Status of Women Committee on Feb. 5th, 2015

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Good morning.

Welcome to the 45th meeting of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

Today, we are resuming our study on promising practices to prevent violence against women.

It is our pleasure to welcome Ms. Michèle Audette—who will be here a little later—President of the Native Women's Association of Canada, and Ms. Dumont-Smith, who is the Director General.

We also welcome Ms. Lana Wells, of the Brenda Strafford Chair in the Prevention of Domestic Violence, of the Faculty of Social Work of the University of Calgary.

By video conference from Halifax, Nova Scotia, we have from Immigration Services Association of Nova Scotia, Ms. Gerry Mills and Ms. Nanok Cha on the left-hand screen. From Toronto, Ontario, we have from the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario, Ms. Deepa Mattoo, who's a staff lawyer.

Welcome to all of you.

The witnesses have 10 minutes to make their presentations.

Ms. Wells, you may begin.

[Professor Lana Wells, Brenda Strafford Chair in the Prevention of Domestic Violence, Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Ms. Crockatt, did you want to say something?

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Would you be able to just identify for us which of the witnesses is which because usually the name cards are—

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

The two ladies from Nova Scotia are Ms. Gerry Mills and Ms. Nanok Cha, and the person who is alone is Ms. Deepa Mattoo.

Does that suit you, Ms. Crockatt?

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Yes, thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Very well.

Ms. Wells, you have the floor. You have 10 minutes.

[Lana Wells]

Thank you Madam Chair and committee members for inviting me here today.

As stated, I am currently the Brenda Strafford Chair in the Prevention of Domestic Violence in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary, where I'm also leading an initiative called “Shift: The Project to End Domestic Violence”.

For the past four and a half years, our research focus has been on identifying, designing, and implementing primary prevention strategies; that is, trying to stop the violence before it starts. In preparation for today, I reviewed many of your past meetings and was struck by the amount of research that you've already been presented regarding the prevalence and root causes of violence against women.

With that in mind, today my presentation is going to focus on 10 commitments that the Government of Canada can make that will prevent violence against women.

Number one, the Government of Canada must develop, implement, and evaluate a national action plan to address violence against women and children in partnership with provincial and territorial governments. The plan needs to focus on primary prevention strategies using a lifespan approach, and most importantly, it cannot be created in isolation. It needs to be developed in partnership with the key research centres, the private sector, and civil society. This plan must also be customized to meet the unique risk factors and protective factors associated with different populations like the aboriginal, LGBTQ, and immigrant and refugee communities.

Number two is to invest in a national child care strategy, one that is based on the principles of affordability, accessibility and high-quality care. This national strategy would support healthy child development and improve opportunities for women who wish to go back to the workforce, or get out of unhealthy or abusive relationships.

Number three is to invest in the prevention of child maltreatment. Children who are abused often grow up to become abusers. We can prevent physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect by doing the following things. First, implement a guaranteed income supplement to low-income families with children. We know that increasing household income lowers the risk of child maltreatment. Second, prohibit corporal punishment by repealing section 43 in the Criminal Code. Research shows that corporal punishment has detrimental effects on children and is associated with later violence perpetration. Third, prevent young parenting and unplanned pregnancies. Young parents and parents of unplanned children are more likely to abuse their children. Therefore, the Government of Canada needs to consider universal access to sexual health education starting in grade 4, no-cost birth control, and universal access to abortion. Health Canada should immediately approve the medical abortion drug Mifepristone. Fourth, an effective way to prevent child maltreatment is to invest in a national parenting strategy to build the capacity and skills of all parents including an investment in programs targeted to those at risk. Some examples include: triple P, the positive parenting program; the strengthening families program, which you've heard about; the incredible years program; and I know already you're investing in the nurse-family partnership in two provinces. They should be accessible across Canada.

Number four is to invest in a national housing strategy, so that women do not have to choose between being in an abusive relationship and being homeless. I echo the recommendations from the YWCA of Canada that was here with respect to the housing first strategy and add that increasing funds to short-term transitional housing is critical in stopping violence against women.

