Status of Women Committee on April 26th, 2010

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

I would like to call this committee meeting to order.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we continue our study on violence against aboriginal women. Today is our second meeting on this very important issue. We are very pleased to welcome the Department of Indian and Northern Development, the Department of Justice, the Department of Public Safety, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to help us in our deliberations.

Each of you will have ten minutes to present, and then we will have a question and answer period.

We will start with the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

Ms. Mary Quinn, are you doing the presentation?

Thank you. Go ahead, please.

[Mary Quinn, Director General, Social Policy and Programs Branch, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for inviting the department to appear before the committee. It is indeed a privilege for my colleague and me to appear before you as you commence an important study on violence against aboriginal women in Canada.

In my opening remarks, I would like to outline some of the program areas in which Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) supports healthier and safer Aboriginal families. I would also like to share with you the INAC initiatives that specifically target violence against women, and explain how INAC works in partnership with other federal departments, provinces, and Aboriginal peoples in order to contribute to the overall response to this serious issue, particularly on reserve, but also in Aboriginal communities and urban centres.

The department is responsible for two mandates, Indian and Inuit affairs and northern development, which together support Canada's aboriginal and northern peoples in the pursuit of healthy and sustainable communities and broader economic and social development objectives. Indian and Northern Affairs, or INAC, also works with the urban aboriginal people, Métis, and non-status Indians through the Office of the Federal Interlocutor.

As you know, there are a number of ongoing social and economic challenges that make aboriginal women more vulnerable to violence against them. These include factors such as the unemployment rate, family situation, and education levels.

Through INAC's support for child and family services, community development, and education programs on reserve, we work closely with aboriginal, federal, and provincial partners to help address these underlying risks and build healthier and safer aboriginal families.

Provincial governments typically provide or fund services to aboriginal women residing off reserve, and in the north, the Government of Canada provides territorial formula financing to the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut governments. This funding is to support public services such as hospitals, schools, infrastructure, and social services.

The ongoing reform and development of INAC's social programs on reserve is critical to tackling root causes that may contribute to violence against women on and off reserve. For example, a preventative approach in INAC's Child and Family Services program on reserve aims to support parents and keep families together, which ultimately will enhance a sense of security among women who reside on reserve, and can decrease the risk of violence.

The department is moving its income assistance program on reserve to go from solely meeting basic needs towards implementing an active measures approach that will help individuals participate in job readiness and training so they can find employment. As we make progress, this will enable individuals on reserve to become more self-sufficient, and it will ultimately reduce the impact of poverty.

A related program is the department's national child benefit reinvestment project, which is focused primarily on reducing child poverty and strengthening families on reserve in the areas of providing child care, home-to-work transition activities, parental and nutritional support, and culturally relevant programming. The department also targets programs directly to address violence against women. The family violence prevention program aims to ensure that first nations women and children on reserve have a safe place to turn during situations of family violence and supports first nations communities to address the root causes of family violence through a range of prevention activities. In 2007 the department announced an investment of approximately $55 million over five years to support the existing network of shelters, including $2.2 million to support the construction of five new shelters. The department currently supports a network of 41 shelters on reserve and approximately 350 community-based prevention projects for first nations people residing on reserve.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's shelter enhancement program covers the capital costs for construction and maintenance of shelters.

In terms of urban programs, the Office of the Federal Interlocutor (OFI) works to improve the socio-economic conditions of Métis, non-status Indians and urban Aboriginal people who reside off-reserve.

The Urban Aboriginal Peoples Study, released April 6, 2010, found the majority of women surveyed move to the city in order to be closer to family, pursue education and to escape a bad family situation and/or find a better place to raise their children. Ten percent of these women moved to escape a bad family situation.

Through the urban aboriginal strategy, the Office of the Federal Interlocutor partners with the aboriginal community, local organizations, municipal and provincial governments, and the private sector to support projects in three areas of priority: improving life skills, promoting job training skills and entrepreneurship, and supporting aboriginal women and children and families. Since 2007, approximately $7.5 million has been provided for more than 140 projects under this third priority, focusing on areas such as healing and wellness, leadership and empowerment, and harm reduction and violence prevention in some of Canada's largest urban centres. In the area of legislative reform, in such measures as the proposed Bill S-4, Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act, as well as in the changes made to the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Government of Canada is taking steps to provide first nations women protection and rights similar to those enjoyed by other Canadians.

