MADAME VANIER CHILDREN'S SERVICES
ELGIN CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES
JOANN CAMPANARO AND CONNY BAREL
CONTENTS
Tuesday 18 August 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
Sexual Assault Centre London
Ms Debbie Lee
Chatham-Kent Transition House
Ms Heather Gillette
Family Service Kent
Ms Tanya de Jong
Madame Vanier Children's Services
Dr Barrie Evans
Elgin Children and Family Services
Ms Sue Hines
London Children's Aid Society
Ms Maureen Reid
Ms Rhonda Hallberg
Mrs JoAnn Campanaro; Mrs Conny Barel
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 Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury L)
Mr Jim Brown (Scarborough West / -Ouest PC)
Mrs Barbara Fisher (Bruce PC)
Mr Bill Murdoch (Grey-Owen Sound PC)
Mr Bob Wood (London South / -Sud PC)
Clerk / Greffière
Ms Tonia Grannum
Staff / Personnel
Mr Philip Kaye, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1009 in the Delta London Armouries Hotel, London.
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.
SEXUAL ASSAULT CENTRE LONDON
The Chair (Ms Annamarie Castrilli): Good morning. We're continuing our review of Bill 18, An Act to protect Children involved in Prostitution. I'd like to start promptly with the Sexual Assault Centre of London, Debbie Lee. Good morning. Thank you very much for being with us this morning. We're looking forward to your presentation. Just some ground rules: You have 20 minutes to make your presentation. If you don't use up all of your time, I hope you'll entertain some questions from the members.
Ms Debbie Lee: Sure, no problem. Good morning. My name is Debbie Lee and I'm from the Sexual Assault Centre London. I'm the public educator and community outreach coordinator. I was asked today to come and speak about my concerns about Bill 18. We've already been told that you're hoping we're not scrapping the whole bill. No, we're not. Rest assured we're just giving some recommendations.
As a social worker and someone who believes that prostitution, youth prostitution especially, is something that we must be proactive in our mission to stop and eventually abolish, it's my intention to be here and thank you very much for entertaining my recommendations.
The child prostitute today is a rejected, abandoned and neglected child, often by adults who claim to love this child. The child is often someone who has run from adult brutality. We find that children who leave a reasonably good environment due to a quarrel or in search of adventure usually return home within a week or two. The runaways of today can't or won't return home because they are often thrown out, starved, raped or beaten, or because of other misfortunes within the home situation. As miserable as the street is, it is often better than what they had left behind.
It is soon evident that the children are not equipped to cope with life on the street. If picked up by the police they may be sent home, only to run away again. This happens for a reason. Children run away from what may be perceived as a loving home for a reason, and this is a must-see situation. What child would give up a safe, comfortable home for a life of prostitution on the streets? Without food, shelter or protection, these youths soon fall prey to drugs, alcohol, peddlers, pimps, pornographers and men who specifically seek out prostitutes who are obviously underage.
Statistics show us today that, as in other years, 70% of youth prostitutes are in fact female. The teenage girl quickly realizes that her greatest asset is her body and the exchange of money or favours for sex. With a room for a night and a meal as a lure, a child will gratefully accept a proposal of sex as a trade for temporary comfort. Most youths want to break away, but with no place to go and living examples of beatings, broken bones and even murder among those who have tried, they are often terrorized to seek help.
The intentions of Bill 18 are admirable. The protection of children should be the main concern when addressing child prostitution. Bill 18 recognizes that children engaged in prostitution are often victims of sexual abuse and require protection. Bill 18 also recognizes that it is the duty of the province to assist families and communities in providing that protection. Bill 18 recognizes that legislation is required to ensure safety of all children and to assist children in ending their involvement with prostitution. There are, however, problems within the bill that I would like to address.
As the child is in need of protection, and this is our main concern, I question why the bill is so adamant about sending the child home to the custody of the child's parent or guardian. As I have discussed earlier and as Bill 18 has acknowledged, the child is often in need of protection from the parent or guardian. Again, we have talked about the streets often being safer for the child because the child actually seems to have more control over himself or herself in different situations than at home.
Bill 18 acknowledges the children engaged in prostitution are victims of sexual assault within the home. Often this sexual abuse occurs within the home and is a direct result of a family member's sexual violence.
As a child that has been assaulted, sexually abused and brutalized, perhaps at home and often on the street, Bill 18 promotes the confinement of youth by law officers, to be kept in safe houses for a period of up to three days. Although I do promote safe houses on the streets for youth to seek sanctuary from the streets, I question whether this experience may traumatize the child or the youth further. The child is already in an extremely vulnerable place to begin with.
Bill 18 promotes an order restraining a person from contact with the child and associating with the child in any way if the judge has reasonable and probable grounds to believe that the person has physically or emotionally injured or sexually abused or is likely to physically or emotionally injure or sexually abuse the child. Although the intention of this clause is admirable, I question how this information would be obtained if the parents, pimps and consumers of child prostitution would not bring about the information leading to this knowledge.
I'm sure if you've dealt with any type of youth, especially when you're dealing with sexual assault or sexual violence within their past, this information is not easily brought about. It usually takes months and months of intervention with a child in order to obtain this information. So I'm not sure where the information would be brought about. The child involved in prostitution is not likely to give the information to law enforcement or child protection workers. Only after months of intervention would this information be brought about. Giving this information would bring about further danger to the child, in any case.
Bill 18 promotes the establishment of programs that are necessary to assist children in ending their involvement with prostitution. I fear that if the programs are not spelled out within the bill, the programs will not come into creation. This is incredibly important when you're talking about intervention with youth. The establishment of safe houses for child prostitutes wishing to leave the trade and the development of outreach services, such as training and rehabilitation programs, to help these youths leave the streets in redirection is a piece left to speculation within Bill 18.
Counselling programs could be beneficial in providing immediate refuge and safety, as well as services directed specifically at the needs of youth prostitutes which would assist them in leaving the sex trade industry. Through these means, research could be implemented as to the much-needed information concerning youth prostitutes and what they need. These types of much-needed programs would, in my opinion, be more effective in reducing prostitution than the promotion of punishment, confinement by the police and sentencing of the child's life.
As you probably know, street prostitutes often do not use traditional services. Outreach programs must address the social, economic and health-related issues of the youth prostitute on the streets. The programs must be organized and operated from street locations, promoting safety first for these youths. This is a critical point that we must look at, that the programs be on the street, be outreach services on the street, and have outreach workers specifically on the street and not in traditional buildings, traditional locations, where youths will not use them.
Bill 18 gives the right to a child protection worker to apply for a restraining order against those who are causing danger to the youth in prostitution. As experience shows us, this court order only leads to brutality and often the murder of the prostitutes in question. We must learn from this. This is not a practice that creates safety for the child. It often leads to the opposite.
The intentions of Bill 18 are admirable and I believe we all agree that there must be changes within our social and legal systems that addresses youth prostitution. This life of sexual violence, brutality and isolation is not what our young people deserve in this country. I believe Bill 18 addresses the weaker link within the cycle of prostitution. The focus must be on reaching these youths in a way that redirects their lives. It must not punish an already vulnerable population.
Tougher laws directed at the consumers of youth prostitution, the pimps who feed off these youths and often lock these youths into this life, and the families which force the youths to the streets in the first place must be held responsible legally and socially. Laws directed at these groups within the cycle of prostitution are equally, if not more, important in the production of legislation intended not only to impede youth prostitution but stop it altogether.
That's it for what I've got to say about Bill 18. I have in fact photocopied a working group consultation paper, and each one of you has got one, so I urge you to take a look at that. It was completed in 1995 -- the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Working Group on Prostitution. It includes social interventions, it outlines outreach services and it also recommends law enforcement reform options, so I urge you to take a look at that when looking at Bill 18.
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The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. We have three minutes left per caucus. We begin with the Conservatives.
Mr Jim Brown (Scarborough West): Good morning. I think we both agree that we have a significant problem with child prostitution. I'm glad that you said at the end that more is needed than just Bill 18. In fact, the way I view it is that we have kids who are being victimized by johns and pimps. Oftentimes, the pimps are drug dealers at the same time.
I have a question for you on a measure by which we in the province can get tougher with the johns and the pimps and the drug dealers, and that is -- and the question is what do you think of this idea -- to seize the cars of the johns, to realize them in cash and plow it back into helping the kids that are victims, and to attach the bank accounts and the assets of the pimps and drug dealers, realizing that in cash and plowing it back into services for the kids that have been victimized. I'm trying to attack the adults who are causing this problem, because it is indeed adults who are doing it. If they didn't have the means to make money on it, it would discourage them. What do you think of that?
Ms Lee: I really believe that the adults need to be as accountable for the redirection for the youth. I believe that if prostitution were seen as a social structure and some-thing needed to be socially implemented, such as seizing the cars and taking that away, that would be a deterrent for some adults to do that. A large number of the actual acts that take place within prostitution, with youth prostitution especially, are within cars. So I believe it's a good idea to take the vehicles. Within the working group, the consultation paper recommends that names should be published and it recommends that the vehicles should be apprehended and the money sunk back into redirection and programs. I agree with that.
Mr Jim Brown: And the drug dealer-pimp, the same thing, to go after their assets?
Ms Lee: Absolutely, I do. I think we really need to get tougher with the adults that are feeding off youth prostitution.
Mr Jim Brown: I agree with you completely.
Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): Thank you for a very accurate presentation, for outlining your concerns and offering what I consider to be very important recommendations.
I think your first concern is important, though, because it's a concern we heard yesterday as well. The intent of the legislation, neither in the letter or the spirit, would ever return a child to an environment that jeopardizes the safety of the child. That's not the case. That's why we put that it be to the parent's home or to the safe house. Maybe that needs some clarification, and we can study that a little bit further, because that is an important concern.
With regard to the programming -- I believe that to be critical as well -- because the programming is going to have to change to reflect the changing needs of a particular city or town, how could you ever outline site-specific programs? You're saying it's not good enough to say that the minister "may" provide programs. Maybe we could change that word to "must" provide programs, as opposed to "may". Would that satisfy some of the concerns you have?
