Aura Freedom’s Advocacy on Bill 41
Aura Freedom has been deeply engaged in efforts to ensure that Ontario’s recent Bill 41, “Protection from Coerced Debts Incurred in Relation to Human Trafficking Act, 2023” works towards true economic justice for survivors.
Bill 41 is a groundbreaking law that recognizes coerced debt as a form of exploitation, offering survivors a vital pathway to reclaim financial independence and rebuild their lives – free from the economic abuse enacted by traffickers. While Bill 41 has been successfully enacted, ongoing questions remain around the implementation of this legislation. Over the summer of 2025, the Ontario government has conducted consultations to collect feedback on this.
Aura Freedom, alongside our partner organizations within Toronto’s GBV/IPV Working Group, submitted a joint submission to Ontario’s Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery. We called for survivor-led, trauma-informed, and equity-focused implementation – advocating for the expansion of accepted evidence of coerced debts, trauma-informed processes and adjudicators, and protections against lender retaliation. We additionally advocated for necessary expansions of this legislation, both across provinces and federally, and the expanded recognition of economic coercion beyond trafficking.
In Aura Freedom’s own organizational submission to the Ontario government’s call for consultation, we highlighted why coerced debt is a tool of exploitation, the urgent need to restore survivors’ financial autonomy, and offered concrete recommendations for accessible, non-adversarial processes that protect the dignity and rights of survivors.
Together, these advocacy efforts send a clear message: survivors deserve freedom – not only from physical exploitation, but from the lasting and ongoing harms of coerced debt.