Evidence of meeting #44 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 work.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you.
You also urged us to take stock of our investment in addressing violence. I was wondering if you could speak more to this and give your thoughts on this approach. You've talked about a patchwork that is lacking coordination.
12:30 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Plan International Canada Inc.
In my earlier remarks, what I said was that really there is an accident of birth in Canada that should not be allowed. Whether I'm born a child of a first generation family, whether I'm born as an aboriginal child, whether I'm born in a remote region or an urban region, the services I get, the prevention measures in place, the kind of policing to which I'll have access, the kind of legal aid to which I'll have access are up for grabs. They shouldn't be. On this issue of violence against women and children across the country, we should be able to know that we have access and equity in terms of the preventions that are in place to protect us, the provision of services if something happens to us, and the justice to which we will have access to remedy that.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
I know I'm running out of time, but perhaps you might like to table this with the committee. You talked about a need for effective legislation. What kind of legislation are you looking for?
12:30 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Plan International Canada Inc.
Specifically, what I would love to table with the committee is the national action plan of the Government of Australia. The Government of the United Kingdom did a very accessible national action plan in 2010. From a Canadian perspective, in terms of our complex federal system of different jurisdictional levels, the Australian plan frankly is something which we could take almost wholesale and translate into the Canadian condition. A lot of the work has been done. What was brilliant about the Australians is that they did cross the spectrum. They addressed behavioural change. They identified six national outcomes. They gave themselves 12 years. They revisit that national action plan about every 18 to 24 months to see what's happening and where it needs to be tweaked and adapted.
12:30 p.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc
Thank you.
If you would kindly provide the links to the websites or the documents, we'd very much appreciate it. We could then distribute the information in both official languages, perhaps in the form of an executive summary, depending on how lengthy the documents are and whether they are available in French. They seem to really tie in with our study. Since we must provide the information in both official languages, our analyst will tell us whether it's possible to provide an executive summary to the committee members.
Thank you very much. That was very helpful.
Ms. Perkins, over to you for seven minutes.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Pat Perkins Conservative Whitby—Oshawa, ON
I certainly have found all of this very enlightening. I appreciate the work that has gone into each of your presentations and all the work you continue to do.
I've looked at this, and perhaps there are some missing pieces. Maybe they've been addressed in other ways and I'm not familiar with them, but when I look at things I want to see the more holistic approach: what all the factors are.
Ms. McCarney, you in particular talk about putting the complete data together, but is it going to be complete enough? Are there going to be portions of it that would deal with the various types of home environments, ethnic environments, and cultural environments and what piece they have? What piece does media have, whether it be the gangster rap or the degrading type of music videos? What portion of it does sports have? Perhaps we should be looking.... The Argos' program and all of those things are great, but I also see that on American sports teams, in particular—I'm not too familiar with what is going on in Canadian sports teams—there are significant numbers of rapists, convicted rapists, on American sports teams. These people are being idolized. They're NBA players or whatever they are and they're being idolized by these young folks.
The folks who grew up in the fifties, sixties, and seventies had this thing about women liberating themselves and becoming equal. Society in itself has taken a massive turn; it has gone all the way around a corner in latter years and is putting women back down on that slope. Women rose, but they've taken a turn by virtue of some of this sort of stuff, because the girls are seeing in these videos that's what they are supposed to be like, that the gangster rap is acceptable. For some of the stuff that we're filling young people's heads with, I question why we're allowing that stuff to happen. Is that wholesome? Is it giving them good nurturing and an understanding of what life is about, or is it giving them a twist on what...?
How do you figure in all of those factors? They all exist. How do you figure all of them into how we move forward?
12:35 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Plan International Canada Inc.
I could start, but I think my colleagues will have something to say.
I'm not sure what we can do about those negative images and the stereotypes in terms of shutting them down, because we live in a free and open society. What we can do is strengthen the other side so that those are not the only messages that young people are receiving and they're not the only role models that young people will look up to. We have to strengthen this other side so that it is as appealing and as attractive, and maybe stigmatize, use stigmatization in reverse on the other side.
We're not going to have a perfect plan. We're not going to have a perfect society. We are imperfect human beings. But we need to start. It's going to be raggedy and it will get better as we go, and I think we'll turn the behavioural issues and the prejudicial issues around over time. Certainly, we did that on race, and we've done this on class. We've done it on other things. We did it on cigarette smoking in 10 years.
We can do this. We can change attitudes in the face of all of those negative images and stereotypes.
We can do it. We just have to get started.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Pat Perkins Conservative Whitby—Oshawa, ON
I have a belief that we can, but I'm just pointing out that we are not addressing those pieces. Should they not be addressed in that these are the challenges that are out there? You have to look at the challenges as well if you are going to approach it and have it all on the table is what I'm saying.
12:40 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Plan International Canada Inc.
That's true. In empowering young boys and girls to speak up and to take a stand and giving them the confidence to do that, I think they'll lead the way for us.
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, White Ribbon Campaign
There is this notion that Rosemary brought up of creating alternative content, because it's overwhelming to think of every sexist ad, every sexist music video, every convicted felon on a professional sports team in the world, and how to approach those is so complex and so vast that it's almost overwhelming.
One thing that we focus on at White Ribbon is this notion of creating the content that shows the positive way. But the other thing, and I think probably the most concrete solution to dealing with that overwhelming challenge, is to teach young people how to be critical of those things.
