The National Leadership Dinner is held the evening before the National Prayer Breakfast of Canada.
The Leadership Dinner has become famous for the testimonies of the guest speakers who proclaim God’s work in our world. This year, we heard from Joy Smith, founder of The Joy Smith Foundation, along with representatives of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) to End Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking on their important work.
Date: Monday, May 30th, 2022 Venue: Delta Hotels by Marriott Ottawa City Centre, Ottawa, Ontario Keynote Speaker: Joy Smith, Founder of the Joy Smith Foundation and former Member of Parliament (2004-15). Chapters 00:00 -
Cathay Wagantall, MP 02:44 -
Rachael Harder, MP 09:14 - Hon. Jack Murta 20:30 - Rachael Harder, MP introduces
MP Arnold Viersen of the APPG 22:55 - Arnold Viersen, MP 28:38 -
Keynote Speaker Joy Smith 59:49 -
Rachael Harder, MP in appreciation and closing remarks.
Transcript ;
[Music]
thank you so much
for being here tonight i'm kathy
wagontall i'm member of parliament
pride and joy for yorkton marvel in
saskatchewan
and i've had the privilege and the honor
and the blessing of being the chair of
the national prayer breakfast
for these four years
so it's a real honor for me to be here
hosting you tonight very briefly because
my goal tonight is to just say a few
things and then sit down and other
people are are going to do amazing job
of of carrying on with the program
tonight it's going to be a blessing it's
going to be challenging i think in a lot
of ways too but this is what we as
believers need to
take hold of and grasp is the ways that
we're the salt and light in the world
and
on parliament hill
we need more than ever to be there doing
things that show god's mercy and his
grace and his compassion
so
i'm going to introduce our host for this
evening but first
i am aware that we have some
diplomats and ambassadors here tonight
and if
those that are here from the taipei
economic and cultural office would they
stand
were they able to come
there we are thank you so much
and the ambassador from moldova
there we are good to see you
[Applause]
okay it's just an amazing thing to have
people here
from all walks of life and from all over
the world and
serving in parliament in our senate
staffers
business people people involved in
charities and ministries
so
it's just a blessing to have you here
thank you so much
now i am going to turn over the evening
to rachel thomas who is going to host us
this evening my dear
colleague and friend
from the house of commons that is a
bright and shining light and i just
invite you rachel to come and
take it away
thank you
[Applause]
well good evening everyone
and
a special welcome to each and every one
of you we are so so thankful that you
could come and be present with us
tonight and we are especially grateful
for the fact that this is happening in
person
rather than over a virtual screen
do i hear an amen
all right
awesome
well if you're like me you might be a
little bit curious as to who is in this
room and where they might originate from
so we're going to try something here
bear with me
i am going to
state a region within this country and
if you are from that region i am then
going to invite you to stand you are
going to stand for one moment and then i
will invite you to sit and then i will
give another region and so we're just
going to get a little bit of a sense of
who's here tonight sound good
okay
the northwest territories the yukon or
nunavut
anyone
next year we're going to make sure we
have better representation
all right
atlantic canada the maritimes
[Applause]
if you originate from ontario or quebec
we will invite you to stand
[Laughter]
[Applause]
all right
if you are from manitoba or saskatchewan
i would invite you to stand
[Applause]
and my home province of alberta and the
province of bc next door anybody
[Music]
[Applause]
[Applause]
[Music]
and of course because we are in a room
that has attracted not only a national
crowd but also an international crowd i
would invite those who originate from
another country outside of canada to
stand
[Applause]
we are greatly blessed by your presence
and so thankful that you could come and
be with us tonight and of course that we
can join together in the spirit of unity
in celebration of the person of jesus
this year's theme verse is second
corinthians 1 3-4
and it talks about compassion
in two ways
it talks about the compassion of christ
towards us and therefore the compassion
that we show toward others
and it got me thinking
reflecting pondering
praying
as i believe it probably does for many
of you
and so i would actually invite you
to just pause for one moment
and to consider something with me
what is one act of compassion
from the lord that you are thankful for
and my second question is this
what is one act of compassion
that you might be able to extend to
another
because of the compassion that christ
has shown you
might he be asking you to write a note
or to make a phone call
perhaps to extend an invitation to
someone for coffee
maybe it's simply visiting someone in
the hospital
or maybe it's just writing an email
saying hey i thought about you today
what might that act of compassion be
that the lord might be asking of you
so second corinthians 1 3 to 4. praise
be to the god and father of our lord
jesus christ the father of compassion
and the god of all comfort who comforts
us
in all our troubles so that we can
comfort those in any trouble with the
comfort we ourselves receive from god
this is the verse that guides us through
tonight and into the prayer breakfast
tomorrow morning
and again i would just invite you to
continue to reflect on that
as we go through the next couple of days
together
in just a moment i have the privilege of
welcoming my friend jack murda to the
stage
now canada benefited from his leadership
for quite some time
from 1970 to 1993.
