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DE RUEHOT #0904/01 3281819
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R 241819Z NOV 09
FM AMEMBASSY OTTAWA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0090
INFO ALL CANADIAN POSTS COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 OTTAWA 000904 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
STATE FOR STEPHANIE KRONENBURG, G/TIP 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PGOV KTIP KWMN CA
SUBJECT: Canada not "TIP"ping the scales in data collection 
 
REF: OTTAWA 695; VANCOUVER 244; OTTAWA 285 
 
¶1.  (U)  PolMinCouns on November 23 chaired the monthly Reporting 
Officers' DVC, with a particular focus on trafficking in persons. 
He underscored the continued commitment of the new Administration 
to combating TIP, and highlighted the need to maintain a 
substantive reporting and outreach focus on this issue year-round, 
not only in the run-up to the annual report to Congress in the 
spring.  He strongly encouraged active engagement with law 
enforcement officials as well as NGO, academics, legislators, and 
others.  He asked that reporting officers, in their outreach, keep 
an eye out for TIP "heroes" whom we can nominate in our next 
report.  He recalled last year's successful nomination of one of 
Vancouver's contacts, Professor Benjamin Perrin, whom G/TIP 
eventually selected as one of six worldwide heroes.  He reminded 
reporting officers that having a Canadian hero helped to ensure 
vastly greater publicity here in Canada to the TIP report than is 
usually the case.  He warned that Canada will again face a 
possibility that G/TIP will seek to downgrade Canada from Tier 1 to 
Tier 2, since it appears that there have been no additional 
TIP-related convictions in 2009. 
 
 
 
View From Ottawa 
 
 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Discussions with law enforcement personnel, legislators, 
advocacy groups, and academics in Ottawa have highlighted the lack 
of centralized data collection to estimate accurately the scale of 
international and domestic trafficking in Canada and track the 
government's efforts to combat it.  The Royal Canadian Mounted 
Police (RCMP) point to the difficulty in gathering complete data 
encompassing all forms of trafficking from each of the provinces. 
NGOs do not use a consistent definition of a trafficked person in 
their data and legislators continue to rely on a RCMP report from 
¶2005.  According to the RCMP Human Trafficking National 
Coordination Centre (HTNCC), a new report with updated statistics 
is in progress with a tentatively planned release by end of year; 
however, contacts in the HTNCC shared doubts with poloff that the 
HTNCC would meet its deadline due to problems with the 
comprehensiveness of the data.  According to HTNCC, there are 24 
ongoing TIP cases in the Canadian judicial system and five 
convictions under trafficking charges.  None of the five 
convictions are new to 2009 although the number of active TIP cases 
has doubled from 12 in 2008. 
 
 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Many NGOs and advocacy groups are drawing attention to 
the plight of aboriginal women and their vulnerability to 
trafficking.  The Native Women's Association of Canada's (NWAC) 
Sisters in Spirit project addresses violence against aboriginal 
women with a focus on missing and murdered women and girls.  The 
federal government awarded C$5 million ($4,750,000) in 2005 for 
five years (ref C) but has not as yet renewed its funding 
commitment after 2010.  Addressing the need for basic data 
collection, NWAC developed a comprehensive database of case 
histories of missing and murdered aboriginal women which now 
includes 520 such cases.  This database is unique as Canada's 
national statistics agency does not collect data on aboriginal 
victims or perpetrators of crimes against aboriginal victims due to 
concerns of racial profiling.  NWAC has also directed the funding 
to education and awareness programs and improving access to the 
judicial system for victims. NWAC contacts indentified the 
challenge of encouraging prosecutors to lay trafficking charges and 
secure convictions as well as changing the consciousness of the 
police to take complaints from the aboriginal community seriously. 
NWAC is also seeking to expand the definition of trafficking beyond 
prostitution to other forms of exploitation including the use of 
aboriginal women as involuntary drug mules.   According to NWAC, 
without a continued funding commitment by the government, it will 
be unable to continue these programs. 
 
 
 
TIP hotspots 
 
 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Consulate General Vancouver reported that they remain in 
"waiting mode" in developments in a slavery case under 
investigation in Vancouver.  If the RCMP successfully lays 
trafficking charges in this domestic servitude case, it would be 
 
OTTAWA 00000904  002 OF 002 
 
 
the first slavery case in Canada (ref A).  However, the recent 
arrival of 76 undocumented Tamils (ref B) has pulled the resources 
of the same RCMP division investigating the slavery case.  Contacts 
have assured ConGen Vancouver that an arrest is "imminent" and that 
they have a crown counsel who is interested in seeking trafficking 
charges.  2009 TIP Hero Benjamin Perrin will be publishing a book 
in early 2010 based on several years of research into domestic and 
international trafficking in Canada.  Perrin has stated that he has 
collected significant amounts of data in his research which forms 
the basis of the book.  ConGen Vancouver is also monitoring new 
RCMP efforts to resolve the high rate of disappearance of 
aboriginal women along the Highway of Tears in northern British 
Columbia.  The RCMP is unsure if the women have been trafficked, 
murdered, or run away but new media attention has focused the 
public's attention on the unsolved cases of more than 30 women who 
have gone missing along Route 16 in the past two decades.  The RCMP 
and NGOs disagree on the likelihood of increased trafficking 
activity during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.  While 
the Salvation Army is planning to open a new shelter in December to 
address this problem directly, the RCMP explained that TIP would be 
a lower priority for law enforcement during the Olympics compared 
to overall security issues.  The RCMP believes that as a 
family-oriented event, the Winter Olympics are not comparable to 
other international sports events such as the World Cup which 
attract a high number of males attending without their families. 
 
 
 
¶5.   (SBU) Consulate General Toronto reported that while they have 
noted a "huge" appetite among law enforcement in increased training 
and awareness in TIP, it has not been matched by an equal interest 
from policy makers.  Problems facing the "caregiver program" in 
which immigrants receive work permits for domestic jobs caring for 
children or the elderly are an example of how the lack of data 
collection can give a misleading picture.  Philipino caregivers 
have publicly voiced complaints recently that should signal 
possible trafficking activity including harsh working conditions, 
low or no pay, and an inability to travel freely.  However, policy 
makers have labeled the issue as a labor contracts problem and 
emphasize the benefits of the caregiver program as part of Canada's 
welcoming immigration policy - not as a potential source of TIP 
activity. 
 
 
 
Perspectives from other posts 
 
 
 
¶6.  (U) Consulate General Quebec City reported that neither the law 
enforcement community nor the human rights commission has 
identified trafficking as a particular concern in the area.  APP 
Winnipeg noted growing public concern in Manitoba over the dozens 
of missing aboriginal women.  At an aboriginal conference earlier 
this year on TIP (ref C), there was unanimous concern among NGOs 
and law enforcement on the need to address this issue and discover 
why so many aboriginal women have disappeared with little effort to 
solve the individual cases.  Consulate General Halifax will follow 
up with contacts in the Canadian Border Services Agency on the high 
profile case of seven stowaways who were discovered in the spring. 
Consulate General Montreal is now fully staffed in the political 
section and beginning substantive inquiries into TIP activity in 
their district. 
JACOBSON