Number five is to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to engage men and boys as allies, partners, and violence disruptors to end violence against women. We've been researching this area for quite some time and have identified five key leverage areas. The first is supporting men's mental health and emotional well-being. Second is leveraging sports, recreation and workplace settings to influence healthy norms and behaviours, and I know that Status of Women has already started to invest in some of these types of initiatives across Canada. Third is supporting healthy male peer relationships and networks. Fourth is supporting men to heal from past trauma; and fifth is building and promoting positive fatherhood.

The last point, building and promoting positive fatherhood, is especially important as fathers are assuming a greater role in child rearing. Studies indicate that fathers are just as important as mothers in children's development. We are now learning about the best kinds of programming and policies to support young men and at-risk dads to be good fathers. The caring dads program developed by Dr. Katreena Scott and the supporting father involvement program developed by Drs. Kyle Pruett and Marsha Pruett, are just two promising practices, and currently in Calgary we are testing two promising programs with partners who serve teen mothers. We will know more soon about what works with young at-risk dads.

Number six is to invest in trauma-informed care with allied professionals. Those include teachers, social workers, lawyers, and doctors. Studies have shown that adverse childhood experiences such as sexual assault, witnessing domestic violence, child maltreatment, and living in poverty can lead to serious social, economic, and health risks in adulthood. To reduce the impact of trauma, the Government of Canada can invest in training that would support professional faculties, professionals in the field, and their organizations, to better understand the widespread impact of trauma and the way to respond to it in order to help people heal.

Number seven is to develop, implement, and evaluate a gender-equality plan. The plan must include a comprehensive strategy to ensure women have access to reproductive health care, including abortions; policies that facilitate wage parity and a living wage that are enforceable across Canada; a parental-leave policy similar to Sweden's, which gives families up to 18 months of parental leave and makes a minimum six-week parental leave mandatory for fathers; stronger pornography laws similar to David Cameron's family-friendly Internet filters that prevent children from seeing pornographic images; and a substantive increase in funding for Status of Women Canada, both for the department itself and for the funds that go to community-based organizations.

We need to reinvest in women's organizations across this country to better support leadership, build momentum, and ensure there is capacity to implement best and promising practices. Finally, we need stronger policies and strategies that foster women's leadership in all sectors of society. Research shows start-ups led by women are more likely to succeed; innovative firms with more women in top management are more likely to be profitable; and companies with more gender diversity usually have more revenue, customers, market share, and profits. Investing in women's leadership in all sectors is crucial to achieving gender equality.

Number eight is to reduce dating violence by leveraging schools and school systems. Implementing evidence-based practices with grades 7, 8, and 9 students is shown to reduce dating violence. Longitudinal research demonstrates the effectiveness of programs like the fourth R, which is already in 4,000 schools in Canada—some funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada—in reducing dating violence, which may lead to reduction in violence in relationships later on in life. Our teachers and school systems need increased and better training to support children and youth to be in healthy relationships.

Number nine is to invest in a substantive and comprehensive long-term social marketing strategy aimed at changing norms and behaviours that directly or subtly support violence against women. Recent events on university campuses tell us that even after all the progress we've made, these kinds of ideas are still prevalent in our society.

Number 10 is to provide sustainable funding focused on long-term initiatives. Short-term one-off funding will not get underneath a serious issue, and moving to long-term funding and investing in research and evaluation will support better solutions.

It is a privilege and an honour to present these ideas to the committee today. Thank you for listening and for your commitment to ending violence against women.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much, Ms. Wells.

I now invite the representative of the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia to make her presentation.

You have 10 minutes.

[Gerry Mills, Director of Operations, Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia]

Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Gerry Mills, and this is my colleague, Nanok Cha. We're from ISANS, Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia. ISANS is the only multi-service settlement agency for immigrants in Nova Scotia and the largest immigrant settlement agency in the Atlantic region. We have five offices across Nova Scotia, and this year we're celebrating 35 years of delivering services to immigrants.

We will put an immigrant lens over some of the points Lana just brought up.

