Part 2 - THE HELPERS: lack of funding in Peel puts survivors of human trafficking at greater risk

Traffick Stop is a four-part series covering a range of factors in the fight against human trafficking in Peel ahead of National Human Trafficking Awareness Day on February 22. The region has been a hub of this crime in Ontario for years. The series looks at how it happens, what is being done to stop it, the obstacles that continue to get in the way—and how to remove them, once and for all. 

Read Part 1 here: THE CRIME: Human trafficking is increasing across Ontario—police and service providers can’t keep up

“There’s no point in doing a project for two years and then you have to wrap it up because you don’t get money, it’s a waste of time. The inability to plan long-term for clients means that you create instability.”

The harm created by this instability is driven by the lack of funding in Peel to confront rapidly rising rates of human trafficking, and it frustrates Sandra Rupnarain, executive director of Family Services of Peel. 

She is one of many service providers working on the frontline helping survivors while questioning why politicians fail to understand the need for investment in the right places, as police budgets skyrocket alongside woeful funding for critical upstream social services to keep Canadians safe in the first place.

There is an unsettling dichotomy when measuring this country’s response to human trafficking since it was added to the Criminal Code of Canada in 2005.

At the national level, progress has been made over the last two decades. The number of traffickers being charged continues to steadily increase; the country’s previous national strategy provided millions of dollars to service providers to help heal survivors and educate the public about a vastly underreported and hidden crime; and the Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline, launched under the national strategy, helps thousands of survivors and family members annually by providing guidance and connecting them to a vast network of service providers across the country.

In Ontario, where the crime occurs more than anywhere else in the country—by a large margin—the PC government has dedicated more funding to address it than any previous government in decades. Between 2013 and 2023 the province recorded 2,914 incidents of human trafficking (including labour trafficking), accounting for 64 percent of cases in Canada. 

“The more I learn about human trafficking the angrier I get,” Doug Ford said during a press conference in 2019. He dedicated $20 million annually to the cause, the lion’s share for community agencies working to help survivors.

At the local level in Peel, the regional government has become widely known as a leader in addressing human trafficking. Approving a regional strategy in 2018, the creation of an anti-human trafficking service providers hub; and the establishment of dedicated shelter spaces for human trafficking survivors have helped coordinate efforts and assist an increasing number of survivors. The Peel Human Trafficking Service Providers Committee has brought together over 40 service agencies across the GTA to help coordinate efforts to assist survivors. 

According to many service providers who spoke with The Pointer, the last five years have marked a turning point in efforts to address human trafficking. There has been more awareness among the public and more funding than ever before, especially in the province. 

“In Ontario there have been great steps made by the government to look at human trafficking from multiple angles, so from prevention, education and awareness to better identifying human trafficking within school boards and communities and among law enforcement, but also targeted resources to make sure that the right supports are in place when someone is able to leave,” Julia Drydyk, executive director of the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking, says.

Despite the investments, the success stories and proclamations from many politicians who claim they are committed to fighting the crime, one thing is clear—it has not been nearly enough. 

Across Peel a network of service providers helps survivors of human trafficking regain control of their lives. 

Increasingly, survivors are turning to nCourage, a hub launched by the Region of Peel that provides a range of services in one place. 

Low-barrier, specialized support services to victims and survivors of sexual exploitation are delivered by specialized staff. The hub provides access to appropriate and safe housing, therapy, healthcare and vetted pathways to ensure victims and survivors remain safe once they escape their trafficker. 

The objective: work to fill the gaps, reduce barriers and increase access to services for individuals fleeing exploitation. 

Dani Mills, senior manager of outreach services with Our Place Peel—the operational lead of programming at nCourage—told The Pointer most of nCourage’s clients are connected by fellow victims and survivors, who have accessed services previously. The number of clients is increasing significantly year over year, jumping 801 percent between the 2021/22 and 2022/23 fiscal years, and a further 116 percent to 1,323 clients in 2023. 

Mills knows only a small amount of the demand in Peel is being met. 

“It's only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the unfortunate impacts of sexual exploitation.”

Victim Services of Peel (VSOP) is another organization that provides critical support for survivors, particularly emergency assistance through its 24/7 hotline.

“They’re calling us from a gas station, or on the street and they’re saying ‘I’m fleeing my trafficker and I need assistance right away’, so we’re able to activate all of our crisis response to get them to a safe location,” Sarah Rogers, executive director of VSOP, tells The Pointer.

VSOP is piloting a program that partners anti-human trafficking crisis counsellors with the Peel Regional Police Vice Unit, which handles trafficking cases in the region. These counsellors, some of whom are survivors themselves, respond to human trafficking calls alongside officers to bridge the gap between exploitation and assistance. Many survivors have a strong distrust of police, and Rogers says the program has been a “game changer” in helping women flee their traffickers. 

