Status of Women Committee on March 1st, 2011

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Good.

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

--but I would like to follow up on that because it is such an important ruling. Can you ensure that as part of the judicial training that takes place in this country there will be a component--if it's not already there--that deals with the reality of women's lives today and some of the issues women face?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Again, the judicial training component is administered at the provincial level, among those jurisdictions, of course, that have the responsibility. But I can tell you that in my discussions with provincial Attorneys General--and I agree with them--this is certainly a priority and it must continue to be a priority.

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

I would have liked a clearer response on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Madame Neville.

Now we will go to Madame Demers from the Bloc Québécois.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good morning, ministers.

Minister Ambrose, I want to commend you on your French. Thank you very much. I also want to commend you for giving the Native Women's Association of Canada $1.9 million so they could continue with their project Evidence to Action. It was very encouraging to hear that.

However, when we toured aboriginal communities, one of the most urgent problems we saw had to do with shelters. There were not enough shelters, or they did not receive adequate funding to operate properly, or they were too far away from the communities. As a result, shelters were having to take money that would normally be used for operating costs to pay the travel costs of women who wanted to come to the shelter, given that the plane ticket for one woman cost between $1,500 and $2,000.

Did you take that into account in the plan you talked about earlier to reduce violence against aboriginal women? That is one of the biggest problems.

We also find it appalling that there is no transitional second-stage housing for these women after the shelter. They often have to live at shelters for nearly a year, even though they are not normally supposed to spend more than 30 days in a shelter for battered women, and certainly no more than 1 to 3 months.

Minister Nicholson, we know that a large chunk of the $10 million went to public safety, even though a lot could have been done from a justice standpoint to improve the situation of aboriginal women. How much of that money is administered by your department? And what specifically are you doing in your department to improve the situation of aboriginal women?

Lastly, what is happening with prisons? It is a fact that aboriginal women make up a large part of the female prison population, and very often, these women do not have access to the various programs out there. Was that also a consideration when you developed your programs?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

The $10 million is over and above that which is already allocated from INAC, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

As you know, the CMHC shelter enhancement program, the five-year program, was part of it. There are provisions with respect to native health, which is an important component of that. A number of initiatives come within the purview of the minister responsible. So the $10 million that was included in the budget is over and above that, and again, my colleague--

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Minister Nicholson, what is happening with the prison programs available to aboriginal women?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

In terms of what exactly?

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

I am referring to programs that are available to aboriginal women in prison. Most of them do not have access to the social reintegration programs available in federal prisons. Are you doing anything to address that?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Within the public safety initiative there are programs sensitive to the issues of aboriginal women within the federal prison population, but I think your initial question was with respect to the $10 million. This is over and above any initiatives that have been undertaken by Public Safety and in addition to any additional funding that has been announced with respect to INAC. Again, the $10 million--

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Yes, I understand, Mr. Minister. Forgive me for interrupting, but you are not answering my question.

Minister Ambrose, where do you stand on aboriginal women's shelters?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

Sure. It's a very important issue to have shelters available and accessible to women who are experiencing violence in any community, but particularly in the aboriginal community because, as you said, sometimes there are issues of isolation and distance to deal with. There are a number of things.

My colleague is talking about some of the prevention strategies, and we have a number of projects that we fund, which I mentioned in my opening remarks, to deal with prevention. Beyond that, the government has also committed, as you know, to $50 million, which is the highest amount of funding ever, from the INAC department for aboriginal on-reserve shelters. This is an important step forward. CMHC also has funding available for transitional housing components. For the first time, the Status of Women department has opened up proposals to be accepted for second-stage housing specifically to help organizations deal with advancing strategies for second-stage housing.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Have you told aboriginal communities about that new initiative?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

Yes. Actually, we're targeting aboriginal groups in this particular outreach. The agreement with the Native Women's Association of Canada for the $1.9 million, which we just announced on Friday, also involves the work they are going to be doing with shelters and other services in the community, whether it is to develop strategies to increase access to shelters or awareness of some of the needs that are in communities. The infrastructure is there, and is provided through INAC and CMHC. Beyond that, there is the issue of prevention strategies on which NWAC is also going to be working.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Minister Ambrose, another problem exists when you consider that the provinces, territories and federal government do not have a harmonized approach to dealing with the children. Children in aboriginal communities are often taken away from their families, not because they are being mistreated, but because they are living in poverty. So the child is removed from the home.

It is no different than the residential school situation, for which the government had to apologize to aboriginal communities. We will see the same thing happen in 20 years' time. We will have the same problem because children are being sent off to live somewhere else, where they are not being taught their culture, their values or their traditions. Are you going to do anything about that?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

My understanding from the Native Women's Association of Canada is that part of their community outreach and partnerships is going to include working on this issue. Also, some of the programs that Justice Canada has put forward, in order to look at some of the cultural sensitivities that we need to deal with when we address violence in the aboriginal community, will address this. I think where we will find solutions is by partnering with the aboriginal community and with others, whether they're law enforcement agencies, social services, or other service providers that we can work with.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Madame Demers.