Once enforced, Bill S-4 will provide basic rights and protection with respect to the occupation and fair division of the value of the family home to on-reserve individuals facing the breakdown of a relationship or death of a spouse. The legislation will also provide protection for individuals in the event of family violence.

Indian and Northern Affairs Canada participates with the Public Health Agency of Canada as it leads a broader family violence prevention initiative. Launched in 1988, this is an approach to family violence across 15 federal departments and agencies. The Native Women's Association of Canada, through its Sisters In Spirit initiative, has contributed to an understanding of the extent and nature of violence against aboriginal women. The department also works with such stakeholders as the National Aboriginal Circle Against Family Violence, provinces and territories, and other government departments such as Health Canada, the Department of Justice, Status of Women Canada, and others, on the coordination of family violence prevention programing.

Together, we are working to make a difference and put an end to violence against Aboriginal women and make a difference in combating the factors that place them at risk.

My colleague and I will do our best to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

Thank you so much.

Now we will go to the Department of Justice and Carole Morency.

[Carole Morency, Acting General Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice]

Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee as you begin your study on violence against aboriginal women. As requested by the committee, my comments will provide a general overview of the current criminal justice framework regarding violence against women in general.

As the committee knows, responsibility for Canada's criminal justice system is divided between federal and provincial territorial governments. Federally the government is responsible for developing and enacting the criminal law, including the Criminal Code of Canada, and through the Public Prosecution Service of Canada is responsible for the prosecution of criminal offences under federal mandate as well as prosecution of Criminal Code offences in the territories.

The provinces and territories are responsible for the administration of justice. That includes policing, prosecutions, delivery of services to victims of crime, and the administration of courts. The result is a criminal justice system that requires ongoing collaboration and coordination between both levels of government.

Within the Department of Justice of Canada, the nature of our work necessarily requires consideration of the direct and indirect impacts of any contemplated measures and responses addressing violence against women, including consideration of any differential impacts that are based on diversity factors such as gender, race, ethnicity, culture, age, and ability.

Violence against women is a complex issue that affects women's physical and mental heath, well-being, and economic security, and it impacts on their achievement of equality in Canadian society. This impact is compounded for aboriginal women as well as for women of colour, women with disabilities, older women, and poor women. Accordingly, our responses to violence against women are diverse and include legislative, policy, programming, research, as well as public education responses.

Turning to our legislative responses, a comprehensive, strong criminal law framework serves not only to ensure adequate sanctions against such acts of violence when they are committed, but also to prevent or deter the commission of such violence in the first place. The Criminal Code provides a broad range of measures designed to protect all Canadians from violence, including, for example, provisions prohibiting assault, sexual assault, criminal harassment, forcible confinement, trafficking in persons, and murder and manslaughter.

These offences do not differentiate between female or male victims, with perhaps one exception. Section 268, which is the offence of aggravated assault, includes a “for greater certainty” clause that specifies that female genital mutilation constitutes a form of aggravated assault.

Similarly, Criminal Code prohibitions do not differentiate between other types of victims, with the exception of child victims of sexual assault, although the general sexual assault provisions are often used as well when you have a case involving a child victim.

The sentencing principles and objectives of the Criminal Code do, however, recognize the different impact that certain crimes may have upon some victims. It does so by directing sentencing courts to treat specific factors as aggravating circumstances for sentencing purposes, including where the offence was motivated by bias, prejudice, or hate based on specific factors, including race or sex, and where the violence in question was committed against the offender's spouse or common-law partner or against a young person under the age of 18.

As the committee will know, the government's commitment to tackle violent crime continues to strengthen this criminal law framework, particularly with a view to better protect Canadians, including vulnerable groups, against all forms of violence. For example, the Tackling Violent Crime Act, 2008, raised the age of consent to sexual activity to better protect youth against adult sexual predators and enacted more effective sentencing and monitoring measures to prevent dangerous and high-risk offenders from reoffending.

In addition to these substantive protective measures, the Criminal Code also contains numerous provisions to facilitate the testimony of vulnerable victims and witnesses, including complainants in sexual assault, spousal abuse, and criminal harassment cases, who are primarily women.

Testimonial aids such as testifying from behind a screen, through closed circuit TV, or with a support person are available upon application where, based on the surrounding circumstances, including the nature of the offence and any relationship between the victim and the accused, any physical or mental disability, or any other relevant circumstance, the victim would be unable to provide a full and candid account without that testimonial aid.