that's a good stretch of service
and despite exiting as an elected
official
he didn't want to quite leave all
together he's kind of kept one foot in
the door now most elected officials they
take off and they run for florida or
maybe arizona
but not jack
jack has the spirit of the energizer
bunny so he has stuck around just in a
different capacity so jack finds himself
very involved on parliament hill whether
it's helping to plan or facilitate
wednesday morning prayer meetings with
members of parliament
or
helping out as by acting as a liaison
for the national prayer practice which
of course you'll have the opportunity to
participate in tomorrow
jack is full of energy
but more importantly
he is full of love
love for the lord and love for others
and it shines through
it shines through in the way that he
enters in on a wednesday morning and
prays for members of parliament it
shines through in the way that he walks
about in a room like this saying hello
to all of you
it shines through in the way that he
serves at the local mission
the homeless
jack is a remarkable gentleman
someone who insists on
living the words that we just read
they are more than just print on a page
to him
they are his reality
jack i would invite you to come give a
special tribute at this time
[Applause]
there's always uh
told in politics when you have a
an introduction like that one
the best thing you can do is say nothing
and walk back and thank everybody and
then walk back to your seat because it
can only go down from here
but for tonight i wanted to
say a few words
basically eulogy
about a very important and a special
person that was
dear near and dear to us for years and
years
that's david kilgore who passed away
time ago some months ago
and the kind of impact david had on so
many people's lives here i imagine if i
was to ask you who all knew david or
knew
most of us would put our hands up
but david was a remarkable person
he was a colleague of mine at the weekly
prayer breakfast for 20 years
we ended up in fact when i started to
come to ottawa for
to kind of do the work i'm doing
it took about from about two from year
2002 to 2005 before lynn and our
children moved to ottawa
we were living in kincardine which is
about 700 miles or kilometers away and i
would drive it every week every come
down tuesday go back thursday or
wednesday afternoon
so it was 1400 kilometers a week it was
a good job i was doing it then not now
i'd have quite a time
but uh i i i didn't have a place to stay
and you can only imagine where i stayed
i stayed with david and laura for that
period of time
and we would go to the prayer breakfast
together
and that was the how we i we got to know
each other i was elected from 1970 to 88
david came in at 79. so i kind of got
the tail end i guess of what david was
david's time here
but every week we would drive together
coming down and then we moved here we
moved fairly close to them a few blocks
a block away maybe a block and a half
and david and i would still drive i'd
drive the car we'd go down and it's that
we'd be there to you know we i'd pick up
david at 6 30 in the morning when it was
wintry
and we'd be there at about a quarter to
7. then i started we started to expand
our our little route a little bit we
picked up
elizabeth may would come with us at time
all the time in fact elizabeth has
always gone to the prayer breakfast
and then we picked up harold albrecht
and harold would
and david and elizabeth and i would all
be together
and we would arrive at the prayer
breakfast
and
talking and laughing and occasionally
arguing but not too much
and as elizabeth's always said the
prayer breakfast started when she got in
the car
and that's that but that is so true
because a prayer breakfast is about
prayer yes but it's about building
relationships getting to know each other
you know how can you love somebody if
you don't know them how can you be with
somebody if you don't know them so
that's what we did and that went on for
a long period of time
so we we we did that in fact we're still
doing that at the time where i i go down
and i pick up elizabeth and we go to
parliament hill
david's uh
total activity with the parliamentary
prayer breakfast
and that's the time he was elected
and then the time since then was an
astounding 42 and a half years
42 and a half years
he was he served 27 years in parliament
in various cabinet positions
and i believe that he was one of the
only parliamentarians in canadian
history
to have quit two major parties
in his time in par in politics
on matters of principle and he still
made an influence the last time he was
in politics
uh on as an independent member of
parliament that doesn't happen very
often
but david david david
did that
in everything he did
he was uh
he was unique
uh he had a voice a unique voice he was
one of integrity
driven by principle
and imbued with a strong sense of
christian faith david and i and it was
not only david and i but a number of
people started the inter parliamentary
prayer breakfast in which we bring
together
different faiths
and you can only imagine what our
committee meetings were like when you
get eight or ten different faiths around
the table trying to figure out what we
want to do where we want to go and we
held it up in the dining room at that
time in the west or the center block of
parliament hill
you know we couldn't decide for the most
part on anything just to have as a
have as a
a theme
except for one word
love
it's it work that goes right across all
denominations
