JUSTICE FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH
JOHN HOWARD SOCIETY OF ONTARIO
CONTENTS
Monday 28 September 1998
Protection of Children involved in Prostitution Act, Bill 18, Mr Bartolucci /
Loi de 1998 sur la protection des enfants qui se livrent à la prostitution,
projet de loi 18, M. Bartolucci
York Regional Police Service
Mr Julian Fantino
Ms Velma Demerson
Yonge Street Mission
Mr David Adcock
Ms Ruth Ewert
Mr Pat Nixon
Toronto Public Health
Ms Connie Clement
Justice for Children and Youth
Ms Martha Mackinnon
Mr Lee Mitchell
Toronto Child Abuse Centre
Ms Sue Hunter
John Howard Society of Ontario
Mr Bill Sparks
REAL Women of Canada
Mrs Gwen Landolt
STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Chair / Présidente
Ms Annamarie Castrilli (Downsview L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville L)
Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre / -Centre ND)
Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent PC)
Ms Annamarie Castrilli (Downsview L)
Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville L)
Mr Tim Hudak (Niagara South / -Sud PC)
Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie PC)
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William L)
Mrs Lillian Ross (Hamilton West / -Ouest PC)
Mr Bruce Smith (Middlesex PC)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr Toby Barrett (Norfolk PC)
Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury L)
Mr Jim Brown (Scarborough West / -Ouest PC)
Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener PC)
Clerk / Greffière
Ms Tonia Grannum
Staff / Personnel
Ms Elaine Campbell, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1556 in room 151.
PROTECTION OF CHILDREN INVOLVED IN PROSTITUTION ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR LA PROTECTION DES ENFANTS QUI SE LIVRENT À LA PROSTITUTION
Consideration of Bill 18, An Act to protect Children involved in Prostitution / Projet de loi 18, Loi visant à protéger les enfants qui se livrent à la prostitution.
YORK REGIONAL POLICE SERVICE
The Chair (Ms Annamarie Castrilli): Ladies and gentlemen, we are formally in session at this meeting of the standing committee on social development to consider Bill 18, An Act to protect Children involved in Prostitution. This is our third day of hearings. Let me first begin by apologizing for the delay. The session in the House was a little longer than we had expected. You understand that it was of course the urgency of the situation and we had to deal with it.
Let me begin by welcoming Julian Fantino, the chief of the York Regional Police Service. We are very happy to have you here on this very important topic. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. You need not use all of that time. If there's any time remaining, I'm sure the members will be delighted to ask you some questions.
Mr Julian Fantino: Thank you, Madam Chair and members. I have provided for you a copy of my presentation, so I just want to go through the issue very quickly.
Every child is entitled to full protection from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. This premise is reaffirmed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, an international legal instrument of universal significance, of which there are some 187 signatory countries including Canada. Obviously, although we are looking at an international situation, this whole issue of the exploitation of children, which child prostitution is, is very much a domestic problem for us in this country as well.
It has been the experience of police that predators who are involved in the sexual exploitation and degradation of children and youth are frequently well educated, well connected and capable of a myriad of glib rationalizations to justify their particular take on life. Therefore, we welcome any initiative which serves to discourage and sanction those who would lead our youth into prostitution, a life which offers no hope, no future and an inevitable crushing of the human spirit. In this context and in this spirit, we support Bill 18, which helps to fill a current legislative void and gives the police another tool with which we may help safeguard our young people from those who would rob them of their innocence and dignity.
An overview of the current problem: What is really at stake here is the future of our nation, that being the children. Is there a problem with victimization in our own backyard? Tragically, the answer of course is yes. Children are being hunted and recruited for sexual gratification by adult predators from coast to coast, from small towns to big cities, via the Internet and many other means.
The police experience with Project "Guardian," a multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional investigation into the sexual exploitation of children, served in many ways as a wake-up call to those who failed to realize the magnitude of the problem, which has not diminished in scope or intensity since then. Maclean's magazine reported on November 18, 1996, on the arrest of an individual in Kirkland Lake who was charged with possessing, importing and distributing child pornography. It was alleged that he was part of a ring which was uncovered initially by US federal agents. The investigation was continued and the arrest made in Ontario by Project P. This is a special unit investigating matters dealing with child victimization and other issues.
According to Jim Carroll, co-author of the Canadian Internet Handbook, "There are tremendous numbers of ways in which you can hide yourself on the Internet, and the problem is only going to get worse. If the police think they have a challenge today, they haven't seen anything yet." Indeed, there are an estimated 40 million to 50 million Internet members, a certain number of whom are criminals who use the Net to prey on children. I could give you story after story of how that's done.
Certainly the power and control issue is there, where adults are preying on children not only directly, eyeball to eyeball, in certain areas of our cities but also making contact with vulnerable children on the Internet to entice them into a life of prostitution or to otherwise engage them in sexual activities, including the making and distributing of child pornography.
Do we not need to supplement new and improved laws with a renewed focus on hitting the causes of crime and addressing societal attitudes before people are involved in such activities? In October 1995, the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Working Group on Prostitution released its interim report, which stated at page 3:
"Communities are alarmed at the growing numbers of young people involved in prostitution. Most adult prostitutes state that they entered prostitution as youths. Both sex trade workers and professionals suggest that the average age of entry is 14. In recent years, this age may have moved downward; there have been cases of children as young as eight or nine years old being sexually procured."
What has been the general response to this situation? We would suggest that the public has been largely apathetic or perhaps in denial. Worse, the predators have gone on the offensive. In 1996 one of their advocates, Gerald Hannon, a self-admitted male prostitute and long-time proponent of intergenerational sex, was invited to speak to a gathering of University of Western Ontario journalism students. We have a zero tolerance policy throughout this country for advocating violence against women. Should the same standard not also apply to children?
According to the University of Western Ontario student newspaper, the Gazette, this individual had the gall to publicly state, "Some 10-year-olds have told him that they feel in control of situations of intergenerational sex.... Sex is not the worst thing that can happen to a child." As quoted by the London Free Press from the same meeting, he further stated that "sexual relationships between adults and minors are not necessarily an abuse of power on the part of the adult." Is it this type of amoral attitude which must be challenged legislatively and publicly? I suggest it is. This is akin to the lambs chasing the wolves kind of an idea.
Currently, police have a very limited ability to intervene in situations involving young persons older than 16 but less than 18 years of age who are engaging in sexual activities with an older individual. Certain court decisions have steadily eroded our ability to effectively utilize the provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada for this purpose. There are cases which make reference to all of that, of course, with respect to certain offences, that were offences and are no longer that within the Criminal Code, as exceptions or as offences that violated, as interpreted by the courts, section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Therefore, they don't have the effect of law any longer. Many of these decisions have damaged severely our fight to prevent older pedophiles and those who are recruiting children into sexual activity to pursue them.
We note that the proposed private member's bill would define a child as a person under the age of 18 years. In appropriate cases this would also allow the police or a child care worker to intervene for the safety of the child. We highly endorse this measure. It is helpful that pursuant to subsection 1(2), a child is deemed to be in need of protection "if the child is engaging in prostitution or attempting to engage in prostitution." Present legislation does not adequately address such situations.
We note as well that section 10 of this proposed legislation permits the minister to establish programs to assist children in ending their involvement in prostitution. This is highly commendable but requires both political will and money, of course, to turn this into reality. Is the government prepared to support such a measure financially? We sincerely hope so, for otherwise the legislation would be much less effective.
The penalties for offences set out in this legislation are both strict and appropriate. The proposed Bill 18 sends a clear message both to the public and to abusers of children that this behaviour will not be tolerated.
I have a couple of items I had jotted down that I want to allude to. This power imbalance has to be recognized as a power-and-control issue. There is no way that child prostitution can be rationalized as an activity where children can make informed decisions to engage in this sordid activity. It's a predatorial activity. I can tell you my own experience. I'm very well aware of investigation upon investigation where predators are travelling the country purposely to seek out children at their most vulnerable and weak time to engage them in prostitution.
This is also an activity that profits organized crime. It goes way beyond the tentacles of a mere situation involving local activities. These are the most vulnerable components of our society. Child prostitution is definitely a form of sexual abuse.
In closing, I suppose if I were to reflect back on the Badgley commission, three volumes of a report following a very substantive, very involved investigation in 1984 of all the issues dealing with this particular occurrence, child prostitution and all of this exploitation of children have been visited time and time again.
It took us some nine years, for instance, from 1984 to 1993, to have embodied in our Criminal Code the offence of being in possession of child pornography and the importation of child pornography -- nine years to respond to an item of very significant concern about the need to protect our children. There's no way you can ever engage in, make, produce, sell, distribute child pornography material, as an example, without first abusing a child.
I just want to again underscore that we have travelled down this road many years, many times before. What is necessary is a victim-focused approach. Children who engage in prostitution are victims. We'd better get our head around that issue.
The Chair: We have approximately three minutes per caucus. We begin with the government.
Mr Jim Brown (Scarborough West): Congratulations on your new appointment. I attended your seminar on childhood sexual exploitation. It was held in Aylmer. I came away just amazed at how this whole industry is growing in exponential numbers. When I stay here late at night after the Legislature and go back to the Solicitor General's office, I notice that along Grosvenor Street, right in our front yard, is a young male stroll. There it is right in front of our Solicitor General's building.
I agree with you that the children are victims and that people are taking advantage of them, either the john or the pimp. The pimp usually ends up selling drugs to them, so they're a combination pimp and drug dealer. I'd just like your comments. It's been proposed, for example, that we seize the cars of johns to reduce the demand and make punishment more meaningful to johns, and in addition to that, when we get the pimp à la drug dealer, that we seize the assets and use them to either plow back into OHIP for some of the costs OHIP has put forward or into policing because of the investigative costs this epidemic has caused. What are your comments? What else can be done besides Bill 18?
Mr Fantino: I think you've hit on a very significant issue, the deterrence factor. Clearly, I don't think people today are too intimidated by the laws of the land. I hate to say it but that's the reality of it. I've always maintained that in order to hammer home the point that the legislation is trying to make, you do everything you can lawfully to discourage the activity. Seizing the car -- they're doing that I believe in some communities in this country, or they're proposing it -- I think is a very fine idea and is something that should be pursued.
I'd also like to go one step further. Any offence against the vulnerability of a child by predatorial, astute people who scheme to entice children into this kind of activity should be a hybrid kind of offence. They should fall into the category of absolute societal disdain. Yes, seize their cars, seize their assets if you can, absolutely, and discourage the activity to whatever extent, because everything is profit motivated. This is a profit kind of thing in which the children are the commodity, if you can believe it.
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Mr Jim Brown: Take away the incentive and dry up the business.
Mr Fantino: I can give you one quick story. We go around the world saying how sophisticated a society we are. I've been there at some of these Interpol meetings all over the world. I was at a meeting a year or so ago in a country where there were people in attendance from everywhere. The whole issue was this business of buying and selling children. Third World countries basically engage in all this sex tourism and on it goes. We were quite concerned about all that until a very senior police official from one of those countries we were sort of fingering for not taking proactive and clear measures to protect children said, "We wouldn't have a problem if you kept your Canadian and American tourists at home who come here to exploit children."
Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): Thank you very much. Chief Fantino just touched on a topic that I was going to ask him about. Agenda for Action is a document that everyone should read. It provides an international perspective on this problem. Chief Fantino also suggests in it that this is a local problem, it's not only international. Chief Fantino, there are lots of people who are against this legislation, more people for it, thank God, but there are some people who are against the legislation because of its constitutionality.
We devised this legislation to withstand a constitutional charter. It was the opinion of several lawyers, some of whom are constitutional lawyers, that this would withstand a constitutional challenge. Do you as a police chief have a problem with the deterrence section of this legislation as it is, shall we say, unconstitutional or unfair and only the federal government has jurisdiction?
Mr Fantino: I don't have any concerns. Of course, I'm not a constitutional lawyer. I'm not a lawyer, I'm just a layperson who works within the system. But I was just in Ottawa at the memorial service for fallen prison guards and police officers this past weekend. We marshalled outside the Supreme Court of Canada building. I wondered if those people were plugged into what's really happening in our society today in Canada, how things have deteriorated and how we've let things get away from us.
