Tory MPP criticizes delay in tackling sex trafficking
Party intends to raise issue in Whitby-Oshawa byelection to replace Christine Elliott
More vulnerable girls are being lured into sex work the longer Premier Kathleen Wynne takes to crack downon human traffickers, Progressive Conservative MPP Laurie Scott said Thursday.
“It happens here,” she told reporters in Whitby, noting the Highway 401hotel and motel corridor is a busy scene, with teens as young as 13 coerced into turning as many as 20 tricks a day.
“They need help now,” Scott told reporters at the campaign office of PC candidate Lorne Coe, signalling the party intends to make human trafficking an issue in a byelection expected to be called in Whitby-Oshawa next month to replace Tory MPP Christine Elliott, who resigned in August.
“The government still has not acted. . . . Ontario is not doing enough,” added Scott, a member of an all-party legislative committee that recommended a month ago after a hearings in a number of Ontario cities that the province set up a human trafficking task force modelled after the antiguns and gangs effort set up with police after the Boxing Day 2005 shooting of young Jane Creba.
“It’s horrendous,” said Scott (Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock), who got unanimous support in the legislature last May in a call for action. “The police, the judicial system, just do not have the resources.”
Following that committee recommendation and a Star series into the fast-growing problem, Wynne acknowledged that human trafficking “is an area that has not had enough attention” and called for assistance of other levels of government.
The cabinet minister responsible for women’s issues and children and youth services said Thursday that human trafficking is a complex issue that the government takes “very seriously.”
“Collaboration across government, community organizations, law enforcement and municipalities is essential,” Tracey MacCharles said in a statement, noting the province is providing $68 million for victim services this year, up 85 per cent since the Liberals took power in 2003, and established a human trafficking advi-
“It’s horrendous. The police, the judicial system, just do not have the resources.” LAURIE SCOTT TORY MPP
sory committee of police, victim services, survivors and experts to provide advice. “While we have made advances when it comes to sexual assault and violence through our action plan It’s Never Okay, there is still more work to do and further action is needed when it comes to human trafficking and we are committed to being part of the solution to this problem.”
New Democrat MPP Peggy Sattler (London West), who was also on the legislative committee, said more funding is needed because front-line social service agencies are severely “stretched” by needs of all sorts of sexual assault and violence victims in addition to a rapid rise in human trafficking.
“When girls are escaping they need very, very specialized services to move on and be protected and not go back to their so-called boyfriends,” Sattler said in an interview.
Police in London, which has a hotel and motel strip leading north from the 401, have had to divert resources from other areas of their budget to deal with human trafficking as pimps move girls from one hotel to another along the highway that stretches from Windsor to Quebec, Sattler added.
Scott said Durham Region police now have seven detectives working the human trafficking beat, becoming a “leader” in the province in trying to rescue girls and educating high school students and hotel and motel operators about it.
About 20 police departments in Ontario meet occasionally to share information on girls and pimps and Covenant House in Toronto now has two beds dedicated to victims of human trafficking but a more concerted effort is needed, Scott added.
Girls from Durham high schools have been coerced by pimps who manipulate them or get them hooked on drugs, and make as much as $250,000 a year off each one, she said.
“It’s in our backyards and it’s time we woke up.”
Scott said she is planning to introduce a private member’s bill in February calling on the government to toughen laws and improve programs to fight human trafficking, providing more protections for girls and smaller numbers of boys who are also victimized.