City council takes steps to launch new task force as Ottawa becomes hotspot for human trafficking

In July, Ottawa police announced that four people had been arrested following a year-long human trafficking investigation. It made headlines across the city, region and province as many wondered how common these issues are in Ottawa, and discussions online and in conference rooms began to question, "Does Ottawa have a trafficking problem, or was this an outlier?"

But research is showing that Ottawa is, in fact, becoming a hotspot for human trafficking, and as frontline services and police sound the alarm, it's something that city council has decided to address.

The motion, moved by Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and seconded by Kanata North Coun. Cathy Curry, directs staff to examine the current support services and resources available to victims of human trafficking and develop a "multi-sector, survivor-informed" task force to fill any gaps and improve coordination. It was carried unanimously at council on Sept. 9 without discussion.

The task force would be focused on "improving community coordination, prevention, accountability and system-level responses to human trafficking in Ottawa," working closely with police and local organizations like A New Day, which supports youth victims of human trafficking, and brings attention to an issue that Curry said is much more serious and widespread than many residents may realize.

During her time on the Ottawa Police Services Board, Curry said she learned how big an issue human trafficking is in Ottawa, but many of those conversations occur in-camera so as not to compromise ongoing police investigations or risk informing guilty parties about police operations. 

"In many of these in-camera briefings, we learn a lot about what is actually happening in our city and what the police are trying to do to stop it… Being on the police services board, you start to realize," she told the Lookout. "We might have thought, 'Do we have a problem?' And then you get into in-camera meetings, you think, 'oh my goodness, we do have a problem'... It's just that you don't know about it."