I'm afraid we've been hiding behind the Constitution a little bit too much to do what the greater public good requires us to do. I hope that isn't any kind of a bad reference to our system of justice. Clearly to me the Constitution is supposed to be for the greater public good. I don't know what problem there can ever be when we're endeavouring and trying everything we can to protect our children, who are the most vulnerable assets we have and being preyed upon by sophisticated criminals who are ruthless and care for naught. It's time that the Constitution began to reference the greater public good and the need to protect vulnerable people from victimization. That's my take on life. I'm a simple person. I'm just a taxpayer.
Mr Bartolucci: Just a very quick question, and thank you for that answer, a very important answer. You know that this legislation goes up to 18 and you support that. Would you also support the Child and Family Services Act being increased to 18 as opposed to 16-year-olds now?
Mr Fantino: Your question goes to the heart and soul of the disparity we have with regard to different age categories for different offences, different pieces of legislation. All these should really be harmonized. We have a great disparity here on that age issue. That has to be revisited. It has to be done across the Criminal Code and some of the provincial pieces of legislation. We're all over the map.
As you know, you can do some things -- if you're 16 you can drive; if you're X number of years you can do some other things. Then we start debating when children can and can't do certain things. My point is that children who are engaging in prostitution activities or in sexual encounters with some of these pedophile types are totally and absolutely victimized because of their lack of sophistication, their lack of maturity, their lack of ability to make rational decisions about such important issues.
I think we need to harmonize all of the legislation that deals with children. In this county we need to develop child-focused child protection legislation that is current, contemporary and not the debate of charter arguments all over the place.
Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): Thank you, Chief. You and I agree very much on the whole issue around exploitation of children. We've both suffered a lot of criticism, you for being the chief officer involved in Project "Guardian" and I as Attorney General for funding that project.
Part of the misunderstanding was about the nature of your objection, that any child who is exploited is being abused. Today in your presentation you've focused almost entirely on male prostitution even though, as you know, the Badgley commission identified sexual abuse of girls as being much more prevalent than boys, both serious but certainly girls. Those of us who work with prostitutes know that there are many more exploited girls, actually, overall.
I would like to ask you to just affirm on the record that of course it's serious if this is abuse of girl children and youth, not just males, and to counter some of the criticism that has come because that particular focus was on the issue of male prostitution.
Mr Fantino: Your point is well taken. My experience of course, long before the male prostitution issue, was really with female children being exploited and sought out in certain places even in the city, and on it goes. That's a given.
However, the reason I focused on the male aspect is because that is the one issue that really has not come to the surface. We don't seem to have come to realize that male children are just as vulnerable, and equally victimized, as female children are. The big emphasis has been on female children. I certainly don't take anything away from that. That's very legitimate and very much necessary.
But clearly in my experience, in my humble opinion, we have not as yet begun to deal with the male children who are victimized in their homes, in their neighbourhoods, within the institutions or on the streets, and also the conditions under which those children, as Mr Brown pointed out, find themselves on the strolls. Why are they there? We haven't really got our heads around that issue just yet.
Mrs Boyd: That's my other concern. How do you feel about the police having the responsibility to try to determine whether it's appropriate to return a child to a home when we know the prevalence of home-based abuse is the real issue in child prostitution?
Mr Fantino: I think whenever the police are engaged with children, as you are well aware, we don't or we should not operate in isolation. We should be partnering with the various entities, the agencies which not only have experience but they have a mandate as well. We're required to notify them, as you appreciate.
I see this as the police taking a much more proactive role as a more involved partner, if you will. But you're so right. In some situations you can't just assume that everything is well at home. The reality is, and I go back to what I said earlier, why are they there? Why are they engaging in this activity? Why are they vulnerable to this extent? Invariably some of that is that children are running away from home situations or things that are happening in their own lives.
So I agree with you. It's my assumption that all of this would be investigated before you just up and return a child to the last known address.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Chief Fantino, Julian to me as a personal friend. I want to thank you for taking the time to be here to share your expertise with us. Twenty minutes only begins to scratch the surface in any of these presentations. We know it's difficult to do. Thank you very much on behalf of the committee.
Mr Fantino: Thank you for the opportunity indeed.
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VELMA DEMERSON
The Chair: I call upon Velma Demerson, please.
Welcome, Ms Demerson. We are very pleased to have you here with us.
Ms Velma Demerson: Thank you very much. The title of my talk today is Bill l18, Traces of the Past. You can see by the title that I am bringing up the point that we haven't really gone that far in the past 50 years or so, that there are a lot of similarities going on today that were happening many years ago.
The title of the proposed act, An Act to protect Children involved in Prostitution, may be new but the contents are similar to past legislation directed against females for immorality or anticipated immorality. It is girls who have been placed in convents, refuges, reformatories and homes for the feeble-minded.
Times may have changed and boys seem to have entered prostitution, but in the public imagination a prostitute is a girl or a woman. In order to emphasize this, you'll notice that when you're watching the news sometimes you'll see girls being pointed out as prostitutes on the corner.
Still, whatever a girl's offence is, it may be overlooked unless recorded in law. She is being officially noted as someone who must be locked up. Most of those apprehended under this new prostitution act will be girls. Why should the member of a powerful bureaucracy, the police, also use the tactics of coercion which they claim are being used against the child by exploiters?
Parents are especially inclined to report their daughter's wanton behaviour. Moral standards may be higher in some ethnic communities where marriage within the group is highly regarded. Deviant behaviour by a girl may not be tolerated. Fear drives the mind to evoke images of disease, pregnancy, drugs and depravity. The family's status is at stake. They might prefer that their daughter be dead.
Bill 18 is proposed in a climate of fear. This same fear can be seen in an article entitled "Protective Bureau for Young Girls," which is attached, which appeared in the Mail and Empire on January 8, 1919. This protective bureau was to be for girls 16 and over. The persons who proposed the act were members of a eugenic organization called the social hygiene council. Through their efforts, legislation was enacted under the Female Refuges Act. The Female Refuges Act had come in earlier in the century, in 1913. By manipulation, the act had included women as well as children. Women were put into industrial refuges and given long terms, five years.
In 1919 this was changed when this protective bureau came in. What happened was that one girl who was trying to escape from the Good Shepherd refuge died in the attempt and there was a public uproar over it and they reduced the sentence to two years. But at the same time that they reduced the sentence, they also brought in this legislation whereby they could arrest females from 15 to 35 for being idle and dissolute. The girls were charged with being incorrigible. It so happens that "incorrigible" isn't in the Criminal Code, but these girls and women were being sentenced in a magistrate's court. At the present time, inasmuch as I was one of the persons who was arrested under this act, I am bringing this matter up before the Legislature.
The girls were arrested for being idle and dissolute. This act lasted for 50 years and it was repealed in 1964, so you may have some idea of how many girls and women were unlawfully arrested. Most of them didn't know it. They didn't know it was illegal.
The act came into existence in 1913, but this section of the act where girls were deemed to be incorrigible came in by the firing up of eugenic propagandists. The church declared war on immorality, the medical profession was concerned with venereal disease and the psychiatric profession claimed the country was being overrun with dangerous mental defectives. Does that ring a bell?
It was decided to nip it the bud, in the beginning, by measuring the intelligence of children. Today that would be termed a psychiatric examination. As for the fear of girls acquiring and spreading venereal disease, the loyalties of the medical profession were obvious: Men or boys, who had the highest numbers of venereal disease, were never locked up. Today the emphasis by the medical profession is on drugs. If one believed the media, one would think that prostitution and drugs were symbiotic, that there couldn't be one without the other.
It seems that persons with strong ideologies, like the members of the social hygiene council -- and when I'm talking about social hygiene I'm also referring to Alberta and British Columbia, where sterilizations were performed. We think that these people weren't here in Ontario? Yes, they were here. Yes, there were sterilizations in Ontario too but we didn't have to have an act for it. It could be done under the idea that a person needed an operation for other reasons, that they were sick.
Also, historians have little good to say about our early Christian child savers, and we all know about these training schools. They used to be called industrial schools. As mentioned, I was one of those charged under the Female Refuges Act. I was sentenced to one year for running off to marry a Chinese. Unfortunately, I was apprehended. I was 18 years old. The refuge was called Belmont Home. It was officially called the Toronto Industrial Refuge, but I think even in the phone book it was called Belmont Home. It was located on Belmont Street in Toronto. Presently in its location is a large nursing complex called Belmont House. Belmont House includes two old persons' homes and a refuge. Outside Belmont House you'll find a plaque that says, "The girls left in 1939."
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The refuge was a large house with barred windows. It could well be described as a protective safe house. As far as I know, the girls were all like myself, charged with "incorrigible." Yes, I did meet a girl at the refuge who had been found in a bawdy house, so I guess she could have been considered a prostitute. Certainly, being charged with "incorrigible" is better than being charged with being a prostitute. But of course, as mentioned before, the charge of "incorrigible" wasn't in the Criminal Code and now the Ontario government is faced with admitting that they made a mistake.
One of the most horrific sections of the Female Refuges Act was the right of any person to report a girl's behaviour. This could be anyone: her ex-boyfriend or her neighbour or a passerby. Is this any different from the present proposed bill? Bill 18 lends itself to vicious reporting and exaggeration. In my case my father initiated the arrest. He was afraid that his daughter would marry out of her race and disgrace the family.
The Toronto Star on June 6, 1993, reported that a man had hired a hit man to kill his daughter's black fiancé. The judge said it was a Greek tragedy. Such a reference is in itself racist. A white girl in the company of racial minorities will surely be targeted by police as a likely prostitute.
In Bill 18 "protective safe house" means "premises designated as a protective safe house by the minister," but there is one thing I would like to make clear. Protective safe houses are not necessarily permanent. It is within the power of the minister to transfer an inmate from one safe house to another. A reformatory can be a safe house. For instance, under the Female Refuges Act we girls, some as young as 14 years, were put into large houses with barred windows. They were called refuges.
One would have thought that women and children sentenced by the court to refuges operated by Protestant or Catholic church members were safe and the girls would be humanely cared for. I was one of the 47 girls transferred from the Toronto Industrial Refuge, also known as the Belmont Home, to the Mercer Reformatory for Women on King Street, Toronto. The Mercer reformatory had a notorious name, not only amongst the public but also amongst the officials of the judiciary. We were transferred because the refuge required additional funding. The Ontario government was unwilling to provide it.
In the refuge we girls slept in dormitories. When we arrived in the reformatory we were each put into a small barred cell. The reformatory was short-staffed. The matrons never spoke except to issue orders. We were permitted to talk for less than two hours a day. We spent about 12 hours a night alone in our cells. We weren't allowed to talk. We got a book about once every fortnight if we were lucky.
Large institutions are dangerous. Fewer attendants means less communication and less personal contact. We were put under the care of Dr Edna Guest, a medical researcher. There is evidence that the doctor was engaged in venereal disease and cancer research on girls in the Mercer reformatory. Dr Guest was also a member of the social hygiene council.
It is my understanding that in some cases today the inmate of a detention centre may refuse treatment by the jail doctor and have access to her own physician. It so happened that I wrote a letter to -- I think it's called the Metro detention centre for women; I'm not sure of the name -- because there was something in the paper there about a lady who had cancer and she was refusing any treatment by the jail doctor. Anyway, I got an answer back from there and they said that she was allowed to have her own doctor; at the same time, they said she had been released. I would like to know to what extent this is done. Who will pay for this service? What if a prison is privatized? What individual medical services will be provided?
Should the children's prostitution law come before us, it may spell disaster. Not only will its enforcement become unruly, but girls apprehended under it may seek damages for sexism, racism, age discrimination and harassment. Police will be in a tenuous position to avoid entrapment.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms Demerson. Regrettably, we have no time for questions, but I want to thank you for your bravery in coming forward and telling your story and assure you that your story will form part of the formal record of this committee. Thank you very much.
Ms Demerson: There is one thing I'd like to add with regard to the last speaker. The idea of international prostitution is the same story that came out earlier in the century when they were talking about white slavery. Historians have found out that white slavery never took hold in this country. There are enough homeless children in this country without anyone having to go abroad looking for children to exploit.
The Chair: Thank you again, very much.
YONGE STREET MISSION
The Chair: I call on the Yonge Street Mission, David Adcock, Ruth Ewert and Pat Nixon. Thanks very much for being with us this afternoon.