and it we agreed on on that particular
word we talk about love but we talk
about
the other thing that i thought was
important you sometimes you don't
realize what you're doing until somebody
tells you
and we were
we were we were david it was david and
elizabeth and harold and myself would
arrive at parliament hill
and we would
go into parliament hill and guard the
same guard pretty much every morning as
his accord to seven would meet us and
upstairs we'd go into the into the
dining room
i remember seeing the guard
by himself this was later on maybe a
week or so later
after one of our times together and i
said you know i said thank you for
being part of
you know ushering us into parliament
hill
into parliament and he said you know he
said it's my privilege he said and i
said well do you know why we're going up
he said absolutely i know you're going
to a prayer breakfast parliamentary
prayer breakfast and he said to me you
know he said it's just nice having
people like you around
you know and that that meant that meant
at that time so much
and all we did was just to walk in and
just go upstairs but it meant a lot to
the this particular this particular
security guard that was that was there
so david was
the one that the two of us worked in the
inter-parliament repair breakfast
we held it for about five years
and it was election came along and then
it dissipated after that upstairs we had
110 115 20 people in the dining room
upstairs
and then david also got me involved in
the ottawa mission as
rachel had mentioned and i've been with
them now i think i don't know 15 years i
guess on their board
david was on before me myself and the
two of us would we would volunteer
at the mission on one day a week usually
over lunch
and that so we still did we did that
but david will always be remembered for
his passion and his long-standing
dedication
to causes of defending human rights
against authoritarianism
oppression
in various places throughout the world
always david was consumed by that
it was a wonderful thing to be consumed
by
from the start of his career right up
until his passing david remained a
champion of rights
of those who too often had no advocate
he was guided by his principles rather
than by the desire
to curry favor
and that maybe was one of the really
outstanding things that that he he had
because it's you don't see that very
often
in politics
because part of what you have to do is
curry favor if you're going to get
reelected and come back
but david
was a
he didn't he didn't
march to that particular drummer
i want to conclude now by saying there
was a there's a there's a
a a
a a great saint in the in the church in
the catholic church saint augustine
i'm sure many of you know of him or have
heard of his writings his saying
and many years ago he was asked to this
question what does love look like
being one of the greatest theologians in
church history augustine could have
responded
with an answer
that
would have taxed the minds of the most
intellectual
but he offered a much more practical
challenge
with the definition
he said
love has hands to help others
it is feat to hasten the poor
and needy
his eyes to see misery and want
he is ears to hear the sights and
sorrows of others
that's what love looks like
and i think
david kelgoer
life followed
that's what love looks like
and that's david kelger
and thank you
now i'd like us all to bow our heads and
in prayer for our our meal and we'll get
the the evening started
but god we just thank you for tonight
and we just thank you for people like
david kilgore and many many other people
like him around the world and
in this room and
people that we know
that really have a sense of what love
looks like
because that's really what it's
all about
i want to thank you god for the fact
that we can live in canada with the
freedom of to worship
how we want when we want
we're able to do that on a
when when we want to
i also want to ask god tonight that you
direct joy smith's words and thoughts
our guest speaker
help us
to have what she says really touch our
hearts
because that's so important
i want to also thank you for cathy
for her dedication to the prayer
breakfast her leadership
her loving
kind
loving way in which she deals with
each and every individual
i want to pray for the meal tonight and
for those who made it we just thank you
for that god
and god we pray
all of this
in your great name
amen
[Music]
mr vearson is truly one of a kind and it
is absolutely an honor to serve with him
on parliament hill
the same creative mind
and tenacious spirit
that landed him a fabulous office
i suspect
also guides the incredible advocacy
with which he fights for our nation's
most vulnerable
[Applause]
as a co-chair
of the all-party parliamentary group to
end modern slavery mr versin serves as a
powerful organizer
and a very key voice on parliament hill
and he and this group of mps from across
party lines and senators
are making a meaningful and measurable
difference
through through the legislative process
now many canadians are turned off of
politics because of its adversarial
nature and because of the hypocrisy that
they see
in us as elected officials
to them i would say this
watch arnold beerson
watch him
because he has remained true to his
values
he has stuck
to the ropes walked the rope i should
say with great integrity
and has been tenacious
in his actions on behalf of the most
vulnerable
i would encourage you to let your face
arise
because there are people like him
in the house of commons