Ms Lee: As long as the programs were spelled out and the intentions of the programs were spelled out. I think that would make me personally and the organization feel a little bit better that the programs be implemented within Bill 18 and be spelled out specifically what was going to be happening.
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): I know you mentioned concern about the potential for further contact with the young person by being confined while a program like counselling is taking place. Can you suggest what would be an appropriate setting for a more extended counselling program?
Ms Lee: When I talked about confinement, I meant in the safe houses. Bill 18 recommends that the police have the authority to confine a youth to a safe house for a period of up to three days. I don't imagine that the youth would be seeking counselling at that time, until the child was safe enough to actually be in an emotional place to seek counselling.
I don't think you can confine a youth to seek counselling. I don't think you can confine a youth to a safe house ethically. If the programs were such that they were of appeal to a youth and of a redirection for a youth, if basically you make it good enough that they will stay and make it safe enough that they will stay, I think you would have youth choosing to stay. I really do.
Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): Thank you very much, Debbie, for your presentation. Part of the conundrum here is that this is a provincial government trying to deal within its jurisdiction with an issue that, in the criminal sense, or the seizing of assets sense and that sort of thing, is really under federal jurisdiction. It's a difficult one to find the balance.
I'm curious if you share my concern about the issue of the police being the ones to make a determination that someone should be confined anyplace. It's nowhere in our law that the police make those decisions. I think it's even difficult, and I'm sure we'll hear from the children's aid societies, when it's done from the point of view of the child protection authorities making those determinations and the requirements in the Child and Family Services Act around how that happens. Is that your concern?
Ms Lee: I do have a concern with the police having that ability to confine and enforce. You have to understand that these youth have been taught at a very early age within the home, if they are being brutalized or sexually assaulted, that the police will not help you, no one will help you. Once they get on to the street, again they are told: "No one can help you. The police are your enemies. They will not help you and they cannot help you."
Mrs Boyd: On this issue of trying to determine either at the particular time or even within 72 hours whether or not the home of origin is a safe place to be, I certainly know from my experience that you're not going to know in 72 hours, because it's very unlikely that you're going to get to the bottom of what abuse may have led someone to the street in the first place.
Ms Lee: Yes. It takes an amazing amount of working with a youth, an extremely long time and an ability to trust before that information will be brought forward.
Mrs Boyd: Especially if a children's aid society has been not been able to prove that in the past or the police have not been prepared to act in the past because of lack of corroboration.
Ms Lee: Yes, absolutely.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Lee. We really appreciate that you were here this morning and shared with us the experience and insight you have.
CHATHAM-KENT TRANSITION HOUSE
The Chair: I ask Heather Gillette of Transition House in Chatham to come forward. Good morning. Welcome to our committee.
Ms Heather Gillette: First of all, thank you very much for inviting me to be here today to speak on this bill. I am Heather Gillette. I run the Chatham-Kent Transition House, which is a shelter for homeless youth and youth in crisis.
We deal with young people aged 16 to 21. We see a lot of our young people who end up prostituting themselves as a way of living. This bill will hopefully end some of that. I don't suspect that it will end all. I'd like to be a cockeyed optimist, but I have to be a realist in this field.
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The bill enhances and works alongside the Child and Family Services Act, but we do have some concern with the three-day restraint. Three days for a child protection worker to try to get the paperwork through to a court, especially if they apprehend on a weekend, is almost impossible. I say this because one of my staff is also a child protection worker at CAS. She has reviewed this bill as well and she too has found that although the bill would allow police the availability to pick up a child or take a child into care, placing them in a safe house would probably be fine for a young person, but certainly for a youth you're going to have some cause for concern, as the speaker before me said.
For many of the youth we deal with in the shelter the police are the enemy and this is one more thing that the police are doing to them that they may feel is not in their best interests. Running the shelter that I do in Chatham, it does take time to build the trust with the young people. It's not going to happen in three days, and it's not going to happen in the 30 days that they're liable to be with us a lot of the time.
If we're going to look at this bill, we also have to look at some of the other legislation that is out there that doesn't help towards this bill, one being that the legal age for anyone to consent to sexual activity is age 12 and yet they can't legally leave home or school or drive until age 16. They can't drink or smoke until age 18 and 19. Even under the General Welfare Assistance Act, a youth cannot receive general assistance until age 18. Yet at age 12 they can make the decision to have sexual activity. Something is very wrong with some of the legislation that is out there, that is going to work against this bill.
In our view, transfer payments from the province have got to be coming down to the municipalities in a greater capacity in order for these municipalities to provide safe houses. Transition House has been in existence for almost nine years and has struggled just to keep the doors open, let alone to serve the young people we have, although we've served almost 600 young people and have been able, over a period of time, to help these youth to get off the streets, to not have prostitution as a way of living and to actually finish college and go on to be active members of society and be off the general welfare system.
You've got a lot of legislation: the General Welfare Assistance Act, the Child and Family Services Act, the Young Offenders Act. Unless these acts are all working in the same light, it's never going to happen. A youth can't even be charged for a crime as an adult until he is age 18. Again, they can make the decision to have sexual activity at age 12. It doesn't work. Those would certainly be our concerns. They are concerns that we see.
One of the other concerns we see that we hope perhaps this bill or another bill will look at is the General Welfare Assistance Act, by which a 16- and 17-year-old is not eligible for social assistance unless there are circumstances where they cannot live at home. There are many circumstances why young people cannot live at home and it takes a very long time in order to prove the need for the young person to be at our shelter, and I am sure any other youth shelter in Ontario. If you have to face the fact that they cannot be on general welfare or they're not eligible for general welfare, it makes it very difficult for those safe houses to do the work they need to do.
With the General Welfare Assistance Act legislation, a 16- or 17-year-old must sue their parents for support. That puts that young person in jeopardy of even coming to a safe house because they're going to go to the street, they're going to be prostituting themselves or going to be involved in drugs or going to be squeegee kids in Toronto so they don't have to go through that process.
A young individual needing the assistance of the municipality, of the province and those safe houses, if they're 16 or 17 it makes it very hard for them to get that. I believe that for the 16- and 17-year-old population, we're allowing them to fall through the cracks way too many times. That legislation needs to be changed.
In my experience, a 16- or 17-year-old person should not be living independently. An 18-year-old person should not be living independently, but certainly a 16- or 17-year-old should not living independently. The General Welfare Assistance Act says that in order to be eligible for assistance they must live under adult supervision. That opens the door for a large population of folks to prey on the vulnerable 16- and 17-year-olds and enter them into the prostitution world. We see it down in Chatham and I am sure we're not the only municipality that sees it.
I hope Bill 18 can render some of what is happening. The stiff penalties of $25,000 and/or 24 months in prison are certainly a step in the right direction. I think this bill has merit. We do have, as I said, some concerns with the three-day constraint. I think that definitely puts protection workers in a very difficult position.
Our CAS is very understaffed. The staff there are not working an eight-hour day in any way, shape or form and I am sure our CAS is not the only one. To put that kind of a restraint is almost making their job impossible. I hope this legislation will not tie the hands of the people who are trying to provide safety to the young people we're talking about.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We have about three minutes per caucus. We begin with the Liberals.
Mrs McLeod: Thank you for your presentation. There are a number of factors that, if we had longer, I'd like to ask you to expand on. I want to just note your comments about the difficulty of transition houses that now exist in staying alive. Even though it's only 30 days, I think that a somewhat longer-term, safer setting is something we really have to ensure is in place in our community.
Ms Gillette: Absolutely.
Mrs McLeod: I did want to ask you about your comments on welfare and the access for welfare for 16- and 17-year-olds and the fact -- I'm perhaps reinterpreting it -- that there isn't support, that a very laborious process is almost driving young people into prostitution.
I would suspect, following up on the early presenter, that it's also true that without any means of support outside of the family, any sort of long-term supportive setting for counselling becomes virtually impossible because there isn't financial support.
Ms Gillette: Absolutely, correct.
Mrs McLeod: You also said though that you don't think 16- and 17-year-olds should live independently, so I just ask you to describe for me what you think, beyond the 30 days at the Transition House, is the best, longer-term situation for the 16- or 17-year-old who cannot go back home.
Mr Gillette: There needs to be more supportive housing for the 16- and 17-year-olds, where they can live in maybe a room-and-board type of situation where they would have a room of their own but still live where there might be four or five rooms or bed-sitting apartments staffed by someone who is there to support and to show them the life skills they need in order to be living independently and who can provide some trusteeship. That's another part of the General Welfare Assistance Act, that they must have a trustee. That agency would be able to do that if they were funded properly.
I've been dealing with a young person who is now 23 and she came to us when she was not quite 16. That person is learning how to live independently and become a very good mother. But without the support of our agency, that may not have happened. That's just one case and we've seen very many of those.
There needs to be more supportive housing for the individuals who cannot live at home and who do want to make a life for themselves but need some assistance. Thirty days isn't long enough.
Mrs McLeod: So it would be like supportive, second-stage housing for adults.
Ms Gillette: Absolutely, yes.
Mr Bartolucci: A very brief question, Heather, and thank you for your presentation. If you had the opportunity to do it, would you change the existing Child and Family Services Act to include 16- and 17-year-olds?
Ms Gillette: Absolutely.
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Mrs Boyd: Following up on that point, Heather, one of the issues is whether this kind of provision better belongs in a revised Child and Family Services Act, which also could provide for the kinds of transition services you're talking about on a mandatory basis to bridge the gap. It seems to me, given that the minister has embarked on a review of the Child and Family Services Act, it might very well behoove this committee to advise her to look at including some of the provisions for child protection with respect to prostitution in that.
I take it, from the way you speak, that you clearly see child prostitution, prostitution of individuals under age 18, as always occurring in an exploitive situation?
Ms Gillette: Yes, I do.
Mrs Boyd: As you know, there are people who disagree with that. There are people who believe that what we are trying to do is to limit the freedom of people to express themselves sexually. I think for those of us like you and me, who have worked in the area of child abuse and neglect, that's a very distressing kind of situation. But it certainly is one of those issues that must be dealt with in order to win public support for the kind of child protection action that you've got here.
