Status of Women Committee on March 1st, 2011

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

I can reassure you that there is no abandonment of anything. In fact, I'm very committed to the issue of gender equality. I consider myself to be an advocate of women's rights. I always have been and will continue to be.

If I do talk about equality between men and women it is sometimes because I'm trying to reach out to women, and to the men in our community in particular, to get more involved in the issue of gender equality. I think that sometimes just mentioning the words “men” and “man” and including them in some of the projects we're doing is helpful.

Gender equality continues to be of paramount importance, obviously, in all of the work we do at Status of Women Canada and in my personal professional life. I hope that reassures you.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Were you--

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Mathyssen. I'm sorry.

We've come to the end of the questions. The ministers have indicated they would like to leave at this point in time.

Or are you prepared to stay longer?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Thank you very much for this appearance and good luck in your deliberations.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair. We appreciate it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I hope we can begin. What I wanted to do is tell you that you still have the officials here, who will answer questions, so I thought we would do that for the next 20 minutes. Then we'll have 10 minutes to do some housekeeping.

We will go, then, with a five-minute round, starting with Ms. Simson for the Liberals.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank all the witnesses for appearing today.

Primarily, I have questions for you, Ms. Clément. I hope you can help me.

I am concerned about the funding of a lot of the projects that Status of Women gets involved in. Specifically, we've heard from groups across the country that the funding is erratic and that it tends to be at the last minute if they do hear that funding is being extended. In other words, sometimes on a Friday they don't know whether they can open the door on Monday.

I understand that we have financial challenges right now in the country that we're trying to meet, but two weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend the Ghosts of Violence ballet, which had been provided $317,000 by Status of Women. It was a beautiful production--and don't get me wrong, I'm a patron of the arts--but that said, I was certainly left wondering whether that was a good use of our resources. Quite frankly, the point was missed, and not only by me. I was there for opening night and didn't hear one comment about the content and the message it was trying to drive home.

I guess I have a concern about how the money is prioritized. Are you, for instance, asked for your feedback? Quite frankly, to see groups like Sisters in Spirit have their funding cut, in favour of something that in my mind was clearly a Heritage Canada issue, had me a little concerned.

[Suzanne Clément]

To deal with the question on the funding decisions being erratic, I'll refer back to the changes the minister mentioned earlier that were made to the women's program to be as responsive as possible to the needs of community groups. We are working very closely with community organizations as they develop their projects, and at the point at which the projects are complete and presented to the organization for assessment with the other departments, a very, very short period of time is taken. We're now having decisions on projects within three to four weeks from the time that a final proposal is submitted to us.

In terms of groups, if groups are making those comments, as you know, the women's program is for one-time funding, for actions that are taking place in the community to help women directly. We're not a funding source for ongoing and operating funding for organizations.

[Michelle Simson, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

That was made clear.

The issue I have with respect to this is that there is no interaction with the stakeholders in terms of programs and that it's top-down. We're telling these organizations that in order to receive funding, they have to fit into this little box, which would be fine if you're consulting with them as stakeholders to ask whether that is actually going to do the job or be effective.

[Suzanne Clément]

In launching the blueprint project in early February, we worked through our regional program officers across the country, who had been working with organizations closely. We consulted them to find out what the predominant issues were that organizations wanted to work on.

We developed six themes that were recurring across the country. We developed what the proposals could be like, with a number of areas that could be filled in by the organizations themselves. We launched the project and invited groups to come in with their proposals.

We've received over 320 proposals. Organizations said that this was an innovative way of reducing the work they had to undertake before they could come and obtain funding from Status of Women.

Sisters in Spirit was an NWAC project that ended on March 31. The work between Status of Women Canada and NWAC, however, did not end on March 31. We had a project funded with NWAC for $500,000 at the end of March, and now a $1.9-million, three-year, community work project that has been recently announced.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

The next round goes to Ms. O'Neill-Gordon for the Conservatives.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for staying to answer our questions. We appreciate your time.

In our minister's presentation, she mentioned that $19 million in grants and contributions to organizations was going to support more than 350 projects. I have three reserves in my riding and I know that some of this money has gone to them.

Will the Status of Women funding for aboriginal shelters for women and their children be increased to meet the gap between what is currently available and what is needed to keep women and their children safe?

[Suzanne Clément]

The Status of Women program does not permit us to fund the operation and management of shelters. What we do, however, is work with community organizations to try to address the ongoing funding issue, to address the recruitment of specialized health practitioners, and to address the need to network with other shelter organizations across the country to put in place good practices. The initiative called Uniting to End Violence Against Women was meant to do just that: to ensure that shelters across the country share the good practices and learn how best to approach their situation.

We did one project in Nunavut where there was a lack of shelters for women in Iqaluit. Our funding was used to develop expertise and to get funding from local governments and the provincial government to help create a shelter with day care initiatives built into it.

Our funding continues to be available to help communities address the need for shelters. One of the helpful new initiatives in the women's program approval process is that we're bringing in other federal departments to discuss and review the assessment of projects submitted to us. Wherever a shelter project is being proposed, we invite officials from HRSDC, CMHC, and INAC to join the discussions. We believe that we are building a much better awareness of the needs and bringing organizations into working more closely together.

The other initiative that Status of Women Canada has been working on is reinstituting the shelters initiative as a priority under the family violence initiative, which brings together 17 departments to look at this issue. Shelters in the north is one of the key elements being looked at.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Thank you.

That's fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

All right.

I will move to Madame Demers for the Bloc Québécois.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon.

Ms. Hitch and Mr. Rozon, a number of the witnesses the committee has met with have told us that many aboriginal women end up being arrested because they were victims of violence who did something about it. After being battered for a very long time, they finally hit their breaking point and turned on their attacker. And very often, these women are charged and put in jail.

The committee has heard repeatedly that the department should definitely conduct not only a gender-based analysis of legislative measures, but also a cultural analysis of the legislative measures specifically affecting aboriginal women and this issue. Has the department undertaken to do that?

[Lisa Hitch, Senior Counsel, Office of the Senior General Counsel, Family, Children and Youth Section, Department of Justice]

Forgive me, but I will answer in English, if you do not mind. It is a bit hard for me to answer in French.

This is not my area. I am not working with the criminal law. I can tell you that there are programs within the department, as the minister mentioned, that specifically look at and try to deal with the issue of overrepresentation of aboriginal people, men and women, within the justice system. Some of those are in the aboriginal justice strategy, which looks at setting up—

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Are you with the Department of Justice?

[Lisa Hitch]

Yes.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

And if a gender-based analysis of legislative measures had been undertaken, you would know about it, even though it is not your area of expertise, would you not?

[Lisa Hitch]

We are now at something more than 1,500 lawyers, so I may not be aware of all of the studies the department is doing. I can certainly undertake to get back to you on whether there is such a study within the department.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Please.

Mr. Rozon, are you aware of such a study? No? What is your job at the Department of Justice?

[Marc Rozon, Director, Innovations, Analysis and Integration Directorate, Department of Justice]

I am the director of the grants and contributions program.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

So if such a study were under way, you would probably know about it.