serving the betterment of this great
country
and so it is truly an honor
to have the opportunity to invite him to
the stage now
[Applause]
ah
one thing you should know about being
seat mates is uh you get to spend a lot
of time together
and uh
um
yeah that's the nicest thing she's ever
said to me
well thank you rachel
you have been paying attention i guess
eh
so
uh good evening uh like i was introduced
my name is arnold beerson i'm the member
of parliament for peace river westlock
up in northern alberta or as i like to
call the promised land
all of my colleagues questioned me on
that and i said don't worry it's the
honey capital of canada and we've got 7
500 dairy animals so it's literally
flowing with milk and honey
i am here on behalf of the all party
parliamentary group to end modern
slavery and human trafficking
and we call it the appg because that's
quite a mouthful
and i'm representing uh john mckay from
the liberal party as one of the
co-chairs i'm representing andrea lalosh
from the block
and uh senator julie maville de shane
one of the independent independent
independent independent senators
and together we perform the all-party
parliamentary group
i am a very partisan guy i don't know if
you've been following me or not i'm a
conservative through and through i think
that we bring the vision that this
country needs and so i don't do
non-partisan things uh so therefore
we've put together this all-party
parliamentary group so that we can each
bring our partisanship to it and john
does a good job of bringing his liberal
colors to it the block bring theirs
the independent independent independent
senator she also brings
maybe not party colors but she brings
strong opinions to that and it has
served us well
one of the
beauties of having all party uh action
is that we we typically will hit uh the
same issue from five different
directions and so one of our most
most recent successes was
enabling february 22nd to be recognized
as canada's human trafficking awareness
day
that didn't come overbound overnight
[Applause]
that didn't that didn't happen overnight
uh the first year we tried it uh
we did just pursued unanimous consent
because that's the quickest way to get
something done but the least likely for
it to happen we thought rather than just
one of us asking for united's consent on
one day elizabeth may would ask for
united's consent and the next day i
would ask for it and the next day john
mckay and we kind of bounced it around
but neither neither it didn't work so
the following year
again coming up to february 22nd uh we
we tried it again and we we asked the
senate to try it as well but no luck
the third year i think our fellow
parliamentarians were just getting sick
and tired of us doing this so they said
why don't you like move it at committee
we'll get it past that committee then
we'll can do a concurrence motion in the
house and this will happen now
the cool thing about that is
that's the first time anything like that
has ever happened in the house of
commons typically you have to get a
private members bill you wait your whole
career for a number that you can
work with and then you wait for your
hour of debate and all these things so
we kind of short-circuited the system a
little bit by having all the parties uh
sign off on it beforehand and so i'm
really excited to that february 22nd is
now the canadian national human
trafficking awareness day
so that's a little bit about the
the apbg
now for the now for the job that i was
actually invited up here for to to
introduce our guest speaker
joy smith i
was
retired the year that i was elected so i
think we only have ever shared the
caucus room once
on her way out and on my way in
however i have gotten to know her
immensely
over the last few years i stand on her
shoulders the human trafficking work
that or the counter human trafficking
work that she has done uh is is immense
she passed
two private members bills and a motion
through the house of commons i think
she's one of the very few that have
introduced new ideas into the criminal
code
through private members bills she also
introduced or was the force behind the
national anti-human trafficking
action plan uh she continues her work
today working with the joy smith
foundation to
combat human trafficking she has
educated thousands of people across this
country she has helped support countless
survivors when it comes to fighting
human trafficking
joy smith the all the time teacher says
that education is our greatest weapon
her work has been recognized she has the
order of has obtained the order of
manitoba and one of the best things that
i love about joyce smith is how she
loves the lord so without further ado
please welcome to the stage joy smith
[Applause]
well good evening it's so nice to be
here i feel like i've come home
i have to say to you tonight i'm going
to talk to you about human trafficking
but i'm going to talk to you about
something that's even more important
and that is our faith
and how we walk our daily lives and
we're just human we make mistakes we all
make mistakes
we all do things we shouldn't do
we all
wish we had done other things you know
they say if you
if you meet a politician you know and
get them in front of a microphone and
you may never go home that night
well i tell you i'm going to stick to 45
minutes because i've been off the hill
now for almost seven years
and working very hard on the human
trafficking so i would like to talk to
you
and and share with you second
corinthians 1 verse 3 to 4.