Mr David Adcock: Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the standing committee, for the opportunity of appearing. My name is David Adcock. I'm serving as the associate executive director of Yonge Street Mission. With me are Ruth Ewert, who serves as our mission director of the street health centre, which is profiled in the handout you have in front of you; and Pat Nixon, who is the executive director of the Mustard Seed in Calgary, an affiliated organization with Yonge Street Mission, and who happens to be in town this week. That jurisdiction passed some legislation involving child prostitution responding to the issues of children involved in prostitution and is just awaiting royal assent. As he was in town, I asked him to come along and give his perspective on the differences in the jurisdiction in Alberta. He'll be concluding our presentation before questions this afternoon.
It is my honour to serve as the associate executive director, but I thought it was important, rather than hear me in the executive office speak, to listen to people involved in the grassroots part of our organization who actually serve young women and young men involved in child prostitution and allow them to tell their story and bring their perspective on this laudable act. We are deeply encouraged that this bill has come before the Legislature. I'd like to commend the author and those involved in the preparation of this act.
Yonge Street Mission sincerely applauds Bill 18's significant strategic direction in protecting children under 18 involved in the life-shattering evil of prostitution. We encourage this committee to develop this strategic response by advocating that appropriate amendments be adopted that would strengthen the intent of this bill and extend its effectiveness. It's our opinion that these potential amendments would make a good initiative even stronger.
Ruth Ewert, as I said, is the director of our health centre for street-involved youth. She sees about 6,000 young people aged between 12 and 24 each year and provides a variety of services. I'm going to ask Ruth to provide the bulk of our presentation and then leave us, after Pat, with good time for questions.
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Ms Ruth Ewert: I too would like to congratulate Mr Bartolucci on his work and his vision to protect children in prostitution and the work he has done in introducing this bill.
Almost daily for the past 10 years I have been in contact with many of Toronto's child prostitutes. This bill, however, as it stands, although very worthy in its intent, is actually weak and deficient in a number of areas. I would like to just go through those.
First of all, regarding section 1, the definition of "child," specifically raising the age of "child" from 16 to 18 for the purposes of this act alone, will create many extra difficulties for all those who work with children in this age group, but especially for the children's aid societies, which are specifically mandated to carry out the Child and Family Services Act.
To define a child as a person under 16 one moment and under 18 for another purpose will add untold difficulties for both the children and those working with children in these age groups. We need to look at all our legislation, bringing harmony and consistency and political will and money to our desire to protect children in this way.
Section 6, confinement in protective safe houses: The bill recommends the child be conveyed to a safe house following apprehension where the child is confined for three days, after which three basic options are decided upon; one being returning the child to the custody of a parent or custodial adult. This is to return them, in most situations, to a situation they probably ran away from in the first place, an even worse situation than prostitution. We have determined from our work with prostitutes that nearly 100% of child prostitutes are or were victims of sexual abuse in their own homes, usually by the parent or custodial adult, long before they became prostitutes. Returning them to such a situation would only be furthering their abuse.
The next option, of releasing the child, would likely cause the child to re-enter the situation from which he or she has just been apprehended, causing him or her to become even further entrenched in the lifestyle. Asking the child protection worker to make the child a ward of the CAS is also a problem. Already the spaces for teens 12 to 16 are critically short. What will happen when we add another large group to their load?
Safe houses in Toronto are few and far between. Many more would need to be designated. Furthermore, the so-called safe houses are not really all that safe. Children constantly find ways to leave. In the 10 years I've worked with children in this city, I have known many over the years who have eagerly left safe houses while in protective custody. A better solution than those described in section 6 must be found.
Section 9, application for restraining order: Restraining orders are extremely ineffective in keeping a pimp or a person pimping a child from continuing to pursue that child. At best, such an order is weak and only delays the inevitable. Pimps run an extremely tight network. If one is restrained or arrested, another will immediately take over. Eventually, even greater harm will come to that child when he or she is released from protective custody because the pimps will assume that the child has in the meantime provided police with damaging evidence.
Almost every child prostitute has a pimp. To overlook the actual or perceived power that he or she has over the child and not to deal more definitively with the pimp is indeed very short-sighted. Very few children in prostitution ever successfully leave their pimps. A restraining order on a pimp only makes him or her more dangerous and drives them underground.
Then what happens to the 17-year-old who turns 18 and is no longer protected by this bill? She will be mercilessly stalked, then found and surely harmed by the underground network. In the end, the child's fate will likely be worse than if he or she had never been apprehended and protected in the first place.
Section 10, programs: This should be the longest section of the bill; instead, it is one of the shortest. It says, "The minister may establish programs...to assist children in ending their involvement in prostitution." Children need and must have programs or we will never be successful in protecting them.
The reasons children are in prostitution in the first place and those keeping them there are many and complex. They have all suffered abuse of various kinds. They are no longer part of a stable family situation. Many never have been. Almost 100% of these children have addictions and chemical dependencies, frequently forced on them by their pimps and by the nature of their work. They are often sick and usually emotionally disturbed. They are usually uneducated and illiterate, having left school early. They need and must have treatment programs for emotional trauma, physical illnesses, substance abuse and addictions. They must have help to overcome emotional trauma and addiction and get appropriate educational and career opportunities.
Unless comprehensive treatment programs are part of this bill, it will not be successful in protecting and helping children involved in prostitution. Again and again, I have spoken to and seen prostitutes returning to their pimps and to prostitution because they have no other skills or opportunities and know only that. We must establish programs before we begin apprehending children or we will end up traumatizing them further, pushing them further underground to enable them to escape subsequent apprehension.
Section 13, the offence: Both johns and pimps must be punished. Who is being punished in section 13 is not really clear. What the offence is, is also not clear. The $25,000 or 24 months may be sufficient punishment or deterrent for a john; it is simply not enough for a pimp. Pimps are incredibly abusive of child prostitutes in every way -- emotionally, physically and sexually. If we are to truly protect children in prostitution, pimps must be dealt with in such a strong way that a clear message is sent to all who would so abuse children.
In conclusion, again I would like to say that this bill is an excellent beginning, but as it presently stands it is weak and even impotent in some areas. I therefore urge this committee to require further revisions and improvements that will truly begin to protect children involved in prostitution.
Mr Pat Nixon: Thank you for allowing me to be here today. Coming from Alberta, taking a look at a similar bill there and knowing that you were discussing this today, I was very excited to have an opportunity to speak to it. I really appreciate the opportunity.
I want to applaud your efforts. I've read through the bill and I felt like I was reading much the same kind of bill that I was reading two years ago in Alberta when we were first scratching it together.
Mr Jim Brown: Was that Bill 1?
Mr Nixon: Bill 1, that's right. Bill 1 was passed unanimously, and we were able to celebrate, as Albertans, as agencies in government, that we were finally trying to put some teeth in the laws that were there to really give us a hand to deal with our problems.
I work in a front-line street ministry. Right outside the door of the organization I work for prostitution takes place. Girls as young as 12 years old have worked right outside the window of my office, selling themselves; girls as young as 12 years old have been arrested working outside those offices; and girls as young as 12 years old have been returned to the street to work again because there wasn't proper programming to assist them to truly get off the streets. All the people involved in trying to assist the girls who work outside on our street to get off are very disappointed. It's very difficult to work that hard and see nothing happen.
When we started to work on Bill 1, there was great excitement on the part of the government but also the front-line agencies that finally we were discussing solutions, coming up with ideas. There were concerns, and I'll get to them, but Bill 1 seemed to address some of our most immediate needs and it also gave us an opportunity as a community to join together and truly work on a problem together. I was excited to see the community involvement.
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Proclamation of Bill 1 has been postponed from October 1 to January 1, I believe. That was done because the programming was not totally established at this point to support the bill. If children were taken off the street, we would be unable to provide them the programming until January 1. Edmonton has done a good job in establishing the programming. Calgary is a little behind the eight ball, much to do with real estate fees and availability of property in that city. But I was assured today on the telephone that they feel that by January 1 they should be in full operation.
The other concern about postponing that from October 1 to January 1 is to make sure we're not hurting these children any further. For years we have been taking children off the street, maybe by vice or the city police or assistance from family social services. We try to see how we can help them. We do not have facilities, we don't have programs, we don't have the ability to offer them safety, and on several occasions we have seen young people die, people I've known, because we have allowed them to go back to the street. They've been beaten and found dead, off in ditches. Bill 1 is important to help us deal with that.
Anything less than a 100% effort to fulfil the intent of Bill 1 or Bill 18 would greatly reduce the success of getting young people, boys and girls, off the streets.
Make no mistake: Child prostitution is child abuse. It is cult-like in the way that children's minds are manipulated to do things that were unthinkable even moments before they do them. I've spoken to many child prostitutes over the years. I talk about their first act and that is the word they use: "It was unthinkable. I can't believe I did that. What happened to me?" It becomes quite the mind control, very cultic.
Those who take advantage of these children are child abusers. They are people who are very selfish and only thinking of their own fulfilment sexually, their own control. Over and over we are seeing men on the strolls, johns who are going out to pick up younger and younger girls. When I ask the johns, "Why are you out here? What are you doing? Why are you picking up these young girls?" they say, "I have a need for control." These are adults wanting to control people.
I've interviewed over 100 prostitutes in my 15 years of front-line street ministry and a large majority tell me that they began their trade, if we might call it that, or began being involved in prostitution between the ages of 14 and 17; the average is 15 years old. A lot of these prostitutes are women who have been out there for some time. If we are to really eliminate or at least take a good stab at prostitution generally, we have to start with juveniles, because that's when these women are starting, as young girls.
I spoke to the staff sergeant in charge of vice crimes in Calgary this morning. They are very much anxiously awaiting this bill to be proclaimed so they can start their action. I spoke to a minister in charge of social services and child welfare, again very anxious, who already has been able to put some processes in place before that proclamation, which is exciting.
I have one thing to say in terms of a suggested change. The application for warrant to apprehend, in section 2, gives apprehension responsibility to the police. One thing that's different in Bill 1 in Alberta is that it also gives responsibility and authority to the director of child welfare. I don't know what the department would be called here, but in Alberta it would be family and social services, child welfare. I encourage you to consider that, because it's often the social workers involved in those departments doing the front-line work who uncover some of this prostitution. I would just encourage you to take a look at some changes there to make that possibly more effective.
I recommend that you involve yourselves in some progressive programming. It is not good enough and will not be good enough if all we do is bring a young child into a program that takes them in for a few weeks, maybe, and then dumps them back on the street. We have to be involved to rebuild people's lives. That's why that postponement is in Alberta. We don't want to make a mistake. We don't want to rip off these children.
In closing, I would like to make mention that Saskatchewan has a similar bill that they are working on. They've taken a look at the Alberta model and they've become excited about getting that through. We are in the process in Alberta of speaking to people in British Columbia about starting to work on a similar bill, and it is also planned that we would go to Manitoba and start to work on a bill there, understanding that this is a Canadian problem. Yes, we have to deal with it as provinces, but the young girls and boys who are out there are being moved straight across this country. Unless we address it across the county, I'd be afraid it won't be as successful.
I want to again thank you. I'm excited that Alberta and Ontario have an opportunity to lead the charge against this abuse. I hope that Bill 18 is very successful. It would be a big help to children.
The Chair: I want to thank the representatives of Yonge Street Mission. Particularly I think I can speak for the committee when I say we really appreciate your cross-country perspective. It's very helpful for us to have.
TORONTO PUBLIC HEALTH
The Chair: I call upon the Toronto department of public health, Connie Clement. Thank you for being here, Ms Clement. Welcome to our committee.
Ms Connie Clement: Thank you. I'm very glad to be here and I'm very glad to follow the speakers from Yonge Street Mission and Alberta.
I'm here because of a project undertaken in the past year in Toronto. You have just been handed out copies of a report entitled Toronto Roundtable on Prostitution Involving Children and Youth. This report was a product of a round table mechanism that was used to discuss the current situation in Toronto and to develop recommendations for action.
Toronto Public Health provided the facilitation and the secretariat, but the round table itself consisted of a broad range of stakeholders, including the police, particularly the juvenile squad, staff from the Ministry of the Attorney General, the Toronto Board of Education and a number of key downtown social service agencies that serve youth in Toronto, particularly youth who are involved in prostitution.