The department has a number of policy and programming initiatives that also contribute to the overall criminal justice response to violence against women. I would note in particular the Justice-led federal victims strategy, which aims to improve the experience of victims of crime, including women who have experienced violence, in the criminal justice system. Working in close collaboration with the provinces, territories, and key stakeholders, the strategy supports initiatives to identify and respond to the needs and concerns of victims of crime.

An example of related research undertaken by the department's Policy Centre for Victim Issues, which administers the federal victims strategy, is the January 2006 report, “A Review of Research on Criminal Victimization and First Nations, Métis and Inuit Peoples 1990 to 2001”. It's a report that's also in the process of being updated right now.

The Policy Centre for Victim Issues also supported the Centre for Children and Families in the Justice System to develop its 2009 handbook for young victims/witnesses entitled, The Journey to Justice, A Guide to Thinking, Talking and Working as a Team for Young Victims of Crime in Canada's North.

Another relevant example from the federal victims strategy that I would note was its September 2009 conference entitled “Northern Responses and Approaches to Victims of Crime...Building on Strength and Resilience”. This three-day conference brought together over 275 professionals who work with victims of crime in the three territories. It included a number of workshops addressing aboriginal women as vulnerable victims and witnesses.

The other strategy I would note is the Justice-led federal aboriginal justice strategy. It is cost-shared with the provinces and territories. This strategy uses traditional dispute resolution methods to address crime and victimization and currently supports more than 120 community-based justice programs in approximately 400 aboriginal communities across Canada. Through this holistic process, offenders are held accountable and attempts are made to repair the harm suffered by the victim while at the same time restoring relationships between victims, offenders, and communities.

Lastly, I'd like to note two examples of federal-provincial-territorial collaboration on issues of violence against women. These are issues addressing missing women and spousal assault.

The federal-provincial-territorial working group on missing women was established in early 2006 by federal-provincial-territorial deputy ministers to examine the issue of missing women in Canada. The working group, which is co-chaired by British Colombia and Alberta, is focusing on the effective identification, investigation, and prosecution of cases involving serial killers who target persons living a high-risk lifestyle, including those in the sex trade. This work, which is expected to be completed later this year, includes an examination of best practices to enable earlier detection of potential serial murderers as well as strategies to protect potential victims.

The second example I would point to is the 2003 final report of the ad hoc federal-provincial-territorial working group reviewing spousal abuse policies and legislation. The Department of Justice served as the federal co-chair of this review through its partnership in the family violence initiative. This final report provided a comprehensive review of the implementation and status of criminal justice measures adopted in the last twenty years on the issue of spousal abuse, including the pro-charging and pro-prosecution policies adopted by all Canadian jurisdictions in the 1980s.

The review included a consideration of the particular impact of spousal abuse on aboriginal women. In addition to its specific recommendations, the report identified three objectives that should inform future criminal justice responses to spousal abuse: firstly, criminalizing conduct—in this case spousal abuse; secondly, ensuring that the measure promotes the safety and security of the victim; and thirdly, ensuring that the measure maintains confidence in the administration of justice.

In conclusion, we recognize that violence against women is a complex issue and that ensuring a comprehensive and effective criminal justice response to violence against women requires significant collaboration between all levels of government and a range of responses to combat it, including strong criminal laws and policies to prevent its commission and to effectively respond to acts of violence, once committed, to provide victim support, to continue to provide public education, awareness, and professional training.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

Thank you so much.

Our third presenter today is the Department of Public Safety.

Are you both going to share the time?

Okay. Please proceed.

[Dr. Daniel Sansfaçon, Acting Executive Director, National Crime Prevention Centre, Department of Public Safety]

Good afternoon, my name is Daniel Sansfacon, Acting Executive Director of the National Crime Prevention Centre with Public Safety Canada. I will be sharing the speaking time with my colleague, Ed Buller, who is the Director, Aboriginal Corrections Policy.

I will be basically talking about three things. I will try to go over them fairly quickly, so that we have enough time for discussion together. First, I will talk about the broad direction of the National Crime Prevention Strategy. Second, I will talk about the current situation and third, briefly, I will give you at least one example of a program that we are currently funding.

The objective of the National Crime Prevention Strategy is mainly to reduce offending behaviour as much as possible. We feel that well-thought-out and properly implemented prevention measures are the best way to reduce the number of victims. At the same time, we are obviously aware that this is a long-term process, and the effects will only be felt several years later, after the projects have been carried out, especially since our targeted groups are youth aged 6 to 24. I will talk about this in more detail later.