Can you make some suggestions about how we can make it clear to the general public that these children, although their impression may be that they're acting independently and acting out of their own freedom to express their sexuality, in fact are terribly vulnerable and are in most cases being very directly targeted and exploited by people who see that vulnerability?
Ms Gillette: That's something I've been trying to do for the past 10 years and I don't know if I've got the right answers for you. I think it's just a matter of continuing to have the public forums, the public awareness, the education to the public and for our agency inviting people to come and take a look and meet some of the individuals who are using the facility. The public awareness can never be too much, and unfortunately we can't educate someone who doesn't want to be educated on the issues, but I think we have to be continually out there and be up front in presenting the issues. That might not make us a lot of friends, but it has to happen. We have to be out there educating, educating. Without the support of the government's assisting us in educating, it makes it, again, very difficult for people even to want to begin to try and take on the task.
The Chair: To the Conservatives.
Mr Jim Brown: Good morning. Before I ask you the question, I'd like to clear the record in terms of what the province can do and what it can't do. The former Attorney General should know that the province has jurisdiction over civil enforcement and we can use civil enforcement to seize the cars of johns and to seize the assets of pimps and drug dealers.
Mrs Boyd: Once they're convicted.
Mr Jim Brown: I'm astonished that the former Attorney General doesn't remember that she used civil enforcement, imposing injunctions on a certain class of people and in fact using the civil courts to sue these people. Therefore, former Attorney General Marion Boyd is well aware that the province has civil enforcement and the province can use civil enforcement to achieve certain ends.
Having said that, the question I have is similar to the question I had to Debbie Lee: If we could go after the adults who are mixed up in this horrible trade, if we can go after the pimps and seize assets and if we can go after the johns and seize their cars, sell them and plow it back into looking after the victims of this horrible trade, your opinion of that would be?
Ms Gillette: I guess my opinion of that would be, I don't think it would be a reality that that money would actually come back to those places that would be trying to provide safe --
Mr Jim Brown: But do you think it would take the incentive away and reduce the trade?
Ms Gillette: No.
Mr Jim Brown: You don't think so.
Ms Gillette: No, I don't.
Mr Jim Brown: You think the trade would keep going.
Ms Gillette: Yes, I do.
Mr Jim Brown: So it would go for free, right?
Ms Gillette: By seizing their cars, seizing their assets -- they'll get more. There's a lot of money to be made in prostitution and that's the chance they'll take.
Mr Jim Brown: Will they put the price up? How would they get more if we keep taking it away from them? People don't do anything for nothing. If they've got no incentive to get involved in the trade, why would they be involved in the trade if there's no money to be made?
Ms Gillette: But there is a lot of money to be made.
Mr Jim Brown: But if we took it away.
Ms Gillette: You're saying you're going to take the money away by taking away their assets?
Mr Jim Brown: Yes.
Ms Gillette: I don't know.
Mrs Boyd: On a point of personal privilege, Madam Chair --
The Chair: Does it involve this witness, Ms Boyd?
Mrs Boyd: Yes, it does. With respect to the comments of Mr Brown, he knows very well that there has to be a reason for that civil action, usually arising out of a conviction.
Mr Jim Brown: Too bad you didn't have a reason when you did it.
Mrs Boyd: Well, I'm not going to talk about that issue, as you know.
The Chair: At any rate, this is not a point of privilege.
Mr Jim Brown: I don't think it's a point of privilege.
Mrs Boyd: But, Madam Chair, it's extremely important that we be very clear --
Mr Jim Brown: She can wait her turn and correct me as she goes.
Mrs Boyd: -- that personal attacks on other members of this committee are not furthering the interests of the people who are here to speak, and that is precisely what Mr Brown was attempting to do.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms Boyd. I take your last point. The previous part of your comments, however, is not a point of privilege.
I want to thank this witness for coming forward. I appreciate that you're here and that you shared your experience with us -- very valuable.
FAMILY SERVICE KENT
The Chair: May I call on Family Service Kent to come forward, Tanya de Jong. Thanks very much for being here. We appreciate that you could participate with us.
Ms Tanya de Jong: I'm Tanya de Jong and I recently accepted a position as a family therapist at Family Service Kent in the sexual abuse and sexual assault program. I'm both a trained social worker and a trained marriage and family therapist.
I only recently became aware of Bill 18, approximately two weeks ago, and had my first opportunity to review the bill about a week ago. The ideas I present today are the beginning of my exploration into the issues related to child sexual abuse through prostitution. I intend to briefly discuss when and how I first became aware of child prostitution in Canada and my ongoing knowledge of this problem. I will then present some potential advantages and disadvantages, followed by some ideas for consideration related to Bill 18 as it stands today.
Before I begin, I would like to commend Mr Bartolucci and the committee for bringing their awareness of the problem of child sexual abuse and exploitation in Canada through prostitution to the public and for taking steps to eradicate this social problem.
I first became aware that child prostitution was an issue in Canada when I was at a hospital in Toronto for a relative's operation about 10 years ago. The hospital staff were frantically looking for a young girl who had gone missing. She was believed to have run away from the hospital. The young girl, who had just given birth, was living on the streets and was believed to be a victim of child prostitution. The child was only 10 years old. She would now be 20 if she's still alive. I can't imagine what her life has been like since she first gave birth and returned to the streets approximately 10 years ago. Her child now would be the age that she was when she gave birth to this child.
In the past few years my work has not specifically focused in the area of sexual abuse or sexual exploitation. Still, I have encountered women who have talked about their experience of sexual abuse and trauma due to their involvement as children and youth in the sex trade. I have heard stories of how there is rarely a shortage of customers for the children involved in prostitution. I have heard about the shame and the women's acceptance of responsibility for the abuse similar to those women I have worked with who have been sexually abused outside of the sex trade. However, the shame and taking of responsibility seem to be exacerbated by the context in which this abuse occurs.
Survivors of childhood sexual abuse through the sex trade may be aware that they can be arrested for their involvement in prostitution. This may muddy the question of responsibility even further by assigning legal responsibility to the child or youth for being sexually abused by adults. The responsibility of the perpetrator of the sexual abuse of these children is further removed by assigning this responsibility to both the adult and the child. The assigning of responsibility for the sexual abuse to the child is increased when they are treated at times, as it's been reported by the legal system, more harshly than the perpetrators are.
I have a number of potential advantages that I've found in Bill 18 and I have listed a few. For example, the police will be able to respond more quickly when they suspect that a child is in imminent danger, due to their involvement in prostitution, and may be able to take this child out of this danger immediately.
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I have concerns as well about returning the child to the family if the family is abusive, and wonder about the three-day amount of time that's given to child welfare workers in order to be able to determine the safety. I also wonder about whether or not there might be a way that family members can be notified who are supportive and are willing to help these children and able to come to their need, if there's a way we can connect with those family members if they're out there. That may not necessarily be the parents. A child protection worker would also be involved, which I believe would ensure ongoing support for the child and for any family member who may be supportive and may be willing to help the child who is involved in the sex trade.
I also believe that Bill 18 sends out a message that supports that sexual exploitation and victimization of children through the sex trade and through prostitution are not accepted in our society. The issue of child prostitution may become more publicly acknowledged and as a result may be more likely to receive financial attention to address the programs that would assist in helping sexually exploited and abused children that are victims of child prostitution.
My hope is that Bill 18 may increase the number of resources for children and youth who are involved in child prostitution. I also believe that one of the benefits of Bill 18 is that it increases child protection up to the age of 18 and offers protection for the youth that are currently lost in the act as it stands now, which only protects up to the age of 16.
I have also listed a number of potential disadvantages or dangers of Bill 18 and I'd like to discuss those. For example, law enforcement officers are trained to uphold the law and are not necessarily trained in working with sexually exploited and traumatized children and youth. A potential danger is that these children may experience added trauma in being apprehended by law enforcement officers who, with all best intentions, may not be trained and sensitive to the needs of these children. Those who directly or indirectly abuse these children may also push child prostitution further underground if they are aware that police can apprehend a child with or without a warrant, which may make identifying these children and these children being abused even more difficult.
Another concern is that violence or the threat of violence towards a child victimized by prostitution may increase to ensure that an apprehended child will not turn in their pimp, family or customers. I have concerns about increased involvement of law enforcement and the judicial system with the child, because it may support the belief that the child's victimization is their crime and therefore may serve to reinforce the child taking on responsibility for the sexual abuse.
Although I believe that taking steps to keep sexual perpetrators away from children victimized by prostitution is necessary, I wonder if restraining orders are the most effective means for ensuring children's safety. The use of restraining orders has been an ineffective deterrent for men who are violent against women. Is the effectiveness of restraining orders against those who are violent towards children going to be any more effective?
I'm not sure at this point whether or not Bill 18 may actually reduce the prevalence of child and youth prostitution, especially if the number of children who come into contact with law enforcement does not increase. Again, I've already mentioned that there are some concerns about children being returned to abusive homes.
I have some ideas for consideration. I'm aware that a number of police departments are employing trained family therapists or trained social workers to augment their trauma response teams. Hiring these professionals and utilizing their knowledge of the sex trade and their skills in working with sexually abused children may help to reduce the stress and fear that may be associated with children being apprehended by the police. Family therapists and social workers teaming up with law enforcement officers may be able to assist in turning an apprehension into an act that is more caring and shows the concern for the safety and well-being of the child. Trauma response counsellors may offer a buffer between the child and the legal system. This keeps the assigning of responsibility to a minimum by keeping the interaction between law enforcement and the child to a minimum. The buffer also adds to the likelihood that the child and youth would feel safe. This idea is related to many reports that the police as a group are not trusted by this group of children.
I'd also like to explore alternatives to the use of a restraining order to offer protection to the child who is attempting to exit the sex trade. I encourage the committee to refer to Dealing with Prostitution in Canada, the consultation paper offered by the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Working Group on Prostitution that you were handed earlier. This paper addresses primarily the issues related to changing and amending the Criminal Code as it relates to prostitution. For example, one way to protect children who are being sexually or physically abused as a result of prostitution may be to ensure that the penalty for encouraging, promoting or maintaining child prostitution, as well as those who sexually abuse these children through paying for sex, is severe enough to act as a deterrent and to express society's non-acceptance and abhorrence of child sexual abuse through prostitution. A recommended minimum penalty is offered in the consultation paper which may assist in ensuring that some consistency is maintained in the sentences that are assigned. These minimum penalties are crucial when the charges are specific to child prostitution.
