Special Committee on Indigenous Women Committee on May 23rd, 2013

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

I am less familiar with Aboriginal and Northern Affairs, but I'm of the understanding that there's no gender unit in AAND. Does Status of Women play a role in ensuring that there is culturally appropriate funding that comes out of either the women's program or works with AAND to ensure that there is a gender analysis on their funding?

[Sébastien Goupil]

With respect to a gender unit at Aboriginal Affairs, we've been working over the past three years with 25 departments and Aboriginal Affairs was one of them. They built their internal capacity to be able to apply gender-based analysis, and currently this function is co-located in the cabinet affairs section. It is not a gender unit per se, but they have this internal capacity within the department.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Okay. Still speaking about sensitizing, what role has Status of Women Canada generally—the agency—played in sensitizing the RCMP, police, and different levels of government in terms of policing, and not just in law enforcement but also on the judicial side in addressing violence against aboriginal women and providing resources, etc.? What kind of role has Status of Women Canada played in that?

[Sébastien Goupil]

We play very different roles. I'd like to mention that some of the departments you've mentioned, such as Justice and Public Safety, this year are part of our.... We have targeted those departments for the implementation of gender-based analysis.

This year, quite interestingly, we've been focusing a lot on public safety and law enforcement departments, so we're working with Correctional Service of Canada, Public Safety Canada, and the Canada Border Services Agency. We're trying to create clusters to foster collaboration so that we can enhance discussions and help those organizations who share similar mandates to implement gender-based analysis.

As well, we've been supporting police services in different ways. Linda mentioned, for instance, the work that we supported many years ago on human trafficking—

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

I'll interrupt, just because I want to get more things in and I'll leave—

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

You have 12 seconds, I'm sorry.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Do I? Okay.

A report by the status of women committee published in December 2011 talked about things like gender-sensitive and culturally appropriate training for police, as well as an array of other things. What has been done by Status of Women in response to that report?

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

I'm sorry, if you'd like to answer it, you can take time later if it's similar to another question, but we're going to move over to Ms. Block for five minutes.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I would like to join my colleagues in welcoming our witnesses here this evening.

I find it hard to believe that it was almost three years ago that I joined the status of women committee on a tour to a number of communities to talk about violence against aboriginal women. I recognized or learned at that time that often women have to leave the reserve when they need to access shelters and services, and more often than not they find themselves in rural and remote communities or smaller urban centres.

I know earlier you mentioned a recent call for a proposal targeting violence prevention for women in rural and remote communities and small urban centres. I was wondering how that need was identified to your department.

[Linda Savoie]

The needs identification was the result of a multi-pronged environmental scan. We got the inspiration from various statistical trends that were showing that women in rural and remote environments were at much greater risk of violence, for instance, and had fewer economic opportunities. We were also hearing from communities that they had some issues that were different from their counterparts in urban centres.

We had various sources that were confirming to us this need, and we tried to tailor-make an approach that would allow these communities that share certain challenges and have common issues to participate in this call for proposals and hopefully create a community of interest among these stakeholders that now are currently receiving funding from us.

Our objective is to not only support them through these three-year projects, but also to create opportunities for them to learn from one another. We do this primarily through conference calls, joining them together. We're also considering things such as bringing experts to possibly do a webcast of some sort to address what has been learned and has already emerged from some of the research that's been done with respect to rural and remote communities.

That's where we're at. The projects are under way, and once they've been closed, we hope to do a very thorough evaluation to inform our next steps.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Having lived in rural Saskatchewan for a number of years, I recognize that issues facing a small community are often compounded by its remoteness. You've mentioned looking at various communities that are experiencing similar issues. I'm wondering if you could tell us how this call for proposals is being received and how you are encouraging the various communities to work together.

[Linda Savoie]

The response we had to this call for proposals demonstrated that there clearly was a need within the communities. There was a lot of interest; the response rate was high. I could provide some specific statistics to the committee clerk if you're interested.

What was interesting was that early on we were dealing with stakeholders who had already identified some common challenges, such as isolation and lack of transportation. There are a number of common issues that these communities are struggling with, and by providing them with a forum where they can share their challenges, share the recipes they are testing to try to address these challenges, we're hoping this builds into something that is sustainable.

What we did as part of this call for proposals is we required that community action plans be developed and be implemented/tested. Those community action plans create distinct recipes that may work in different environments. We'll know after they've been tested.

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

Thank you for that.

We now have two minutes left, and we'll go to Ms. Hughes. You may want to ask the witness to finish off your colleague's question.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Yes, I would like that, if you remember the question.

Basically, it's this. What actions have been taken as a result of the report by the status of women committee? Also what role has Status of Women played in addressing the systemic violence created through prison and child welfare institutions, and advancing more sensitive policies to address ongoing inequities created through current government policies?

[Sébastien Goupil]

With respect to your second question, I would say that through the promotion of gender-based analysis and its wide use by government departments, we're helping our federal partners ensure that they take gender and diversity into account whenever they develop policies and programs.

An important aspect of the work we're promoting, through gender-based analysis, is looking at the specific realities and vulnerabilities of different segments of the Canadian population, in particular the aboriginal population. As I mentioned, we've been working with dozens of federal departments. Just over the past three years, we've supported 25 of them in sustainably implementing gender-based analysis within their own practice. The overall aim of this approach is to ensure that gender can be taken into decision-making processes of government.

[Linda Savoie]

In terms of the FEWO report you were mentioning, when it comes to reports from the standing committee, we go through the recommendations in detail and engage the different.... As you know, just because it's the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, all the levers are not necessarily with Status of Women. However, we do pursue each recommendation with the departments that have the lead, to make sure they are aware of the recommendation that was made and are looking at their internal mechanisms to address it.

I can't be more specific with that answer. If I had a copy of each recommendation, I could tell you what we did. We do that with every report, and then go through each recommendation.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Could you look at the recommendations and send back the action that was done?

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

Certainly, if you wouldn't mind doing that, Ms. Savoie. Thank you.

Thank you for being here this evening, Mr. Goupil and Ms. Savoie. We very much appreciate your time and your testimony.

The meeting is adjourned.