From a public health perspective, I'm going to refrain from commenting on many of the aspects of Bill 18 because I believe that the front-line agency staff have a stronger perspective to bring to you, but I want to share several comments today.
First, I want to commend the bill for defining prostitution involving children and youth as child sexual abuse. That's a critical shift that needs to be happening and certainly the round table looked at that as commercialized child sexual abuse. However, the bill alone will not shift social thinking to redefine what we typically call juvenile prostitution as commercialized child sexual abuse.
Resources must be allocated by the provincial government to establish and support programs that have as their goal the elimination of such activities and prevention of such activities. So again, I commend section 10 of the bill for allowing the establishment of such programs that may be necessary, but in keeping with the previous speakers, I would suggest that rather than simply allowing that power, such programs must be an integral aspect of the implementation of the bill.
Another concern that I suggest you explore further is mechanisms to ensure strong partnerships between police and agencies serving youth and children. In the round table report the group recommended that the Ministry of Community and Social Services, in partnership with corrections and the Attorney General and the federal Minister of Justice, review the Ontario Child and Family Services Act, the federal Young Offenders Act, the Criminal Code and any other legislation that might relate to this topic to see how all pieces of legislation need to be adjusted to integrate the concept of commercialized child sexual abuse.
I believe that such a comprehensive review would be more likely to foster comprehensive solutions with stronger social and judicial components and authority to balance the enforcement emphasis that's in this current bill.
Finally, I would ask that you review further the age definition you are using of 18. As the previous speakers said, many services currently and different legislation and protocols and practices make a distinction now between under-16s and 16- to 18-year-olds. The kind of comprehensive review that I just suggested would address this concern to ensure consistency across various pieces of legislation and to ensure that implementation is practical. I believe that an age reassessment and comprehensive review would also enhance options for providing intervention services across the board that are more age-appropriate rather than the emphasis you have now on enforcement.
I commend you for undertaking the bill and the intent of the shift in social thinking that's in the bill and I ask you to go further to enhance the judicial and social aspects to match the police powers that you're looking at here.
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The Chair: We have approximately four minutes per caucus.
Mr Bartolucci: Thank you very much, first of all, for your presentation. I'm sorry I missed a few moments of it. I do apologize.
There is a section with regard to programs, and I think every one of the presenters is absolutely correct that we must change the word "may" to "must." There has to be an educational component attached to it.
What would be some of the programs that you would suggest are extremely important to be found in that type of legislation or to be undertaken in that type of legislation?
Ms Clement: I'm speaking in part from the round table experience with other agencies. It's partly prevention. The school board was there because they very clearly felt there was a prevention role -- their prevention capabilities for training and supporting staff throughout the child welfare system to help identify when there's risk of prostitution activities for a child or youth, what are the changes in someone's life. There are all of the key social services that need to be able to intervene for anyone who has a street-involved life, particularly in the urban centres.
But I think the last speakers spoke very clearly when they said it's a Canadian problem and it's a provincial problem. I speak from a Toronto perspective. The youth here who are engaged in commercial sexual abuse activities are from all over the province and all over Canada. So we need both that intervention and the local programs to support youth. Certainly programs like Yonge Street Mission, and there are a number of programs working with street-involved youth, are doing absolutely vital work. As far as I know, there is only one program downtown with the core mandate of working specifically with youth and children involved in prostitution. It's inadequate for a city of our size and for a province of our capability.
Mr Bartolucci: In Sudbury this is a huge problem. It probably was there for a long time and we just didn't look at it closely enough. But certainly over the course of the last year it has manifested itself enormously. It has everyone fearful.
In Sudbury, our very proactive and very positive police services have enacted the DISTC program which began in British Columbia -- deter, identify sex-trade consumers. What we do is we print their names in the Sudbury Star and in Northern Life. I'm a big fan of that, I have to honest, but there's lots of controversy about it. From a public health perspective, what would you feel?
Ms Clement: I don't think it's a public health answer; I think it's a social and political answer as to how you want to resolve that. Public health is involved locally in john school. We do the sexually transmitted disease teaching component of john school. We are involved in Streetlight, which is a diversion program for women involved in prostitution in Toronto, again for the educational aspect.
I think the kinds of social solutions that are used are not a public health segment, so I would pull myself back to say that I'll comment only on those aspects that have specific public health issues because I believe that it's highly controversial and there are many complex issues to using that type of social public exposure.
Mrs Boyd: Thank you very much. I was really interested in the results of the round table because I think we do come up with some solutions when we all meet together.
One of the realities for young people who have left home is how they're going to manage to keep themselves if they can't get jobs, which is often the case, if they can't get welfare, which is now very much the case. I'm curious whether in the discussions at the round table the whole issue of keeping kids safe by having some financial stability available to them was part of the discussion.
Ms Clement: Yes, it was, and it was raised in a couple of different ways. One was initiatives to help keep youth in school. One was the whole question of safe living and accommodation when it is important for a child to leave home. I think the previous speakers spoke well to how many of the youth in particular who end up engaged in prostitution have come from backgrounds of sexual abuse and need a higher level of safety in their lives, and we don't have enough housing alternatives for youth.
We didn't actually get into issues of guaranteed income or that kind of policy direction, but certainly the question of access to youth for a safe space and a livelihood was there and what are the social support programs. I know employment was talked about in terms of employment initiatives. I don't know how much it got in the final report, but it was certainly part of the discussion.
Mrs Boyd: It strikes me that in the legislation now for those who are under 18 who might be applying for welfare assistance, they need a third party to indicate they can't live at home. Many of the agencies that were involved in the round table would be the obvious kinds of agencies to do that, yet they are all struggling to meet the mandate that they have as a primary mandate. I'm wondering if you can comment on whether it's really possible for those mandates to be stretched at this point in time with their current funding in order to be mindful of that aspect of child protection.
Ms Clement: I think the great dilemma for any government, whether it's the municipal level that I'm at or the provincial level that you're at, is how to deal with allocation of resources when resources are tight, and certainly youth agencies, from what I understand, have been stretched and stretched.
We just did a recent study of young mothers who are street-involved in Toronto, and one of the issues in trying to get better data of how many youth are on the street, and we don't have good estimates of how many youth or children are involved in the prostitution trade in Toronto, one of the things that certainly I learned more than I had known was the absolute escalation of demand and service contacts that have been provided by our local agencies in the last few years. One of the shelters, for instance, had a 70% increase in client load between 1994 and 1996. The reason I used that agency was that it was not a downtown agency, it was one of our suburban Toronto agencies, and we often think that it's more isolated and it's not.
I don't have an answer. We need more resources, but everything needs more resources. I think staff are already stretched to their limits within their current mandate.
The Chair: For the government, Mr Carroll, and if there's time, Mr Brown.
Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent): I chaired our provincial task force on homelessness, so obviously we also came up against the same issue and we heard the same type of testimony I've heard today, that child prostitution is occurring more often, it's occurring at younger ages, almost all of the victims come from some sort of sexual abuse in the home by a parent or a caregiver, that they're poorly educated and they don't have any skills.
Children 16 and under are currently protected under the rules of the children's aid societies, and yet we want to pass another law. Is another law, another bill really what we need, or how do we get to the root of the problem, which seems to start with child abuse in the home and then manifests itself at a later point in life with lack of educational skills and training and eventually a life with a lack of self-respect that leads to the street? Is another bill to raise the age to 18 going to help any?
Ms Clement: I never would have guessed that I would come here and say you need another task force or that we need another task force, but I think what is needed is to look at all of the intersecting pieces of legislation, not a new bill that stands alone on the side. The intent of the bill I think is very laudable, and the energy that went into the bill and the goals the bill is trying to achieve are important, but I think what you are getting at is, are there better ways to do that, and I think strengthening existing legislation is generally a more effective means than adding a new bill on to the building block.
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Mr Carroll: Just your opinion: Is the right age, because we have talked about that, 16 or 18? Have you got a comment on that?
Ms Clement: No. I think it's phenomenally complex. We deal with it in terms of sexuality education, in terms of our sexually transmitted disease issues, in terms of prevention stuff. The issues are different. When I work with colleagues internationally, if I think about it -- my background is stronger with teen pregnancy issues -- Britain has really shifted so they are now working with teen pregnancy under 16 and teen pregnancy from 16 to 19 with totally different programs. We haven't started doing that yet but I think it's appropriate. I think your parallel here is that the intervention that's needed for a 15-year-old or under is different from the intervention that's needed for a 17- or 18-year-old.
The Chair: Mr Brown, do you have a short question?
Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): I doubt it.
Mr Jim Brown: Yes, I doubt it.
The Chair: We'll save it for the next group.
Thank you very much, Ms Clement, for being here and sharing the perspective of the city of Toronto.
JUSTICE FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH
The Chair: I call upon Justice for Children and Youth, Martha Mackinnon and Lee Mitchell. Thank you both very much for joining us this afternoon to speak on this important topic. We're looking forward to your presentation.
Ms Martha Mackinnon: Thank you very much for allowing us to be here. We had a brief which we have circulated to you. I want to explain why it says "Draft" at the top. Our organization gives final approval to briefs at board meetings as opposed to at executive meetings, and the next board meeting isn't until October. I have approval in principle and our board has reviewed this. There would be no changes to recommendations. I don't want you to think we're soft on these recommendations; it's just that our organizational structure requires us to wait until it would be too late to be useful for you.
The second organizational or institutional point that I wanted to make is something about Justice for Children and Youth. We're a legal clinic. We work with people under the age of 18, and we have worked with them in the area of social assistance, in the area of children's aid and housing and accommodation and in the area of young offender work, so this bill addresses or looks at kids who might have come to us from a variety of perspectives. I hope that some of what we have to say may be useful to you.
I don't know whether to say it's heartwarming or interesting or perhaps it just makes it true how much overlap there is in our conclusions about this bill with what I've heard from some of the speakers before we began, although we have taken, as a legal clinic, a very slightly more legalistic approach to it.
The first thing is -- you've heard about the end of services; in fact, Mr Carroll has talked about should it be 16 or 18 -- our position is that it should be 18. Our position is also, though, that there shouldn't be duplication. People have mentioned being worried about inconsistencies, and if I were to put that as baldly as possible I would not, and neither would anyone in this room, want someone to say: "I need protection. I'd better engage in prostitution because I'm 16 or 17." That would be the most dramatic and extreme of the bad consequences of having two different systems.
In our view it's important that the age be 18, but to avoid all kinds of inconsistencies, some of which we predict in our brief and some of which we've identified and some of which probably no one can identify -- we won't know this until we're out there -- to subsume this legislation in the Child and Family Services Act and to ensure then that all of the procedural things that happen, everything that we now can't guess, will just happen because it's part of existing legislation that has an existing supportive framework, that has existing people who do jobs like identifying places of safety.
People have indicated that there may be a resource problem. We certainly indicate that in our experience children's aid societies have a great deal of difficulty dealing with 15-year-olds now and are often assertive in their reluctance to accept a 15-year-old, sometimes even a 14-year-old. They need more resources if they are to help 16- and 17-year-olds. However difficult that may be to provide or even to say, it simply is necessary. You can't help or protect kids without providing the resources and the supports.
If I can step back and look at part of the reason that we come to that conclusion, it is that this legislation states a laudable goal. It states that it's about the protection of children. It's really important that it remain on the side of protecting children who seek out our help to get out of a lifestyle that presumably is the only or best option they feel they have, but they need or want out.
It's equally important to avoid, as you've heard earlier, the punishment of children under 18 who may have had no other choices. That's important for a couple of reasons. One is that it's unconstitutional. People have been trying to regulate prostitution provincially in numerous ways. It's never worked. It's never been legal, it's never been constitutional, however laudable the goal. The second reason for that is that it's ineffective. It simply doesn't work. No matter how much people don't like prostitution, it's still here, and there are enough jokes about "oldest profession" for us all to have to acknowledge that that's the case.
But it is also important that we look at all of the work that has been done and not reinvent the wheel here. The Badgley report about 13 or 14 years ago addressed these issues; the Fraser report nationally about three or four years ago; again, a multi-disciplinary, well-skilled committee in the Toronto area, the Interagency Committee on Homeless and Runaway Youth, looked at the issue; and most recently of all, this government's panel of experts on the protection of children prepared a report called Protecting Vulnerable Children.