A number of other recommendations are made as well, including ideas that promote steering these children and youth away from the judicial system and towards treatment and support. It seems important to the success of Bill 18 that we explore the programs to be offered to best meet the needs of these children victimized by prostitution. Programs need to be in place to offer these children the means to leave the abuse and trauma of the sex trade. For example, shelters and safe houses need to be in places that are accessible to children and youth with or without law enforcement or child protection workers.
More services need to be available for runaway children to prevent them from entering into prostitution in the first place. Public education regarding the problem of child prostitution in Canada and education for children at risk about the sex trade and the strategies used to entice children into it may also be beneficial.
Last, I also think, as in any profession that has a great deal of power in our society, that it's important to put some protection in place to make sure that the opening up of this bill to give the police more power to enter into residences or places of business -- there need to be some protections in place to make sure that's not abused, although I know that's not the intent of it.
I'd like to thank the committee for listening and offering me the opportunity to speak.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We have approximately three minutes per caucus. We begin with the NDP.
Mrs Boyd: Thank you very much. I was very interested in your comments. If you've only known about this bill for two weeks, you've done a very thorough analysis of some of the advantages and problems of it. I share a lot of the concerns that you have. I'm curious about one thing: I that you also agree that raising the age for children under protection to 18 is one of the best advantages of this bill.
Ms de Jong: I definitely think it's one of the more important advantages, yes.
Mrs Boyd: Going back to the discussion I had with the previous speaker, then, she was suggesting that there's this dissonance between when people are legally able to make decisions about sexual activity and the whole issue of protection. I didn't have a chance to get back and say that I'm not sure we could successfully, and certainly most legislators would say it -- I'm not sure it's very sensible to suggest that you can deny people the opportunity to express themselves sexually until they're 18. Is there some balance between those two things?
Ms de Jong: I think it's difficult. As you were talking, what was going through my head was that there's a real gap between society's ideas about when you make a decision to be involved in sexual activity and the idea that in some way prostitution is related to that. I don't think child prostitution is related to a decision to express oneself sexually. I believe it's a form of sexual abuse.
Mrs Boyd: I'm glad you clarified that, because I think the wrong impression may have been given. What we really are talking about here is exploitation and abuse as opposed to the kind of sexual activity that may indeed be very willing and be very normal and natural in terms of a learning relationship kind of situation.
Mr Bob Wood (London South): I'd like to explore a point you made in your presentation and that's with respect to increased penalties for johns and pimps. As you may know, other jurisdictions such as Alberta have imposed considerably greater penalties on pimps and johns who deal with underage prostitutes and they've found that they've been highly successful in cutting greatly the instances of underage prostitution. As you may know, that's something the Crime Control Commission is looking at as a possibility for Ontario. I wonder if you think that that approach would be effective in significantly reducing underage prostitution in this province.
Ms de Jong: I think it can be to some extent. I don't think that will eradicate the problem completely. I think there are a number of different programs that need to be put into place. I do believe that stiffer sentences for anyone who abuses children are necessary in order for, first of all, this problem to be taken seriously, but also for something to be done about it.
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Mr Bob Wood: What they're in effect doing is diverting this kind of activity away from people who are underage. Interestingly enough, in other jurisdictions they've found as a result a dramatic drop in the instances of underage prostitution.
Mrs Lillian Ross (Hamilton West): Thank you very much for your presentation. I have a couple of points. The more I listen to the presentations here, the more I realize that the approach here has to be more two-pronged. First of all you have to look at those who are abusing the children and I agree with stiffer penalties and taking away their assets and that sort of thing. You also have to look at what you do with the children. You can't victimize them further by putting them through a criminal system, so I support that.
I'm particularly interested in the programs. I hear a lot about programs, and one of the things we have done with respect to, for example, sexual assault against women, violence against women, is taken an approach to train police officers so they can detect it and help those women, get them out of those situations. Would you say that type of program might be something we should be involved in, training police officers? You talked about taking someone on board who is a therapist who has some background in that area, perhaps training police officers so that they can assist youth as well?
Ms de Jong: I don't think that type of training would hurt, by any means. I don't know that it would be enough in order for the children to feel safe. I believe, from my experience, from my reading of the literature available on child prostitution, many of these children absolutely do not trust the police, regardless of how sensitively they may approach children, regardless of how much they may know about how to deal with these children. There needs to be someone else in there that they can feel safe with.
Mr Bartolucci: Thank you very much for the excellent suggestions you've given the committee. Most of them are certainly worthy of greater discussion at another time.
I am particularly interested in your trauma response counselling suggestions. I see that as so, so important in the whole process. In the legislation, section 12 suggests that the minister will have the duty and the responsibility and also the power to make regulations respecting the assessment of children. Would this trauma counselling be a part of that assessment? Would it come before the assessment? How would you integrate that excellent suggestion into the assessment of the child?
Ms de Jong: Actually, when I was thinking about the trauma response team, what was more my idea was that they would actually go out with the police. They wouldn't necessarily be a part of an ongoing assessment. It would be an immediate contact. It would not be a police officer but someone at least one step removed from being a law enforcement officer. The way that trauma response teams are set up right now, I don't know whether or not they would be involved, or could be involved, as they stand in an ongoing assessment.
I don't know at this point because I don't think the three days is enough time to be able to assess the child's situation or the youth's situation and also whether or not their family is a safe place to go back to. At this point, I don't believe that, whether it was done by child welfare worker or a trauma response team, the bill offers enough time or enough space for people to really assess the children adequately.
Mr Bartolucci: That's a very legitimate observation, Tanya. I've certainly taken note of that.
Would that trauma response counselling be a part of the police services, in your estimation, or would it be a part of the component factor which would implement this bill? Which one would it be? Who would have jurisdiction over this trauma response counselling?
Ms de Jong: The way it stands right now, my understanding of police departments that have a trauma response team is that they are actually a part of the police department. My preference would be that it be a separate unit. They would go along with police and be involved with the police. If this bill goes through, they would work hand in hand with the police but would not be part of the police department.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. It was very thoughtful.
MADAME VANIER CHILDREN'S SERVICES
The Chair: May I ask Madame Vanier Children's Services' representative to come forward, Barrie Evans. Welcome. We're very pleased to have you with us this morning.
Dr Barrie Evans: I'm pleased to be here.
The Chair: You have 20 minutes allotted for your presentation. You can use it as you want, but if there is any time left, the committee would be glad to ask you some questions.
Dr Evans: I do have a written presentation, which I believe is being circulated. I will read this and it won't take the whole 20 minutes, so there may be some questions that arise from it.
My name is Barrie Evans. I'm a psychologist with 25 years of experience in the province in children's mental health. I'm the executive director of Madame Vanier Children's Services in London. Madame Vanier Children's Services is a children's mental health centre founded in 1965 and was the first to be licensed by the province under the Children's Mental Health Act of 1968. We're currently funded by the Ministry of Community and Social Services under the Child and Family Services Act and we provide a range of residential and non-residential treatment services to emotionally disturbed children and their families.
I am concerned about the sexual exploitation of children in its many manifestations. I believe it's a significant social problem and I applaud the member for Sudbury, Mr Rick Bartolucci, for his initiative in bringing forward this bill.
I agree with the bill's enabling the prosecution of the predators. I believe that charges should be brought against anyone enticing young people into prostitution or benefiting in any way from this. I think that's a good start.
I have some comments about the other aspects of the bill which involve apprehending young people and also about the services that are connected to this.
I think this is probably redundant, but I'm sure you hear things over again. The first comment relates to the fact that a child is defined as under 18 years of age. This is the same as the Child and Family Services Act. However, when it comes to defining a child in need of protection, section 37 of the CFSA, a child is defined as being under 16 years of age, and you know that. Many of the services for children and youth, including children's aid societies, are either mandated for children under 16 or like our own, which provide child and family intervention, have been geared up to 16 years of age. This is consistent with the definitions of consent. It's the age up to which parents can give consent. Subsection 27(2) of the Child and Family Services Act states, "A service provider may provide a residential service to a child who is less than 16 years of age only with the consent of the child's parent." A parent cannot consent for service for a child who is 16 years of age or older. Consent has to be given by the person 16 years of age or older. That's in subsection 27(1). I think there's an inconsistency that needs to be addressed as a child can be in need of protection in one act but not in the other.
Furthermore, because of the lack of services for the age range, that's the 16- to 18-year-olds, I believe additional funding will be required to provide the safe homes and counselling services for these 16- to 18-year-olds. It's not just that there's been a mandate; it's that a lot of services have been geared up to 16 years of age. There's quite a gap, I believe.
Although I generally support the intent of the proposed Bill 18, I'm wondering whether the aspects concerning the apprehension of children will be effective in dealing with the problem. It almost seems that there's an underlying assumption that these young people have been abducted against their wishes and that we need to rescue them from the hands of their captors. I think the truth is that they are most often there of their own volition in a sense and that they are captive only to their troubled histories. This recognizes that their choices are shaped by their low self-esteem as they are frequently victims of abusive and neglectful pasts. The predators know their vulnerabilities and offer them a superficial balm for their psychological pain and emptiness.
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These young people often do not trust authority figures and may not be grateful for being rescued. I was listening to the news about the hearings in Sudbury yesterday, and regardless of whether the allegations are truthful or not, it indicates to me that there's a profound mistrust of the police and of authorities among these young people. That's something we have to recognize. I was just listening to the former speaker saying the same thing.
"Nabbing" of these young people from the street by the police or social workers acting with the best of intentions may be perceived by them as abusive and coercive. It may be a revictimization. This may further alienate them from those who are trying to help and might make it hard to actually intervene successfully to get them off the street and out of prostitution. For some young people, the attention that they receive in the sex business is the only "positive" attention they have received in their lives and they will just go back as soon as they have a chance.
