Status of Women Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2015

[Rosemary McCarney]

Every year we put out a report called “State of the World's Girls”. About three years ago, the report was entitled “So, what about boys?” As part of that report we did primary research across five countries, including Canada, and surveyed boys nine to twelve years of age to figure out the inflection points, and how to get at those issues.

If you look at that report, you'll see that the Canadian boys were very similar to the Indian boys, etc., and 96% said they believed in equality; they believed that the girls in their classrooms could do whatever they do—high 90s, great attitudes. Then we asked about what they think is the role of men and boys, and they said that the role of men and boys is to protect girls; their job when they grow up is to earn the living. Three years ago ,these were Canadian boys age nine to twelve in our brilliant school systems across the country.

While they had the lead in equality, what they hadn't learned was what that meant in practice in terms of society's expectations of them, and the violence issues that came out, the violence they experience as young boys on the school ground because of our silly, narrow definitions of what it means to be a boy and masculine was just heartbreaking. It was probably my first time in doing these annual reports, and you know, we're working in northern Nigeria and Syria, but it just sent a tremor down my spine that these young Canadian boys were struggling so much with exactly these issues.

Why I urge you to take a look at the Australian report is that they've taken a 12-year horizon on this. You can't turn this on a dime. One group, one association, cannot do it. They looked at not just prevention and accountability, but also the behavioural change that's necessary and the things that my colleagues are talking about that are absolutely necessary, but we have to get started and we have to start very young.

[Jane Doe]

I certainly would agree.

I'm familiar with a project at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. It's called the anti-violence project, and it's university-based of course. They're late in the game, but they've done an incredible job of looking at sexual assault specific to the campus site and building programs, including the bystander program and mandatory programming in sexual education for athletes, and for men in general where men can come together and talk about what's going on.

I've been doing a lot of work with the Linden School for girls, which is in Toronto. It's a private school, so the access is much easier. Getting programs of any kind into the public school system is very difficult, primarily because of parents' objections. Perhaps I could also get you looking at parents about sex education.

I think one thing that is really critical is it's not enough to just come in with these programs once and have them once or twice a year. The information has to be integrated into all our other subjects. It can't just be someone who shows up and says these things. As I mentioned earlier, modules need to be inserted into all our education that specifically talk about issues of violence.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thanks very much everyone.

Ms. Crockatt, you have five minutes. Please go ahead.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you Chair, and thank you again to all of our witnesses here today. I think when each one of you was speaking, I had a wow moment. We were really learning some new stuff which I think is very critical.

My family has been involved; my mom started one of the early assault centres for women, and I started one of the sexual assault centres. We started out by removing women from the situation. Then we moved to removing women and children from the situation. Then we went into charging men. Then we went into sort of educating families. Now it looks like we're educating communities. I see some progression in where we're going, but I think all of you are talking today about educating communities. I'm taking that as a really strong takeaway that that's where we actually need to be now, rather than keeping it as a tight issue just with the people who were involved, and that stopping this cycle is also involving us in schools and in sport, which I think are two really important things that we learned here today.

I appreciate, Jane Doe, that you're raising the alarm that we have some significant issues that we need to deal with. I really liked this idea of the role models, particularly for young boys. I remember a moment with my son when he was about 11. He had been kind of acting out, and he got a teacher in grade 7 that was really a good guy, a young teacher who had just graduated from university, so he was cool. My son came home one day, and he said, “Mom, I've figured out that you don't have to be bad to be cool.”

I think that's what we're learning with the Toronto Argonauts, the Calgary Stampeders and the Edmonton Eskimos, and things like that. I was reminded of the Changemakers program in the States, Dads United for Parenting. I think that's where a lot of this is going.

Todd, I want you to talk more about that, because I think that's the Kodak moment that we actually have to take away in this study. Could you talk about that please?

[Todd Minerson]

Yes. The power of role models is really important. It's partly about that strength-based approach which I mentioned before, that the way we change attitudes and behaviours is by showing the right way, not by condemning all the wrong ways. Obviously, we have to hold people to account for those things, but if you want to actually change behaviour, you have to give people a road map about how those behaviours should look. One way to do that is through role models.

Another piece of that is who the messengers are for this kind of thing for young men and boys. We think about that a lot. In certain places, for things like raising awareness, celebrities, athletes, musicians, and football players are great messengers, but for everyday behaviour change, people also want to see themselves reflected in that. That's where projects like our “It starts with you. It stays with him.” are so important, because men who want to be better fathers, who want to be more involved in their children's lives don't want to have to think that they have to be celebrities or superstars to do that. They want to see their own experiences reflected in that effort.

Many men, particularly when we think about fatherhood now, want to do things differently for their kids, whether they're young boys or young girls. Many men also tell us they don't know how because nobody did it for them. That's not blaming their fathers, because probably for a lot of us our fathers are from a different generation, my own father included, whom I love dearly. He has probably said about six words about consent and sexual health education and healthy relationships to me in my entire 43 years of life, and that's probably a lot.

Having these kinds of ideas around role models is a critical way to change it, but it's not the only way. What we know from some other work that the World Health Organization has done in evaluating projects with men and boys is that these things are most effective when the work can happen in small groups, when people can see it reflected in the communities that they're part of, whether that's a school, a family, or a faith group, and when they see those messages reinforced in the public. If you can tackle it from all three places where they're learning in small groups and testing out the role modelling behaviour they're seeing and the messages are reinforced publicly, that's when we see the best and longest lasting change in attitude and behaviour.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Are we reaching aboriginal boys with this message?

[Todd Minerson]

There are two amazing campaigns. One is the I Am a Kind Man campaign, which Ms. Bennett already mentioned, and the other is the Moose Hide Campaign in B.C. They are doing some unbelievable work, but are we reaching enough? No.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you Ms. Crockatt.

