Embedding safety and reconciliation in our methodology
At a glance
In 2019, the Final Report from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls outlined 231 Calls for Justice to address the systemic drivers of this ongoing crisis. Human trafficking was a recurring theme throughout the inquiry’s findings.
For those of us planning and designing transportation corridors and other essential infrastructure, this is a call to examine how our work can reduce risk and where it can unintentionally enable harm when lived experience is overlooked.
On National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQI+ People, also known as Red Dress Day, we held an internal session grounded in Indigenous leadership and lived experience. The conversation was led by Lindsey Lickers, Indigenous Anti-Human Trafficking Development Liaison at Ontario Native Women’s Association, with reflections from colleagues across landscape architecture, transportation, architecture and social performance. Together, we explored how everyday design decisions shape safety, dignity and real-world outcomes. This is not a theoretical risk. It is a design consideration.
Our responsibility to communities
True design is not simply an output. It does not reside within technical compliance, the completion of tasks, or agnostic of the landscapes in which they exist. The places we shape through our designs affect how people move, gather and seek help. Where projects intersect with vulnerability, we have a responsibility to understand those impacts and adapt our practice.
Advancing reconciliation means recognizing where infrastructure can intersect with systemic harm and can compound existing challenges. Changing how we plan, engage, design and prepare for the ultimate functions is necessary to make our infrastructure beneficial to the communities it serves and mitigate its potential harm. This requires a shift across disciplines, from planners and engineers to policy makers, architects and landscape architects.
Human trafficking is a crisis with a disproportionate impact on Indigenous women and girls. Indigenous women and girls represent approximately half of identified human trafficking victims in Canada, despite making up only about 5% of the population. This makes trafficking a domestic issue in Canada and one that is closely linked to transportation corridors, borders and remote work sites.
Where infrastructure intersects with risk
Highways, ports and our vast transportation networks, along with their supporting facilities, are frequently leveraged to conduct human trafficking. As practitioners, we increase risk when design focuses only on technical standards and cost ‘efficiencies’ in isolation from true lived experience. The downstream societal costs that are often borne by disadvantaged communities when these lived experiences are not considered appropriately become lasting and destructive and risk contributing to perpetuating or accelerating harm. Often, the policies, standards and guidelines used are not developed with these challenges or people in mind, and originate from a past with different values and outcomes in mind. Colleagues shared examples from northern corridors where lighting, landscaping, sightlines, washroom layouts and site configuration have consequences that extend well beyond the project brief. These insights reinforce that technical compliance alone is not enough. Meaningful community involvement must begin earlier, by asking different questions, respecting consent and designing with stewardship and long-term community benefit in mind.
Designing for safety and dignity
Passive strategies such as Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design can support safer outcomes through lighting, visibility and wayfinding. In remote and Indigenous contexts, safety also depends on access to help, operational choices and a clear understanding of who a space is designed for, and who it excludes.
The discussion challenged us to think carefully about how culture and identity are reflected in design. Celebrating culture must go hand in hand with protecting the safety and dignity of the people who use these spaces. Materials, layout, programming and procurement all play a role in creating places that support belonging rather than exploitation.
Reconciliation in practice
We embed reconciliation by listening first, then adapting how we work, including taking the time to thoughtfully consider inputs and impacts. This approach aligns with GHD’s Reconciliation Action Plan and requires accountability across disciplines. It also calls for a more deliberate approach to consent. Communities need real choice, influence and agency in how projects are shaped.
Language matters. Shifting how we speak, for example, from “vulnerable road users” to “vulnerable people”, reminds us to see the whole person and the systems around them. These shifts influence how we think, design and engage.
From learning to lasting change
Turning awareness into action means building shared capability and changing our default questions. Practical steps identified through the session include targeted human trafficking training, considering trafficking risk early in project planning, asking communities what safety looks like in their context and incorporating a trauma-informed care approach. This includes who uses a space, when they use it and what barriers exist to getting help.
Red Dress Day reminds us that learning must translate into daily decisions. This conversation deepened our understanding of how infrastructure and mobility intersect with harm, and where more thoughtful design choices can lead to safer outcomes. Carrying this forward means continuing to learn, embedding safety and reconciliation into our work and maintaining accountability to the communities we serve.