The strategy uses three mechanisms in particular to finance prevention actions in the field, across the country. The more general mechanism is the Crime Prevention Action Fund, which is approximately $37 million for the year 2010-2011. This is the principal fund in the sense that we use it to try to fund initiatives that are largely based on the knowledge of what “works to reduce crime.”

The second mechanism, created specifically at the recent renewal of the strategy in 2008, is the Northern and Aboriginal Crime Prevention Fund. As the title indicates, the objective is precisely to help the Aboriginal communities to implement prevention actions that are focused, but also adapted to their realities and their circumstances. This fund amounts to $8 million for 2010-2011.

Finally, even if it is less relevant at the moment, there is the Youth Gang Prevention Fund. This fund is limited, ending on March 31, 2011; it has $6 million available for 2010-2011.

As I told you earlier, the strategy's main priorities are to prevent offending behaviour—especially in youth aged 6-24, since that is when the main delinquent tendencies are seen—among the Aboriginal people and Northern communities, and to prevent the recidivism of former offenders who have completed their sentence.

NCPC funds interventions that focus on high-risk children and youth who present multiple risk factors for later delinquency. These risk factors include things such as having been exposed to or indeed having been a victim of family violence, for example. NCPC also funds interventions aimed at preventing re-offending among high-risk chronic offenders in communities, including those who have a known history of spousal or child abuse.

My colleagues mentioned this earlier. Through census data and other data, it's well known that many aboriginal people are exposed to greater risks for crime and victimization than non-aboriginal people would be. One of NCPC's priorities includes supporting culturally sensitive initiatives that will foster the development and implementation of crime prevention approaches in aboriginal communities, both on reserve and off reserve, and build the knowledge and capacity required to develop and adapt effective ways to prevent crime.

Over the course of the past two years, the NCPC has been an active and supportive partner in many aboriginal communities across the country by investing over $46 million to fund 40 crime prevention projects aimed at aboriginal communities, most of which are currently active for the next couple of years.

This is part of the documentation you were given. Historically, the NCPC has funded projects to reduce offending and indeed prevent victimization, which have produced quite positive results, such as the domestic violence treatment option in Whitehorse that was funded in 2000 or the Gwich'in outdoor classroom project in the NWT.

But I will not dwell on these programs since you have in front of you the summary of the evaluation, which shows that these initiatives helped to reduce the offending behaviours among youth.

One of the current ongoing projects is the Aboriginal Women's Support Centre at the Minwaashin Lodge, in Ottawa. This is a multi-service centre that provides culturally appropriate healing, educational and recreational services to the Aboriginal communities. The three-year project will employ an educational approach to try to prevent forms of violence, including violence against women, among girls and boys ages 12-18. Participants will be drawn from those youth who are currently using the services of the sponsoring organization and its partners. Over the course of this three-year project, it is estimated that 200 Aboriginal youth will participate.

These are examples of the types of projects that are funded by the National Crime Prevention Strategy. We have good reason to believe that they will help to reduce violence against Aboriginal women, and violence in general.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

Thank you.

Mr. Buller, there are four minutes remaining in your time.

[Ed Buller, Director, Aboriginal Corrections Policy Division, Department of Public Safety]

Okay.

Good afternoon. My name is Ed Buller. I am currently the director of aboriginal corrections policy within Public Safety.

I would like to take my time to share an approach to preventing violence against aboriginal girls and women that recognizes that reducing violence in the community as a whole will result in improved safety for aboriginal women and girls.

A number of aboriginal communities have demonstrated that cultural processes based on their traditional beliefs and practices are effective in addressing criminal activity, support the treatment of victims, and also provide a platform for sustainable economic, social, and cultural development.

For example, a study of the Hollow Water First Nation healing process in Manitoba showed that over a 10-year period it provided treatment in the community to more than 100 offenders and approximately 400 victims of sexual or physical violence. The recidivism rate for offenders through their healing process was less than 2%, compared to what is generally accepted, a 19% recidivism rate for sex offenders who go through the regular Canadian justice and corrections system. The study concluded that for each dollar invested by the Government of Manitoba, it would otherwise have to spend $3, and for every dollar the federal government invested it would otherwise have to spend between $2 and $11.

While the study showed that support to Hollow Water was a good financial investment, the community also recognized other benefits that impacted positively on its members: substance abuse was significantly reduced; parents were taking a more active role in their children's upbringing; and youth were staying in or returning to school. Approximately 40 children from other communities were fostered in Hollow Water, and former residents were moving back into the community. They saw this community as a safe place to live. While starting as a healing process for victims and offenders of sexual and family violence, Hollow Water's healing process has been shown to have had a significant impact on the safety and wellness of the whole community.