There is a need for a more subtle and less authoritarian approach. For example, outreach workers can work with street youth in a less threatening way to develop some trust. They can then offer their help to meet some of the unmet needs of these young people and give them a chance to see that there are alternatives. A shortage of youth outreach workers will be a barrier to implementation.
This brings me to the most important point that I have to make, and I recognize that I work mostly with younger children. This is that we have to put more emphasis on prevention. There is ample evidence that these children have been exposed to sexual and physical abuse and neglect. They gravitate to the street because there is nothing positive to keep them at home; in fact, there's a lot of aversive things. Many cannot safely be returned to their parents from whom they have run away or who have abandoned them.
There are no quick fixes for these problems. We need more funding for children's mental health agencies to continue and expand programs which encourage positive relationships and help parents to stick with their troubled kids and deal with the problems of child management in the a healthy way. Unfortunately, there is a lack of mental health programs and it is well documented that there are lengthy waiting lists at children's mental health centres. At Vanier, despite our efforts to do more with less over the past five to eight years, we've been unable to keep up with the increasing demand for our services. Today, more than 50% of those parents requesting our help are turned away because we've had to prioritize and take only the more serious and higher-risk cases.
We at Vanier deal with families where there are alcohol and drug abuse problems, violence and psychiatric problems. These parents need help to break the cycle of poor parenting. If these problems are not dealt with at an early age, normal adolescent rebellion turns into more sinister manifestations of running away, drug abuse and other forms of anti-social behaviour.
Although I would personally put my money on early intervention, as I believe the seeds of these later problems are sown in the very early years -- and in some cases prenatally where factors such as fetal alcohol syndrome come into play -- programs of a preventive nature aimed at adolescents can be helpful. Youth drop-in, youth action programs and youth mental health and skill-building programs can prevent gravitation towards street life and steer kids into more healthy and protective choices.
In closing, and to summarize, I support the intent of the bill. I feel there should be some way to prosecute those who are preying on vulnerable children. Second, I have some concerns about the underlying assumptions. One assumption is that they are "children in need of protection." In a sense they are, but as a parent of three children between the ages of 17 and 22, I know that is not how they might define themselves. Third, and last, I emphasize the importance of mental health programs for children and youth to effectively address the conditions which give rise to the problem. I also alert the committee to the serious shortage of children's mental health programs for our children.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Dr Evans. We have approximately four minutes per caucus. We begin with the Liberals.
Mr Bartolucci: Thank you, Doctor. Your presentation was excellent and I thank you for your suggestions. I have a dilemma here. I've listened to some of the same concerns, not only here but in Sudbury as well. Yesterday in Sudbury we who are on this committee heard very, very compelling and moving testimony from teenage prostitutes and the father who said, "I wish someone was there to take her off the street" -- "nab" her, if you wish, the term you use. How do we as a legislative body answer that concern to a teenage prostitute, to a father, to several teenage prostitutes and to several parents, who wish there was someone there who would have taken them off the street?
Dr Evans: You're touching something that resonates with me, which is my paternal and fatherly instincts. I would love to do that if I were in that situation. I would want to go out there and rescue the kids. I want to pull them away and draw them away. I would want to do that myself, and that's my fatherly instinct. I'm not sure we can be that paternalistic in our legislative approaches. I don't think it would always work. I don't think the government can substitute for a father or mother in that way. It's a wonderful instinct to want to do that. I'm just afraid that it won't work and that there will be a counterreaction to that. There have to be different ways of developing trust. It takes time. You can't just pull them out and feel that you've rescued them.
I don't know the answers. I wish I were smarter and able to offer you solutions, because I feel the dilemma too. But putting more outreach workers on the street, who can really develop a trusting relationship, and go from there may be our best hope. I don't know whether I'm right in that or not, and I admit to my own sense of feeling very caught in that dilemma too.
The Chair: I apologize to you, Dr Evans and members of the committee. I was so swept away by your presentation that I miscalculated the time. We only have about a minute per caucus, but I'll allow some latitude in that circumstance.
Mrs Boyd: I think it's an important issue, this issue of rescuing. In the work we've done around abuse issues here in London, which has been quite extensive and over a long time, we know that desire to reach out and rescue -- for example, to force battered women to charge their husbands or to force them to leave their homes -- doesn't work. I share your concern that if we fail on the side of being too coercive, particularly when these people are also subject to criminal charges at the same time, it is going to be a failure.
I'm glad you talk about the street outreach. We have a good example of the service here in London that has developed a lot of trust with youth but is underfunded and doesn't have as much help as there could be. I agree with you that more work in that area and the kind of supportive coaxing out of the abuse is likely to be more effective.
Mr Bob Wood: I'd like to ask a couple of quick questions. I agree with what you've said on early intervention, but where we reach the point where these underage people have engaged in prostitution, if you had adequate resources, how many do you think you could convince not to engage in that kind of activity again?
Dr Evans: If they've already got to that point?
Mr Bob Wood: Yes. We're asking only a rough estimate. I understand that you can't be precise. Are you talking about a quarter, a half, a tenth?
Dr Evans: I don't have any basis to answer the question in science and in knowledge.
Mr Bob Wood: Give us your best guess and we'll understand.
Dr Evans: I think it depends on the effectiveness of the approach. I think there's still hope, and we have to be hopeful. You don't throw in the towel just because a particular threshold has been reached. I would much rather prevent the problem, but once it exists, there are still things that can be done. In trying to help even 25%, those are some lives we are saving and some lives we are turning around. It's a philosophical point. Is one life that we turn around valuable? How much is the turnaround of one life worth and how much will it cost us? These are very philosophical, rather than factual, questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Dr Evans. You started your presentation by saying that one of your points you thought was redundant. Let me assure you that nothing that comes before this committee is redundant. In fact, your presentation was very cogent and compelling.
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ELGIN CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES
The Chair: Our next presenter is from Elgin Children and Family Services, Sue Hines. Welcome. Thank you very much for being here.
Ms Sue Hines: I'm glad to hear you aren't disturbed by redundancy, because I have a feeling that some of the things I'm going to say you will have heard before.
The Chair: We call it reinforcement, not redundancy, in this committee.
Ms Hines: Oh, good. That's nice to hear.
I would like to begin by thanking the committee for an opportunity to speak with you. As well, I'd like to state quite clearly that I definitely support, certainly in principle, what is in the proposed piece of legislation.
In November 1997 the Minister of Community and Social Services announced that there would a panel of experts convened to look at the issue of children's deaths. In June of this year, we received a copy of the recommendations that this panel made at the office where I'm employed. One of the things I'd like to comment on is the differences and the incompatibilities in Bill 18 with the current legislation of the Child and Family Services Act and also the proposed amendments.
The first thing I'd like to address, and I think it's been said several times, is the whole issue of returning children to families. Research has shown very clearly over the years that children who run away from home and children who become involved in prostitution most often, or certainly a high majority of those children, have been victims of abuse, if not in their homes, certainly abuse in some portion of their life. It's been suggested that these children don't trust the police. To be fair, these children don't often trust authorities in general, whether it's the children's aid society, social workers or whomever it is. A lot of times these kids, when they've really started to examine it, are children who have come to the attention of the social services system and for a variety of reasons -- either they weren't believed at the time or nothing happened in the judicial system -- the children become very disillusioned.
What I'd like to suggest is that if this piece of legislation proceeds as it's proposed, there be a very close working relationship with the child protection services and with police departments. I think it would be very unfair to ask a police officer, given the time frames they're working under and the stress and the work levels they have, to appropriately assess whether a child should return home in a very short period of time. I think it would be much more appropriate if that child was placed in a place of safety and, during the time to follow, that a more complete assessment was made of whether they should be returned home or if there are extended family members for that child to be returned to.
In the area of warrants, it's quite extensive in Bill 18. Under the proposed amendments to the Child and Family Services Act, tied very closely with this bill, it is recommended that warrants be eliminated in total. The current practice in regard to warrants under the Child and Family Services Act is that warrants, for ourselves, are sworn before a justice of the peace. In a small community it is not always practical to find a justice of the peace, and judges are not always available either. I have also found from personal experience that judges are very reluctant to swear information on a case that they will likely be reviewing under an apprehension situation.
I also would like to say that if I were a judge -- not that I intend to be one some day -- I'm not certain I would want to consent to a warrant without being face to face with the person. In a very tiny community the judges may know the officers very well, but I'm not sure that's the case in places such as Hamilton and Toronto etc.
The three-day rule is another area that I'd like to address. The Child and Family Services Act currently requires that a child who is apprehended is before the court within five days or returned to the person from whom they were removed. This doesn't include the day that the child is apprehended, but it does include holidays, weekends etc. This isn't really a very practical period of time, even in five days. The recommendation before the minister at this point is to change that to 10 days, so I would suggest that the three-day rule suggested in this bill is really impractical.
The word "confine" is used in this proposed piece of legislation. One of the things I have concern about is that we don't have the ability through the Child and Family Services Act to confine children. Children are as free to go within our system as they are within their own family home. In the past there have been parts of our legislation where children in our care were to be placed in open-custody settings if they were a danger to themselves. That piece, certainly for our area, was removed from our ability to access it shortly after the bill was proclaimed several years ago.
Currently under the Child and Family Services Act "abuse" is defined as someone who is in a position as a caregiver. The word "abuse" in regard to people who involve children in prostitution has been used quite a lot in this proposed bill. In that case, if the two pieces of legislation are going to be consistent, I would suggest that be looked at as well.
One of the things that has concerned me for many years, and certainly from a provincial point of view it's really not something you can address, is the issue of penalties. I was very pleased to see that addressed in the proposed piece of legislation, but at the same time it concerned me, because in 26 years of working in child welfare very rarely have I seen perpetrators convicted and receive 24 months, even for horrendous crimes against children. That inconsistency sends a terrible double message to the victims.
In closing, the one thing I would like to say is that given that the minister is currently looking at the Child and Family Services Act, it seems to be a very opportune time to roll this particular bill into the legislation. I've had an opportunity to speak to the director at my agency and also to the police department in my community, and everyone is supportive of the idea but feels that to have one piece of legislation would be much more realistic than having two.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. We have approximately four minutes per caucus, beginning with the government caucus.