you know
rachel mentioned it earlier and talked
about
the compassion that we need to have for
those who don't have the opportunity
to feel the love
that god has given to all of us
is the compassion for those who have no
one else and in the bible
when jesus was at the well and the
prostitute came up and he knew all about
her
and in the end he told her go and sin no
more
but he was the first time that he
mentioned the fact that he was the son
of god
and he told
this woman
who was
a known sinner in the area
and he showed this compassion the kind
of compassion
that all of us needs to
to know about so
ladies and gentlemen human trafficking
happens every day in this country less
than a kilometer from where you're
sitting right now someone is being
trafficked
and so we're going to talk about that
we're going to talk about
you're going to look at some slides but
i'm going to tell you some stories if
you'll bear with me you can read you can
all read you know what the slides say
so i'm just going to give you the cole's
notes of the slides and have you
um and just talk about the real life
stories
and the miracles that i've seen
now sitting here tonight i have to tell
you
recently in february
we shut down the licensing of body
rubbed parlors and escort services in
winnipeg
and that started a ripple all across the
country
and i have to tell you many cities now
are looking at that and we're training
them this is how you do it why
the last person i pulled out of a
bodybuild parlor was 13 years old
13 years old
and
it was very hard for her to understand
why the city
her trafficker told her that she was
safe in there nothing would happen to
her because
they had a city license
well that kind of motivated me to work
even harder on it
but as a result of that the
pro-prostitution group and a lot of
others threatened it was kind of nasty
unfortunately my daughter janet campbell
who's here with us janet you want to
stand up she's ceo
of the foundation
[Music]
by the way she's a miracle
i have to tell you
god is with each one of us every single
day
and
when christ died on the cross he sent a
gift to us
and it was the holy spirit
and that holy spirit
is
what tells us what we should do and how
we should do it
all we have to do is spend some quiet
time listen get down on our knees
and the holy spirit comes forward and
tells us what to do
we don't have to be in despair
none of us in the room have to feel like
what we do is not worthwhile
i am so honored to be here tonight
because every single one of you
are leaders in this country every single
one of you
and you know when you talked about
david kilgore he and i went to
ukraine together and he was a character
that guy
we got on a train and uh of course
we weren't supposed to leave kiev but
you know if you got to know me and then
you put david in the mix and it's
not good but anyway to make a long story
short we were out there with the
election when yushenko
was poisoned and and so that's a whole
different story but
my heart was just melting tonight when
you honored
david kilgore's legacy
and you know all of us
should have a legacy because in the book
of life
when we go to meet our god
you know
he's the one that will give us
tell us whether we have
done what he wanted us to do
you know we want to hear well done good
and faithful servant
in my family all of us are christians
and proud of it
there's nothing we've ever ever hidden
about it now human trafficking what is
it human trafficking is alluring
of usually the very young
we deal most of our cases we've dealt
over seven thousand cases
that's of survivors count their families
multiply that by four or five and you
can see
our our files
we
have worked very very closely on the
ground
with the survivors and their families
and you know
human trafficking is
something that is under the public radar
screen you never know that it's really
happening
and you know tonight the greatest gift
one of the greatest gifts i had tonight
was when carl a police officer here
in ottawa came up
and i've known carl for a number of
years and he was telling me about the
lovely work
that he's doing it's not so nice and
sometimes working with traffic victims
is not easy right carl but the fact of
the matter is
is that you make a difference and i have
to tell you that over 93 percent
of the victims we have worked with have
come to know the lord
so
we are so grateful
human trafficking is when someone is
being lured and everybody thinks it
looks like on tv you know where the bad
guys you know who the bad guys are and
you know who the bad women are and blah
blah blah
well you don't
i never worry about the guys on
motorbikes i worry about both guys in
our manny suits
organized crime
um
entrepreneurs someone who wants to make
a quick buck
off kid
they will lure them
and during the pandemic
it was
incredible
they lure them they get their trust
and then gradually they separate them
from their
support systems which is their homes
their schools their churches whatever
and i have to tell you that they
then
force them into the sex trade like the
15 year old girl we worked with a short
time ago
she was lured over the internet
during the pandemic
and research is showing it takes 45
minutes to lure a young kid over the
internet
i have to tell you and we have all this
research and we're going to be releasing
all the stuff in in the year ahead now
because we have such extensive work
research now
on human trafficking and we feel that
canada and the u.s needs to know about
it in fact the u.s consulate we've been
working with them now for a couple of
years
on the cross-border
trafficking
and i have to say we're releasing all of
this to them we've already released
quite a bit
but we want to do it publicly
now human trafficking after they're
lured and after they're separated from
their support systems their lives change
completely
it's brutal it's horrible it's demeaning
the survivors suffer post-traumatic
stress disorder they suffer
trauma-related
behaviors and they suffer ptsd
and you know we work with the whole
family
not just the the survivor but because
