Canada’s privateness legal guidelines are one of many “actual boundaries” to addressing the numerous challenge of cross-border sex trafficking, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to Canada says.
Intercourse trafficking is one in all a number of border security considerations which were routinely mentioned between the 2 international locations underneath the Biden administration, Ambassador David Cohen says, lengthy earlier than U.S. president-elect Donald Trump started pushing Canada and Mexico to deal with irregular migration and drug trafficking or threat punishing tariffs.
Whereas Cohen factors out progress has been made on these fronts, he mentioned there was nonetheless work to do on different border points.
“Not talked about within the president-elect’s social media submit is an issue we have now with intercourse trafficking between Canada and the USA,” he informed Mercedes Stephenson in an interview that aired Sunday on The West Block.
“Intercourse trafficking between the USA and Canada, and between Mexico and the USA as effectively, is a big challenge, and it is among the actual focus areas of our Customs and Border Safety personnel (within the U.S.)”
Cohen mentioned the largest challenge was enough data sharing and cooperation between Canadian and American regulation enforcement businesses — notably privateness legal guidelines surrounding the Nationwide Intercourse Offender Registry.
Canadian regulation states data within the registry is barely accessible to police for restricted investigative functions. Against this, U.S. intercourse offender information from throughout the nation is overtly accessible to the general public and is well shared between police forces.
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“One of many actual boundaries to full cooperation, possibly the best way the USA want to see it, is the heightened privateness guidelines and laws that exist in Canada, versus the USA,” he mentioned.
Requested if the U.S. felt these legal guidelines had been defending intercourse traffickers, Cohen responded, “Appropriate.”
Cohen mentioned laws is being thought of in Canada after conversations with the U.S. that may give convicted intercourse offenders “a lesser stage of privateness protections.”
Canada and the U.S. additionally entered into negotiations in 2022 for a bilateral settlement underneath the U.S. Clarifying Lawful Abroad Use of Information (CLOUD) Act, which might improve cross-border sharing of knowledge between regulation enforcement businesses.
The latest U.S. Trafficking in Persons Report mentioned that whereas Canada meets the minimal requirements for combatting human trafficking, there are gaps in each police information assortment and victims companies and protections, with the latter deemed “insufficient.”
Chief U.S. border patrol agent Robert Garcia mentioned in October in a social media submit on X that brokers within the Swanton Sector, which covers Vermont’s border with Quebec, apprehended greater than 19,000 folks from 97 international locations within the final yr — greater than the final 17 years mixed.
Cohen mentioned there have additionally been “very important dialog” throughout his tenure between federal, provincial, territorial and Indigenous leaders about addressing the difficulty of lacking and murdered Indigenous ladies and women, “which is one other type of border management that is essential.”
On the identical time, he identified Canada stays involved in regards to the smuggling of unlawful firearms from the U.S., which officers say is the highest supply of weapons utilized in crimes in Canada.
The present debate round border safety has centered on irregular migration and fentanyl trafficking, after Trump vowed to put 25-per cent tariffs on all items from Canada and Mexico over the difficulty.
Cohen mentioned these points have additionally been considerations for Biden administration, and that diplomatic and top-level talks have “moved a number of the levers” towards enhancing safety.
Though encounters of migrants looking for to enter the U.S. by the Canadian land border noticed a 306-per cent year-over-year enhance in June, the quantity has since dropped by 50 per cent to 1,792 as of September, in response to U.S. Customs and Border Safety statistics.
The company says it seized greater than 5,000 kilograms of unlawful medication on the Canadian border between October 2023 and September 2024. That included 19.5 kilograms of fentanyl — a greater than 200 per cent enhance from two years prior.
Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc told MPs last week that Canada will commit extra personnel and tools for border safety earlier than Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
Cohen mentioned Trump’s proposed tariffs would have “important financial impacts” on either side of the border and will even enhance inflation, which Trump has vowed to “do away with.”
However the ambassador additionally identified it was too quickly to say definitively what the affect could possibly be — or even when the tariffs will occur in any respect.
“All we’ve seen about this coverage is a one-paragraph Reality Social submit, and that’s not a full coverage,” he mentioned. “It doesn’t seize essentially what the tariffs would appear like.
“You don’t impose tariffs by social media submit.”
Survivors of intercourse trafficking in search of assist can contact The Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline 24-7 at 1-833-900-1010.
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