Evidence of meeting #40 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was children.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:30 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc
Thank you, Ms. Crockatt.
Ms. Ward, I'm sorry if I interrupted you. Would you like to finish your sentence?
10:30 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc
Could you press the button for your microphone? Thank you.
Ms. Ward, following Mr. Barlow's remark you were mentioning...?
10:30 a.m.
Executive Director, Armagh House
Our process is to engage men for the speaker's bureau for our organization, not just to speak to organizations or places that contact us but actively being part of that in the community where we are offering the speaker's bureau to address violence against women.
The speakers come from the men's side. That's one of our goals. It is actively in process and I look forward to bringing that to life in the next year.
10:30 a.m.
NDP
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to address the technologies. I'll ask either Ms. Martin or Ms. Tygesen, whoever would like to take this. Can you provide this committee with very specific examples of a technology that has been used to find a woman, and whether it's cellphones, it's Google...? List them and give us the specific example of how that impacts you.
10:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Ernestine's Women's Shelter
In my situation, it was the GPS on her phone. He ended up actually at the shelter in the parking lot. A staff member was leaving and demanded that she.... He didn't know what that building was—
10:35 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc
I'm sorry, but we seem to have a little technical problem at this point. I will just ask you to manually open and close your microphone when you are speaking so we can have interpretation. Thank you very much. It's just a little technical glitch that we have right now, so that's okay.
10:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Ernestine's Women's Shelter
All right.
In our situation, he showed up at the shelter. He was able to find the shelter through her GPS on her phone. He demanded that the staff go and get his wife out of there. He didn't know what the building was. He figured it was some sort of government building, but she needed to come out. So the staff was able to sort of de-escalate the situation, send him on his way, but then coming back in to say that we now need to move her immediately. Then we figured out what was on her phone and we got it turned off, etc.
But it raised other questions. Suppose he had shown up with a weapon. What if he had come to the door with a weapon and made demands of the staff? We have policies. We have lock-in, lock-down procedures that do get put into place, unfortunately, a little too often. Most of the shelters have this sort of locked space, so as soon as you come in you cannot go any further until another outside door shuts and then the inside door will open up. Then there's bulletproof glass within that perimeter.
If he had come to the door, then it would be a conversation with staff. What would have happened if he had grabbed her, come to the door, held a gun to her head and said, “Let me into the shelter; I want into the shelter”? Then we're not going to let her in, if it meant putting everybody else at risk. But these are the kinds of things that happen, because we have to play out the scenario in our minds: “Okay, he got this far, what would have happened if he had gotten that far?”
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
You've talked about scaling up of best practices. What would you like to see in this report? What would be your recommendation to this committee regarding the scaling up of best practices?
10:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Network of Women's Shelters and Transition Houses
As I mentioned, I think a good way to start the report could be to look at that notion of best or promising practices generally, before you start enumerating all your best practices. Then looking in terms of how many have been scaled up and what the barriers are to scaling up. I think that would be really useful.
I'm going to sound self-serving, but really, before 2012 there was no national network. Actually, it was established following the first global networks meeting that happened in Edmonton in 2008, where there were a number of countries that did have national network associations. I do feel that an association like ours would have the capacity to share better. I think the work of this committee will be very useful, but really that information has to be in the hands of those who are on the front line.
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
What are the barriers? What are the barriers to scaling up, and what do you need in the report to address those barriers?
10:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Network of Women's Shelters and Transition Houses
In order for us to be able to share them, we need to have more than one staff person, for sure. It's the way our country is set up and we have to work within that, but every province has its different ways. I do know that in terms of the technology there is a project funded with the BC Society of Transition Houses. It is an ongoing project now dealing specifically with technology and it's funded through Status of Women.
10:40 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Kirsty Duncan
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
We now move to Ms. Ambler. You have seven minutes.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON
Thank you.
I'm delighted to have this opportunity to continue. Perhaps I might continue along with what John Barlow was talking about regarding involving men and boys. I wanted to ask you specifically about your governance model, the board structure, and specifically how you involve men and why you involve men, also, not really related but more to governance, how you raise money.
Maybe you could talk about Walk a Mile in Her Shoes, as some of the other places, communities and cities in Canada, may do something similar. I know we've met up there a few times and some of the folks dress up in superhero costumes. I don't really know the significance, but maybe you could tell us about all of that and how it all works.
10:40 a.m.
Executive Director, Armagh House
Okay.
We're governed by a board. We can have a maximum of 12 members on our board.
10:40 a.m.
Executive Director, Armagh House
There are various roles. We have a treasurer, vice-president, president, and then members of the community at large. We often engage professionals with various expertise to be on our board. We do that because we want them as well to go into the community and talk about being a board member and about our services and about how we are trying to prevent violence against women and how we are supporting these women and children who have been victims—
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON
Do they do most of your fundraising? How much of your funds come from what they do? How does that all work?
10:40 a.m.
Executive Director, Armagh House
For second-stage housing, we unfortunately receive a significantly lower amount of money from the government. We have to fundraise more than 50% in order to maintain our services and support. That is one huge barrier for us and is often a challenge when we want and we try to implement best practices and programs, and to be part of the community at large.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON
What kind of dollar numbers are we looking at? What is 50% of your operating budget, if I might ask?