My question is for the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services. All women and children in Ontario deserve to live without the threat of violence. Sadly, incidents involving human trafficking in women fleeing abuse occur in our province. Many women who leave these circumstances often face challenges in finding support. These obstacles are more pronounced in rural and remote parts of Ontario, where distances make accessing resources extremely difficult.

Everyone has the right to be safe. As a government. we are responsible for directly addressing this issue. What is our government doing to support these women and children?

Speaker, how is our government ensuring appropriate funding for women in rural, remote and northern communities?

Tomorrow is Human Trafficking Awareness Day—a day dedicated to better understanding the warning signs and how we can help victims and survivors when and where they need it. This vicious crime creates lasting emotional, physical, spiritual and mental trauma for victims and survivors. We know that human trafficking poses a real and growing threat to the children and youth of our province.

That’s why, in 2020, our government released a comprehensive, five-year strategy to combat this crime. Our $307-million strategy includes actions across government to raise awareness, interrupt supply, protect victims, support survivors, and hold offenders accountable for their crimes. It is the largest total investment in dedicated anti-human trafficking services and supports in the country.

Today, with my colleague the Solicitor General, we will be sharing some of our government’s progress on delivering that strategy. A key focus is protecting children and youth from sex trafficking, as they are among those most vulnerable to being targeted by traffickers.

In 2021, as part of our strategy, we launched a new model of intervention called Children at Risk of Exploitation Units, or CARE units, with an investment of $11.5 million over three years. These specialized teams pair police officers and child protection workers to proactively identify children and youth at risk of being sex-trafficked and connect them to resources they need. These units have already had life-changing impacts on vulnerable young people. Over six months last year, CARE units had 319 interactions with children and youth suspected of being trafficked. They supported 27 human trafficking investigations, and 77 criminal charges were laid as a result of this work. This new approach has resulted in successful interventions with children—some younger than 12 years old—who were at risk. The success of these units is based on their collaborative approach. CARE unit members have built relationships with children who sometimes have no one else who can understand their trauma.

Another highlight of our work over the past year has been the delivery of cross-sector anti-human trafficking training. This training is designed for front-line professionals most likely to encounter children and youth who are being sex-trafficked, who have been trafficked in the past, or who are at risk. It is an intensive training program that equips participants with the knowledge to better identify suspected instances of human trafficking, including how to respond and support victims. It is also survivor-centred, involving individuals with lived experience at every stage, from development to delivery, as leaders of the training. And 95% of those who have taken this intensive training have said that they felt better equipped with the knowledge and skills to understand, identify and appropriately respond to human trafficking.

Finally, I’d like to mention another community-based service being delivered as part of our strategy and the difference it is making. The Ontario Native Women’s Association is one of the organizations being funded under our strategy to deliver community supports. Over the last year, they helped 316 individuals exit from being trafficked. They connected with more than 5,800 individuals to provide resources and support through street-based outreach work, and they have delivered training and educational programs to more than 5,600 people.

The examples I’ve shared today speak to the results that we have achieved by working with partners to deliver Ontario’s Anti-Human Trafficking Strategy. I am proud that these initiatives are having an impact, and I am grateful to everyone who is taking part.

But there is a role we can all play in stopping human trafficking.

I would like to encourage all members of this House to take the time to learn the signs of human trafficking and exploitation by visiting ontario.ca/humantrafficking. Together, we can make our communities safer places and help victims and those at risk be connected to the supports that they need.

Thank you, Minister Fullerton.

Today is a day for Ontarians to stand up to deliver a powerful message that trafficking in all of its forms is a vicious and violent crime that must be brought to an end. Human trafficking can prey on anyone, and especially society’s most vulnerable. Tragically, this largely includes young girls, those trapped in poverty and Indigenous women.

It is our duty to act decisively and effectively to protect everyone from exploitation. As a government, as a provincial Parliament, we have a shared duty to protect our communities. We must continue to do what is hard to keep Ontario safe.

Monsieur le Président, nous devons continuer à faire ce qui est difficile : assurer la sécurité de l’Ontario.

Today is a day of reflection. Moreover, it’s a day of action.

The Ministry of the Solicitor General, the Ministry of the Attorney General and the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services worked together to develop Ontario’s Anti-Human Trafficking Strategy. We are investing $307 million in this comprehensive strategy. It brings together community advocates, social services, health care providers, law enforcement, and justice partners. This is all with the shared goal of raising awareness, protecting victims, supporting survivors, and holding offenders accountable—a comprehensive strategy made stronger with the passing of the government’s Combating Human Trafficking Act, 2021. I want to recognize my predecessor, the Deputy Premier, for shepherding this important legislation through the House.

Speaking as the Solicitor General on behalf of law enforcement and the justice sector, Ontario has the range of tools needed to improve our ability to identify perpetrators, intercept human trafficking networks, and bring criminals to justice. We are making good use of these tools. This is particularly evident when you consider advancements in training, intelligence gathering, and community grants.

Well-trained police officers are critical to our government’s anti-trafficking strategy. Police officers must be trained in early-detection techniques, effective anti-trafficking investigations, prevention, and how to approach and support the victims.