First of all, what do we know? We know that immigrant women are generally much less likely than non-immigrant women to be victimized outside a spousal or family relationship. We know that many immigrant—

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Ms. Mills, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I will just ask you to slow down a little bit so we can have the interpretation. I know you have a lot to share with us, but just slow down a little bit so we can have interpretation.

Thank you very much.

[Gerry Mills]

I apologize. When the interpreters are not in the room, they're not very evident. I will slow down.

So we also know that, generally, immigrant women want to be free of their abuse, not of the abuser. They come here and they're very vulnerable. They don't know people outside their immediate family, and that's a challenge.

We also know that our immigration and refugee sponsorship processes often put one partner over the other. There are some major examples of this. The conditional permanent residence status for sponsored spouses has become a huge issue for us in the settlement sector. This puts newcomer women at greatly increased risk of violence and abuse. It's a form of abuse uniquely faced by immigrant women: the threat of reporting them to immigration authorities and having them deported. This particular policy has had an extremely serious impact on the lives of many women, and we have seen it again and again. It's feeding family violence.

Our best practices here at ISANS, of education, workshops, information in different languages, no longer work. We used to be able to say, “Don't worry, nothing is going to happen,” but something can happen now. It's not true, but many women fear deportation much more than they fear spousal violence. So here is a real and desperate need, a desperate need to reconsider this policy. Review the impact, look through the gender lens of policy with this one in particular to identify how it compromises women's personal and economic security.

As for isolation, and Lana talked about it as well, immigrant women are extremely likely to confront isolation as part of the immigration experience. This can be exacerbated by being prevented, for example, from going to English classes or French classes, or from working. It can take the form of alienation from the cultural community, by saying, “You're a bad wife. You're a bad mother,” or accusations of leaving or failing their culture, of being made to lose face in the community.

The challenge here as well is eligibility for services. There are many women in our communities, for example, the spouses of temporary foreign workers, or even temporary foreign workers themselves, and also refugee claimants, who are ineligible for many of the services that the immigrant settlement sector provides.

I'm glad that Lana brought up housing. Housing is a significant issue for any woman who is in an unsafe situation, especially with children, and how they get out of that situation. So a housing strategy is a desperate need.

Threatening to take away the children is a challenge for many women in this situation, but it's faced by immigrant women who don't know their rights. They have no other contacts or support and a very limited understanding of the Canadian process and laws. We can't talk about any of this without considering the impact of cultural and religious practice, and it's really complex.

So as for best practices, what can we do? Education, education, education; it's family orientation. Do the workshops in groups. People feel much more comfortable when talking about taboo topics. Make sure there are programs for only women. Make sure there are programs for only men. But at ISANS, our most successful programs are when men and women are together. We have managed to break many of the assumptions about immigrant men, by having family programs that in fact very often have more men in them than they do women.

Our starting point is not that we need to protect women, the violence against women, although we understand that is a critical issue and there are times when we need to do that. Our starting point is that parents want to do their best for their families. We don't start with violence; we start with, “You're a good father. You're a good mother. You want what's best for your family.” Our approach is to look at families holistically, at how people can live their best lives in Canada, through all our programs.

But we need accessible programs with trained interpreters and information in different languages. Whatever your status is in Canada, you need to be able to access these services.

At ISANS we work in partnership with hospitals, women's organizations, and a number of family resource centres.

Finally, the immigrant victims of violence often encounter bias when they turn to the justice system for help in domestic violence, family, and criminal law cases. These biases undermine immigrant women's ability to obtain effective protection orders, legal custody of their children, child support, and cooperation in the criminal prosecution occasionally of their abusers. We need to provide training to improve the justice system's response to immigrant victims of violence.

Beyond that, we need to make sure that family doctors, other health care personnel, social services, police, child protection agencies, and immigration authorities understand the complexities but also understand the culture in which these actions are taking place, and that they understand immigrant victims' legal rights. There are often so many incorrect assumptions about culture, about rights, and about standards in Canada that people get very different and very confusing advice.

Immigrant women in this dialogue are one of the most vulnerable groups. We certainly welcome this opportunity to be able to speak to the standing committee today and look forward to the actions and tasks that come out of it.

