davies: That's true. I think that the communicating law itself is contributing to the violence and the murders we see.

    To come back to Mr. Mark's question, what do we advocate? I agree with you that if we don't want to see criminalization, we should be looking for exit services and support. That doesn't exist.

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: But the law is structured so weirdly. It focuses on the communication aspect of it and not on the act and the--

    Ms. Libby Davies: Because it's not illegal. It's the communicating.

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: Yes. We're focusing on the communication part--

    Ms. Libby Davies: Should we get rid of the communicating law?

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: --and we're missing the point completely.

    I don't think that we should criminalize the people who are selling the sex at all. I think that there are other ways we can address whatever social conditions or different situations they're facing. But I think that for those who are trying to procure sex, the consumers, and for those who profit, we do have to continue to challenge them and at times criminalize them.

    Ms. Libby Davies: Should we get rid of the communicating law? It was brought in supposedly to improve safety, but it hasn't. What's your position on that?

    Ms. Cherry Kingsley: We have to get rid of the communicating law and address the issue in a more direct way legally. But we should not criminalize the people who are selling the sex.

    The Chair: The bells are now ringing. We have 10 minutes to get to the House.

    I want to thank both Mr. Jones and Ms. Kingsley for their presentations. Ms. Kingsley has been very eloquent and has said it as she sees it. You just helped to make it even more complex.

    Thank you very much, everyone, for coming.

    [Proceedings continue in camera]