The Ontario Police College, for example, has greatly enhanced its human trafficking investigation course. Participants there learn about various types of human trafficking, vulnerable groups, trafficker profiles, indicators and how the sex trade is intricately linked to sex trafficking.

I want to give a special mention to a wonderful advocate I’ve met: Timea Nagy. A survivor of human trafficking herself and founder of Timea’s Cause, she and a dedicated team of volunteers and professionals have worked hand in hand with Peel Regional Police to develop tailored, anti-human trafficking training for over 2,200 officers.

Mr. Speaker, traffickers may operate in the shadows, but they can’t operate without leaving footprints. Transportation, advertising, accommodations and other costs of doing business all leave a trail.

Intelligence gathering and the free flow of information between jurisdictions is critical to the success of closing down human trafficking rings and bringing criminals to justice. We have increased intelligence gathering and investigative capacity to identify, monitor and target human traffickers and support the victims. To this end, I want to recognize the dedicated agents of the Criminal Intelligence Service Ontario, who I’ve had the chance to meet working with law enforcement across Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, I’ve talked about law enforcement response to end human trafficking. But our communities, schools and especially social media platforms are recruiting grounds for human traffickers. Cybercrime presents an additional threat that we must continue to combat—and to address this, our ministry is investing over $21 million over three years for this initiative. As a noteworthy example, this fall I joined the Minister of Citizenship and Multiculturalism, the Associate Minister of Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity, and my own parliamentary assistant, the MPP for Etobicoke–Lakeshore—at that time, I announced our government’s latest investment, through the Safer and Vital Communities Grant. We’re funding partnerships between community organizations and local police services to develop resources, enhance outreach, and boost education, with the objective of preventing local residents from becoming victims.

Mr. Speaker, on this National Human Trafficking Awareness Day, I want to recognize all first responders, social workers, health and mental care professionals, and everyday citizens who help us take a stand against human trafficking and deliver support for its victims. These are incredible people who support their communities every day.

Targets and victims of human trafficking are often trapped in social, economic and physical circumstances that place them closest to the margins of despair.

This government has a track record of not listening to the needs of rape crisis and sexual assault centre front-line staff, and survivors and those living with mental health challenges, among others who are trafficked. Therefore, it is really difficult to stand here today on behalf of the official opposition, recognizing human trafficking day tomorrow, while the government pats themselves on the back but we haven’t seen actual implementation of their plans.

This is the Ford government that dismantled the Ontario violence-against-women round table the moment they took office in 2018, and that began the callous cuts to rape crisis and sexual assault centres and, again, survivors—such as when this government cut survivors’ access to pain-and-suffering funds. Human trafficking is violence against women and children.

This is the Ford government that refuses to forgive human trafficking victims of provincial fines, outstanding OSAP student debt. Wipe these fines clean so they don’t continue to be the victims of financial exploitation, bad credit ratings, and crushing debts caused by their traffickers.

This is the Ford government that was asked to respond within six months to the Renfrew county inquiry recommendations that came out on June 28, 2022—68 of which land squarely on the shoulders of this provincial government—and they missed the deadline. The first of these recommendations was for the government to name intimate partner violence what it is: an epidemic. I asked them to implement this recommendation twice this morning during question period, and the government refused. How can this government pretend to be leading on human trafficking, which disproportionately impacts women and girls, yet they’re unable to name gender-based violence and intimate partner violence—which disproportionately impacts women and girls—an epidemic. It doesn’t make sense.

While your government mulls over these recommendations, more victims are targeted, violated and will die.

If this government wants to eradicate human trafficking—or any other form of violence against women, at that—recognize it as a hate crime. Support the front-line workers—understaffed, underpaid and burnt out. Properly fund the sector with annualized funding. They are direct lifelines for victims, survivors and their families.

All of these solutions and so much more I’ve shared today would actually put us on the right track to eradicating human trafficking as one of many forms of gender-based violence impacting women and children.

I’m responding to the minister’s statement on human trafficking awareness.

We all agree that human trafficking is a despicable crime that is tragically common in Ontario, with 95% of trafficked persons being women, teenagers and marginalized groups, including Indigenous people.

When addressing trafficking, it is critical that we take a holistic approach: (1) We need education programs and community awareness to prevent trafficking, (2) we need enforcement to crack down on it, and (3) we need measures to assist those who have been trafficked.

Unfortunately, we often focus specifically on law enforcement approaches to trafficking instead of addressing every aspect of this vile crime. Prevention is an essential component of the fight against human trafficking. We must adequately educate our young people to help them avoid dangerous situations, both in person and online.

Supporting survivors is also critical. Survivors need access to housing, education and health care, and governments should be a partner in the provision of these services. One significant measure the government can adopt is to ensure that loans are not denied to survivors on the basis of debts forced onto them by abusers, thus revictimizing the survivors. There will be an opportunity to take that step later this week, and I hope we can move forward together on this. It is all too easy to forget that the important work of combatting trafficking doesn’t stop when an abuser is arrested. We must also work to fight the harm done and support victims as they rebuild their lives.