Thank you.

I'd like to pass you over now to my colleague, Madam Cha.

[Nanok Cha, Coordinator, Young Immigrant Women's Leadership Project, Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia]

Hi.

The young immigrant women's leadership project is a two-year project funded by Status of Women Canada. The objective of the project is to build their leadership skills, to make a positive change in the community, and to put a supportive system among the population.

The project activities have been designed to build self-esteem, strengthen their leadership skills, negotiate the social system and gain community resources, and address social issues from their standpoint. Young immigrant women are one of the most vulnerable populations and they have less community support for them to build the capacity to challenge critical social issues such as domestic violence, bullying, and being victims of sexism and racism in the community.

While working with the young immigrant women leaders, the project has realized how crucial it is for them to have a safe space to build support from each other and to share their personal struggles as a safe way of preventing violence against women and building a healthy and vibrant new life in Canada. The project has offered peer mentorship opportunities to build self-esteem and create a social and political space to share issues such as intergenerational conflicts, unequal gender roles and decision-making in the family, domestic violence, and discrimination against young immigrant women in the community, in the streets, and in the schools. These leaders have built a safer environment to build support among themselves, and it should decrease their vulnerability to violence and isolation in their families and in the community.

With holistic approaches, through their leadership building and creating a safer space, they have been leading the community for positive changes. For instance, the group obtained a young immigrant women's health and wellness grant from Nova Scotia Capital Health and have created workshops regarding gender-specific issues including violence against women such as self-defence training, sexual health, healthy relationship-building workshops, and yoga. They are also developing a community heath resource brochure for young immigrant women to reduce their isolation and vulnerability by looking for support in the community. Two leaders from the group are also participating in a YWCA project addressing cyber-violence.

In conclusion, the young immigrant women leaders and the project at ISANS have been building stronger networks to share their experiences and to support each other. They have enhanced their individual and group leadership abilities to challenge inequalities and the power relationships and build resilience regarding violence against women. This valuable two-year project will be terminated at the end of March 2015. We hope to have this opportunity to work with these amazing, promising, young immigrant women again in the future.

Thank you for your time.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

We will now go to Ms. Mattoo.

You have 10 minutes, Ms. Mattoo.

[Deepa Mattoo, Staff Lawyer, South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario]

Madam Chair and honourable members, I want to thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee today.

I would like to start with a quote from a research paper that I was part of a couple of years back—namely, that violence against women is a citizenship issue that fundamentally affects a woman's bodily integrity and personhood; it also affects her right to dignity, security, and freedom from discrimination. The previous two speakers spoke to this very eloquently. Simply speaking, what I'm trying to say is that education programs, social programs, and policies in Canada for preventing violence against women need to be framed in a way that is inclusive of all women irrespective of their culture, religion, background, race, or orientation.

My submission will be focused on three points today: sustainable and consistent education and social programs, peer-based and survivor-led programs, and the need for cross-sectoral policies and a national strategy. Most of these points were touched on by the previous speakers in one way or another, so I'll try to keep my comments as brief as possible.

In terms of the first point, sustainable and consistent education and social programs, in our experience over the last 10 years we have seen many innovative educational and social programs that have been launched and delivered in the field of violence against women. These education tools and programs are pertinent to the prevention of gender violence of various kinds, both interpersonal and systemic. Some examples of these tools are the South Asian Legal Clinic's own forced marriage tool kit; the Canadian Council of Muslim Women's resources, such as resources for teachers, family law materials, marriage contracts, and many more; the Community Legal Education Ontario's, or CLEO's, handbook entitled “Do you know a woman who is being abused? A Legal Rights Handbook”, which is accessed by thousands every year; Barbra Schlifer's resources on safety planning, risk assessment, and a graphic novel that was created by the survivors themselves; METRAC's legal education program; and the South Asian Women's Centre's grassroots training materials.

The list is long, and the work produced and the innovative programming done by some of these and many more agencies all across Canada are brilliant, but most of this work is dependent on piecemeal project funding. While the social programming sector is always thankful for the funding, it is continuously struggling. Even when their successful programs could have long-term impact, they do not even get a chance to do a complete feasibility study of the impact of these programs.