It is called This Way Out and started with two counsellors, then expanded to three, and now Rogers says she’s looking for funding to add a fourth, as demand grows. The program made contact with 71 survivors in 2022/23, 106 the following year and it will surpass 200 this fiscal year, she says.

The nCourage hub and This Way Out are working. But unless there is a significant change in the way these programs are funded in Ontario, they will not be able to keep up with increasing demand as technology and economic factors make it more easy for victims to fall prey to sophisticated traffickers. There is also the constant fear that funding will dry up depending on the political mood of the day, service providers say. 

 A 2020 survey of service providers by Family Services of Peel found a number of gaps between the services offered in the region and what was actually needed by survivors of human trafficking.

(Family Services of Peel)

This Way Out and the Hub were made possible through the provincial government, but are only funded till March of 2026. According to the Region of Peel, funding for the nCourage hub is part of the $730,300 Peel receives annually through the provincial anti-human trafficking strategy.

“There is no indication from the Province that the Strategy or funding will be renewed,” a June report from the Region revealed. 

The Region of Peel has committed to finding much of this funding within its own budget if the provincial government backs out, but with an already strained budget and a council that has been unwilling to adequately invest in upstream social services, it could be difficult to expand the existing operations.

This year, Peel councillors approved $144 million extra for the police department, an unprecedented 23.3 percent increase described by critics as reckless and unsustainable.

A key issue laid out by those who opposed the historic outlay of public funds for policing—more than what the force received over an entire decade up to 2022—is the lack of taxpayer money left over to invest in critical upstream social services that either prevent crimes in the first place or dramatically reduce the need for expensive police intervention. 

Service providers working in spaces alongside those confronting human trafficking have for years criticized local politicians in Peel for ignoring the epidemic of violent crimes against women.

“[For] 10 years, we've not seen any increases [in funding] to the community for the services,” Sharon Mayne Devine, CEO of Catholic Family Services Peel–Dufferin, the lead agency at the Safe Centre of Peel (SCoP) which helps victims of crimes against women, told regional councillors in the summer of 2023. “We’re barely keeping up in Brampton, how in the world are we going to expand?”

Brampton councillors had just declared gender-based violence (GBV) and intimate partner violence (IPV) an epidemic in the city, but their performative motion was not followed by any funding for downstream or upstream solutions, such as mental health support and educational programs, that could prevent women from being abused by their partners in the first place.

Councillors like Brampton’s Rowena Santos, who also sits on regional council, have repeatedly described themselves as advocates and allies, but when they are asked to fight for more funding, some frontline service providers have criticized them for exploiting issues just to score political points. 

When Santos read a long motion in 2023 at Brampton council, declaring her support to help victims of IPV and other crimes that target women, representatives from multiple community organizations, including Safe Centre of Peel, Peel Committee Against Women (PCAWA), and GEquity Consulting, asked for actual investments, not empty words, to “commit to the necessary actions needed to address this growing health concern.”

“Whether we realize it or not, we live in a city that is rampant with sexual violence, intimate partner violence, human trafficking and more,” Jasminder Sekhon, President and CEO of GEquity Consulting, told Santos and the other council members in Brampton before many of the same delegates presented to regional council the same week two years ago. 

Devine did not mince words when addressing Santos and her Brampton colleagues. 

“I have been in my role now for 10 years and I have not seen any meaningful increase to our funding at all, and that is the case with all of our partners as well,” she told Brampton’s elected officials before making similarly blunt comments to Peel Regional councillors including many of the same members who also sit on Brampton’s council.

While Santos and others on Brampton council have offered empty words and little to no money, she and her colleagues have aggressively pushed for more than $200 million in extra police funding in just two years, without asking any questions about how the money will be used.

The human trafficking space, specifically, presents one of the most complex dynamics for those working to end violence against women. Sophisticated international criminal rings and Peel’s vast transportation network with a major international airport within its borders, combined with the region’s unique demographic realities have made the area a hub of human trafficking.   

Inconsistent and insufficient funding have plagued efforts across Peel to address this complicated crime for years. It leaves service providers in human trafficking hot spots like Peel fighting over the small amount of money being made available, as programs operate with the inability to prepare for the future. 

Rupnarain is one of the bold service providers challenging politicians to do more for those trying to flee exploitation, instead of repeatedly offering empty words, proclamations and declarations that many elected officials like to trumpet and then highlight come election time. Investments, she says, is what survivors and victims need, not lip service.

The lack of will among Peel’s councillors has left service providers frustrated. 

“I’ve lost confidence in the Region to support the work of what we do for the community,” Rupnarain says bluntly.