Mrs Ross: Thank you very much for your presentation. I have a couple of questions. Yesterday we had a presenter who said to us that every time you take a kid off the street, another one will be there. She said she didn't really agree with the approach of the previous speaker, who said "nabbing" a kid off the street. What's your response to that? How else do you help these kids if you don't get them off the street?
Ms Hines: I think you do have to get them off the street, there's no question about that. A phrase that was used a number of years ago by the director of nursing in Elgin was, "Rather than throwing in life preservers to rescue the children out of the water, go upstream and find out why they're falling in." I think that's what has to happen. Dr Evans spoke about the need for preventive programs. Without preventive programs, without adequate intervention into families, we're never going to stop this from happening. If the intervention occurs and occurs early enough, I think we have a very great possibility of making major inroads within the family.
Mrs Ross: Some of the comments made, and one of the things that prompted bringing this bill forward on the part of Mr Bartolucci, were from a very nice gentleman we met whose daughter was involved in child prostitution. It was an agonizing story to listen to, but the point the girl made to us was that all these kids involved in child prostitution are not necessarily bad kids. We hear a lot of them coming from sexual abuse backgrounds and that sort of thing, but some of them come with silver spoons, so to speak, in their mouths and come from good families. There's a lot of concern about, what do you do when you take them off the street? I like your approach to looking at the three days and perhaps extending that to 10 days. I'm not even sure if 10 days is enough, but I think that's a good idea. Do you think that assessment has to be sort of up front, that you get the kids off the street and assess them right off the bat?
Ms Hines: Yes, I do.
Mrs Ross: I agree.
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Mrs McLeod: I want to pursue this issue of the dilemma of knowing that simply taking the child off the street can first of all be a revictimization and, second, doesn't go nearly far enough in terms of time to do the assessment or to provide the setting in which there can be longer-term counselling. We've had some wonderful suggestions already this morning in terms of transition settings followed by supportive housing backed by counselling, the kinds of things we used to have in place for women victims of domestic abuse that are now going by the boards, I'm afraid.
My dilemma, like Mr Bartolucci's -- and I ask you this as somebody who's a practitioner in the field. When governments don't provide enough funding -- and I'm not speaking simply of this government. I've been in it a long time. There's never enough funding to do the things we want to do in prevention, in children's mental health, the prevention work of children's aid societies. It's the mandated programs that almost coerce government to meet some of the need because it is legally bound to meet the needs. That's why I wonder if the first step isn't to recognize that the child who's engaged in prostitution is a child in need of protection and therefore legally has a right to services provided by the government, that that's the first step to getting some of these support services in place. Do you find that you get to the point where all you can do is provide your mandated services because you can never get the money that's needed for prevention?
Ms Hines: That's become very clear. Even within the last 10 years I've seen a change in the availability of funds. I've been in the profession long enough to have watched the pendulum, the times when things have been good and there has been money for programs, that you wonder in the end why they were ever given the funds in the first place. I think we've come full circle to a time when money is very tight.
Mrs McLeod: Should the child who's engaged in prostitution become a sufficient priority as a child in need that we consider them legally a child in need of protection and provide the service?
Ms Hines: Yes, I believe they should.
Mrs Boyd: Thank you very much for your presentation. I am curious about whether another solution might not be to make prevention programs mandatory.
Ms Hines: That would certainly be something we would like to see happen.
Mrs Boyd: I think most children's aid societies would, because as Mrs McLeod said, in the current budget circumstances most children's aid societies have had to drop programs that were very good, often offered in conjunction with other agencies that did have the trust and support of young people. They're no longer able to do that. I personally think that might be one way out of the dilemma, to really look at those mandatory programs and say we have to start making it mandatory for expenditures to go at the front end of the system rather than always at the crisis end of the system. Do you think that might work?
Ms Hines: I think it will, but the transition period is where it will probably cost a considerable amount of money. You're going to have to have funds at both ends because you're going to have to bail the children out of the water and stop them from falling in.
Mrs Boyd: Absolutely. I would agree with you that the transition funding is essential in order to get somewhere, but unless we change our thinking from absolutely doing only what we minimally must because there's a crisis to something else, I'm not sure we're ever going to actually be successful.
Ms Hines: That's true.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We really appreciate your coming here and sharing your expertise with us.
LONDON CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY
The Chair: Our next presenter is the London Children's Aid Society, represented by Maureen Reid, supervisor, child abuse intervention program, and Rhonda Hallberg, child abuse consultant. Thank you both very much for coming. Welcome to our committee. We look forward to your presentation.
Ms Maureen Reid: Great. First, I should start off by saying that we're pleased to be able to present to you. We didn't have a lot of notice because of summer holidays etc, so our presentation is based on our experience and quick thinking but not as well researched around the whole issue of juvenile prostitution. We assume that you've done a lot of the research around this issue and are aware of the social and criminal implications of juvenile prostitution.
Just a little introduction about my expertise and area of interest in this topic --
The Chair: Excuse me. Could I just ask you to identify which of the two of you --
Ms Reid: I'm sorry. I was just going to do that. I'm introducing myself; I'm actually going to even say my name. I'm Maureen Reid. I've worked 20 years now for the London Children's Aid Society. My present position, the position I've held for the past 12 years, is providing a program for families where intrafamilial sexual abuse has been identified. We work with child victims, adult offenders, non-offending parents, where sexual abuse has been verified and we are attempting to ensure the protection of the child vis-à-vis our intervention in that family system.
I also was part of the research team which investigated the Project Guardian case, which was the case of sex for consideration and sexual exploitation in London, Ontario, that involved a number of adult offenders and young boys.
My experience has been working with not only child victims but also adult offenders and family systems where sexual abuse has occurred.
I would like Rhonda to introduce herself because she has a much larger background than I'm aware of.
Ms Rhonda Hallberg: My name is Rhonda Hallberg and I am one of the supervisors at the children's aid society. Similar to Maureen, I've been there 20 years. Also, my role is child abuse consultant. In that role I do a lot of the training for social workers and police officers for the investigation of child abuse, both physical and sexual investigations, so the whole forensic investigation piece is part of my area, as well as, how does this community try to intervene with child abuse situations? So the whole role of other service agencies being involved with families, as well as the children's aid, is part of what my role is, to try and keep that on track as to where we are with that.
Similar to Maureen, I was a part of the research team and also the coordinator for the children's aid involvement with the Project Guardian investigation, so both the front-line involvement with those young boys, the investigation we did with the police, as well as then the research that we followed up on that. Then both of us are trying to take that into, how do you make that look different in our community? Part of our presentation is using that information.
I was also involved several years ago in our agency's attempts to propose a safe house project in this community. We were very aware of a group of young girls, six to 12 years old, who were involved in prostitution and wanted to look at some kind of a safe house proposal in this community. We went through that process and discovered a lot of the barriers that are now a part of the CFSA, so that's part of what will be our presentation as well, as well as our involvement in the whole attempt to look at amendments to the CFSA that can better address the issues of neglect, physical abuse and kids who are being harmed by people who are not clearly identified as caretakers, because our CFSA is pretty narrow that way. So our presentation is really from that perspective.
Ms Reid: Given that my background is more in a clinical area, I would start by saying that the issue of juvenile prostitution is complex and I think for the most part hidden in our society. I don't think you're going to go down Dundas Street and see children on the street soliciting customers. It's very much a circumstance where these aren't necessarily, in London and probably in many parts of Canada, children who are homeless, but rather many of the children who are involved in sex for consideration have homes. The issue is, rather, what's happening in the level of supervision in those homes. So it is a hidden problem and the solutions to juvenile prostitution are not simple. They require a systemic change across a whole spectrum of social, legal and economic spheres.
From a legal perspective, there was a lot of outcry about the lack of enforcement against the person looking for sexual services from a child, so when the Criminal Code was changed in 1988 to allow for charges to be laid when a minor was solicited, I think everyone expected: "This will really create quite a change. There will be a public outcry and a lot of focus on this issue and we'll solve it." That didn't happen.
Harnick said in 1992 that, in effect, 212(4) of the Criminal Code had not been effective in dealing with the problem of juvenile prostitution.
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There was a Federal-Provincial-Territorial Working Group on Prostitution in 1995 that looked at some of the obstacles. What they found was that this is a really difficult problem to investigate; that traditional policing methods such as decoy officers were neither feasible nor appropriate; that section 212(4) seemed to be only used when the customer was caught by the police in the middle of the transaction; that prosecution usually required the youth to give testimony and that often wasn't feasible.
I think of anecdotal examples of that, and we have many within the agency. We often have children who will report to us circumstances where it starts off benignly. They meet someone, they're given drives, they're given cigarettes, they're given a place to go to party, and then, not surprising to adults but surprising to the kids, the expectation one day is, "I want you to perform this act." The child experiences that as true conflict because they end up doing it because they feel they have to. There is an element of owing that's conveyed to them.
It's exploitive, there's no doubt about that, but it's really hard to lay a charge in those cases because often -- in one case I'm thinking of in particular the child was over the age of 14. There was concern about whether that was a consensual sexual act between this child and that person. It's really difficult to prosecute and prove the exploitive component of that or the prostitution component of that. To a large extent it's been difficult to really police and enforce that section of the act.
Project Guardian, to the best of my knowledge, was the first and only systemic and successful application of that section of the act. What we found was, almost three quarters of the PG defendants under study were charged with at least one count of soliciting a minor. It was a controversial and complicated investigation that could have continued forever. Many of the police officers who were involved were really struggling with, at what point do you end it? Because there were always leads, there were always more areas that they could have followed up on and probably more charges they could have laid. It was a decision, we have to end this at some point.
It was a costly investigation, it was a difficult one and it certainly drew attention to the controversy in the community as well. Were these all children? The whole issue of age came into effect. Were these children exploited in all cases? A few of the children were what were referred to as "hustlers" who were seeking out services. Other children were younger and were certainly exploited and not as overt in their soliciting of this kind of activity.