when if the kid is lucky enough to get
back home
fortunate enough to get back home and i
believe a lot of the murdered missing
women in the indigenous community
are victims of human trafficking it's
just that the whole cycle went and they
disappear and nobody ever finds them
again i know that
because we rescued a lot of kids from
the indigenous community and manitoba
gave me the red shawl i'm now an
honorary chief in manitoba so
i i find
those kids
those kids were lured
and
and the stories are all the same
over and over again so that's what human
trafficking is and who's at risk
who's at risk of being trafficked ladies
and gentlemen anybody
i want to tell you the majority of our
cases
over 93
of our cases
this last three years were from
christian homes
christian homes
our churches our people
so what we did we took forty thousand
dollars and we put together a bible
study
called the christian response to human
trafficking and where i launched that
bible study was in my church my own
church in pine ridge
and this lady at the bible study when
the pastor announced what i was going to
be talking about and praying about and
what we were going to be studying
kim came up and said mrs smith she put
her fingers in her ears
and she said i don't want to hear this
i don't want to hear any nasty stuff
and she said this will never happen in
my family and i said to her you know
what i'm going to be the first person
you call when this happens to your own
kid education is our greatest weapon and
you need to find out what educate what
this is all about to protect your own
kids so you know what we did we put this
bible study together we give it out for
free to everybody anybody who wants it
any one of you could request this get on
our website just request it we'll send
it to you gladly the only thing we
require is you actually look at it
and on that bible study
is a trafficker who grew up in the
christian hut in the christian
in christian church
there's a victim who grew up in the
christian church
i know her family
you couldn't ask for a better family
and there's a john who grew up in the
christian church and he serviced himself
to the tune of over 35 thousand dollars
instead of taking it home and helping
his family and his wife he was servicing
himself with women
they've all come back to the lord praise
god
and they agreed they bravely agreed to
be on that bible study isn't that great
and god is a god he forgives us anything
we can do all things through christ
jesus who strengthens us and if you
think we can't you would be wrong
and you know what everyone in this
in this room that has come to know the
lord jesus christ and asked him into
your life everyone in this room
has unbelievable power
and i've experienced it
you know when i was in parliament
passing the bills
my husband got a bad cancer and i almost
quit he wouldn't let me
my family rallied around and helped
and you know what when my daughter janet
who you just met
she used to be senior vice president of
a huge company
she took care of canada united states
and to my surprise
one day she came and said mom
this isn't what god wants me to do
making rich men and women richer
she said i don't feel fulfilled i'm
quitting
and my first reaction is well just a
minute now
you're the only woman there you know as
a senior vice president of a big company
but that didn't
detour her thought
she said no mom i'm quitting i'm going
to come and help you
and you know what she did
and
three months or four months after she
made that decision and quit her job
suddenly out of the blue we discovered
that she had
a very bad cancer in stage three
and she went through during the pandemic
ladies and gentlemen this is a miracle i
have to tell you about this miracle
because they didn't give her very good
odds
and it was a pandemic you could hardly
get an operation and she had this much
of her intestine removed of cancer
and the day that she went into the
hospital she walked in there alone
so i was out in the parking lot
praying and i did
i prayed from the moment she walked in
there unbeknownst to me
they took her into a room where she
could see me in the car i couldn't see
in the hospital she could see out
and that gave her
just such peace
and when she gave her testimony in our
church
she kept telling people she had such
peace
and then one day when her chemo was so
bad
and she could hardly walk i took her to
all her chemos
she walked into her house and she was at
the lowest part you've all experienced
that you've had times in each of your
lives where you have been at the lowest
part and if you say you haven't you
would not be telling the truth because
we're human beings and we've all been
there i've been there and you've been
there
but i saw her walk into the house and
she told me afterwards that matthew her
son came up to her and as usual when i
dropped her off at her house matthew
would get her blanket and get her
settled because she was too weak to do
it
herself and so matthew is six six he's a
volleyball player and an athlete and
so you know he tapped his mom on the
shoulder he says mom how are you and he
says i'll get your blanket
and then she thought he left the room he
just walked out of the room he was
talking to her as he left and then all
of a sudden
someone put
the hand on her shoulder
and she turned around
and no one was there
but that day the peace came over her
that surpasses all understanding
and she knew god was with her
praise god for what he does
so today
today she's cancer free
so janet stand up and praise god
[Applause]
[Music]
i'm going to hear about this later
so how do you spot a predator
well predators come from
predators come from anywhere
they make on average of 280 000 per
victim per year that's why they do it
and research has been documented we're
going to we have the research and i had
it when i passed the two bills in
parliament
and now is it's just so prevalent
i don't know what's happening to our
world
you know it just seems that our churches
are getting away from the basic
bibles that god put out there for us to
follow
