Justice committee  Yes, definitely. When we work with the community, that fear of the police and law enforcement is the major source of what might create unsafe working conditions and create vulnerability in the workers. Take away the criminal law, including sex workers, clients and third parties, so that they can have a support system and work safely.

Justice committee  We see that sex workers who help other people to do advertising or help family members to communicate are already being charged under the law related to sex work. With this, not only will they be charged under the sex worker law, but they will also be charged under the trafficking law.

Justice committee  I think this is the question you asked: How many people in marital relationships feel forced and in a relationship they feel puts them in vulnerable situations? I think this is very difficult, because this is a power dynamic. Our focus is to see how our intervention actually supports people so they can have more power resources and can negotiate better conditions, no matter if it's in their intimate relationship or their workplace.

Justice committee  I think what Butterfly has been doing is to build community support to help community members deal with any kinds of issues they are facing, including in their workplace or in terms of exploitation or intimate partner violence. We work with the community members in terms of what they want—whether they want to leave their partner or protect themselves or learn how to negotiate, or whether they want to change their working environment.

Justice committee  I think, when we talk about this issue, we need to be clear about what we are going to do here. Are we going to end exploitation and trafficking, or are we going to end sex work? I think this needs to be very clear. I keep hearing the conflation that actually gives a lot of misinformation, that the goal is ending exploitation and not ending sex work, but a lot of recommendations on ending sex work actually create vulnerability and more opportunity for the exploitation of the community, particularly Asian migrant sex workers and racialized sex workers.

Justice committee  Hi and good afternoon. I am Elene Lam, executive director of Butterfly. We work with over 5,000 migrant sex workers in Canada. I am shocked that the committee did not consult any migrant rights, racial justice or sex workers who are directly impacted. Many scholars on violence again women and racial justice and human rights organizations have already shown their opposition to this bill, and have shown concern that they are not having the opportunity to tell you how this bill is harmful.