One of the things we found and what we should take a look at is, who were these children? I think of this proposed legislation as having some merit, having a lot of merit, but I also see it as almost the dilemma of all these children drowning in a river and we're downstream with this bill pulling one or two out. Do we want to walk upstream and see why they're all falling in the river? That's probably where we're going to be most effective in impacting the issue of juvenile prostitution.
In the cases of the boys involved in the PG investigation, we found through the research that many of them came from backgrounds of inadequate parental involvement and supervision, parental abandonment, often fathers absent, attachment disorders from loss of parental involvement early on. Alcohol and drug abuse was a big factor. Many of these children came from homes where that had been a long-standing problem. Poor living conditions and neglect. Very frequently, because we knew over half these boys through involvement with the children's aid without knowing they were involved in the Project Guardian investigation, we knew of histories of physical and sexual abuse within the family system.
We knew that these children came from family situations which really created a condition of risk for them down the road. We almost started to see it as a continuum because frequently there were other forms of abuse in their background so that the sex for consideration or the exploitation of these children down the road was an extension of the continuum of sexual abuse or physical abuse that began when they were small within their family. For many of them, although this was a population of boys and they tend to under-report, there were histories of sexual abuse incidents within their family system.
We had a really difficult time, and I can say this from personal experience with trying to engage these children in any kind of therapeutic intervention, largely because they didn't come forward. We consider clinically that there are two types of disclosures, one being accidental and one being purposeful. These were accidental. These boys were approached by the police. They felt they were going to be in trouble. They felt interrogated. The finding of the tapes initiated the investigation. Not one of these boys came forward to report this was happening -- not one. So the whole idea that they would then come forward to say, "I want to talk about what's been happening and I feel victimized," was really kind of naive and ideal on our part.
We don't often necessarily have, even in any circumstance of sexual abuse disclosure, good success when it's an accidental disclosure. I think people work on those kinds of issues when they're ready to talk about them, and these boys did not identify this in any way as exploitative. They saw it as something that they were participating in.
It took a lot. Some of the boys, I think very few, were able to talk about that. Most really experienced a lot of distress with the whole investigation and the exposure of the activity they were involved in. So we really had a difficult time.
One of the things that was really key, and I think it's key to understanding when you look at this legislation, was that these children are not raised with pro-social values. You can't legislate values. They are not raised to trust authority figures and they are really resistant to taking direction in a pro-social manner. Many of these boys have had very poor success in school. Many of the children, even female children as well as male children, often have limited success in school or in areas where they may have their self-esteem built, so it's really difficult to start to go back and repair that.
Rhonda is going to be really specific about the actual act in those areas, but I'm trying to paint a picture of where these kids are coming from. Their need for escape, excitement and living for the moment is much greater than their idea of having goals and how they're going to obtain them and how they're going to live a pro-social life. So we're really working downstream, and my view would be, very clearly, that if we want to address this problem in a more effective way, we have to intervene much, much earlier.
The panel of experts' proposed recommendations for the CFSA are wonderful. Many of them will really be very effective in helping us intervene early around the conditions that place children at risk of, down at the end of the continuum, getting involved in these kinds of experiences. While I think that this legislation could be effective in pulling a few kids out, I don't know that this is going to be stopping all those kids who are falling in.
I'll let Rhonda speak specifically around the points of the legislation that we want to draw attention to.
The Chair: Before you start, could I just suggest to you that you only have a couple of minutes left.
Ms Hallberg: OK, I will prioritize what I'm saying here.
Probably first of all to start out with in the legislation, the preamble has a statement about believing that children who engage in prostitution "are victims of sexual abuse and require protection." We strongly support that. That is a good foundation for any of action that we take and anything that is legislated. It is a clear statement that has not been in legislation before, to my knowledge anyway. Certainly if there's any way of having this also transferred over to the Child and Family Services Act, that's a good foundation to be able to do that.
I'm sure you've heard comments about the definition of "child" being up to the age of 18. Part of the proposed changes to the CFSA is for that age group, up to age 18, and protection. In this community, and I'm sure in many communities, there are serious gaps in services for children who are 16 and 17 years old. This may assist in trying to address that. Presently, though, there is a fair bit of contradiction between this bill and the CFSA. Something needs to happen to address how you're going to then deal with those difficulties. As a child protection worker, when I get notice about a child in a safe house, that child may not then fall within my jurisdiction. How can I do that? How can I get the evidence to really do something beyond that three-day time?
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The whole concept of a protective safe house is very positive one. We support that. We strongly believe that children need to have a period of time that forces them to slow down. I think the three-day period of time, that three-day rule, is again in conflict with the CFSA five-day rule. We believe it's not adequate, not enough time for a social worker to fully assess the risks to the child, considering we're dealing with children who really are reluctant to talk to authorities and they really are going to be, for those first few days, the only source of information.
It may force children's aid societies into too prematurely making decisions to return a child to a family when the superficial information is that the family is safe. I'm not sure what the magic number of days is, but that needs to be looked at further as to what would be reasonable as well as in the balance of the children's rights.
The whole concept too that the child can remain in this safe house while there is yet the order to be in place certainly allows for a fair bit more planning, but I think again you need to be careful about what the rights of the child are. You might want to look at the CFSA, section 5, which looks at some of the issues that kids would have to be dealing with, such as access to a child advocate's office, access to legal counsel, rights for communication with family and with other persons in authority who are safe people whom they can be allowed to communicate with. We certainly wouldn't want to get into having a child live in this safe house for 30 days and saying they can't talk to anybody, but how do we define who is a safe person and who isn't, that kind of thing.
Part of what would need to be addressed about the safe house -- again, we would encourage you to look at the CFSA, because the way the CFSA now determines a secure treatment setting or a detention setting is very restrictive. We would encourage and recommend that whatever you design the safe house to look like, it needs to be more flexible than that. If the children's aid society is to have a lot of authority in this, we need to make sure that we have the authority for medical treatment for children, for STD testing, for HIV testing, for children to have birth control counselling -- all of those elements, as well as education, as well as the counselling and the crisis intervention that can happen at the safe house.
Without clear authorization for medical treatment, we're going to have kids come in, possibly have medical issues, have damages and need to be assessed. We need to have someone give authorization for that, rather than having to wait and search out for parents who may or may not be able or willing to give consent. So that needs to be addressed as well.
Part of what we're concerned about with the definition of children in need of protection is that we would recommend that subsection 1(2), which is, "a child is in need of protection if the child is engaging in prostitution," we would like to have that be seen in the CFSA if that's at all possible, even though I know that your grounds don't quite cover all that authority.
The CFSA, as we all know, is narrow in defining only the caregiver. Children who are in this population are kids who are out of control of their parents, many of those parents not because they are purposely letting them be out of control. The CFSA too narrowly defines "in need of protection," so it does not capture this group.
This legislation is being narrow and is trying to capture the kids who are engaging in prostitution. There is a whole group of kids who are out of control, some of whom are living on the street. We know that the research as well as our experience supports that those kids very easily move into prostitution because it's one of the few methods of obtaining shelter, money et al, or it's a place to belong. So I think this definition of "need of protection" is also too narrow. There is that group of kids who are out of control, who are not yet or are close to engaging in prostitution. We don't have that evidence yet to say that there is that group still which we're not able to address, being able to take some sort of steps with those kids. They tend also to be ones who are quite young. Those are the ones who are the 12- and 13-year-olds.
Also, the provisions in here for warrants by telecommunication, we greatly support that. I think it's quite a creative move towards entering into the 20th century and realizing that it makes sense to realize and accept the fact that Ontario has a lot of geographical problems. Let's just accept that and let's move on with trying to protect kids. I do some teaching in some of the more remote areas of Ontario and it is a major problem there, as I am sure you know, trying to provide legal balance of due process to kids as well as to provide protective services. This is a good creative measure that allows for some of that.
We support the concept of a restraining order as well. We see that as being a widening of some of the efforts to try to make sure kids are protected by people who are not necessarily caregivers or directly responsible for abusing the kids. That whole piece is a good section to that.
Section 13, about offences: What I'd like you to consider a bit is, the CFSA has offence sections in it as well. However, our experience is that it is virtually never used, partially because children's aid societies really are not skilled in the laying of charges and proceeding with that sort of court system.
Also, when charges have been laid under that by either police or the children's aid society authorities, seldom are we able to get convictions because we're still creating case law. So things such as duty to report, there has been the overturning of any sort of convictions on that because they're up for debates about what is "forthwith," or did the person really report, all those kinds of things.
So I'm not sure how strong offence sections can be in legislation that is provincial and we may want to have you look at how the Criminal Code can better address the issues we have with these kids, or is there a better twinning between those sets of offences? Although this is well and good, I really wonder how successful it's going to be when we consider the CFSA has been poorly done by when it comes to trying to effect those offences pieces.
Our strong recommendation is that the children's aid society continues to need to be involved in these kids. We are glad we are a part of this proposed legislation. There needs to be a better twinning or dovetailing or meshing with the CFSA. The CFSA needs to be expanded and we support the amendments that are now proposed, as well as expansion on the definition of "need of protection" and, what is the action we can do with these kids once we have them?
This is a beginning piece and, as Maureen and I'm sure other people have said, this only captures a small group of what is the visible group of kids who are involved in prostitution. We'd recommend further looking at how you get a definition that addresses the needs of the kids who are running away, out of parents' control and are living on the street a lot or partially living on the street, kind of living on the curb sort of thing, because this really won't address that either.
The Chair: Thank you. Regrettably, you've used up all of your time, but thank you very much for your thorough presentation. Mrs McLeod?
Mrs McLeod: A question, Madam Chair, and I appreciate the committee has taken advantage of the expertise that was being offered to add a little extra time.
I noted that in the preliminary comments Rhon had mentioned some experience they'd had in attempting to set up a safe house in London and the barriers in the CFSA. I am just wondering, given our lack of time to pursue it, if it's possible for legislative research to make some further contact and just learn a little bit more about the barriers in establishing safe houses.
The Chair: We'll attend to that. Again, thank you both very much for appearing before us today.
JOANN CAMPANARO AND CONNY BAREL
The Chair: Our next speaker is JoAnn Campanaro. Good morning. Thank you very much for being here. I note that you have someone with you. Perhaps you'll introduce her after you get seated.