Many aboriginal communities are returning to traditional approaches to mobilize their communities to overcome barriers to common problems. After several decades of government attempts to break them into pieces through the provision of discrete programs to respond to problems, communities are looking to traditional strategies that bring the community together and mobilize to resolve community-wide issues.

Healing approaches move communities from fixing problems to building communities into a civil and sustainable society. This translates into healthier communities for all of the communities' residents directly through integrated programming and indirectly by being responsive to individuals' needs and aspirations.

Over time, we have come to believe that the first step of community healing is a community safety plan, which would enable communities to develop comprehensive and integrated responses to safety issues. These community safety plans would identify key issues and challenges relating to community wellness and safety, while providing guidance and focus for the years ahead.

Community safety plans will enable communities to define risks that lead to crime and victimization, build on assets, and identify gaps in responding to those risks. Because community safety plans are comprehensive in their nature and are not restricted to the mandates of either Justice or Public Safety, these plans provide the opportunity to work collaboratively with other funders to respond in an integrated manner. The community safety plans will then serve as a blueprint to systematically address the root causes of victimization and respond to current community safety issues.

Various funding programs currently exist to respond to violence against women; however, in many cases, these programs respond to specific issues only and do not allow communities to coordinate or combine their responses.

Supporting communities to more strategically tailor their responses to community safety will allow programs to build on existing resources, while optimizing communities' ability to access existing and new sources of funding.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

If I could get you to quickly wrap up your remarks, I'm sure people would be very interested in questions.

[Ed Buller]

The benefits of this approach will be that as communities define their priorities and strategies for reducing violence against women and girls, federal departments will be able to target more effectively their individual services to meet community needs. Furthermore, governments will gain knowledge about community needs and expectations, leading to improved federal policy based on actual needs and approaches that work.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

As I said, I'm sure people will want to know some more details within their questions and answers.

Could we finish up with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police? I'm not sure who is speaking for you today.

[A/Commr Bob Paulson, Assistant Commissioner, Contract and Aboriginal Policing, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

I will speak. I'm Assistant Commissioner Bob Paulson.

Madam Chair, hon. members of the committee, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak about violence against Aboriginal women in Canada.

As you know, the RCMP, in partnership with other police services, has an important role to play in making our communities safe. We are the provincial police service in eight out of ten provinces. We provide police services to the territories and many municipalities throughout Canada. As such, we also provide essential police services to first nations, Inuit, and Métis communities.

Aboriginal communities are one of the RCMP's five strategic priorities. Violence of any kind in aboriginal communities, as in any other Canadian community, concerns us. Prevention, education, and enforcement are areas where we are focused and actively improving our efforts. The key to reducing violence is the need to have broad and meaningful engagement across all levels of government and civil society.

I have my colleague, Chief Superintendent Russ Mirasty, and other colleagues here with me today and we will be happy to tell you about our initiatives and answer any questions.

Merci.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

Thank you so much.

I guess we will go into our first round of questions, a seven-minute round for questions and answers, starting with Ms. Neville.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of you for being here today. I have many questions and not nearly enough time.

I have a bit of a preamble or preface. Let me just say to you, Mr. Buller, that I know the Hollow Water initiative in Manitoba. I know that it is an integrated, holistic approach that has been going on for a long period of time, with many different resources going into it. It has had many successes and a number of setbacks along the way, but it is perhaps a model.

To the RCMP, I had the opportunity to meet with the governing council of the Highway of Tears initiative and was pleased to see your involvement there in an effort to have a more united, holistic response to the issue.

But I guess I'm really concerned. At one point last May, my colleague, Todd Russell, and I wrote to the Minister of Justice calling for an inquiry on the missing and murdered aboriginal women, and we virtually received a letter of response that talked about all of the isolated initiatives going on. And there are a number of initiatives going on, but what I am struck by as I listen to the presentations from government primarily is the question, do you talk to each other? Is there an overall integrated approach to the issue? It is a very complex issue.

The funding for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, which dealt with many of the issues related to violence against women, has been cut, and there doesn't appear to be an overall plan. There are lots of one-offs, but there doesn't seem to be a comprehensive strategic, integrated, holistic plan.

