Status of Women Committee on Feb. 29th, 2012

[Linda Savoie]

Definitely.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

So why is it difficult? Why do you have departments trying to achieve different things if you've sat down together and decided what you're trying to achieve with taxpayers and funding?

I'm just not getting that.

[Linda Savoie]

I think it was not always perfectly aligned. It's because we're all project-based. So each project has that framework, that logic framework that comes with it. It describes what it's trying to achieve.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

But aren't you funding the project?

[Linda Savoie]

Yes, we are.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Would you set up the objective of the project?

[Linda Savoie]

Not always. On the calls for proposals, for example, in the blueprints we set out what the outcomes are going to be. In other cases, when groups come forward to see us, they set out the outcomes, and they have to show how those outcomes are aligned with our mandate.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Okay. So you—

[The Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

Thank you very much. Sorry.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

I look forward to revisiting that at some other time.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

That would be a good thing.

Madam Sgro, for seven minutes, please.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Thank you very much.

Welcome. We've been talking a lot about you, so it's great to finally have you here with us.

In getting ready and doing some analysis on the study we're just starting out on, in many of the areas they pointed out that Canada's women and girls were doing quite well in comparison to many other countries. But the one area that was flagged was the issue of aboriginal girls. I think we're all well aware of the fact that there are many challenges there.

Can you give me some more information on how you're doing outreach and what other programs you're doing specifically for the aboriginal girls? I think that's our biggest challenge.

[Pascale Robichaud]

In terms of outreach, for example, the rural call was actually very good in harnessing projects from aboriginal communities. We received quite a few projects.

In terms of outreach, we also have....

My apologies, but I will continue in French.

We begin by contacting other departments with relatively similar projects or programs to see how we could work together. We work with some national organizations, such as the Native Women's Association of Canada.

So we have different ways to reach girls in the communities. We talked about that earlier, and the principle is very similar. We use either targeted calls, or projects where we are familiar with some of the organizations and where we can be proactive. People sometimes come see us and tell us about projects. That helps us figure out whether we could work with other organizations.

As I was saying earlier, there are also organizations that are not necessarily aboriginal, but are working with aboriginal groups. When we meet with organizations, we do our best to consider that aspect. We meet with organizations and ask them where they work, what their target population is, whether they work with aboriginal people and whether they were thinking about aboriginals when developing their project. Sometimes, that is indeed the case. We ask those organizations if they have thought about a more culturally appropriate approach. Therefore, we try to reach the population, either through calls or our work, be it in regional offices or the head office.

I don't know whether I have answered your question fully.

Am I answering your question?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Do you have some examples of some specific projects that are currently under way that are specific to—

[Pascale Robichaud]

Yes.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

—trying to reach out to the aboriginal girls so that they know there are opportunities for them?

[Pascale Robichaud]

Yes, I was just about to do that earlier.

I am referring to a specific project. I briefly mentioned it earlier. That project was carried out in remote Quebec communities. As part of the initiative, an organization would go to eight communities and educate young girls. Once that step was completed, some of the girls were asked whether they were interested in doing more in terms of research on the topic at hand—in this case, violence—by creating short films or any other artistic products they could distribute. Afterwards, they could speak publicly about their product. It was sometimes difficult to do that in certain communities. Once the short films or artistic products were completed, the women would get an opportunity to distribute them in their community, in the broader sense, so that those communities would be informed about the issues.

An interesting project was carried out by a non-aboriginal organization that had developed a model based on leadership training for young women. The women had mentors and were given an opportunity to develop peer networks and then go back home to do activities and put the skills they had acquired during the training into practice. They could go back to their respective communities and talk about violence-related issues or other types of issues. An aboriginal organization visited that non-aboriginal organization to see whether the model could be adapted. That model was extremely successful.

They sat down and considered the issues for discussion and the way they should be addressed. Then, they created an advisory committee made up of 10 young aboriginal women to identify the topics. Afterwards, they created the national forum. Once again, the goal was to try to reach young aboriginal women. Everyone was invited. I think that almost 340 people showed an interest, and a small number of them were chosen because we could not take everyone.

However, that gave us an opportunity to provide those young women with training. They then returned to their communities. They have been given support to develop community projects, try to get their community interested in certain issues and find the right partners.

Those are examples of projects whose scope is regional, but also national. Aboriginal and non-aboriginal organizations working together to get the best of both worlds really worked well in this case. It was very productive.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

How do you assess the success of some of these different programs? Continue on the aboriginal girls side in particular.

[Pascale Robichaud]

For a short period of time, success can be measured based on the rate of participation and the resulting projects. When projects are being considered, it comes down to whether they could have a sustainable impact on the community. That is often determined based on participation rates. After a while, it becomes more complicated to determine the long-term impact because the projects have a set length.

[Linda Savoie]

I would add that, when projects are being designed, we often try to create that sustainability by seeking out partners.

For the longer-term success of the initiatives, we'll ask that the community involvement be part of the mix of the project. It creates engagement and ownership in the longer term. Otherwise, we're in, we're out, and then things collapse. We're keen on trying to create circumstances for sustainability.

[The Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

Thank you very much.

It is now Madam Young for five minutes.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you very much for being here today and for being so thorough in presenting us with all of this wonderful information.

I know there have been some changes to the program in the last year or two, as you have said. I want to be very specific about it so that we have it clear in our heads, because we've been hearing so much about what the situation is. I notice in your presentation that you said you had over 330 applications and were only able to fund 15 projects in this one area. Is that correct?

[Linda Savoie]

We had some 330 applications for the blueprint projects: 65 were funded and 15 were youth- and girl-specific.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Like most or all government programs, would you say that generally or overall you always received more applications than you were able to fund?

[Linda Savoie]

Definitely. Like every program, there is a range in terms of quality and alignment with our program. There are some professional applicants out there. There are always a certain percentage of projects that are not relevant to what we're trying to achieve. This being said, a large number of interesting groups and interesting projects don't quite make the cut as we have the ability to pick the better ones.