My colleague on the panel just before me spoke of a brilliant program that she is leading. That's one of my points about the peer-based and survivor-led programs. While these programs are really important for addressing violence against women, unfortunately they are spread out all across different departments of the government. They are not sustainable and consistent. They are very band-aid in nature. The constant pressure on the agencies for innovative programming without meaningful analysis of some of the existing resources speaks to the lack of interdepartmental knowledge on these issues. It also speaks to the fact that some of these programs are not even given enough chance to look at the real impact of the program in the communities.

In terms of the peer-based and survivor-led programs, which is my second point, my experience at SALCO, and the agency's experience itself, speaks to the fact that when we partner with agencies that have these kinds of programs, or when we connect our clients who are surviving violence with these programs, they work really well, and have a great and positive impact on the lives of survivors. Many agencies all across Canada—we heard from one today—have successfully run these kinds of programs and continue to run them. We have been doing this kind of education and prevention program work ourselves.

It is very important to have women and girls who are survivors lead the discussion on prevention, protection, and empowerment. It is important to note that when programs are led by survivors, it also adds a dimension to the service provision, which adds to their skill set, which adds to their employability, which adds to their own personal empowerment. Leading the discussion themselves on prevention also gives a true reflection of what the assumptions are about their cultures, what the assumptions are about their communities. As these are stories of resilience, where they themselves become the leaders, it definitely brings a new leadership community to the forefront as well.

In terms of the need for cross-sectoral policy, an all-inclusive national strategy, it is imperative for prevention of all forms of violence against women that the policies that are created be cross-sectoral and consistent in every sphere of service delivery, be it law and justice or be it health, education, immigration, and employment.

My colleague spoke before me about the condition of permanent residency that has been created recently by Immigration and about how the impact of that policy among immigrant women has been really harsh. What is important to remember is that violence against women is not one department's issue. It is not one political agenda. It is something that spreads across sectors, and the reason that policies need to be uniform is that they need to be sensitive and alive to the specific needs of women from marginalized communities, such as aboriginal women, Muslim women, South Asian women, and immigrant women.

A couple of points raised before are really important to note. One is programming with the men. Although we see that there is a shift, unfortunately all the programs I spoke about or the educational materials that have been put forward have been very women-centric until now. We haven't seen a lot of funding being given to education programs for men so far.

Another really important point, which I want to reiterate, concerns education among young people from the school system and leveraging curriculums in the school systems all across Canada.

The last point concerns not considering immigrant women as people who need to be saved, but rather treating them as allies, as leaders and people who can educate us about how prevention and protection work can happen successfully.

In conclusion, I just want to say that for prevention of violence against women it is important, moving forward, that the services and programming and policies for survivors shift away from their being held responsible for their own protection and for the crimes committed against them and from conditions such as “leave”, “report”, “decide”. They should be more about saying we will support you because we believe you. I think that is the culture shift we need at this point for a national strategy to prevent violence against women in a more meaningful way.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

We will start with the question—

My apologies, Ms. Dumont-Smith; I am going to give you 10 minutes also. When Ms. Audette arrives, she will be able to take part in the discussion by replying to the questions of committee members.

You have the floor.

[Claudette Dumont-Smith, Executive Director, Native Women's Association of Canada]

Kwe. Hello. Bonjour.

My name is Claudette Dumont-Smith. I'm Algonquin from Kitigan Zibi. Welcome to Algonquin territory.

Michèle Audette is our president, and her flight was delayed. We all know we can't really depend on the weather in Canada. She is flying in from Quebec, but she could pop up at any moment.

I'm the executive director of the Native Women's Association of Canada. I've held that position since 2010. Today I was to be accompanied as well by Gail Gallagher, who is the senior manager of the violence prevention division at NWAC, but she came down with a case of the flu, so I guess I was meant to be here.

Thank you very much for inviting the Native Women's Association of Canada to speak to the committee on the issue of promising practices to prevent violence against women. This issue is important to Canada's aboriginal women. It is important to our children, our families, and our communities.