Again and again we have looked at the issue and it isn't effective to treat it as a punishment issue. Both constitutionally and because I believe you want to do what you say you want to do, which is to protect children, it's important that we classify the legislation, like the Child and Family Services Act, as protective legislation.
Mr Carroll has also addressed the fact that the reasons young people get into prostitution are complex: self-esteem, lack of education, poor home. The reasons are complex and it is important that the help be provided for them. The interagency committee has looked at several of the supports that need to be in place. They've also designed a protocol for how to contact youth and how to reach out and find those who need our help.
One of the incidental things that happens in the current bill is that because apprehension is by a police officer as opposed to by a child protection worker, the police make the initial call. You've already heard about how bad it would be for a police officer to send a child home to the very place they needed to escape from. But, systemically, information about whether that home is a bad place for a kid to be sent back to doesn't reside with the police; it resides with children's aid societies. So the history of determination of where is a safe place for a kid isn't best made by a police officer.
I think the most important thing, as you look at all of the small things -- and we've made several suggestions about amendments but all of them relate to putting this concept into the Child and Family Services Act -- they also indicate the necessity of reacting to the fact that children age, they mature, they have different needs. In fact, you've just heard that in Britain it's considered wise to treat 15-year-olds differently than you treat 19-year-olds. Part of the reason that CASs have so much difficulty with 15-year-olds is that they also don't fit very well into a group home with 11-year-olds. They have different needs; they're growing up. They've probably come from tough enough places that they have both more independence in some ways, because they've had to, and more complex needs in other ways because of where they've come from.
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For that reason, we recommend that the accessing of services for 16- and 17-year-olds be optional and allow them to seek out the help, because that's when it will become effective. If they need protection from a pimp, then heaven knows we should be giving it to them. If they need and want to get off the street and have no other choices because they have no food, they have no place to stay and they're afraid, then if we don't help them, it's hard to know who we would consider to be a higher priority. On the other hand, if they're not ready for our help and all we do is punish them, it will not only be ineffective but, as you've heard, will cause them more harm.
Much of what I would have said has already been said, so I'd welcome questions and ask Lee if he has anything to add.
Mr Lee Mitchell: The only thing I would have to add is on the aspect of assistance versus punishment. We do have an example of the necessity for kids to be participating in the help that they receive voluntarily, to want that help; otherwise the help is ineffective. That is the children's aid services that we have now. Children's aid services are not prisons, children's aid workers are not police officers, and they are not structured in such a way as to lock up kids and hold them there. There are many children who benefit from children's aid societies because they voluntarily participate in receiving that benefit. Those kids who don't want that benefit can't effectively be made to take it unless we simply lock them up, and then you are getting into the jurisdictional problem of effectively passing criminal legislation.
There are those kids who the children's aid societies attempt to help who simply refuse to have that help and who run away and run away over and over again. I say that not because I want to despair of what children's aid societies can do, because I don't; I think they do a lot of good. I say it simply because it helps to indicate that it is an historical example that we have to refer to, to remind ourselves that in fact this kind of help isn't going to work unless it is voluntarily participated in by the helpee; unless, as I say, you're going so far as to lock people up, in which case you have that jurisdictional problem.
That's about all I have to add. We'd be happy to answer questions, certainly.
The Chair: Thank you. We have just under three minutes per caucus. We'll begin with Mrs Boyd for the New Democratic Party.
Mrs Boyd: I agree with you that it should be a comprehensive look at child protection and that it is long overdue. I certainly believe we should have had that comprehensive look at about the 10-year period of the Child and Family Services Act and that many of the issues you have raised could have been raised in that context. I think that kind of comprehensive look would be more appropriate.
What we've got here, though, is a private member's bill. Part of the answer to the question that one of the previous presenters asked -- why doesn't it say "must" provide programs? -- is that a private member can't require a government to spend money, and the government has seen fit not to adopt this as a government bill. So it's kind of a conundrum, but it is a good occasion on which to deal with some of these issues.
I would agree with you in terms of the age issue, but also agree with your real down-to-earth assessment of the need to make the programs effective so that people want to participate as opposed to not participating.
When you look at the bill that we actually have in front of us, where do you see the pitfalls being? You've identified some of them, but the real pitfalls in terms of making this something that would be looked on as a helpful thing to kids.
Ms Mackinnon: Actually, we identify many of them in our brief. Apprehension by police is one. Identification of the place of safety by the minister as opposed to by the director is another. It's a genuine concern that the safe haven could be a jail. The bottom line --
Mrs Boyd: Which it was at places like Grandview and St John's.
Ms Mackinnon: That's right. In my opinion, that would not only be unconstitutional but would be opposed to the stated purpose of the bill, which is protection rather than punishment.
In addition, the bill does not distinguish between people under 16 and people under 18 and doesn't acknowledge that 16-year-olds are legally not only able to leave home but there are a lot of parents who think that means they're legally able to throw them out. It creates no understanding that 16- and 17-year-olds do have different and separate legal rights from those under 16. As I indicated, police officers have the ability to return them home. That's often the very wrong answer.
It also indicates that the young people can be held for three days and then indefinitely until the end of a hearing. The child and family services legislation requires that a kid at least get before a judge within five days. This bill could amount to indefinite detention. I don't think that's constitutional either.
That's an example of some of the things that I put into the basket of the procedures that you get if you enfold in another bill.
The Chair: Thank you. I want to give Mr Brown a chance for the government to pose a question.
Mr Jim Brown: I have a little bit of a problem defining what the real problem is. I know there is childhood prostitution out there. I've talked to many people in the policing community. I've talked at length with Cherry Kingsley. I don't know if you know Cherry Kingsley, a former childhood prostitute, who is a bright young person. She has suggested to me that, notwithstanding welfare or whatever, oftentimes what happens is that kids leave home for whatever reason, sometimes abuse. A lot of times they can't accept the discipline. A lot of times they go to the big city, end up at the bus station, and these guys called pimps pick them up and befriend them. They don't even get a chance to go to the welfare office to collect a cheque. They're befriended and before you know it they've got drugs and they're in the business. Again, it's these bad guys.
Then they're abused by johns. These are adults. So you have adults, you have pimps and you have johns, taking advantage of kids.
What bothers me is, in this legislation, we're looking at taking kids away. I don't know what's the safest time that we have to lock the kids up. But I just would like your comments on: What happens to the adults? What do we do to the adults?
There are some proposals and there are some jurisdictions in Canada that have seized the cars of the johns. There is of course civil remedy and going after the assets of pimps. Usually the pimps are drug dealers, and civil enforcement is well within our constitutional domain. We've got to attack this problem. What do you think about going after the adults who are abusing these kids and hitting them in the pocketbook? That's why they're in the business, to make money.
Ms Mackinnon: I didn't prepare on the adult aspect because that's not really what the bill focuses on. But the Criminal Code already makes it an offence for an adult to be living off the avails of a prostitute generally, makes it illegal for an adult to be sexually exploiting a child. It is already clearly illegal for those adults. It's illegal for a john to have sex with an under-age -- the legislation provides for age gaps. There would be the odd 19-year-old for whom it wouldn't be a specific criminal offence if the prostitute were 17, where the age gap is very small. But generally speaking, it is already criminally illegal for the adult.
My concern would be criminalizing it for the child. But you can't help the child without helping the child. Taking away a car from a pimp just means the kid has to work harder. You have to provide education, training programs, money, a place to live.
Mr Jim Brown: That's like saying that taking away a car from a drunk means they have to drink more.
Ms Mackinnon: No, no, not the drunk has to drink more. It's not the pimp who's doing the work. It's easy for the pimp to say, "I need more girls."
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I agree with you. My niece, who is not wildly sexually active or sophisticated, every time she comes to visit me by bus from Ottawa is approached at the bus station. There's no question it happens, you're right, and it's adults who, generally speaking, find vulnerable kids. No question. But if those vulnerable kids don't have a place to go -- if I could take you back to the provincial panel of experts on the protection of children and the Protecting Vulnerable Children report, it indicates that the age should be 18. It also indicates that there is a serious problem if you then cut them loose at 16 or 18. It talks about the necessity for ongoing support.
Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville): I have no questions. I just wanted to note that my colleague Mr Bartolucci would be here except he's speaking in the House right now on another bill that has to do with children.
Mr Mitchell: He mentioned that on the way out.
The Chair: Thank you both very much for being here and sharing your views with the committee. We appreciate it.
TORONTO CHILD ABUSE CENTRE
The Chair: I ask the Toronto Child Abuse Centre representative to come forward: Sue Hunter, executive director. Welcome, Ms Hunter. We're very pleased to have you here. As you may have heard, you have 20 minutes for your presentation. If there is any time available at the end, we'll ask you a few questions.
Ms Sue Hunter: I don't actually imagine that I'll take 20 minutes, but before I start I do want to say briefly that I've only been here for a little while and you've been here for a longer time. Whatever I say that's repetitive, I'm really sorry. But there are a couple of really important points.
Interjection.
Ms Hunter: That's right. I anticipate that you'll just keep listening.
It's a real opportunity for us to speak to you today. You may be wondering, in the same way that many people in our community wondered when they said, "Sue, what does what we do have to do with child prostitution?" I just really quickly wanted to tell you what the Toronto Child Abuse Centre does and why we thought it was important to be here.
We're a community-based agency that's committed to the promotion of violence-free environments for children. Any child who is engaged in child prostitution is no longer in a violence-free environment. Our job is to coordinate efforts to improve prevention, detection, reporting, investigation and treatment of children who have been exposed to abusive situations.
We're a multi-service organization. We're located in downtown Toronto but we serve kids from across the GTA and have three primary functions.
One is system coordination and policy and protocol development. It was the Toronto Child Abuse Centre, which used to be called the Metropolitan Toronto Special Committee on Child Abuse -- so you can appreciate why we changed our name -- which developed the child sexual abuse protocol which in fact talks about and describes how the system is to respond to disclosed cases of child sexual abuse.
On an ongoing basis, we work with the players -- the police, the child welfare and the education system -- to make sure we're continuing to respond in a way that provides the least additional trauma possible for the child while maximizing our opportunity for actually getting cases to court and, when we're really lucky -- these days it seems like luck -- we actually get some convictions.
We also have a huge prevention education and public education and training program that's really important in the context of this legislation. The "Making a Difference" program is a 16-hour training program for anyone who is engaged in working with children: camp staff, teachers, child care staff, any program where people have direct interface with kids. We're just in the process actually -- my Maple Leaf Gardens tag is because today we introduced our "I'm a Great Kid" prevention video at Maple Leaf Gardens, which is about providing skills for kids so that they are less vulnerable to abusive situations.
Just so that we keep our feet firmly on the ground, we also provide direct services. We have crisis support group programs which are trauma assessment and support for children and their allied parents who have recently disclosed sexual abuse. Those programs currently are for children five through 16. The child victim/witness support program provides court preparation in many instances for children who have been sexually abused, for kids who are going to testify in court either because they've been victims or because they've witnessed a crime. Over the past 12 months we've trained more than 5,000 people and worked directly with more than 750 children and families.
That's the perspective I'm here from today. We would agree with all of you that child prostitution is a critical issues that requires some attention. We have to start paying attention to this issue. Children's safety and well-being should be of paramount concern to all Ontario residents. If it's a concern to the residents, then it needs to be a concern to the government.
The piece that's problematic about this legislation --I have to tell you that when I first read it, I went: "Oh, great. It recognizes that abuse is a major cause of kids being on the street." I was so struck by the positive nature of it. Then I kept reading and I went, "Wait a minute." I want to talk to you about that "Wait a minute" kind of response.
We know that most but not all children who are working as prostitutes are the victims of child abuse, not even, necessarily, exclusively child sexual abuse but maybe physical, emotional or neglect. Children who find themselves on the street are statistically likely to be running from environments they found intolerable. Not all of them, and you'll certainly find someone who will stand up and say, "My kid just didn't want to live at home." But most of these are children who are coming from home environments they just could no longer cope with.
The other thing it is really important to recognize is that it's incredibly difficult for a child to make the decision to leave home and move to the streets, because most of these are kids with limited means of support, which you were talking about earlier. They tend not to be well educated. They're 15 and 16 and 17; they haven't had an opportunity to be well educated yet. For many of them, prostitution is the only means of supporting themselves. For those of us who are parents, prostitution, especially child prostitution, is not the way we imagine our children making their living, nor for most of us do we imagine them living on the streets. I don't think there's anyone who would say this is an OK lifestyle choice for a child, but we have to be really clear that in most instances it's not a lifestyle choice; it's something they have been compelled to move towards.