[Rosemary McCarney]

On the front page of the Globe and Mail this morning, Chief Bellegarde of the Assembly of First Nations said that it's also about us: the violence. It's a large article, if you haven't seen it yet. I thought, I'm going to be seeing Todd today; I bet everyone is celebrating that. It was a huge courageous act of leadership to say that yesterday.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you.

Ms. Freeman, you have five minutes.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

I have another question for Jane Doe.

We've heard a lot of experts from the legal community—across different committees and the evaluations of different bills—saying that there's a strain on the legal aid system. There's been a reduction in funds from the federal government and there's a need there.

From your experience through a lengthy legal process and through working with others, could you speak to how legal aid is helpful for victims of violence and sexual violence in accessing the legal system? Also, what other things can we do to help access the legal system itself?

[Jane Doe]

Any strain on the legal system has not come from women who experience violence. You're not eligible to apply, whether the issue is intimate partner violence or sexual assault.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

You're saying that people aren't even getting to the legal system.

[Jane Doe]

You don't get that financial aid, which then of course makes it incredibly difficult to get to the legal system. Personally, my civil suit was scores of millions of dollars. I was funded, but it's erroneous to say the courts are open to everyone. They're open to those who can afford to enter the system. But certainly that minimal aid that legal aid does offer is not available to women who experience violence and are in the legal system.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Then that would be something that would at least be helpful, even though we know that the numbers of people who will be reporting and going into the process, even with financial support, are incredibly low.

[Jane Doe]

Absolutely.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

What else can we do to even just encourage...apart from anonymity, from legal aid? Do you have any recommendations there?

[Jane Doe]

Well, one recommendation I have specific to violence against women is that women have to have their own legal representation. In a sexual assault case, the woman has no legal representation. The crown attorney purports to be that, but he is there to represent the state, or Regina more specifically. That's his job. It is not to represent the women involved.

I was the first woman to successfully secure my own legal representation in a court of law in a criminal rape trial, so it's quite possible. But we are in denial of that, and we fear that if the woman has that representation or right, it somehow diminishes the full and best legal representation possible for the alleged perpetrator. That's one recommendation.

Similarly, for women who experience intimate partner violence, in Toronto, quite recently, in 2011, a domestic violence court was established. Women have a very difficult time there because they have no voice; they are not able to speak for themselves.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

If we're going to do anything when there's someone who has lived violence or been sexually assaulted, or any sort of violence that we experience, the first thing we need to do is to try to empower them, right? It's not trying to take away their—

[Jane Doe]

Absolutely, and one way to empower them, aside from that, is that women need information, so they can make an informed decision about where they're going and how.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

I am wondering if you could talk a bit about rape culture in the workplace. How do you see that? As I understand it, you do have experience speaking about this.

[Jane Doe]

I'm not separating rape culture from the workplace, from the family, from sports, or from the government. I think we separate these things way too much. We live in a rape culture, period, and it is out of control in all of our sectors and all of our institutions. We just don't know it is or the degree to which it is, because women don't report. The conviction rate is under 1% for women who file those charges. It's the same with sexual harassment: when you do report, all kinds of horrible things start happening to you, particularly to children or very young women who report. You lose your job. That's a very likely outcome of doing that. For young girls who report that they've been sexually harassed at school or sexually assaulted, their lives are over. They are pretty much banished from the schoolyard because they have told. They usually have to leave school and go to another school.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

Next, it is over to Mr. Barlow for five minutes.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

I want to get us back on track with best practices. What we're really here for today is to talk about some of the successes that are out there and how we can address some things, and promote those and try to bring them onto a more national scale.

Last week Dr. Katz was here talking about changing the narrative significantly from violence against women to men committing violence, and about changing what is really the root cause of this.

Todd, I want to ask you a little bit about a program that was done by the White Ribbon campaign called “Give Love, Get Love” which was, I think, a partnership between White Ribbon and Dad Central. Can you expand on that a little bit? I think it was really to talk about some of the positive role models that fathers and dads can take. As a father of two daughters, I think this is, as you said, also something that it's important for us as men to start taking the forefront on. I understand that study has been done. Can you expand on that program a bit?

[Todd Minerson]

I mentioned I have an eight-year-old son, but I also have a four-year-old daughter, so this job is a little bit overwhelming sometimes since I have to factor in both perspectives.

We did a research project with Dad Central Ontario called “Give Love, Get Love”. Because fatherhood is such an important access point for talking to men about gender equality and healthy relationships and violence against women, first of all we wanted to understand whether men recognized the changing nature of fatherhood and how that was supporting the goal of achieving gender equality, and whether they could connect those dots. We also wanted to spend some time asking them where they were accessing information, how they were relating to people, and how they were learning about this. We wanted to know where we could find them to share some more of this stuff and help them along that journey, because fatherhood is definitely changing in this country. More men now than ever before are taking parental leave. More men have and live in double-income families in which the hard reality of income inequality hits home when a female partner doesn't make as much as a male partner does. More and more men are taking an active role in caregiving for their children.

We found that a lot of men didn't really understand the connection between being a more involved parent and advocating for gender equality, but it was very natural to them. Very few men wanted the outcomes for their daughters to be different from those for their sons. The equality of opportunity is there. The desire for a life free of violence is there. But as Rosemary was saying earlier, how that happens and what the implications are were not all there for fathers.

We also investigated where they were getting this information and how they were trying to access it. Not surprisingly it wasn't through a lot of formal means, but it was through networks of friends and peers who were also fathers. It gave us a lot of insight on where to reach these guys and how to share with them that so much of what they were doing already was promoting gender equality and working to end violence against women that some of the fears and barriers they experienced didn't need to be there, and that they just have to get out there and keep doing a lot of the good stuff they've been doing.