Status of Women Committee on Jan. 13th, 2011

[Chief Betsy Kennedy]

My name is Betsy Kennedy. I'm the Chief of War Lake First Nation. With me is Chief Francine Meeches of Swan Lake First Nation.

We have many notes here, I notice, and a lot of information, but we would like to speak to the family violence prevention programs, the missing and murdered women, and also the sexual exploitation of our girls and women in our communities.

To give you the history of the AMC women's committee, the chiefs sit on this committee. It works toward improving the situation of first nations women and ensuring that Manitoba first nations are involved in decision-making. This is comprised of chiefs and councillors in leadership roles in their communities.

The issue of family violence and intervention is one of our major concerns and takes up many of the lead initiatives. Bill C-3 is supposed to highlight this, but I think some of these things also pertain to what's happening in the communities and how these women are being exploited.

Bill S-4 deals with matrimonial and real properties. When women have to leave the communities because they're just not going to be able to stay on their reserves, they are coming into the city, and this is where many of them are being exploited. I mention this because I believe you wanted to know some of what happens here.

There's also our section 37, which we would like to see. I know this is going to go to the Commons. This has to do with the missing and murdered women of Manitoba and Canada. Following the directions of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, the committee continues to advocate on the issues of missing and murdered women, as a disturbingly high number of women have gone missing and have never been found. Most are aboriginal. According to the Native Women's Association of Canada, approximately 580 aboriginal women have gone missing and have not been found across Canada; 84 are from Manitoba. The AMC has called upon the federal government to initiate a public inquiry into this number of missing and murdered women. There has also been an announcement by the federal government that the amount of $10 million is to be spent within the two years.

Also, in 2009 Grand Chief Evans developed an agreement with the RCMP to have a first nations community liaison worker, Constable Monique Cooper, to be located at the AMC office in Winnipeg. This was established when the parents, the mothers of these missing and murdered women, came to us. We had a working relationship with the RCMP, and now have a woman working exclusively at the AMC office. We would like to recognize that work, which is happening right now. To this day, in both southern and northern Manitoba, there has not been any word on these women to their parents that they've...or how far this was going. The AMC continues to work closely with the families of these missing and murdered women and with the RCMP and Winnipeg Police Service's missing persons unit.

There's also the issue of human trafficking. Since 2009 AMC has been actively addressing human trafficking. The grand chief and the women's committee continue to raise the issue for discussion at the chiefs assemblies.

I want to tell you that when we have our annual assembly, women's issues are being brought out to the forefront, and we do have the support of all our chiefs. We are very proud to say that they really recognize what we've been doing. In turn, these discussions bring awareness into our homes.

The next part will be on family violence. We sit on a committee on family violence and--

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Perhaps, Chief Kennedy, you can bring that forward in answer to various questions. We've now finished with our presentation time. Thank you.

Now we'll go to the question and answer time. The first round is a seven-minute round, which means that the questions and the answers are included in the seven minutes. Again, brevity would be appreciated.

We start with Ms. Neville from the Liberal Party.

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

Thank you.

I'm going to begin with you, Chief Kennedy.

Chief Kennedy, if you would, tell us about the family violence program, what it consists of and how widespread it is, please.

[Chief Betsy Kennedy]

The family violence program has been going on since 1998. This information is in your package. We started sitting on a committee, the leadership, comprised of the women chiefs in Manitoba. One of the first things we wanted to look into was family violence.

There are some elders and there are some community members who sit on this board. We have made booklets available to the communities, and these have been sent out to every first nation in Manitoba.

The causes of family violence...there are a lot of problems. To me, I think it started from going to residential schools. When you were at school during those times, you were not with your family or with your parents, so there was no relationship there and the bonding was lost. When we came home--and I'll say “we” because I attended. You lose your language and people make fun of you because you do not speak your language. Even your own family, your brothers and sisters, make fun of you because you don't speak the language. I think that's one of the reasons why family violence starts. It starts with ridicule.

It also starts when you're going to school. Many of us didn't even start going to school to take a course until we were 30 years old. I know I started when I was 30, and I finally completed everything I wanted to by age 40. Many of us are not fortunate to have this support. I know that my grandparents were the ones who gave me the biggest support in what I was doing.

In the communities there is isolation and a feeling of despair sometimes. You want to buy something, you want to get something for your children, and you just can't, so you find other ways of doing things. Much of this is taken out on the wife and the children.

I think there needs to be a holistic, cultural approach.

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

We've been advised, in both this forum and in other forums, of models of family violence intervention that have been successful. Can you cite any in Manitoba that the committee can reference and look at? Can you cite whether they've been successful? We frequently hear about Hollow Water. I've heard anecdotally about others, but I'd be interested in your perspective.

[Chief Francine Meeches]

Can I speak to that, please?

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

Sure.

[Chief Francine Meeches]

I want to speak about what we do in our community. I'll just explain that she comes from a northern community and I come from a southern community, so we have one from the south and one from the north.

How we deal with family violence.... In our communities it's not something everybody is aware of. It's hidden. Nobody is going to admit to any type of family violence in their home. When you have situations where children are acting out like parents would act out, then you know you have a problem. And we have that.

We work closely with a shelter from a nearby community--I think it's Winkler or Morden, or somewhere around there. We work closely with that shelter. The lady from there works really well with our health centre. When you have that kind of working relationship with the surrounding communities, it benefits your people.