We don't support Bill 18 and I want to tell you why. The Child and Family Services Act is the current legislation that outlines the responsibilities our society has to children. It's good legislation. It's not perfect legislation, but it is good legislation. It is effective. It contains the pieces that are needed to ensure that children are protected. It's pretty sweeping in its scope and it addresses all of the issues that Bill 18 addresses, with the exception of the 16- and 17-year-olds. That's the biggest difference. Anything else that's covered in there from a child protection perspective can be covered through the Child and Family Services Act.
What this does is raise questions for us about what the actual intent of this legislation is. I'd like to give you three examples.
A 17-year-old youth lives at home and is being sexually abused by his or her father. This child currently does not fall under the purview of the CFSA. Our society doesn't consider that child, and I consider a 17-year-old a child, in need of protection. Unless he or she can gather the resources to call the police herself or himself, which is, as you can imagine, a tremendously difficult thing to do, and then the police will lay charges, that child is there. The only exception would be, if there were children under 16 in the home, there's the potential you would then have child welfare intervention because of the possibility that those children may be abused as well.
Another scenario, same child: The child can't tolerate the abuse, leaves home and does not turn to prostitution but is hungry and unable to secure a place to live. Neither Bill 18 nor the current CFSA will have anything to do with that child. Unless she commits a crime, under our current pool of legislation we're not prepared to say as a society that she deserves protection and support, so that child can be homeless and potentially starving and we don't have any infrastructure that intervenes. Bill 18 won't address that either.
The same child leaves home, can't stand the home environment any more, is tired of being hungry and homeless, can't find a job and becomes a prostitute and starts turning tricks. Only then will Bill 18 intervene. That raises questions around, is this truly about child protection or is this about addressing an issue that all of us struggle with, which is prostitution? We're not sure we like that, we don't want prostitutes working on the street, there are issues around people's perceived feelings of safety etc, so when that child turns to prostitution, then we'll say she needs some support.
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The connection between child abuse and prostitution reminds us -- this bill has this in there, and if it could just have gone that step further to make that the primary focus -- that the real issue here is prevention. We know there are strategies and programs that support children in a way that makes them much less vulnerable to abuse. While no child is ever responsible for being abused, and I want to be really clear about that, we know that research demonstrates that kids who have strong communication skills, who respect themselves and who respect others, who are able to make developmentally appropriate decisions and have high self-esteem are significantly less likely to be abused. It doesn't mean those kinds of kids are never abused, it's just there's sort of a relative pool. Primary prevention is about helping kids develop those skills and characteristics.
Given this knowledge, Bill 18 presents more of a dilemma because it talks briefly about the cause of child prostitution being abuse, but it doesn't talk about prevention and it doesn't talk about early intervention. It's a little bit like the proverbial expression, "Closing the barn door after the horses have escaped," or however that expression goes. Not only is the legislation redundant, because except for the ages of 16 and 17 it addresses the same things as CFSA, but it is also only targeted at one particular group of children who I think all of us would agree are still in need of support and protection. All kids who are living on the street have potential need of support and protection. We need to recognize that and not just pick out one pool of children who happen to be engaged in an activity that this society really frowns on at any age.
We have some specific recommendations, believing, as do all of you, that child prostitution is not the support system we envision for our children: that is, that the recommendations of the expert panel, which are all in this book and I'm sure you've all seen it, be adopted and adopted quickly, particularly the one that recommends that the definition of "child" in part III of the act should include children aged 16 and 17; that the child welfare system be provided with sufficient resources -- I appreciate the issue about it being a private member's bill, but I think this is an opportunity to raise these kinds of issues -- to actually provide families, children and youth with the support and protection they require; and last but certainly not least, to commit resources to child abuse prevention programs, positive parenting programs, and to early intervention for children and families before they're in crisis, recognizing that child prostitution is a consequence of a lack of social and societal supports early in the lives of children and families. Healthy, hopeful children and their families are the cornerstone of our community.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to come and for your patience in listening to some things that are redundant. It's an incredible opportunity with the review of the Child and Family Services Act and with the public discussions that are happening around this legislation to actually, finally make a difference in the lives of children and families. I want to urge you to do that by starting at the very beginning and putting the programs in place before we have to address the issue that we have 17-year-olds turning tricks on the street.
The Chair: There's approximately two minutes per caucus. We begin with the government.
Mr Carroll: It's nice to see you again, Sue. The issue, as you describe it, the complexity of it: There seems to be more and more money being spent in children's aid societies with probably less and less result, with more and more kids coming into care and we have more child prostitution, yet you talk about the CFSA being a good piece of legislation, not perfect but a good piece that is far-ranging and covers many issues except for 16- and 17-year-olds. Obviously we're not doing everything just exactly the way we should be doing it to protect these vulnerable kids. You talk about early prevention. There's really no question that that's important. Do you see any role, in this whole early prevention, this training, this whole bit about improving those kids who are at risk, for our education system to play in that?
Ms Hunter: Absolutely.
Mr Carroll: We have a huge system out there that has these kids for four, five, six hours every day. Is there a role they could be playing to help us in this area, do you think?
Ms Hunter: Absolutely. One of the things that might be of interest to you is that our primary prevention program will be delivered in all the schools in the former Metropolitan Toronto. I don't just want to say Toronto because then people forget the other pieces. The piece that I cannot resist this opportunity to tell you is that of all the programs we offer, that's the only program we have no funding for.
Mr Carroll: The only program there's no funding for?
Ms Hunter: That we have no funding for, our primary prevention program. There have been a lot of words over the last couple of years about the importance of early intervention and primary prevention, but because there's this phenomenal demand on the treatment side or the intervention side, no one has recognized that it's more effective -- or no one has been willing to put their money where their mouth is -- let me rephrase that -- to put what is relatively speaking very minimal amounts of money into those early prevention programs.
As you are well aware, and it's tempting to watch this debate at the same time, the education system is more and more strapped all the time. We are now working on a strategy with the social work and teaching staff of the Toronto board and the Toronto Catholic board around how to find the resources in their program to get these videos and manuals and handbooks in, because the program is specifically designed to be integrated with the brand new curriculum. It's designed to work and really minimal resources would guarantee that it would work, and that's the problem.
Mr Bartolucci: Sue, thank you very much for your presentation. Although you disagree with just about everything in the bill, I always appreciate dissenting opinions because I think we all learn something from them. Clearly, though, in your brief you say: "This difference raises immediate questions about the intent of this legislation. Consider the following example." You cite three scenarios, all horrific; there is absolutely no question about that. None of them was ever intended to be dealt with under this legislation. This legislation, as you know, is specific to those children involved in prostitution. That's not to say these other scenarios aren't important, but they are dealt with in the Child and Family Services Act.
I agree with you that it should be raised to 18, that the age should be raised to include 16- and 17-year-olds, I should say. As you know, my bill would override the Child and Family Services Act, if in fact both were at 18, when it came to children involved in prostitution. It may be because of my background that I didn't make that educational component of the bill or the support program component of the bill more definite and more definitive. I think that's a weakness we can address in clause-by-clause.
My question to you is, when we go to clause-by-clause, because I respect the great work that you do, what types of programs would you suggest become a component of this particular piece of legislation, or in fact, if this were to become an amendment to the Child and Family Services Act or whatever, to ensure that we deal with education specifically about prostitution, sexual exploitation and abuse through prostitution? I guess I'm grappling with that right now.
Ms Hunter: I want to tell you how much I appreciate (a) the grappling and (b) the recognition that something has to be done about child prostitution. Our point is that, by changing the age in the Child and Family Services Act, it has the component, because a child who is 17 who is engaged in prostitution would be deemed as a child who is in need of protection. That's the issue with the bill, not that child prostitutes don't need support and protection. There is an avenue already that would address it.
In terms of programs, I'll speak from the perspective of our agency. We think the place to start is with little kids and young families. There is a range of programs. The Children's Aid Society of Metropolitan Toronto runs an excellent program in Scarborough, for example, of kids who have made the transition to being prostitutes and are attempting to make the transition back out of that life. We believe that the critical place to intervene is much earlier, in senior kindergarten, grade 1, grade 2 and grade 3, and the important piece of that is to have programs that address children's feelings of confidence and power and ability and capability, and to provide programs for their parents that support that kind of response for their children.
Mrs Boyd: Thank you very much for your presentation. You're very persuasive and I hope the members of the committee will be persuaded that there is something we can do and that we should be doing it through CFSA, because I certainly agree that would be a much more acceptable way to do it.
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I'm interested in your comments about prevention. I was speaking at the International Congress on Child Abuse and Neglect in Malaysia a few years ago, and every single country talked about the fact that there's no money going into the preventive end. Somehow we have our resource management backwards, because without doing the prevention we simply pile up more and more money on dealing with the crises at the other end. At that congress, one of the things that was noted was the continuing extreme resistance to education around child abuse within the family that exists and is certainly alive and well in Canada as well. I wonder what mechanism you would suggest for easing the concerns of those who see this kind of preventive education as being an interference with the family.
Ms Hunter: I hardly have any time and the context is this big. One of the things that I think it is really important to recognize, particularly when we are talking about child sexual abuse, is that this is a society that won't talk about good sex, so we have a really hard time, particularly in the context of our children, in talking about sex that is completely unacceptable and inappropriate. I think the challenge becomes, and this is what primary prevention is about, taking it out of the abuse framework specifically and helping kids and families to address some of the issues in children's presentation and development that in fact make them less vulnerable. It's not about abuse. A child who can communicate really well not only is less likely to abuse but will do better in school. So these are things that all families can buy into.
We're only scratching the surface of the issue around primary prevention. There are a fair number of what we call secondary prevention programs, which are primarily disclosure programs. What do you do, once it's happened, to support the children? Those are very important. Families have a much easier time addressing issues around primary prevention because it's not sold -- I use the word deliberately -- in the specific context of preventing child abuse, and that's easier for people to accommodate.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms Hunter, for a fascinating presentation. I regret that we don't have more time to talk with you, but we do thank you for coming.
JOHN HOWARD SOCIETY OF ONTARIO
The Chair: Could I ask the John Howard Society to come forward: Bill Sparks. Welcome. We're very pleased to have you here.
Mr Bill Sparks: As the executive director of the John Howard Society of Ontario, I am pleased to appear before the committee today to present the views of the society on the proposals dealing with child prostitution detailed in Bill 18.
Before I begin, let me familiarize you with the work of the John Howard Society across the province. The John Howard Society is active in 17 communities in Ontario, providing service to adults and youth who are in conflict with the law and those who are at risk of becoming involved with the criminal justice system.
The programs and services targeted at youth include educational activities in the schools, youth employment services, substance abuse programs, literacy and life skills programs, assistance with housing, alternative measures, community service order programs, as well as individual and group counselling. We recognize the importance of our province's young people and the value of providing assistance to the vulnerable and troubled members of our population. As well as our involvement in direct service, the society has prepared community education materials, position papers and briefs related to the issues of youth crime and young offenders. We recognize the importance of public education on youth-related criminal justice issues since public support for programs designed to prevent crime or reduce recidivism is crucial to their success.
The John Howard Society supports the intent of Bill 18 and its author. While we have had ongoing debates about treating the matter of adults engaging in prostitution as criminal, there is virtually no disagreement about the matter of child prostitution. We agree with the 1985 report of the Special Committee on Pornography and Prostitution, the Fraser committee, which described the use of children in commercial sexual activities to cause serious harm. The imbalance of power and resources, as well as the lasting interference with the child's personal integrity, both mental and physical, make the practice of child prostitution onerous. We also agree with the Fraser committee's stated beliefs that it is in society's interest to shield children and youth from potentially harmful influences and behaviours to allow for a healthy maturation process.
These views are reflected in the first four sections of the preamble to Bill 18 which state:
(a) the safety, security and well-being of children and families is a paramount concern for all residents of Ontario;
(b) children involved in prostitution are victims of child abuse and require protection;
(c) it is the responsibility of families and communities to provide that protection;
(d) it is the duty of the province to assist families and communities to provide that protection.