When we talk about root causes, some of them have been identified, but we didn't hear anything about issues related to housing, and we didn't hear anything about the generational impact on aboriginal people, the cycles of poverty, or any of that. So tell me what is happening in government that gives us hope that there is some real effort to deal with this. It is a complicated issue, but one-offs are not going to do it.

I don't know who wants to answer that.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

Who'd like to tackle that question?

Ms. Quinn.

[Mary Quinn]

Thank you very much for the question.

I can tell you that the Public Health Agency of Canada does lead a family violence prevention initiative where 15 departments come together. There are three objectives to that initiative: one is promoting public awareness about the risk factors of family violence and the need for public involvement in responding to it; a second is to strengthen the capacity of health, housing, criminal justice, and social systems to respond; and the third is to support data collection and research and evaluation efforts.

The role of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development specific to family violence prevention is through our family violence prevention program. We also work with stakeholders, such as the National Aboriginal Circle Against Family Violence and the Native Women's Association of Canada.

We do make efforts at integration and coordination. It's an area where we can always do better, particularly in an area as important as family violence prevention.

With respect to the related issues around housing and education, clean drinking water, child and family services, we're now working in five provinces to introduce prevention measures, so we're not always looking at protection and removing children from the home. We're working on many fronts in the department and with colleagues and with provinces, because social services is largely a domain where provinces either have jurisdiction or have tremendous expertise that they can build on.

So there are efforts under way to ensure coordination and set priorities for coming years, but as I say, it's also an area where we can and must always improve.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

I have so many questions. You talk about the Public Health Agency leading. Would you say the Public Health Agency is leading a government-wide...and does it include Justice and Public Safety as well? If so, should we be calling them to the committee?

Is there such a thing as a plan where you can look at a graph or a flow chart or something that says we're doing this with these goals and anticipating those outcomes? It simply strikes me that there are so many one-offs and no planning.

I'm repeating myself.

[Mary Quinn]

In terms of the agency, they do lead the initiative, but it's largely a coordination role. It's not as if they have so many programs themselves.

Then, in terms of programs, each department has its own mandate, of course. So there's housing, because there's a need for housing on reserve, but obviously with good quality housing and good clean drinking water, we can help on the--

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

I've travelled in northern Manitoba extensively. I've been in the houses, where I've seen families of three, four, and five generations living--many people. It's a boilerplate for violence, not only because of the overcrowding, but the conditions of it. Is that all factored into this?

[Mary Quinn]

Yes and no isn't a good answer, but in the initial--

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

It's largely no, in my experience.

[Mary Quinn]

Well, as part of the initiative we all bring what we can do through our own mandates, and we all keep each other informed of what's going on and how it could be better coordinated. We have increased funding to deal with housing and water. We're trying to make efforts with aboriginal first nations organizations on education. We are working with colleagues in terms of how to advance our objectives and get better results.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

We'll go to Madame Demers.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you for being here today. I have a lot of questions for you.

I see a lot of money is being invested, and I am wondering where it all goes. Personally, I went to Nunavut and visited a shelter. That shelter receives $1 million per year, but there are things that I do not understand. There is no transition house or programming. The people at that shelter have no clothes. They have to beg for clothes for the children. They have to beg for clothes for the women at the shelter. The women have to stay there for more than six weeks because there is no transition house.

About $30 million a year go to 35 shelters, whereas we know that women's shelters in the Aboriginal communities receive $190,000 per year and that they are under-funded compared to shelters in the other Quebec communities, for example.

In some Aboriginal communities in Quebec, the situation is so tragic that some families have two or three children who commit suicide. I spent three days in Nunavut, in Iqaluit, and three young people, aged 15, 16 and 17, committed suicide. Money does not seem to be the answer. And maybe the way it is used is problematic. Are we working too much in our offices and not enough in the field?

It worries me a great deal to know that there is so much money allocated, currently $30 million per year, and the additional $56 million that were invested in 2007 over five years. That is a lot of money. Where did that money go? You talked about programs, Ms. Quinn, but that is not enough.

Ms. Morency, could you tell me what you are going to do with the $10 million that were invested in the justice system for the purpose of determining what happened with the unsolved murders? You are telling us that, since 2006, you have been investigating the unsolved murders, rapes and disappearances of Aboriginal women. What have you discovered during these four years? Have you shared your information with the people who work for the Sisters in Spirit initiative? Have you told us about your findings? Actually, we have been asking for an investigation for a few years, and now, you are telling us that you have been doing one. Obviously, we were not informed. Otherwise, we would not have asked for one.

I will stop at these two questions for the moment.