The Native Women's Association of Canada is the national representative political organization, which is composed of 12 provincial and territorial member associations, known as PTMAs. They are located in two of the territories and all of the provinces. Nunavut is not part of NWAC because they have their own organization. All of us, the PTMAs and NWAC of course are dedicated to improving the social, economic, health, and political well-being of first nations and Métis women in Canada.

We are the national voice of aboriginal women in Canada. We were incorporated in 1974, so we have well over 40 years of experience working with aboriginal women. During these 40 years, we have heard from many women. We have heard their stories of violence, exploitation, pain and suffering, and it is these stories that inform the position that NWAC takes today, especially on the topic we will be addressing today.

We thought we would take this opportunity to speak with you on a number of promising practices to prevent violence against our first nation and Métis women and families. As most of you are aware, NWAC's research has revealed that aboriginal women and girls are more vulnerable to violence than anyone else in Canada. I know it's not a competition, but we are the most vulnerable. We are more likely to be victimized and less likely to have the supports needed to cope with such victimization because of where many of our communities are located, because of language barriers, cultural barriers, etc.

Indigenous women and girls are five times more likely to experience violence than any other population in Canada. Often the violence goes unreported, in particular, spousal assault and other family-related abuse. The actual rates are likely higher.

NWAC's research has revealed that aboriginal women and girls are more vulnerable to violence due to impacts of past and current state policies. The Indian Act, for example, the residential school policy, the sixties scoop, and the current child welfare system are all connected to poverty, racism, and violence against our women. The RCMP revealed just last May that 1,181 indigenous women and girls in Canada have gone missing or have been murdered over the last two decades. Many of these cases remain unsolved.

Any rate and form of violence is not acceptable and must end. The AFN, NWAC, first nations and indigenous women's organizations, and families of murdered and missing indigenous women have long been advocating for a national public inquiry on violence against indigenous women and girls, including the circumstances around those who have been murdered or are missing. We need a national public inquiry to examine this issue from all angles and develop solutions to address this in a comprehensive manner. Nothing else will do.

For the purposes of this presentation, we have applied this category to service provision. Additionally, when it comes to programs and services on violence against aboriginal woman, it is possible to categorize it into two major areas: shelters for women leaving family violence, and shelter services for women and girls leaving sex trafficking and prostitution. We will address the issue here first in terms of shelters for aboriginal women escaping family violence, and then address shelter, safety, and security from the perspective of those either escaping sexual violence or those escaping violence in the home as youths.

For family violence shelters, of which there are very few and not enough, we draw heavily from Anita Olsen Harper's research in many shelters in several provinces—Ontario, B.C., Manitoba, Alberta, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia—with the focus of collecting best practices for addressing family violence in aboriginal communities.

Her document contains a very thorough list of recommendations as well as disturbing findings. A complete recounting of her recommendations is beyond the scope of this presentation. However, we wish to draw attention to her principal findings and some of the recommendations reflective of the principles of the best practices that emerged from discussions with those working in the field of intervention and prevention on aboriginal family violence.

In terms of safety and security, our discussions with shelter staff across Canada led to the following list for best practices. The need for fences and other security measures, such as window and door alarms and security cameras, are a wise investment. The need for the above security measures are all the more relevant in small communities where the location of a shelter is eventually common knowledge. Areas for children to play should be fenced and require constant supervision, and shelters should consider coded security locks for client rooms. They are easier to change than traditional locking mechanisms when clients leave. This is from Harper's research.

Within administrative practices, she recommended the following operational practices: keep a non-judgmental attitude that promotes feelings of equality; be clear on rules of confidentiality; and consider placing a shortened list of these rules in multiple places in the shelter for a thorough reminder.

In terms of education, the Native Women's Association of Canada put out a report in 2011 entitled “Collaboration to End Violence: National Aboriginal Women's Forum”. It features several recommendations that fall under education. They summarize the theme of those recommendations into the following: develop and implement a national campaign that focuses on a message of zero tolerance for domestic violence; as individuals and organizations take action to educate the media about violence against aboriginal women and girls; encourage media to report responsibly and respectfully about aboriginal peoples, culture, and history, and acknowledge and honour them when they do; use social media and other web platforms for campaigns focused on women and youth to educate and share information and resources; address root causes and prevention of abuse; and draw on traditions and a holistic approach to violence.