While we support the intent underlying Bill 18, to mobilize communities and governments in actions to end child prostitution, we cannot support the bill itself as stand-alone legislation. In our submission today, the John Howard Society is proposing that the committee recommend the rejection of Bill 18 not only because it is unnecessary legislation but also because it continues to support the notion that social problems can be legislated away. We will also address our concerns related to measures proposed which would add to the use of detention of children and youth in Ontario.
We believe that section (e) of the preamble, which states that "legislation is required to ensure the safety of all children and to assist children in ending their involvement with prostitution," represents the primary reason for recommending the rejection of the bill. Legislation already exists which enables the citizens of Ontario to protect victims of child abuse, including those involved in child prostitution and, therefore, makes additional legislation unnecessary. Ontario's child welfare legislation, the Child and Family Services Act, certainly provides the authority to intervene in all situations of child abuse and neglect, including child prostitution, for any child up to the age of 16. It is difficult to understand why another law is needed, although we certainly recognize the intent of this legislation. Furthermore, we question the wisdom of singling out one form of child abuse or neglect for special legislative attention. We need to protect our children from all forms of abuse and neglect, regardless of how it is inflicted on the child.
If the one objective of this bill is to extend child welfare protection to those aged 16 and 17, an initiative that would be wholeheartedly supported by the John Howard Society, then the Child and Family Services Act could be amended to increase the age limit. The society has consistently argued that the age of majority should be set at age 18, as defined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and that persons below that age should be persons afforded special protections.
The John Howard Society believes that the reliance on legislation to solve social problems is misguided. While the role of law must be recognized, it should also be understood that the law is a "blunt social instrument" and that its contribution to the creation and maintenance of healthy communities is limited. More does not mean better, particularly if our reliance on legislation focuses attention away from other more effective ways of creating healthy communities and from the need for governments to provide the necessary resources to accomplish such an important task. Furthermore, passing unnecessary legislation can only serve to reinforce the notion that social problems can be solved by passing more laws.
The society acknowledges the frustration of continuing to be confronted with children who are abused and neglected, particularly children involved in prostitution. A faith in simple, quick solutions is seductive but the problems that these children face are multi-faceted and do not lend themselves to easy answers. We need to deal with the problems underlying the involvement in child prostitution, such as the emotional effects of abuse and neglect and substance abuse. We need to reach those young people through programs and services which are relevant to their individual circumstances and needs and which provide credible and attainable alternatives to their current lifestyle. All of this requires a child welfare system that is provided with the resources to do its job, a public recognition of the importance of the investment and a lot of hard work with the children affected.
We are particularly concerned about the implications of section 10 of Bill 18 which states that "the minister may establish programs that in the opinion of the minister are necessary to assist children in ending their involvement in prostitution." Using "may" instead of "shall" implies that services and programs are discretionary and further that resources are not really necessary. We support the intent of this act, that in fact the resources are necessary.
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At a more fundamental level, what is needed is more attention to preventive measures so that activities are not simply focused on removing children from abusive, neglectful or exploitive situations. Families need to be supported with opportunities for employment, an income beyond the poverty level and decent housing. Enriched family support and early childhood intervention must be available to disadvantaged children and their families.
It is instructive to look at the 25-year evaluation of the Perry Preschool Project. Involvement in this early intervention program with children at the age of three led to adults who, at the age of 28, were more likely to have completed high school and to be employed. Graduates of the program were also less likely to be arrested repeatedly or to be on welfare than members of a similar group who were not involved in that program as children. The related cost-benefit analysis estimated a savings of $7 for every $1 spent on the program, and the John Howard Society endorses such an approach.
The John Howard Society is also concerned that the measures proposed in this bill, the goal of which is to protect children who are involved in child prostitution, will have unintended consequences. This legislation might result, not in providing much-needed support for abused children and their families in the community but in building another mechanism to hold children and youth in facilities of detention. A "protective safe house" could become, in reality, nothing more than a detention facility. Already, Ontario relies too heavily on the use of detention facilities to deal with the problems of its children.
The proposed legislation would enable a police officer, with or without authority from a judge and a warrant, to enter a dwelling, using force if necessary, if he or she believes there is a child engaged or attempting to engage in prostitution. The police would have the power to search the dwelling and apprehend the child. It would then be up to the police officer to decide if the child should be released, returned to the parents or guardian or brought to a "protective safe house." On what criteria police officers, who are not routinely involved in child welfare matters, would base such a decision is not clear, but it does not stretch credulity to imagine that, in many cases, the officer would choose the cautious route and detain the child. The society believes that such matters are best left to the discretion of child welfare professionals who are skilled and trained appropriately to assess the situation and to the processes as defined in existing child welfare legislation.
The John Howard Society has consistently expressed concerns about the effects of detention on all persons, especially youth, and about the overuse of custody in Ontario's system of youth corrections. We've had an excellent and eloquent example in Velma Demerson's submission to you today. Detention is disruptive in terms of its effect on work, education, family life and other pro-social influences. In some cases, it has proven harmful to the mental and physical well-being of the child, the very matters Bill 18 is designed to protect.
Ontario has not demonstrated restraint in the use of measures of detention in the youth justice system. The rate of youths held in custody facilities in Ontario is 238 per 100,000 persons aged 12 to 17. That's a higher rate than the national average of 209 per 100,000. Ontario in fact incarcerates more youth per 100,000 than it does adults. Research has shown that community-based treatment services yield more positive results in reducing reoffending than treatment services within a correctional facility. Therefore, the society has consistently urged for limits to the use of detention in the criminal justice system. While this legislation, Bill 18, does not relate to criminal law, it would still have the effect of expanding the use of detention of youth for correctional, taken in its broadest definition, purposes.
It is important to recognize that a protective safe house is a form of detention. Unlike forms of detention under a criminal sanction, the period of the child's detention in Bill 18 has no specified limits. For many children, alternatives to the protective safe house are not available immediately or may not exist. It is how they became involved in the destructive world of child prostitution. The child welfare official will have little choice but to utilize the provision permitting continued confinement beyond the three-day period. The youth could continue to languish in detention until the determination of the application under the Child and Family Services Act. While it might seem preferable to life on the street, the John Howard Society does not believe that stripping abused children of their rights will benefit them in the short term or in the long term. Indeed, children and youth detained against their will in this manner, even if for their own protection, could become more embittered and alienated.
The John Howard Society believes that the power to take away an individual's freedom should only be used as a last resort and that taking away that freedom for the protection of that individual is a questionable practice that, in a free and democratic society, should be subject to the highest scrutiny and safeguards.
Finally, we disagree with section 13 of the bill, which proposes to define offences and impose sanctions already available under the Criminal Code. Obtaining or attempting to obtain the sexual services of a person under the age of 18 is an offence under section 212 of the Criminal Code subject to up to five years' imprisonment. Similarly, living on the avails of the prostitution of a person under 18 is subject to up to 14 years' imprisonment. Section 129 of the Criminal Code defines obstruction of a police officer or a child welfare official as an offence subject to a term of imprisonment of up to two years. It is our view that these sections of the Criminal Code already cover the offences that section 13 addresses, making further legislation unnecessary.
In summary, the John Howard Society believes that Ontario's abused children do not suffer from lack of legislation but from lack of resources. We urge the committee to recommend that Bill 18 be rejected because legislation adequate to deal with the issue already exists; the measures proposed within the bill are unduly intrusive; and the proposed measures are punitive rather than protective.
We also urge the committee to put the focus back where it belongs by stressing the government's responsibility to ensure that the child welfare system has the resources to meet the needs of all abused and neglected children and to undertake activities aimed at prevention, as we have heard previously from the Yonge Street Mission and the Toronto Child Abuse Centre.
Finally, we would be encouraged if the committee would recommend that the Minister of Community and Social Services consider expanding the definition of "child" under the Child and Family Services Act to include those under the age of 18. We've heard mention of the age of 18 from Chief Fantino, from the Yonge Street Mission, from Justice for Children and Youth and from the Toronto Child Abuse Centre previously.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Sparks. We have about a minute a half per caucus. We begin with Mr Bartolucci of the Liberals.
Mr Bartolucci: Thank you very much for your presentation and for your views. I'd like to quote from the executive director of the Sudbury chapter of the John Howard Society.
He says: "...contrary to public opinion, an ostrich does not bury its head in the sand when confronted with a problem. An ostrich actually uses its feet and agility to run away. Bill 18 stops the running and we can stop behaving like ostriches. It is time we faced this problem head-on and adopted a goal of total eradication of child prostitution. Bill 18 may not eradicate all child prostitution, but its passage will ensure that we deal with the problem. Then, at least we can start reaching the goal of eliminating child prostitution."
What I want from you, I guess, is the reason for interpretation. You've taken just about everything from the bill and stretched it as far -- I don't want to be far-fetched because that's not your intent and I don't want to insult you because that's not the intent here either. But why have you taken the worst-case scenario as opposed to dwelling on how this adds to or improves the adequacy of the Child and Family Services Act, because that has been totally ineffective?
Mr Sparks: Certainly we understand the intent of your bill, and it's a good intent. It's been our experience, first of all, that with well-intentioned bills that have tried to perform a balance of providing resources and looking at the protection of children, but also providing a measure where the child can be seen as being protected in their own best interests by use of detention, the use of detention has become an abusive situation. We've seen the examples prior in the presentations to the community today.
What we would certainly support is amendment to the Child and Family Services Act which would strengthen that to include the suggestions for protection in the bill that you suggest. We would certainly support the intent that the age be raised to 18 and that children under the age of 18 be afforded protection. We certainly understand and support the intent that the resources you're indicating here in the bill -- we think in fact the bill is weak in that you suggest the minister "may" -- should and must be provided.
We honour the intent of what you want to do here, but we need it to be enshrined in a harmonized Child and Family Services Act, in other pieces of legislation and in the Criminal Code of Canada so that we have a comprehensive application of what you intend here.
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Mrs Boyd: Thank you very much for your presentation. I think one of the most important things about having had this bill brought forward is that it is generating the kind of discussion we're having, about how to deal with an issue that we all regard as a problem. I agree with you that there are better ways of dealing with it than this particular manner, but it is really important that we have had a public discussion of a very serious problem.
One of the responses we have heard frequently is for greater punitive measures against johns and pimps. You don't mention that in your presentation. I wondered if you'd like to comment on that because your society certainly deals with a lot of folks who have been convicted of those crimes.
Mr Sparks: There are John Howard societies that are involved in john schools around this. We would certainly support full prosecution under the existing Criminal Code. We certainly support that the court sentences be appropriate. There have been in fact a number of relative successes in programs around john schools.
Mr Jim Brown: I was in Thunder Bay last week with the crime commission and the local John Howard came and gave those same statistics. I had a problem and maybe you could enlighten me later. We have about 1,000 kids incarcerated and we have 2,800 people incarcerated for two years less a day in Ontario. In the federal penitentiary for Ontario we have 5,000. If you multiply that, it comes out to the rates per 100,000. You're way overstating the case, so somebody's got a problem someplace.
While we're on johns and john school, what do you think about the idea -- it's the adults who are the bad guys, really -- of taking their cars, impounding if not confiscating the cars of the johns, and using civil enforcement to go after the assets of the pimps, who oftentimes are drug dealers and that's how they keep the hold on the youngsters? What do you think about that? That sure ties in with your idea of not incarcerating anybody.
Mr Sparks: I think what we're looking at, though, is full prosecution under the Criminal Code, in criminal law rather than civil law.
Mr Jim Brown: But they don't do much time with the Criminal Code. You've done a very good lobby job; they just don't do very much time. If you take away the money they're making at this terrible trade, you take away the incentive.
Mr Sparks: What I would like to see, of course, is that this is a crime and that it's pursued under criminal law to the full sanction of it. I'm not suggesting that the John Howard Society is in favour here that people who are involved in pimping and johns not be prosecuted under the full extent of the law. We support the Criminal Code. We support that prosecution.
Mr Jim Brown: But you don't think the civil enforcement is worth anything.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Sparks, for being here and for giving us the perspective of your organization. We appreciate it.
REAL WOMEN OF CANADA
The Chair: Could I ask REAL Women of Canada, Gwen Landolt and Lorraine McNamara, to come forward. As you approach, let me welcome you to our committee. We look forward to your presentation. You will have our undivided attention, notwithstanding that you're the last. We want you to know that we very much appreciate your taking the time to be with us.