When we work with young men and boys and we point out some of these harmful and toxic ideas of masculinity, for example, we do an exercise with them. We talk about sexual violence myths, the things we hear all the time: what was she wearing, what was she drinking, why was she there alone, all of these types of things. Obviously we deconstruct a little bit about what that is saying about women and girls, which is awful, but what is this also saying about men and boys: that we are a mini-skirt away from being a rapist, or that we're unable to control ourselves and we're just barely able to contain ourselves from sexually assaulting somebody if we have a beer? That's what those myths are reinforcing on the critical side for men and boys.
If you teach young boys to see some of that, all of a sudden they can see it in lots of different places and they become the change agents who you need to recruit to get that kind of transformative change happening across society.
It's extremely taxing and incredibly frustrating as an organization to spend your entire life every time a petition comes for a sexist ad, every time a music video raises some controversy.... Obviously you have to stand up and model that kind of intervention and behaviour as well. But how do you change the music industry? How do you change a pro sports league? How do you do those things? That's the bigger question.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Pat Perkins Conservative Whitby—Oshawa, ON
The family piece I guess is the one we haven't addressed in all of this, because children throughout the world and even just the kids in our country because of the entire multicultural nature of what we are, there are a lot of beliefs in ethnic.... So how does the family piece work into it?
12:40 p.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc
The family piece is a very important component, but that's all the time you have for now. You may want to raise that question later on.
I'll now turn the floor over to Ms. Sellah.
February 3rd, 2015 / 12:40 p.m.
NDP
Djaouida Sellah NDP Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to thank all the witnesses for joining the committee today.
I want to echo the sentiments of all my colleagues and commend you on your tremendous leadership and all the work you are doing at the ground level to combat violence against women in all forms.
You have probably heard about Bill C-570, brought forward by Rob Anders, which seeks to impose minimum penalties in the case of rape. The bill focuses on rape.
My question is for all three of you.
Were you consulted when the bill was being put together, yes or no?
12:40 p.m.
Author, activist, litigant in Jane Doe v the Toronto Police Force, D.U. LLD, As an Individual
No, nor am I familiar with anyone working in the area who was.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Djaouida Sellah NDP Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Very good.
Is it the same thing for the two of you?
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, White Ribbon Campaign
We were not consulted, but we don't work on the justice side of things. We work on prevention, education, and awareness.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Djaouida Sellah NDP Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Ms. Doe, my next question is for you.
If we want to create legislation to address violence against women, shouldn't that legislation target all forms of sexual assault?
I'd also like to ask another question. Do you believe that the way to stop violence against women is through a bill that imposes minimum sentences? Are there not other, more appropriate ways to solve the problem?
12:45 p.m.
Author, activist, litigant in Jane Doe v the Toronto Police Force, D.U. LLD, As an Individual
Thank you, Ms. Sellah.
I do not believe that longer or extensive prison sentences work in any way, especially for the 80% of women who are raped or sexually assaulted by the men to whom they are economically and emotionally tied. In fact they suffer from those sentences, especially economically. I support the context of smaller prison sentences, but I think—and I believe this is what you are asking—we have to do the work before we get to court. We have to do the work before the legislation is passed.
I'm not quite sure I'm answering your question.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
Djaouida Sellah NDP Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
You answered it in a way.
I think Mr. Minerson has something to add. Please go ahead, sir.
12:45 p.m.
Executive Director, White Ribbon Campaign
There's one thing I would add around sentencing and rehabilitation that we think about when we look at the spectrum of engaging men. We don't work in particular with men who have used violence, but I know from colleagues who do that work that unlike domestic violence, interpersonal violence, where a number of provinces have diversionary programs that work to rehabilitate men who have used violence, there's no such equivalent for men who've perpetrated crimes of sexual violence. Sending them to prison is purely punitive and does nothing for rehabilitative purposes.
In terms of one gap that we're in conversations about with some of our colleagues in this work, there is nothing for men who have perpetrated sexual violence. In fact, there's no diversionary programs even for groups of men, like the dental students at Dalhousie. A prison sentence is probably not what's appropriate for those particular men, but some kind of remediation, some kind of rehabilitation, is probably very much required. There's nothing out there for men in those situations at the moment.
12:45 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Plan International Canada Inc.
If you haven't heard from them yet, I believe the John Howard Society would be able to provide terrific insights to this committee on the diversion programs they offer in the physical assault area. I'll defer to Todd in terms of his understanding of the programming around sexual assault, but they have had decades of experience working with male offenders and physical violence against women. I cannot speak to the sexual side, but I think they would be very good witnesses for this committee, if you haven't already had them here.
12:45 p.m.
Author, activist, litigant in Jane Doe v the Toronto Police Force, D.U. LLD, As an Individual
From my understanding of the programs at John Howard, which does some very good work, their anger management programs don't work. It's crazy; it's a course that you're mandated to take, but they are not as informed as they should be. The issue isn't just anger. The anger is coming from a place, and that's where we need to go. The programs are not effective. Women are saying that they're not effective and men are saying that they're not effective.
In aboriginal communities we've seen great success in restorative justice. That has certainly been adopted and trumpeted. I do have to tell you, sadly, that aboriginal women are telling us that it does not work in instances of rape, sexual assault, or interpersonal violence. It doesn't work in those cases.