Ontario Liberals Failing the Fight

Ontario government needs an anti-human trafficking strategy

Of all the crimes currently being perpetrated by organized networks across the world, human trafficking is easily one of the most dangerous, and easily the most immoral.

So on that note, it should be considered shocking to find that any government in Canada is doing anything less than their absolute best to prevent this horrific crime -- in which women are addicted to drugs and horribly abused in order to maintain control over them.

According to University of British Columbia Professor Benjamin Perrin, the province of Ontario isn't pulling its weight. In particular, the province has failed to provide victims of this crime with the help necessary to get them off the street, keep them off the street, and protect them from their assailants.

"The Ontario government should be very well aware that they are responsible for providing victim services, they're not doing so and that needs to change," fumed Perrin. "That's a major gap."

When Conservative MPP Bob Runciman called upon the Minister of Community Safety, Rick Bartolucci, to commit to examining the strategies other provinces are using to combat human trafficking, Bartolucci's response was notably non-committal.

Bartolucci insisted the Liberal government in Ontario does this on an ongoing basis. But it clearly hasn't taken the matter deeply to heart, as the government has no program worthy of mention.

"Whether it's lack of interest or what it is, I just don't think [the Liberals] have been paying any attention to this issue and taking a look at how serious it is," Runciman noted. "There's really been no reaction from them at all."

"I am astounded that the province of Ontario still does not have a system in place to coordinate services for victims of human trafficking," Perrin said. "It is inexcusable, it is dangerous public policy and it is putting the safety and well-being of victims of human trafficking at risk."

One would expect that any Canadian government worthy of governing in this country would treat an issue like human trafficking with the seriousness it deserves. But considering how the Ontario government handled some other recent cases, one simply has to wonder.

The Liberal government of Ontario is failing to show up for the fight against human trafficking.

Let's Talk About "Serious", Shall We?

Bill Siksay clearly not serious about human trafficking -- or crime

Weeks after Conservative MP Joy Smith's private members' bill setting a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for child trafficking was passed by the House of Commons, at least one of the MPs who voted against it is still making excuses.

NDP MP Bill Siksay -- who, along with Libby Davies, was one of the only non-Bloc Quebecois MPs to vote against it -- insists that the government isn't being serious about child trafficking.

But Siksay is defending his actions based on the same limited ideology on criminal justice: the insistence that criminal law exists only to prevent crime and rehabilitate convicted offenders.

“I voted against it because I don’t believe this bill will do anything to prevent the crime, to stop human trafficking or to assist the victims of the crime,” Siksay insisted. “Mandatory minimum sentences have been proven to be utterly ineffective as a crime prevention tool and there’s just absolutely no evidence that they do anything to make the situation better.”

But Siksay is missing the mark. Locking human traffickers away does help protect their victims. Benjamin Perrin notes that "In order to come forward, the victim needs to know they are safe."

Or at least, needs to believe that they will be safe. Keeping their assailant behind bars would go a long way toward creating that sense of safety.

There is one valid point that Siksay does raise: the handling of victims by officials often provides a distinct disincentive for them to come forward.

“Victims are often deported from Canada if they’re discovered and often that puts them right back in the hands of the traffickers who sent them here in the first place,” Siksay explained.

This is a good point. But it's no excuse for Siksay to not support Smith's bill.

For example, Siksay could have offered his own private member's bill devoting more funding to the investigation and pursuit of human trafficking rings. He could have tabled a private member's bill that would automatically extent refugee status to people brought to Canada against their will by human traffickers.

Nothing about Joy Smith's bill would permanently close the books on the topic of human trafficking.

Even then, it's odd that individuals like Siksay simply can't grasp the notion that people who traffick in other human beings -- especially children -- belong in prison for the protection of those who would be their victims if they were allowed free.

Bill Siksay doesn't get it. He just. Doesn't. Get it. And he most certainly is not serious about the topic of human trafficking, or about crime.

If he were, he would have discarded his ideological views on crime and supported Joy Smith's bill.

They Perpetually Just Do Not Get It, Redux

Libby Davies votes against anti-child trafficking bill

A few days ago, in a blog post published on the National Post's Full Comment blog, Jeff Jedras demonstrated one of the weaknesses of Canada's ideological left: the inability to get it right on the topic of crime.

NDP MP Libby Davies recently underscored this troubled ideological attitude toward crime when she voted against an anti-child trafficking bill.

The bill, introduced by Conservative MP Joy Smith, is one of the rare bills to achieve quick passage through the House of Commons and is expected to quickly pass through the Senate as well.

The bill will institute five year mandatory minimum sentences for child trafficking, with tougher sentences if the child is killed, kidnapped, or sexually abused.

By the estimation of anyone who understands what human trafficking entails -- which is only more disgusting when it involves children -- one also understands that five years is actually an extremely lax sentence for such an act. In fact, the mandatory minimum sentence is not nearly hard enough (for this particular offence, the mandatory minimum sentence should be life in prison).

The problem of human trafficking is particularly troubling in Vancouver's downtown east side -- the riding that Davies represents.

"Whenever I give public presentations across the country, I bring up the Downtown Eastside," explains UBC Law professor Benjamin Perrin, who helped draft the bill. "It's the end of the line for people who have been exploited. Trafficking victims are found there under the control of hard narcotics. Why is the elected official of a riding in this horrible state of sexual exploitation unwilling to take a stand against the traffickers of children?"

The answer, as it turns out, is pure ideology.

"This is another ad hoc approach by the Conservatives to appear tough on crime when there is no evidence to show mandatory minimums have any effect on deterring human trafficking," Davies insists.

Once again, Davies has missed the mark incredibly in the name of an ideology that believes the only role of criminal law is to deter crime and rehabilitate offenders.

Once again, Davies has forgotten two key principles of the law: punishment and protection.

In fact, Smith's bill is important not only for the protection of those who would be victimized by human traffickers if allowed free again, but for the protection of those they've already victimized.

"In order to come forward, the victim needs to know they are safe," Perrin explains.

Not to mention the fact that there really are few punishments befitting the vile act of human trafficking. A proper-thinking country would maintain the death penalty for dealing with criminals who are this immoral and this dangerous. Moreover, human trafficking would be one of the few instances in which it would actually be used.

One can imagine that Libby Davies -- who is currently involved in a challenge to Canada's laws on prostitution and has seemingly never found a far-left cause she isn't eager to front -- would bellow to high heaven if such an act were ever contemplated by government.

Libby Davies, Jeff Jedras, the Bloc Quebecois and the other two other NDP MPs seem to share one common affliction:

The inability to separate the issue of crime and justice from ideology. It's one of the key afflications that prevents Canadians from taking them too seriously.


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