Status of Women Committee on Nov. 20th, 2014

[Linda Savoie]

My answer will be very concrete.

We have funded 22 projects at the country's universities and colleges. That started a little less than three years ago and all the projects are about to wrap up. In the last few weeks, actually, I met a group that had conducted a project here in Ottawa. Some very interesting information trails are beginning to emerge. One of the discussions, for example, dealt with investing in security by installing cameras and determining their usefulness.

From that project, we found that a very large part of the violence to which young women on campus are subjected comes from people they know. It is something to consider, but it is not enough. We determined that excessive alcohol consumption is a huge risk factor for young female students. Several potential solutions were identified and the work continues.

The Ottawa group is called OCTEVAW. Perhaps you might be interested in inviting some representatives. If not, there are 21 other possibilities. I would be happy to supply you with the names.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much, Ms. Savoie. Potential solutions are always a very interesting subject. I am sure that we will have the opportunity to find out more about it.

Mrs. Ambler, you have the floor. You have five minutes.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thank you to all of you for being here today, for your presentations, and for answering our questions so ably and thoroughly.

First of all, I would like to give my friend and colleague Mr. McColeman a minute. He was so impressed by the talk of the child advocacy centres, and he has a question about them, for Ms. Arnott, I think.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Thank you to my colleague for this. I'm sitting in as a guest at this committee today.

You mentioned there are 22 centres across Canada, and there are more perhaps in the queue for consideration. What are the criteria you're using to decide where those are located?

[Pamela Arnott]

The U.S. has the National Children's Alliance. It has 10 criteria it applies for a child advocacy centre. We are trying to have a pan-Canadian approach to have as many places across Canada that will meet those 10 criteria in providing services to children and their non-offending family members.

We operate on a continuous receipt basis. We invite organizations to apply at any time. We have just worked with people who have expressed interest in funding. I have a map that I can provide to the committee that shows the geographic distribution. I'm very proud to say that we have child advocacy centres that are in the process of being created or are open in almost every province and territory in Canada, including in the north, which I think is so important.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Are there any statistics that lead you to certain areas of the country because of the incidence of victimization, enhancing the proposals from certain regions or communities in the country?

[Pamela Arnott]

We've taken a little bit of a different approach in the sense that the request for funding has come from communities. This really is a bottom-up approach. Community partners such as police, child protection, victims services have come together and said, “Golly gee, we have to do something. You do great things. We do great things. How can we work together better?” That's where we've been able to support that bottom-up approach.

I'd say that globally there are more child advocacy centres in the west, but I wouldn't want to go so far as to say that's because there is more child abuse or child neglect in the west. Really, that's where there has been a groundswell of community organizations wanting to work together in this multidisciplinary approach.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Thank you for that.

Full disclosure: I'm acting selfishly here, as I represent the largest first nation in Canada. It's part of my riding of Brant. We have a large spectrum of different services as a result of that, so it intrigues me to find this out.

I appreciate your comments.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

That was a great question. You should come to our committee more often.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

I want to continue on with what Madam Sellah was talking about.

As the mother of a daughter in second year university, and as a member of Parliament who has a shadow here today from McGill University—welcome, Samantha—I want to give you an opportunity, Linda, to finish your answer, because it sounded like you were rushing at the end when you were talking about the 22 projects.

My question was going to be on what kind of federal support services and programs are available, and you had already started answering that, so I'll give you the rest of my time to do that.

[Linda Savoie]

For us it has been an extremely interesting call for proposals. We've really enjoyed working with the groups that have examined the issue of the safety of young women on campuses. It will become even more exciting in the next few months, because as the very last months of these projects take place, in the next four months or so, we will be doing a very comprehensive evaluation of this one to see what should be the next steps.

As I was mentioning already, it's interesting, because it's not just physical infrastructure that contributes to safety, it's also awareness of certain risk factors, such as alcohol consumption. We're not the only ones who've noted this, as Ottawa Hospital has been leading-edge in identifying this fact, but large-scale events like frosh week and Halloween parties are extremely high-risk factors for sexual assaults to take place.

We also have some gaps that have been identified through our projects. For the most part, the victims don't know that services exist on campus, if there are some, and often there are no such services on campus. Just having to leave their campus to get the support is a serious barrier for these young women to get help.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much. I'm sure you're going to have a chance to answer further on that, because that is a very interesting subject that seems to interest the members.

Ms. Crockatt, the floor is yours. You have five minutes.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

I too want to thank all the witnesses.

I've found this to be a buoying exercise, because we have a chance to hear from each of you on some of the areas that are working. I think sometimes the public can feel very dejected when they keep hearing about problems that we know exist, but if there are solutions that are working, then we owe it to the public to tell them. You have done an excellent job of giving us a glimpse into some of those areas today. I want to thank you for that.

I have a couple of clarification questions that I was hoping to ask.

First of all, someone mentioned that the The Lancet is releasing something online tomorrow.

Kimberly, could you tell us what that's about, please?

[Kimberly Elmslie]

Yes, and because we work with our colleagues there, we get an embargoed advance copy. This is a fulsome series of articles on violence against women and girls, which starts with discussion of what the evidence tells us about what we should be doing in prevention, the health system response, a review of how health systems are responding, and some commentary on what more could be done.

An article talks about the range from working with men and boys to changing social norms, so I think that will be of great interest to your discussion in this committee. It talks about a conceptual shift in prevention of violence against women and girls, so our thinking about this encompasses boys and men, as we have talked about.

Regarding prevention, it also covers lessons from practice, getting right down into what we know from what's happening in practice, and it presents a call to action, asking where we need to go from here.

It is a very fulsome set of work.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

To follow up on that, either Linda or Kimberly—I hope you don't mind my addressing you by your first names—

[A voice]

Please do.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

—could answer this. We have seen the statistics and it doesn't look statistically as though we're making headway in the way we'd like to. Yet we have examples, really some quite stunning and sterling examples, with the child advocacy centres, for example, of how we're moving forward. How can we measure this? Are we just seeing more women reporting as more awareness comes up? Are we actually making progress? How do we measure that?

[Kimberly Elmslie]

That's a good point.

[Linda Savoie]

My goodness, when you're trying to tackle an issue of that size, the ultimate indicators are slow in moving, so what we would like to see is more discussion, maybe before we even get to a point of more reporting. Those are the types of measurements by which we can see how many schools are implementing programs, how many boys and girls clubs, YMCAs, etc., are implementing programs. There are a number of players, so it's a matter of the direct influence we have and the indirect influence we have. Ultimately we hope to see some movement on these very large indicators, such as the rates of experiences of violence.

I'm not sure this is a very satisfactory answer, but it is extremely difficult at this point to claim any significant shift in the data in terms of reductions in rates of violence.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Ms. Arnott, you mentioned in the area of missing and murdered aboriginal women that the projects have been quite successful. Could you expand on that for us a bit?

[Pamela Arnott]

I'd be happy to do that. Since 2010, we have funded a number of projects, largely in the west. We've worked with provincial and territorial governments but also with non-governmental organizations. What we've tried to do is adapt or create victim services to help family members, always from a starting point that respects culture. The committee will be aware that the needs of family members of a missing person are very different from those of a direct victim. The same thing goes when it's a murdered person. The family members there will have very distinct needs.

Some of the projects we have worked on, for example, are to put a victim services person who is specialized in that area within a victim services unit. I am thinking here about a project we did in Alberta that provides that kind of dedicated services to 12 communities, 10 of which are first nations and two of which are Métis.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

What is that called?

[Pamela Arnott]

It's in cooperation with the Alberta Solicitor General and it's called the victims outreach specialist project.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.