Question Period Note: Public Safety Canada’s role in addressing Gender-Based Violence

The Government of Canada’s commitment to moving forward with a 10-year National Action Plan on gender-based violence.

• As stated in the Speech from the Throne, it is a priority of this government to invest in preventing and addressing gender-based violence in Canada; it is paramount to the creation of strong and safe communities for everyone.

• Public Safety Canada is working in collaboration with partners and community organizations to implement a number of activities that support and align with Canada’s Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence.

• Specifically, our continued commitment can be seen through investments in Canada’s National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet and the National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking, as well as efforts being made to address and prevent bullying and cyberbullying behaviours impacting youth in Canada.

• Additionally, the Government’s Community Resilience Fund continues to support efforts in countering radicalization to violence, including forms of violent extremism involving gender-based violence and violent misogyny.

• Lastly, to help Canadians make informed decisions about their safety, and the safety of their intimate partner relationships, the Government and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have taken immediate steps to ensure full participation in Clare’s Law legislation across Canada. Clare’s Law protects Canadians by allowing police to disclose a person’s prior intimate partner violence information to a current or former intimate partner.

It’s Time: Canada’s Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence (the GBV Strategy) was launched in June 2017. This horizontal initiative, led by Women and Gender Equality (WAGE) coordinates the efforts of six departments/federal entities (WAGE, Public Health Agency (PHAC), Public Safety (PS), National Defence (DND), Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)) in addressing and preventing GBV in Canada.

In December 2019, the Minister for Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE) was mandated to build on the foundation laid by the Federal GBV Strategy and move forward to develop a National Action Plan (NAP) to End Gender-Based Violence (GBV). The Government’s commitment to moving forward with a 10-year National Action Plan on GBV was reiterated in the 2021 Speech from the Throne. WAGE is currently collaborating with federal partners, as well as its provincial and territorial counterparts, and National Indigenous leaders and representatives to finalize the development of the GBV NAP.

As detailed below, PS, along with portfolio partners, is implementing a number of activities that support and align with Canada’s Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence, including activities to combat online child sexual exploitation, human trafficking, cyberbullying, violent misogyny and intimate partner violence.

The National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet
(led by Public Safety Canada)

Online child sexual exploitation is a serious safety issue that continues to increase in terms of scope, reach and impacts. This heinous crime manifests in many forms. It includes accessing, possessing, producing, and/or distributing child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) by those who have a sexual interest in children.

Online child sexual exploitation is a gendered crime, which largely impacts girls. Those at-risk of perpetuating these crimes are predominantly men. In a review of 153,000 reports from 2008-2015, Cybertip.ca found that 78.3% of children in the images/videos were estimated to be younger than 12 years old, 80.4% appeared to be girls, and 50% of the images/videos depicted sexual assaults with younger children.

GBV Strategy investments contribute to broader Government of Canada efforts to combat this crime through the National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet. The National Strategy is led by PS, in partnership with Justice Canada, the RCMP and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P), a non-for profit organization responsible for the national tip-line.
Ongoing investments under the National Strategy total over $18 million per year. Some of PS and RCMP funding was provided through the It’s Time: Canada’s Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence (the GBV Strategy).

Key initiatives under the National Strategy have contributed to increasing public awareness of this crime, supporting C3P’s operation of Cybertip.ca, the development of Project Arachnid, a web-crawling technology solution to identify and increase the rate of removal of child sexual abuse material, and the expansion of the RCMP’s National Child Exploitation Crime Centre’s investigation capacity.

Budget 2019 provided additional funding of $22.24 million over three years, starting in 2019–20, to support PS efforts to raise awareness of this serious issue and reduce the stigma associated with reporting, increase Canada’s ability to pursue and prosecute offenders, and work with industry to find new ways to combat the sexual exploitation of children online.

Budget 2021 proposes an investment of $20.7 million over five years, starting in 2021-22, for the RCMP to enhance its ability to pursue online child sexual exploitation investigations, identify victims and remove them from abusive situations, and bring offenders to justice, including those who offend abroad. This funding will flow through the GBV NAP, and will complement the National Strategy objectives.

National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking

Human trafficking, also referred to as trafficking in persons, involves the recruitment, transportation or harbouring of persons for the purpose of exploitation, typically sexual exploitation or forced labour. Canada has been identified as a source, destination and transit country for victims of human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and forced labour. According to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, there is a general upward trend in police-reported incidents on human trafficking in Canada since 2010.

The latest Juristat on Trafficking in Persons in Canada indicates that between 2009 and 2019, 95% of human trafficking victims in Canada were female, with: 21% of victims identified as minors (girls below the age of 18); 43% of all victims identified as young women were between the ages of 18 and 24, and 22% of victims identified as women between the ages of 25 to 34. Individuals at highest risk of victimization generally include persons who are socially or economically disadvantaged, such as Indigenous women and girls, LGBTQ2 persons, migrants, new immigrants, and at-risk youth, including teenage runaways and children who are in protection.