Mrs JoAnn Campanaro: OK. This is my friend Conny Barel. She has helped me with these papers and we are great friends.
As you know, my name is JoAnn Campanaro. We have a 14-year-old adopted daughter who has been under the care of the children's aid society for the past three years, since her behaviour was out of control.
During this time she has run away from the group home provided by the children's aid approximately 16 times or more. Each time the duration is longer and the situations she is involved in have become more serious. Much of the agony and suffering may have been prevented if the right counselling for the child and parents had been available in a timely manner.
I am in favour of Bill 18. We desperately need protection for children who cannot defend or help themselves. We must act to remove this sick and costly sore from our society.
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I have a few comments on Bill 18. A police officer should have access to a judge or courthouse assistant in order to record an application on oath for a warrant, by telephone or other means of telecommunication, at any time of the day or night. I also agree that when the child is in any or probable danger, a police officer should be able to apprehend the child without a warrant. After the child is apprehended, it should officially be reported and an investigation should be commenced immediately. This investigation is of vital importance.
The reason that strict attention should be given to an investigation is (1) it would prevent the child going back to the same address and situation, in case he or she runs away again; (2) to help address part III of the CFSA, where the child protection agencies need clear evidence of what happened in the present situation -- in this way a correct analysis for future treatment and direction of the child can be made; (3) a provision should be put in this act that the child protection agencies and workers should have immediate access to all past and present records of the child, with or without the child's consent or court order, again to assist in making a correct analysis for future treatment and direction of the child.
To safeguard freedoms of our society, there must be serious reasons to apply these powers of investigation. These reasons should be recorded at all times in the child's records.
These investigative powers should only be applied (1) if information is believed to be necessary to investigate allegations that a child is or may be in need of protection; (2) for the purposes of proceeding or possible proceeding under part III of the CFSA; (3) if the information is necessary for monitoring court orders.
Last but not least, programs established by the minister to assist children are of vital importance. Children may have reached a crisis situation because of a traumatic experience in their early years; divorced parents; a genetic disorder; poor school performance; sexual immorality, which is encouraged by our present society. The Young Offenders Act permits too much freedom without any responsibility for their behaviour, and under the Child and Family Services Act, parents, police and CAS workers are restrained from protecting children in the high-risk category, in particular runaways.
It is not just that we put children's rights over their safety and protection. With counselling by a psychologist or a psychiatrist if necessary, with loving care and discipline and sometimes medication, we will be able to offer help. When needed, they should receive special education or training. In this way they can become citizens who can contribute to society and make an honest living.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mrs Campanaro. I know it can't be easy for you to be here and I want you to know how much we appreciate your bravery. We have approximately four minutes for questioning per caucus. We're going to start with the Liberals if no one minds, because Mr Bartolucci has a flight to catch.
Mr Bartolucci: Mrs Campanaro, first I want to thank you very much for a very, very moving and compelling presentation. More important, it's a very important presentation.
In Sudbury our police force has started what's known as the DISC program. The DISC program is deter, identify, sex-trade consumers. In other words, if someone is caught soliciting sex from a child his name is published in the paper. Do you agree with those types of initiatives on the part of our police forces?
Mrs Campanaro: Yes, I agree with what you said certainly, but what I'm trying to say in this paper is that I as a parent know that my child is out there, and even if I know where she is, once I send the police they cannot just go and get her without a warrant or anything. At the early stages I did send the police out and -- Conny, can you tell them this, because I've told you. It's kind of emotional for me.
Mrs Conny Barel: Yes, she was in touch with the police and the police were not able to enter the house without a warrant. She knew they were using drugs and she could stay out till 12 o'clock -- that's the rule -- while she has a decent family where the rule is that the children have to be in by 10 or 11.
Mr Bartolucci: Just to reinforce that commitment that you would want from police forces, you should know that your chief here -- your former chief now, because he has gone to York -- is very, very supportive of this legislation and so too are approximately 32 other police forces across Ontario that wrote in support, because they understand your dilemma and they want it addressed as well. I thank you very, very much for your presentation.
Mrs McLeod: I want to come back to the point you made at the beginning and the end of your presentation when you talk about the importance of being able to get counselling for both parents and child. Has it been your experience that the counselling just isn't there or it's not there in time, where there's too long a waiting period?
Mrs Campanaro: It's been my experience with the people from the children's aid or from other places like Vanier that sometimes the counselling isn't the proper counselling. I initiated it myself, but the counselling I was given wasn't the proper counselling for when she was running away. They were addressing the problem to do with my family instead of the child's problem, which was running away. So it just didn't work at that time.
Then I had worse problems. This was before she got into the children's aid society, and after she got into the children's aid society she was given the right because she was 12 years old to go for counselling or not to go for counselling. Meanwhile, at home we were all extremely upset. We wanted it done right away. We wanted to continue counselling as long as that would help. We were all, you know: "Let's go for it. I don't care if this didn't turn out right. Let's start another time." But, no, she turned 12, so her right was that she didn't want counselling.
Mrs Boyd: I can appreciate how very difficult it is for you to speak out of this experience and I can tell how painful it's been. I certainly have had other mothers and fathers who have experienced similar problems and who really support your call for clearer provision within the CFSA to deal with these issues in a much more proactive way.
I find it interesting that most police forces and most children's aid societies are identifying exactly the same kind of gap that you are for this group of children who are runaways and that we don't seem to have the appropriate services to reach them. My sense is that if we can bring all the expertise to bear, the expertise of parents like you and the expertise of the people who are trying to work in child protection areas, we ought to be able to resolve some of these issues in a cohesive way so that we won't see kids fall between the cracks the way you're talking about your child.
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I'm interested in your comment, and it was just a passing comment, about the sharing of information among agencies because this has been identified for a long time as a problem, that one agency has a file and knows what the background is and knows what the problems are and what efforts have been made in the past, but another agency who becomes involved may not have the capacity to get that information, if the child doesn't agree to have that information shared. I think that's a particularly important issue when we talk about a complex case like yours. Would you agree?
Mrs Campanaro: I'm sorry. You think it's a particularly --
Mrs Boyd: Information about what has been tried in the past.
Mrs Campanaro: Yes, I agree that this information should be shared. I think everything should be laid out on the table for everybody, and whoever can help, for heaven's sake, help.
Mrs Boyd: There was a piece of the CFSA that was never proclaimed that would have allowed some sharing of information, and that's been a centrepiece to the discussions about changing the act to make it more effective. How can we ensure that agencies aren't working in the dark, that they know what the history of a young person is and they know what the situation has been so that parents like you who are looking for help don't have to go through the whole story every time and, in many cases, have to have a whole new file and a whole new assessment built up to get help from that agency?
Mrs Campanaro: I think information should be shared for this kind of thing, yes.
Mr Bob Wood: You raised the question of consent to treatment earlier where you said your daughter was 12 years old and they said she doesn't have to accept treatment unless she consents to it.
Mrs Campanaro: Yes. It was her right that she didn't have to consent. Here we were, the poor children's aid worker, me, the lawyer, all sitting there and she didn't want any counselling. This happened over and over and over again.
Mr Bob Wood: Do you have any thought as to what the solution might be to that? How would you change the law to avoid a situation like that?
Mrs Campanaro: I think it's quite obvious. If the person keeps on engaging in, especially at this age group, 14 or 16 -- these are age groups where they still need guidance, up to an age group where they still need guidance -- if they keep on endangering themselves in our society, then a firm step should be taken. You sit down and say to the person under the law, "This has to be done."
Mr Bob Wood: Who do you think is best able to make that kind of decision? Do you think it should be someone like the CAS, should it be the parents, should it be a court that does that? Who do you think is best suited to make that kind of decision?
Mrs Campanaro: First of all, going back to the Child and Family Services Act, there are two kinds of parents: the abusive parent and the ones who are not abusing their children. If these parents are not abusing their children, let them make the decisions. If they want the children's aid help, fine; if they don't, leave them alone. But in the case of an abusive parent, where the intent of that parent is to do something evil to that child, then the children's aid should have complete control.
Mr Bob Wood: Could I ask you one other question? You talked about not feeling that you got the kind of help you needed when you needed it as your daughter was growing up. Could you give us a bit of a flavour of when you think more help would have been good and what kind of help you think might have been good for the situation?
Mrs Campanaro: I'm very saddened with the government especially. At the initiation of her being out of control, I thought, "Oh, the children's aid society will help me." I started to see that the police weren't effective because they couldn't do anything. They weren't effective because all they did was talk to her and she ran away again. Then they got her, brought her home. Some of them said they wouldn't even go get her; some of them said, "That's your problem." I thought: "My goodness, this is odd. What's happening to our laws here?"
Once I put her in the children's aid, I started to understand this business about her rights because she was 12 years old and, "You can't do this and you can't do that and we've got to do what she wants to do." In the meantime, she was getting worse and we weren't happy about the situation. At that time, I would have liked to have seen something different happen.
The Chair: Thank you. Since Mrs Campanaro is the only parent to come before us, I'm going to allow one more question. Mr Brown, I know you want to get in there.
Mr Jim Brown: You know the crime commission which Bob and I are members of has been around the province and probably listened to 40 different communities and you're not alone. We've heard stories such as yours and a lot of parents believe they've been disenfranchised. Their kids have in effect been taken away from them and they feel powerless. This is just a comment at the end here. You're not alone and you've very brave to come here and tell your story. I know I'm very appreciative of your telling your experiences, and we hope to do something about returning kids to their parental influences because I think that's very important.
Mrs Campanaro: I think the best place for any child is with the parents, if they're not abusive.
Mr Jim Brown: Yes, I agree.
The Chair: Mrs Campanaro, I want to thank you and your co-presenter for being here today. As I say, you're the only parents who came forward in London. You've given us a unique perspective of what it's like to live the tragedy of a child who has gone astray. We're very, very grateful to you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our hearings in London. We will adjourn for the time being and reconvene again in Toronto in September. The date now escapes me, but you will undoubtedly have it in your calendar.
The committee adjourned at 1219.