and it's not a judgment or criticism
only god judges that's an observation
that i've seen
and ladies and gentlemen we have to
stick to the word
and we have to stick to the
the
the whispers of the holy spirit when the
holy spirit tells us
what we do because you know what we all
have a shelf life
we all have an expiry date i wish we
didn't
but you're seeing a walking miracle
there because janet we prayed and prayed
for her and
and god in his grace has allowed her to
be cancer-free she's cancer-free today
isn't that amazing
that's a miracle
now what are the signs of grooming so
everyone always asks
what are the signs of grooming
well
when we talk to parents we always tell
them
you know watch your kids behavior
if suddenly it changes overnight
and they're coming home with new clothes
and
gold chains
this kind of thing gold chain seems to
be a favorite that traffickers like to
give them it's a little trinket you know
and the girls never have gold chains
when they're
under 18 usually unless they get it as a
special gift for something
but the traffickers shower them with
gifts
take them out to wonderful places
and they start doing things to them they
never had done to them before
they start to make them promises about
you know we're going to get married we
need to have a home
and then they start to
you know share intimacies about what's
going on at home what they don't like
what they do like
and they suddenly become their best
friend to the victim but they're
targeted
and once they separate them from their
families the whole scene changes
that's when the cops meet them on the
street that's when the addictions come
all the things that come
and a life is destroyed but i can tell
you lives are
empowered and redeemed
when they come to know the lord
and you know you can't just go up to a
traffic victim and
and preach at them you know you need to
be saved you don't do that you show them
the love of god
and then they start asking questions and
you pray for them
we pray for them all the time
and suddenly they start asking questions
why you do this
and they know like be quite frank i've
never got a cent for my foundation i
don't take one single penny because i
was called to do this
and
and they say you know they kind of look
at you i had my 75th birthday this last
february there i've confessed all
and often people say why don't you
retire
well i would if i could but it can't
because every time i start to think
about it something comes up and there i
start all over again
because the call of god on your lives my
dear colleagues
is so important
so important and once you do something
we wrestle not against flesh and blood
but against principalities and powers
and things unseen
and they'll push against you
every time we know something big is
happening with the
the human trafficking issue and and our
foundation
you know when janet got sick and things
started we said you know what we just
have to pray here
do you know what we started the national
human trafficking education center
during the pandemic i was in
saskatchewan talking to a big indigenous
group
in saskatoon and the word came in you've
got to start hitting for home because
they're shutting down the borders and at
that time they didn't know if it was
going to be provincial borders too so i
had to get back to montreal
and the indigenous people had to get
back to their communities in northern
canada
and so we set out
and
my heart was breaking because everything
was shut down we had all these places we
were supposed to go
[Music]
and janet said mom no worries
she rolled up her sleeves and she said
we're going to start the national human
trafficking education center and we did
and we're putting everything up for free
and it's virtual and we've had kids who
were being lured we've have parents
we've had grandparents get that
information
and every time we earn more money we put
more up we just have five more that
we're we're putting up and we've had you
know i have to just say now tonight and
we've had wonderful donors i don't know
there's two of them here and are
tonight and i can't mention their names
because they're so humble they don't
want me to mention their names
you don't want me to do you no
i'll turn my head then
but i have to tell you because of all
our donors we've been able to do this
and put it up for free
and you know what there's many ngos that
are popping up all over the country
we never criticize any of them even if
some of them are just not quite on the
mark we help them
and we do anything we can to help them
so you know we've had the privilege of
fear of training rcmp we've had the we
just finished
the detachments around windsor because
of the great lakes there's a lot of
human trafficking across the great lakes
we work with the american council on
that on the
cross-border cross-bordered
human trafficking because most of the
trafficking is across canada across our
provinces
everyone thinks it comes from another
country look at our own country ladies
and gentlemen
this is where it's happening and then
other than that it's across the u.s
border
so um
we have to do a lot of that let's
and
back to the signs of grooming i i want
to just tell you a couple more things
that i think is really important
they separate themselves from
from their families but remember i told
you a few minutes ago
if your kid starts acting different or
you see
they're coming home with extravagant
gifts or new clothes and you know they
can't afford it
but there's one red flag that you really
really watch for for if they're carrying
two cell phones
watch that
because the traffickers always give them
a cell phone to keep track of them
so there are signs and i don't have
enough time tonight to go into all the
signs or talk about what to watch for
because i will be staying within my time
limit i have two timers down there
watching
[Music]
indigenous women and girls are very
vulnerable populations
and also lgbtq gays people like that are
very vulnerable populations
and you know we love them all we love
them up and we help them
and we pray with them
[Music]
but the one thing