In September 2019, the Government launched the new National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking that is supported by an investment of $57.22 million over five years and $10.28 million ongoing. The National Strategy builds on the internationally recognized pillars of prevention, protection, prosecution and partnerships, and incorporates a new pillar of “empowerment” to ensure considerable focus is put towards enhancing supports and services to victims affected by this crime. Key PS activities under the National Strategy include the development of tools, resources and guidelines to support standard provision of care to victims and survivors of human trafficking, a public awareness campaign, training tools for targeted economic sectors to identify victims, new contribution funding for support services and initiatives for at-risk populations including youth, and the establishment of an Advisory Committee made up of victims/survivors of human trafficking.

The National Strategy builds on ongoing efforts to address this crime, including through enhanced funding for Justice Canada’s Victims Fund, increased protections for temporary foreign workers, capacity-building efforts, funding for survivor-housing response models, training for law enforcement and government officials, and extensive stakeholder engagement. Most notably, Budget 2018 announced $14.51 million over five years and $2.89 million ongoing to establish a national human trafficking hotline. Operated by the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking, the Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline was launched on May 29, 2019. It is a multilingual, 24/7, toll-free line, referral service and resource centre that receives calls, emails and texts about potential human trafficking in Canada and refers victims to local law enforcement, shelters and a range of other trauma-informed supports and services.

Initiative to Prevent and Address Bullying and Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is considered to be a form of gender-based violence as research has shown that a disproportionate number of the victims are young girls and/or members of vulnerable communities. Through Budget 2018 and the expansion of the Strategy to Prevent and Address GBV, PS received $4.9 million over 5 years and $1 million per year ongoing to implement a three-pronged approach to addressing and preventing bullying and cyberbullying behaviours. This approach includes: support for the implementation of community-based intervention projects (funded through PS’ National Crime Prevention Strategy); support for research activities to increase knowledge of what works to prevent bullying and cyberbullying; and the development of an awareness campaign to inform parents, youth and educators about what they can do to prevent and respond to cyberbullying.

In 2019-20, PS supported the implementation of five multi-year projects that prioritize youth and aim to prevent and address bullying and cyberbullying. The Department also continued to ensure that increased knowledge on cyberbullying was provided to Canadians. This includes the Department’s publication of the Research Summary: Cyberbullying Programs – An Environmental Scan, which received 1,008 visitors and 383 downloads in 2020-2021.

Countering Radicalization to Violence

The Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence (Canada Centre), launched in 2017, leads this aspect of the Government of Canada’s approach to countering radicalization to violence (CRV) including to address forms of violent extremism involving GBV and violent misogyny. Through the Community Resilience Fund (CRF), the Canada Centre provides financial assistance to support the efforts of researchers, front-line practitioners, and community-based organizations to prevent and counter radicalization to violence in Canada. With projects like Moonshot’s ‘Improving Knowledge and Research Capacity on the Global Incel Community & its Canadian Impact,’ this funding helps equip frontline professionals and community members to better recognize warning signs and respond with more evidence-based tools and resources tailored to local needs, including where there are threats from violent misogyny. This capacity building also relies on Canada Centre work to guide and support research, and to build partnerships to help better understand processes of radicalization to violence, and effective means to prevent and counter them – online and offline.

More extreme forms of targeted violence driven by ideology and grievances such as the Toronto van attack and the École Polytechnique murders, while less frequent, also can and do cause major harm to victims, as well as affect wider communities and society more generally. Gender can be a central or at least a significant contributing factor among the motivations of attackers, as well as shape public and government reactions, including the policies and programs intended to prevent and respond to such violence. In recent years, countries like Canada have expanded their capacity to address such violence, to complement investigation and enforcement-based approaches with violence prevention efforts similar to those from public health and community safety and well-being.

Budget 2021 included $8.2M over three years to bolster the Canada Centre’s existing capacities to address needs for prevention given the current threat environment including efforts to address violent misogyny as a form of GBV and build on early lessons and partnerships established through the CRF.

Clare’s Laws

The Interpersonal Violence Disclosure Protocol (Clare’s Law) came into force in Saskatchewan on June 29, 2020 and the Disclosure to Protect Against Domestic Violence (Clare’s Law) Act came into force in Alberta on April 1, 2021. Newfoundland and Labrador enacted their version of Clare’s Law (the Interpersonal Violence Disclosure Protocol Act) in December 2019, but enforcement has been delayed as regulations that outline how the process will work are required. As of June 2021, the province, the RCMP and the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary are working to design a protocol, to support victims of interpersonal violence, that takes into account privacy implications. With the completion of this important work, the RCMP will be able to fully support intimate partner violence initiatives where the legislation is enacted and the RCMP is the police of jurisdiction. The steps taken to support Clare’s Laws are just one part of the larger commitment to address GBV and violence against women – and Indigenous women in particular – through Canada’s GBV Strategy.

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