Mrs Gwen Landolt: My name is Gwen Landolt, I'm the national vice-president, and this is Lorraine McNamara, who's our national secretary. We are a women's organization that supports the equality of women, but we also support the family. In that particular aspect, we have had a long-time concern over teenage prostitution. Over a year ago, we wrote to all the provincial and federal attorney generals expressing our concern about teenage prostitution. We've written op-ed pieces that have been published across Canada, because this is a national problem.
We want to say that we are very grateful to the Ontario government for bringing this bill forward. It's something that we know Alberta has adopted. They had royal assent last spring. We are grateful that Ontario has shown this initiative.
I've been on the board of the children's aid in Toronto for over 10 years and one of the problems we've found is that these children in teenage prostitution were falling through the cracks. That's because the act ended at 16, but also it was such a long, involved process to make them wards to get them protected. That's why we're grateful that this particular act is dealing with legislation that can pick these children off the streets as quickly as possible. That is one of the main problems. It was a long, long meandering process.
One of the problems I used to see at the children's aid is that when we did finally get hold of these children and make them wards, they were lost, irretrievably lost to us. We used to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to get psychologists and psychiatrists but they were so damaged that it was too late. Certainly this legislation may well pick up and catch them before this dreadful loss to our society of these damaged children.
We would like to suggest, though, that there may be provisions that may strengthen this bill and we would respectfully submit them. One of them is section 6, which says that the child can be released. In clause 6(1)(b) the child could be released into her or his own care if in the vision of the person this was acceptable. But we are concerned that, as the Alberta legislation says, only a child over 16 should be released to their care. We would request that this be included, that no child under 16, no matter what, is really able to look after themselves, especially these damaged children. We would like that one amendment, if possible, to say that if a child is over 16 they could be released to their own care.
One of the problems that may arise with regard to section 13: I know that this is exactly the same legislation Alberta has and it really hasn't been in long enough to know, but one of our concerns is trying to catch the johns or customers in the net. One of the problems is section 13 says that a child may be picked up off the street if she or he is in "need of protection." "Need of protection" is defined in subsection 1(2) as "the child is engaging in prostitution." As the previous speaker said, there are provisions in the Criminal Code, subsection 212(4), that do prohibit the buying of sexual services for a person under 18 years. But what has come to be the practical effect of that is that it's difficult to enforce that under the Criminal Code simply because it's difficult to catch the customer in the act, an individual act, as it were.
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Under our quirky prostitution laws, as we all know, it's not the sexual act that is unlawful; it's the soliciting. It's very difficult to prove the soliciting. Also, often the young people are reluctant to testify against a pimp. We have concerns whether section 13 will in fact pick up the customer or the john. It may not be a problem with regard to the pimp, because circumstantial evidence would be much more extensive than it would with one single act of sexual relation. We are concerned about that.
Also we have difficulty that one of the problems is that the 14-year-old, under the Criminal Code, can give his or her consent for sexual relations. Therefore, the young person may simply suggest, "I'm having sexual relations and you can't prove it's an act of prostitution or soliciting." In the best possible world, we'd like to move the age of consent to 18, but of course that's federal jurisdiction.
With regard to the pimps who are exploiting young people, in our brief on page 6 is the one dealing with the customer or the john, and page 7 deals with the pimps. We would like at this time to support Mr Brown's proposition, which I think he has raised in all the previous testimony, that the pimps' cars be confiscated. We totally, absolutely agree with that. In this regard it's noted that Toronto council's committee on emergency and protective services has requested already that the Ontario Highway Traffic Act be amended to enable police to seize and impound vehicles of men charged with trying to pick up prostitutes, and according to information provided to that committee -- this amendment was made in Manitoba -- Winnipeg police have been given this power, and they have noticed a 20% drop in prostitution since that provision was made in the Manitoba legislation.
We would also like to add that we believe pimps should be reported by the police to Revenue Canada. That way they will be further curtailed in their attempts to live off the avails of prostitution.
Our other concern is the question that I think the John Howard raised, the question of the children. The factors that draw the youngsters into the commercial sex trade are usually that they are physically, sexually or emotionally abused from an early age and have low self-esteem and addiction difficulties, which makes them very vulnerable to the lures of the pimps and prostitution. Our point is that such children are the tragic victims of their dysfunctional families, and a major factor in curbing child prostitution therefore lies in creating better families. Otherwise the wheel of dysfunction grinds inexorably on. Dysfunctional children grow up to be dysfunctional adults who then give birth to children who also become dysfunctional. This is a cycle of human destruction that must be stopped.
One of our main considerations that we would like to put before this committee is that we urgently request the province of Ontario consider the implementation of the Head Start program, which is a preventive child abuse program that originally was developed in the state of Hawaii and which has now been established in Michigan and also in Moncton, New Brunswick.
This program has an astonishingly high success rate; in fact, Hawaii has found that child abuse was diminished by 99% in that state. The same thing happened in Michigan and the same thing happened in Moncton. This program was brought forward by federal MP Keith Martin in May, and he requested that the federal and provincial governments work to implement the Head Start program.
Significantly, the federal government's National Crime Prevention Council has been very supportive of a national Head Start program. The details of it are attached as appendix A to our brief, where we summarize the program, but briefly, the women who are at risk and whose children will be at risk are picked out initially either during the course of their pregnancy or, very significantly, at the time they enter the hospital to deliver their baby. Every woman is questioned on a formal basis. They have about 12 to 15 risk factors, and if those risk factors are there, the woman is then asked would she like to have help. Interestingly enough, rarely ever does the woman ever say she doesn't want to have help, and it's one-to-one help.
Michigan uses nurses and public health nurses to give this one-to-one basis daily help, which is extremely expensive. Hawaii uses experienced mothers who have raised children, and they are there as a support system. That is why they have had a 99% success rate.
I notice it was stated that of each dollar spent on these Head Start programs, it's estimated that $6 is saved in later social assistance services. We believe that if we can implement this Head Start program, certainly begin to look at it, and couple it in tandem with Bill 18, we will have gone an enormous distance in stopping teenage prostitution in this province.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. We have approximately two and a half minutes per caucus. We'll start with the NDP, Ms Boyd.
Mrs Boyd: I'm interested in knowing whether you agree with many of the previous speakers who have said that they believe protection of children should be raised to the age of 18. You talk about wanting the age of consent raised to the age of 18. Do I take it from that that you also believe the age of protection should be 18?
Mrs Landolt: Yes, that certainly should be done. That's one of the things I found in children's aid. One of the problems is that when they're 16 it's goodbye. That's a horrible thing to happen because everybody knows 16-year-olds are not prepared in many ways.
Mrs Boyd: You feel the investment that we would be making -- and that would be a fairly expensive proposition for us -- similar to the Head Start program would pay off in the long run?
Mrs Landolt: I can only say that it has in any jurisdiction that's tried it. I'm not pretending that it's not an expensive program. We can cut corners by having women who are experienced mothers rather than professional nurses. Interestingly enough, many of the mothers who have agreed to have this help want other women, not nurses. They're not so intimidated. They feel much more comfortable. Mothers who've had practical experience raising children are not as intimidating and also they're available on 24-hour notice, which nurses often aren't. As people know, the troubles may erupt at 2 in the morning and that's when you want to be able to go to the phone and say this has happened.
But certainly we do need Bill 18. It's crucial we have that to zero in on this terrible, terrible tragedy, but we should have the backup of this Head Start program and look at implementing it. I realize the problem again Moncton has a very small population as opposed to all of Ontario, but at least we could start in a major way to look at this and examine it.
Mr Jim Brown: Thank you. We really agree on certain recommendations. I'd just like to point out that the crime commission looked at the Perry Preschool study and the Hawaii experiment. The province of Ontario has devoted -- I think we just upped it to $50 million on programs called Healthy Babies, Healthy Children, so we're already doing it.
Mrs Landolt: But I think it was $10 million. You upped it to $50 million. With respect, thank goodness, you've done that; it's a start but we're not picking up --
Mr Jim Brown: Yes, it's a good start.
Mrs Landolt: Yes. We're not picking up enough of it, but it's wonderful.
Mr Jim Brown: Yes, it is a great step forward.
Mrs Landolt: Yes, that you've acknowledged the importance of that program.
Mr Jim Brown: I'm appalled, as you are, that 14-year-olds can have sex with whomever they want to and that's not a crime.
Mrs Landolt: With a 46- or a 60-year-old man.
Mr Jim Brown: That's the federal government again doing crazy things. Some of the kids who come to Toronto and are on the street are not necessarily involved in abusive relationships. They have a discipline problem at home perhaps. Everybody keeps saying it's always because of an abusive family. I don't know if you can comment on that.
While I have your agreement on seizing johns' cars, what do you think about attacking the assets of the pimps and drug dealers and perhaps taking that money and plowing it back into the whole problem of childhood prostitution?
Mrs Landolt: We'd be delighted if you would do that. Anything to get the money which would get their funds, so it'll discourage them from this sort of endeavour. Absolutely we would agree with that. What was the first question again?
Mr Jim Brown: The other thing, some of the kids come --
Mrs Landolt: Oh, yes.
Mr Jim Brown: I know some parents who try and find out where the kids are and they can't; they're forbidden by law.
The Chair: Could you condense it, please?
Mrs Landolt: We have members who have had that problem with the children, perfectly solid families and for whatever reason the children lack self-esteem. But I think realistically the vast majority are children from troubled backgrounds.
One of the things I used to find in children's aid was that children who are adopted have more difficulty. As to the integration between the adopted child and the natural child, there seems to be some significant difference which we should be examining to say, "Do you have a different approach to raising the adopted child?"
But it's true, there are children who -- I have read some of the testimony the committee has heard and some of them have mentioned that they have tried everything and they haven't had the assistance they need, and probably this would help them a great deal.
The Chair: I should say to you, by the way, that Mr Bartolucci is the proponent of the bill. It's not a government bill as you mentioned before.
Mrs Landolt: Yes. I think it's supported by the government.
The Chair: That remains to be seen.
Mrs Landolt: We hope.
Mr Bartolucci: Ultimately and finally, we hope they will support the bill, with some modification certainly.
I want to thank you for a very enlightened presentation with some very excellent recommendations. If there's one thing that I think the committee learned, it's that we're probably going to have to go, in our clause-by-clause, with the suggestion that we go from the minister "may" provide programs to the minister "must" provide programs. That's clearly the intent of every presenter and it certainly was my intent originally. These things sometimes get lost in legalese language and I think this was an incident of that.
You bring a very interesting perspective because what you're saying is in that these programs there must be programs for parents. That's the first time that recommendation has been made with regard to what type of programming we're talking about, and I thank you for that because that's an excellent suggestion. Could you just expand on what type of programs those programs should be?
Mrs Landolt: I'm a lawyer. I'm not an expert in social services, but I do know that section 10 -- I agree with you, it should be "must" and not "may." One thing is, parents don't know how to cope. When their child -- these are good, caring parents -- goes off, they don't know how to cope. We'd like to see, first of all, programs in the high schools for children so that they will know there is an alternative way to live in a family unit than what many of them may have seen in their own home.
Secondly, we would like to see public forums for parents. A public meeting would be held with parents, the pros and cons of how to deal with children. There should be a special program available for parents of adopted children. I do feel, after my experience in children's aid, that there is a difference in how you raise your child if it's adopted or a natural child.
The third thing is, there should be a counselling service or some program that will deal specifically with the child who is out of control. When I would speak to the children's aid and the social workers, I'd say, "Why is it that we're having so much trouble with these children?" They would say: "Parents can't cope. Parents can't handle it any more. I would say, "How is it that after 2000 years parents have been raising children, suddenly they can't cope?" It may be the lifestyle is hectic, it may be anything, but if there could be a program for a parent who's troubled with a troubled child so the program can deal specifically with it.
Certainly there should be programs for the children who are on the street in prostitution. We've had members, for example, out in Vancouver where the mother could not get the child off the street and nobody would help her. We want someone specifically there to come to that parent's assistance.
The Chair: Thank you both very much on behalf of the committee for appearing here and giving us the benefit of your experience and the perspective of your organization.
For the members of the committee, you may leave your materials here, if you wish. We will be resuming tomorrow at 3:30 and I'm sure that all of your belongings will be safe here until then. We're adjourned.
The committee adjourned at 1834.