You are over the time. Merci.

Madame Boucher, for the Conservatives.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Good morning, Minister Ambrose, Minister Nicholson and members of the committee.

As you know, the Standing Committee on the Status of Women has spent a lot of time studying violence against aboriginal women. We have had numerous discussions in the House about missing aboriginal women. We have often asked questions. And that is why you are here today. As the parliamentary secretary, I appreciate having this time with you so you can explain what the government is doing about this issue.

Minister Ambrose, in your opening remarks, you talked a lot about SWC projects targeting aboriginal women. What is the scope of these projects? The government is carrying out a number of pilot projects and programs as part of its SWC mission, initiatives involving violence against women and so forth. Could you please explain to the committee the various SWC programs that the government has put in place?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

There are a number of different programs, but in the last number of months, our focus by and large has been on ending violence against women, and, more specifically, targeting vulnerable women, that is, aboriginal women and girls, and women in our immigrant and refugee communities.

We've done that by doing outreach, not only by announcing funding in these particular areas. We're also doing outreach and targeting these communities and asking them to come forward. Whether it's by holding round tables or by Status of Women officials going into regions to meet with different women's organizations, we are proactively asking them to come forward.

We've also changed the way in which we evaluate our projects. I mentioned in my opening remarks that we're moving to a continuous intake process. The reason for this is that a lot of women's organizations have very little capacity. Many of them are run by volunteers and don't have large budgets. Putting together complex proposals can be very challenging for them, so we have changed to a continuous intake process, which allows the officials to work on an ongoing basis with women's organizations to address some of the challenges they have in putting forward proposals to the Government of Canada.

This allows us to work with them and not just shut the door on a particular project. We help them along, giving them concrete advice on how to shape their proposals. In the end, we all have the same goal, which is to support good, solid projects that will provide services to women and girls across this country. That change has been very successful.

As you know, we have our three priorities of ending violence against women, encouraging economic security, and promoting leadership in women and girls. Those are the three target areas that we have been focused on.

As I mentioned, recently we opened up a new way in which we're looking at projects. It's called the blueprint project and has been incredibly successful. We just announced it a short time ago and already have about 320 proposals for projects in front of us. This specifically asks women's organizations to come forward with projects that increase the recruitment of women in non-traditional work; that retain and promote women in non-traditional and under-represented sectors, such as construction, engineering, and science and technology; and that increase women's involvement as decision-makers in community-based organizations.

As I said, these projects provide organizations with just another way in which they can come forward and another funding mechanism to allow them another opportunity to access funding from the Government of Canada. We're trying to be innovative and we're trying to be flexible, and we have found ways to do that in the last number of months. We're seeing a huge uptake from women's organizations.

I think these changes have been positive. They've been well received and successful. We'll continue to find ways to be innovative and to adapt these kinds of ready-made ideas so that we can accept more good ideas from women's groups.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Do I still have time left, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have about two more minutes, Madame Boucher. I'll let you know when you're running out of time.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Last week, you went to New York, and I want to commend you. While you were there, you met with some NGOs. What was the feedback you received regarding our work on the ground?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

The conference was focused on the issue of education and increasing women's participation in science and technology, in under-represented sectors. The feedback was good, particularly on this issue. There was good feedback on the fact that we have announced this new project framework, the blueprints. As I said, it's been very well received and is already oversubscribed, which is good news.

We've also made sure that these projects target aboriginal women and immigrant women. Again, the issue is around vulnerable communities. If we're talking about education, science, technology, or engineering, our projects still have the priority of targeting vulnerable communities like aboriginal women and girls and our immigrant and refugee populations.

It was very well received. We had a strong Canadian delegation that had very good experience on the issues of promoting women and the equality of women in these non-traditional and under-represented sectors. I heard that, by and large, it's something that provinces, territories, and the federal government have to work on together. Because of course not only does it include the way we raise our young girls in society to believe they can achieve all the things that little boys can, but it also includes having good role models and addressing things as complex as the glass ceilings in our post-secondary institutions.

We heard from many, many Canadian NGOs at the conference that do good work. They raised issues of social inequality and issues of poverty, but also more complex issues that we need to tackle as a society, such as things like the glass ceiling in our post-secondary institutions, as I've said, which we sometimes see. There were a number of different issues, but I think our message was well received in the sense that we have shown we are acting within the Status of Women program to support organizations that are putting forward good projects to support women in leadership and to support women breaking through those glass ceilings in non-traditional areas and sectors.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

I'll now go to Ms. Mathyssen for the NDP, please.