The $100,000 previously allocated to Family Services of Peel for core funding was cut from the 2025 regional budget, it’s unclear why but the pressure created by the staggering $144 million police increase was likely part of the problem. Aside from its core funding, VSOP also receives no money from the Region of Peel for anti-human trafficking efforts.

Sandra Rupnarain is the executive director of Family Services of Peel, one of the leading organizations studying human trafficking in Peel and assisting survivors with a variety of services.

(Submitted)

Drydyk told The Pointer her organization is calling on all levels of government, but mostly Ottawa and Queen’s Park, to help maintain current investments into anti-human trafficking efforts. The current uncertainty around funding is unlike any that has been seen in recent years by service providers. 

An ongoing provincial election, followed by a likely federal one, combined with the national strategy expiring at the end of last year, means any new funding through a renewed strategy could be months away. 

“Even though Ontario is the leader in Canada when it comes to per capita investments in addressing human trafficking, it is still a huge struggle to connect people to resources,” Drydyk said. “We are drinking out of a fire hose when it comes to being able to support people when they are exiting exploitation, and then we're scrambling to find them appropriate resources.”

Nowhere is this challenge more apparent than in the housing situation for survivors, the first thing they need if they wish to escape their trafficker for good.

“There's a significant gap within our community” for both affordable and safe housing, Mills said. This includes the availability of appropriate emergency shelter housing, but also the supply of transitional and long-term housing. The poor state of Peel’s shelter system and affordable housing market has been heavily reported, with shelters operating well over 400 percent capacity and the repeated failures by Regional councillors to adequately coordinate the development of affordable housing as multiple strategies have gone nowhere.

“On a preventative level, traffickers are also looking for people with housing insecurity, because that's a major vulnerability they can take advantage of. So on a very big, big scale, we need to build more affordable housing and make the housing market more affordable for all,” Drydyk said. “But one of the more immediate challenges that we're seeing is that, number one, there aren't enough emergency shelters or shelter spaces available that are appropriate to survivors when they're leaving, but what they really need is safe transitional housing.”

Julia Drydyk is the executive director of the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking.

(Joel Wittnebel/The Pointer)

The creation of transitional and emergency shelter spaces dedicated to survivors is one of the biggest successes out of the Region of Peel’s anti-human trafficking strategy. The emergency shelter services provided by E FRY helped 19 victims and survivors in 2023, a 73 percent increase over the previous year. The transitional housing spaces were able to help six victims in 2023. It’s clear more spaces are required, but there has been little movement from council to push for investment, while Brampton’s members, led by Mayor Patrick Brown, forced the $144 million increase for police in 2025. The lack of housing support for survivors has the potential to undermine the entire recovery process. 

“Supporting the individual to reintegrate is a very difficult process when you don’t have housing, when you don’t have enough shelters or safe spaces for people to go,” Rogers, with VSOP, said.

Service providers have long pointed to the chronic underfunding in Peel. A report by the Metamorphosis Network last year found the Region was underfunded $868 million annually for social and community services. 

“What that translates to per person is quite significant at the end of the day with a population that is rapidly growing, and if we can't keep up with the rapid expansion and growth of our community we will continue to not only be in that deficit, but we will not be able to continue on with the types of social services that we have in place,” Mills explained. The severity of this underfunding leads to reduced access and longer wait times for essential services.

Prior to the Metamorphosis report, the underfunding issue in Peel was well known, and Rupnarain says if the Region is serious about helping survivors of human trafficking, it’s time to take the next step. 

“We’re consumed with the fact that we’re underfunded, more than we’re consumed with the fact that how are we going to build our system to be stronger and I think if we don’t have a plan how are we going to build the system to be stronger?” She says, noting Peel and its service providers need to create a plan for how any future investments will be used, and what results could be achieved with additional funding. “I don’t see that plan.”

Confronting human trafficking is a non-partisan issue, with elected officials of all political stripes offering words about helping survivors. 

Rarely are those words met with investments  commensurate with the damage caused by the crime. 

“It is the most complex trauma I’ve ever witnessed in my career, and it is the most violent types of abuse I’ve ever seen and I've been in the sector for almost 20 years,” Rogers says. Her organization helps 15,000 clients annually, which includes victims, survivors and their families.

Without systemic change to fix the chronic underfunding, service providers have to do more with less. For traffickers, this creates even more opportunity. 

“We have a housing crisis, food insecurity, inflation, all those things combined, because any time you see natural disasters or economic insecurity, you’re seeing gender-based violence as a whole go up, drastically,” Rogers says. “This is a high-reward, low-risk crime. It’s a multi-billion business, which is at the expense of women…It’s sad and it’s horrific and it shouldn’t be this way.”

Email: [email protected]

Email: [email protected]

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