Evidence of meeting #7 for Special Committee on Indigenous Women in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was women.
A recording is available from Parliament.
6:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Stella Ambler
Thank you.
Sorry, I know time goes by quickly.
We'll move over to you, Ms. Bennett, for seven minutes.
6:45 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Thanks very much.
First, Tracy and Katharine, I would like to know a little more about the need for Inuit specific research and approaches. Could you describe to the committee the link between childhood sexual abuse and addiction, the link between childhood sexual abuse and leaving a community, leaving a family? I don't know whether you have any experience with that. What we've heard more recently, which I hadn't thought of, was about children fleeing abusive foster care. That seems to be under-reported.
I wonder if you would also tell us about your experience—maybe Tracy in B.C., as well—with there not being enough shelters and also the invisibility of the existing ones. In downtown Toronto, for example, the shelters are invisible. No one knows about them. There's no sign on the front. Nobody can find out where they are. I've been to the one in Apex in Iqaluit and everybody knows where the shelter is, and if someone wants to come after somebody who has been so bold as to leave the household and embarrass him, that person knows where to find her.
The solutions are different. Obviously, there are not enough shelters. But even ensuring safety in the shelters is more difficult in remote and rural communities.
I wondered what research you think still needs to be done. What would be your suggestions? I had many patients who ended up addicted because they were numbing themselves from being daddy's or uncle's little girl. That was the way they dealt with that, and then they ended up more likely to be addicted, a street worker, whatever. It was part of the numbing out that needed to happen for lack of treatment.
Can you tell me where you are in the research, and where you'd like to go?
6:45 p.m.
Manager, Abuse Prevention, Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada
First, I'd like to say that Statistics Canada used to have an aboriginal liaison program for national aboriginal organizations. I'm not sure what level it's now at in terms of their personnel, but they would have a statistician assigned or available to national aboriginal organizations to help run data for us. I'm not sure if that program is still up and running. Having specific statistics run is challenging.
I think another thing that's challenging is that not everyone self-identifies, so there are not a lot of ethnic identity questions. We often get aboriginal statistics that are all grouped together and that aren't specific for first nations, Métis, and Inuit, so we wouldn't know that.
A lot of the work we do gauges the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours in the communities. When we do projects, we are convening an advisory committee to give us the best, on-the-ground knowledge they have that's specific to their needs and what they see every day.
There is only a one-time offer to be medevaced out of a community, if you're fleeing violence. As we know, someone fleeing a violent household could try to do so up to 19 tries. It has to be perfectly timed, which can be a big issue if there's not a safe shelter or safe housing available.
I don't know if I can illustrate this enough, but there's no physical building. There's no private housing market. You don't go home if there's no place for that type of shelter.
6:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada
If I may, I'd like to follow up more specifically on child sexual abuse.
Each of the four Arctic regions has now completed an Inuit health survey, which included household questions and also experiences of childhood sexual abuse.
In the one in Nunavik, we know that 44% of respondents identified that they have been the victim of unwanted sexual interference as a minor—44%—but I'm not aware of further, more specific research. Starting to get those numbers was a big step.
Then yesterday this new study was released, from McGill, I believe, trying to look more substantively at the links. As I said, 15% of the group they studied who had committed suicide had previously been sexually abused.
We also need to know a lot more about the experience of women when they come south, because they do flee the communities for safety, absolutely. They come here and it's a different culture: the language, the food, everything is different. They may or may not have contemporary survival skills in a completely different world. Twenty per cent of Inuit are living in the south now. We have to know more about the experiences of women, the barriers the face, if we are to come up with some solutions.
6:50 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
I think we must have those stats. At Women's Own Detox in Toronto, I think 110% of the clients have suffered previous sexual abuse, and I think it's been under-reported.
So thank you for that.
I forgot to mention, Madam Chair, that we seem again not to be televised.
6:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Stella Ambler
You have 30 seconds. Did you want to use your 30 seconds to talk about this issue?
We can't televise and have a video conference in this room. If we want a televised meeting and video conference, we have to go to 1 Wellington. We can certainly do that, and that's fine.
6:50 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
I think that was a priority that we set as a committee. It's up to the clerk to find a room where we can do both.
6:50 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
I would hope that, as a precedent, that we could have one minute of silence for the people who have gone missing since our last meeting, particularly the 17-year-old who's missing in Scarborough right now, Melissa's daughter, in the Anwhatin family. We need to put a very personal face on the work we're doing here.
6:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Stella Ambler
Thank you for that, Ms. Bennett.
As for the television, as I say, when we have a—
6:50 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
We can hear about that during committee business, but yet again we had a consensus at this committee that it would be televised. It's an unusual time to have a committee, and it's very important that people be able to hear the—
6:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Stella Ambler
We do have some time for committee business afterwards, so let's have that decision at that time.
6:50 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Okay, and can we have the minute of silence before we break this evening, please?
6:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Stella Ambler
Certainly, if that's the will of the committee.
Yes, a point of order.
6:50 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Goguen Conservative Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
We didn't have a consensus that everything be televised. We had a consensus to be flexible, because on your point, you said that some people would be too embarrassed to have it televised. So if it's on an ad hoc basis, I'm okay with the television thing.
6:50 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
I'm sorry, but it's up to the clerk to find out about the sensitivity of any witness, and we understood that the default position was that these meetings would be televised.
6:50 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Goguen Conservative Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
I don't think that's correct, but that's fine.
6:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Stella Ambler
I'd like to deal with this under committee business, so we can get on to the witnesses.
6:55 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Could you send us the research, unless someone else will ask the question about the research on the link between previous abuse and being arrested by the police.
6:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Stella Ambler
If you have a report to send us, Ms. Porteous, we'd be happy to accept that, as per Ms. Bennett's request.
We'll move over to you, Ms. Block, for seven minutes.
6:55 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I will be sharing my time with Ms. Rempel.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here today, and Ms. Porteous for joining us through video conference.
As one of our colleagues has already noted, we are in the early days of this study, and we have heard from a few witnesses already, many of whom I would suggest at this time are experts. But here I want to make special note of Rolanda, who I think is probably an expert in a class of people who have experienced violence and being thrown out of her home. I think stories are often far more compelling than we know, and so I want to thank you for being here and for sharing your story and your experience.
Ms. Porteous, in your opening remarks you made note of some of the suggestions you would make as a result of the work we are doing as a committee. You suggested that we needed to use current services and ensure that aboriginal women are on staff in those current services, that there should be cultural sensitivity training, and that these services should be collocated on reserves or in friendship centres whenever possible. I'm wondering if you would mind expanding a little on how you see us building that capacity to do that.
6:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Ending Violence Association of British Columbia
I'd be happy to do that. What I was saying is that I think there are two things that need to happen.
There's an existing infrastructure of strength across the country in anti-violence programs. In B.C., they come in the form of community-based victim assistance programs, sexual assault centres, women assault centres, and shelters. There are about 400 of those programs in the province of B.C. itself. In fact, there are 240 under our umbrella alone. In Ontario, I think it's more of a shelter network, but there are sexual assault centres in most of the other provinces. I believe we need to ensure that all of those services are providing, as best as possible, culturally competent and accessible services to aboriginal women.
As well, in addition to that, so that there are many gateways and not just one solution, there should be services run by aboriginal women and for aboriginal women on reserve and through the friendship centres. That's so it's not just one solution, because some women who live in small communities might want to leave and go to town, and there are other women who for many reasons can't, or don't want to, or don't trust mainstream services.
I want to speak for just one second on your question. It also leads into the discussion that was just happening around shelters and someone leaving or somebody knowing or not knowing where the shelter is.
I think of the importance of having a continuum of services. That includes shelters for those women who want to leave, who need to leave, and who need to get to a safe place, which usually involves leaving the community for a short period of time, but the more complicated and more difficult work is in working with women who choose to stay in abusive relationships. This is one of the ways in which women who experience violence are often re-victimized by the system, because police, social workers and prosecutors.... As one of my sisters said, you only get one chance to be medevaced out. What about the other 18 times that a woman leaves? Some studies say it's 35 times before a woman actually leaves.
I think most women will say that they want the violence to stop, but they don't want the relationship to end, so the solution isn't always about getting her to leave. Now, in many circumstances that needs to be the case, and there need to be appropriate professionals, adequately trained people, to be able to assess lethal risk. We need to know the difference between those women who might be killed and those women where there has been a circumstance such that she needs to leave and there needs to be a cool-down period, but she wants to go back to him, for a myriad of reasons.
7 p.m.
Conservative
7 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Centre-North, AB
Rolanda, I was very struck by your testimony and the impact your situation had on you and your family.
In my brief time, I'll ask you a very pointed question. Do you feel that your situation could have been avoided if the matrimonial real property rights position the government has taken had been in effect at the time?