The thing we're finding is that we need a lot of counselling in our communities. It's going to take years to get to the point where we want to be, because counselling is a big thing. Right now we're in a situation where we have so many different areas where people need counselling that we don't even have the money to pay for it. We can't get money from FNIHB in INAC to cover that cost for us. You provide us an amount; we've already expended that amount, but we're trying to help--

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

We're talking about family counselling.

[Chief Francine Meeches]

Yes, I know, but when you think about counselling, it's part of family violence. Think about it.

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

I agree.

[Chief Francine Meeches]

When you have violence in your family, you need counselling. Counselling is a really important part of dealing with that family violence.

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

Is there a willingness to access the counselling if you had the resources?

[Chief Francine Meeches]

Oh, yes, there is, but as I say, it's always the money. It's always the funding that you don't have. We're putting in money from our own source of revenue in order to cover that cost, but you have to do something to help your people. If you're not getting it from where you're supposed to be getting it, how do you deal with it?

If we could have counselling for a lot of our families, a lot of these issues would not.... Your family violence program wouldn't be so expensive. But you need counselling, and it does help.

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

Can I just interrupt for one second?

Melanie, when I mentioned Hollow Water, I saw your head going up and down. Was I right?

[Melanie Nimmo]

Absolutely. It's been put on the map--

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have about 40 seconds in which to answer.

[Melanie Nimmo]

It's been put on the map as one of the most successful models for restorative justice and dealing with the issues of family violence, substance abuse, etc.

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

How can that be successfully replicated? What are the ingredients needed to replicate that elsewhere?

[Melanie Nimmo]

I think it has to be driven by the members of the community. I don't think a successful philosophy like that can be imposed on communities. I think communities know best how to solve their own unique issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

We now go to Madame Demers from the Bloc Québécois.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much for being here this morning.

This is a bit difficult. We've actually heard from three groups of witnesses this morning, and they have all said different things. For example, Assistant Commissioner Bill Robinson, who is the commanding officer for the RCMP “D” Division, was here a little earlier, and he described the relationship between aboriginal communities and the RCMP when it comes to missing persons. The picture he painted was very different from yours, Chief Kennedy. You told us that families have not received any information to this day whereas he described in great detail all the steps taken to keep families informed of the investigations into murdered or missing persons. I personally believe you. I don't want to say that I don't believe him, but I believe you.

Ms. Kehler, you talked about alternative justice. You also talked about reducing risks. I'm very interested in those topics too.

Melanie, you talked about programs and sources of funding. Could you tell me more about that?

Cathy, you mentioned a training program for women who got involved in the sex trade to take care of their children. That's a fantastic program and I would like to know more about it. I hope this program can become available elsewhere and I would like us to implement it in other places where it could be very useful.

Those are some of my questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Who would like to start that answer?

Chief Kennedy.

[Chief Betsy Kennedy]

Thank you.

On the information, regarding the information going out to the families I believe the RCMP are doing all they can, but it's hard to go to all the missing and murdered women's families. I know that in the north they constantly ask about what's happening. They need updates. Maybe there is need for a further RCMP involvement and closer ties to the communities, especially...because I know there's a lot of work being done here in the city of Winnipeg.

On exploitation, we have brought out information about it, and we also sit in with and tell Monique, who sits on our committee. She gives us information about all that she does. She has an office here at the AMC where the women go if they need to talk about anything that has to do with the exploitation of women. This is one of the ways how we could help.

[Kelly Gorkoff]

When we talk about reducing risks.... I'll talk about the study I have completed. It was a fairly small sample of about 60 women involved in prostitution across the prairie provinces. We also surveyed 173 service providers who provided services, both state-mandated and non-governmental organizations who provided services, mostly for young people involved in prostitution. We did 43 site visits. They were trying to develop some best practices kinds of models.

There were three things that women who are involved in the sex trade talked about as reasons for why they became involved. First and foremost, it was money. It was an easy way to make money. That would go to the fact of sustainable incomes for individuals. There is a risk factor--sustainable incomes. We know poverty is related to these particular instances.

The subculture that all of the women talked about was in many cases the lack of a loving relationship growing up and finding that loving relationship on the street. Interestingly, for 70% of the young women we talked to, the reason they came to work on the street was through aunts and friends. So we didn't find the big, bad pimping issue. Now that could have been a result of the sample we spoke with.

The subculture also means a risk. That certainly points us to the community building kinds of aspects in all of the programs that everybody here is talking about.

In terms of program use, all of the women said they would avoid using state-centred services. As young people, they were very hesitant to become involved in, and had bad experiences when they were involved in, child welfare agencies, but tended to gravitate towards programs that were harm reduction based. This is where they could go and get condoms and clean needles and where they could go and just talk to somebody, not necessarily an official program, but the door was always open and they could come and go as they pleased. Those programs were the ones that were the most insecurely funded.

By the time we had actually finished our study, 20 of the 43 programs had lost their funding. Those were the programs that were the most often used, whereas the child welfare.... Interestingly, in this particular timeframe, the Protection of Children Involved in Prostitution Act in Alberta came into effect and the sexual exploitation program in Ontario was in its last reading. I know Manitoba had a very different approach in developing the healthy child initiative, which was a different approach in terms of certainly the Alberta model.