that is really different
that i think has kind of snuck up
on people in canada is a social media
we have experts from toronto and other
places that work on our social media
and i have to tell you during the
pandemic so many young people
were lured
whether it's snapchat or whether it's
video games would you believe it it's
even in there
instagram facebook you name it we tic
talk you name it we've got it
and i have to say that
this is something that i wish
parliamentarians would address and i
i've talked and i know arnold beerson is
already working on it give him a hand
god bless him
when we go into schools we always tell
the kids
traffickers use online spaces all the
time
all the time
and i have to say to you these online
spaces we talk about
the television and the news and
everything ladies and gentlemen
that's this much of the information
you're getting where you're really
getting the information
is on the social medias
because the kids are always on it
and the social media owners
whether it's instagram
whether it's tick-tock whether it's
facebook but they don't show responsible
behaviors
they don't because they shouldn't be
putting some of those things on the
social media that is really criminal and
a lot it has to do with it with luring
and a lot of it has to do with
pornography and things like that
and
they deliberately try to addict kids
to social media
and they have a very concentrated way of
doing that and i don't have time to go
into it tonight unfortunately
but
we have a lot of literature on that and
a lot of first-hand experience
and i want to tell you let's talk about
sexting
sexting is something that uh for those
of you that don't know
um sexting is well when a young person
this usually starts out quite innocently
where a young person will fall in love
boy and a girl and what they do is they
they send nude pictures to each other
because their boyfriend and girlfriend
well
no one knows the laws here in canada and
we always work on the laws and we always
teach the kids that it's illegal now
to send
an inappropriate photograph
across the internet of an underage
person
so when we go into schools we say to the
kids
we ask them what are your aspirations
and some of them will say well we want a
job here we want to be a doctor we want
to be a nurse
we want to go into
i.t work whatever
we tell them did you know
that if you are charged by the criminal
code
that this could prohibit you from
getting into the university of your
choice
also we've had young professionals
who've lost jobs
because the nude pictures came back
to their employers
and everybody thinks that you can take
them down easily
you can't
you can go to cybertip.ca
and if you're fortunate
perhaps
that could happen
but
once it's out there is seen
we had one girl
just a few months ago
her boyfriend she and her boyfriend
exchanged
[Music]
nude pictures
and
she was 14 he was 16.
well
she broke off with him one day
and he got mad
so he shared those pictures with the
kids at the school
consequently she was harassed
and bullied so badly she had to change
schools
not only that
her picture is now in cyberspace
and it can go anywhere and it has
the fact of the matter is is that's
against the law and i tell the kids
whether your girlfriend or boyfriend or
it's done innocently or anything else
it's against the law to do that now
and if you do that as someone who is
under age you can be
you can be charged for that
according to candace criminal code
the other thing that
i found
uh in the human trafficking area that's
very very
important is the blame and shame
that
families
hold inside of them now i just told you
a few minutes ago the high percentage of
christian families
that had the experience of a child being
being trafficked
and the blame and shame that they put on
themselves is just horrendous it often
destroys families
and so
we we put up the national human
trafficking education center and i have
to say that
on that center there's so much
information there that's going up all
the time
so two people can better understand that
the blame and shame shouldn't be put on
the shoulders
of the victims or the survivors of human
trafficking
it should be put squarely on the
shoulders of the perpetrators
full stop
and parents shouldn't you know some
parents are involved but most of them
aren't
and they shouldn't have that blame and
shame on their shoulders
[Music]
human trafficking is a very real and
urgent problem that's happening to our
canadian youth at an alarming rate the
average age of entry into the sex trade
here in canada is 12 to 14 years of age
this crime happens in every community
across canada all too often young
innocent victims are lured by
traffickers and their lives are changed
forever
the launch of the national human
trafficking education center represents
a watershed moment towards achieving our
vision to reach families across canada
and give them the knowledge that their
families can be protected from human
traffickers it's a game changer because
any canadian citizen can find prevention
programs
and intervention programs our goal is to
make prevention information more
accessible and readily available to
every canadian education is our greatest
weapon to combat human trafficking so
please join us in the fight to stop
human trafficking
[Music]
for those of you who may not have been
able to
capture a full understanding of this
picture and its significance
it is the hands of jesus with the flag
of canada strong across his knees and
his hands stitching it together
and i i do believe and i believe you
will join me in this that joy is in fact
being the hands and feet of jesus across
this country
bringing healing to the brokenhearted
bringing hope to those that have been in
places of despair
and ultimately making a significant
difference for the sake of our country
not only in the present day but for its
future as well
thank you my dear friends i'm so honored
we're honored janet and i are both
honored to be here with you tonight
thank you rachel and arnold
[Applause]
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