Byrne and Abbott identified a series of recommendations that were intended to improve aboriginal women's education success by decreasing their vulnerability to root causes to violence, such as poverty. Overall, they advocated for increased accessible, affordable educational opportunities, and increased financial resources. In particular, this effort would be supported by the following two focuses: connecting girls and young women to educational aspirations, and providing support for young mothers so that they can finish school. Additionally, the report by Byrne and Abbott provides recommendations from a literature review of which education and learning make up a key component.

Aboriginal women need accessible and affordable education opportunities, complemented with financial supports. The authors call for large-scale collaboration between government at all levels and aboriginal organizations to develop a lifelong learning strategy to support aboriginal women and girls' educational success. This strategy should focus on the following areas: early childhood development; primary, secondary, post-secondary education; and skills development.

Continuing, the authors recommend that such lifelong learning include the following: funding for aboriginal-led research into first nations, Métis, and Inuit cultures and history; after-school programming aimed at children 6 to 12 years old; and rewriting of history books to reflect the aboriginal experience and view of colonization. The authors include the recommendations that federal, provincial, and territorial governments need to review current school systems to evaluate their preparation of aboriginal women for continued education at the college and university level, as well as preparing them for employment.

As part of this review of school systems and refocusing preparation, the authors urge for three major components: a greater priority on the trades, increased access to online learning and distance education opportunities, and a review of and action to remove the child care barriers aboriginal women face in pursuing employment and ongoing education.

An additional education measure was a recommendation for all levels of government to work with aboriginal organizations to create a lifelong strategy in key areas of childhood development; primary, secondary, post-secondary education; and skills development, which addresses the unique circumstances of aboriginal women.

They recommended funding to be set aside for aboriginal—

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Pardon me, Ms. Smith; could you conclude briefly, please?

[Claudette Dumont-Smith]

The best practices they put forward for improving aboriginal women's education preparation.... I think something happened here. I got my pages mixed up. I'm sorry.

Finally, they recommended a national strategy for increasing aboriginal women's graduation rates to grade 12, as well as supporting further engagement in post-secondary education. Promoting educational success was seen as just as essential among aboriginal women and girls facing sexual exploitation.

Approaches to successful programming related to violence against aboriginal women and girls reflect the complex root causes and a need for serious and thorough initiatives to promote change. Programming ranges from prevention to intervention, to targeting familial abuse, to helping aboriginal women and girls facing violence from sexual exploitation. Culture is also added in there—

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much, Ms. Smith. During the conversation you'll probably be able to flesh out some of the points that you may not have had time to elaborate on, and that's the same for all the witnesses.

We'll start with the questions.

Ms. Truppe, you have the floor. You have seven minutes.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madame Chair.

Welcome, and thank you for being here for our study. It's very important that we get best practices, which is the purpose of this study, to gain information from you on what has worked in the past so that we can perhaps share it with other organizations.

I think I'll start with the immigration services. I believe that Nanok—I hope I'm saying that correctly—said that she received some funding from Status of Women Canada, but I couldn't hear what the name of the project was. I was just wondering if you could repeat the name of the project from Status of Women, how much funding you received, and what the project was again.

[Nanok Cha]

It is the young immigrant women's leadership project. It is a two-year project. The objective of the project is to build their leadership skills and make positive changes in the community. Then they created a community project to make those positive changes. It also builds support among young immigrant women in the community.

[Gerry Mills]

In terms of the amount of funding, it's under $200,000. I would just like to bring up what one of the other witnesses said. It's like many of the projects that NGOs provide across the country. This one, in particular, has a two-year span. At the end of two years, it will finish and that will be the end of the project. It's just the way that the funding works. It's impossible to go after the same funding for the same project.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

So that's unsustainable.

Sorry, did you just start the project, then, or is it just finishing?

[Gerry Mills]

No, it's just finishing.