Status of Women Committee on Nov. 21st, 2016

[Lynne Groulx, Executive Director, Native Women's Association of Canada]

Actually Francyne, our president, is going to speak.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

All right.

Francyne.

[Francyne Joe, President, Native Women's Association of Canada]

Good afternoon, Madam Chairperson, committee members, distinguished witnesses, and guests. My name is Francyne Joe, and I am the president of the Native Women's Association of Canada.

I am a proud member of B.C.'s Nlaka'pamux Nation, and while I have worked for Canada Border Services for over five years, I'm experienced in human resource management, economic development, entrepreneurship, and insurance, in an effort to educate and encourage aboriginal people to pursue their aspirations.

I'm here today with Lynne Groulx, NWAC director—more notably, she holds two degrees in law—and Marilee Nowgesic, NWAC's special advisor and liaison.

First, I would like to acknowledge the Algonquin Nation in whose traditional territory we are meeting here today.

Thank you for the opportunity to present to you today. I bring with me the voices of my ancestors, the concerns of aboriginal women from across Canada, and the hopes of our future leaders, our youth.

The Native Women's Association of Canada is the only national aboriginal organization in Canada that represents the voice, the interests, and the many concerns of aboriginal women. NWAC is made up of 12 provincial and territorial member associations from across the country, since 1974. Our network of first nations and Métis women spans across the north, south, east, and west into urban, rural, on- and off-reserve communities.

There are three key messages I would like to deliver today.

First, violence against indigenous women and girls is not new. From a traditional understanding, indigenous women cannot be separated from the impacts of colonization, systemic issues, and the policies and laws that have reduced the stability of our environment, the practice of our spirituality, and the expression of our inherent right to self-determination.

Violence takes on many forms—physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, spiritual, cultural, and financial. This often results in vulnerability and self-harm, such as depression, alcoholism, substance abuse, and suicide. Indigenous women are eight times more likely to be killed than non-aboriginal women. The rates of spousal assault are more than three times higher, and the spouse is not necessarily an aboriginal person.

As indigenous women, we have seen and witnessed the impacts of poverty, lower educational attainment, and overrepresentation of our children in the child welfare system, which is more than those who were in the Indian residential schools. Canada has only learned of the impacts of that through the work of the TRC. This list of vulnerable populations provided by Health Canada places indigenous women and children within most or all of the categories of vulnerable segments of the Canadian population to be negatively impacted by climate change.

NWAC has continued to fill a knowledge gap about indigenous women by looking beyond academic literature, gathering comprehensive evidence, and exposing how the police and justice systems have responded to women.

The second message is that we have a need for current indigenous and gender-specific perspectives in the development of policies, legislation, public safety, prevention strategies, and social campaigns that resonate with current population trends.

In 2005, NWAC began to raise awareness of the violence against indigenous women. Unfortunately, the voices of families and communities in need were ignored. From 2005 to 2010, NWAC began to document all the known cases of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. We discovered 582 in addition to the current numbers and cases collected by law enforcement. In 2014, the RCMP released its report documenting well over 1,000 indigenous women had gone missing or had been murdered. Of these incidents, 164 were missing, and 1,017 were homicide victims. There are likely more, but their ancestry or origins were not known and not recorded.

NWAC holds the only national database on the number and circumstances of missing and/or murdered indigenous women and girls in Canada. As per our fact sheet, 225 unsolved cases of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls; 105 missing for more than 30 days as of November 4, 2013, whose cause of disappearance was categorized at the time as unknown, or foul play suspected; 120 unsolved homicides between 1980 and 2012.

Within Canada it is crucial that indigenous women be included as a meaningful partner in the discussions on prevention and safety. NWAC is the organization that has the ability to provide the expertise on indigenous and gender-specific perspectives.

The third message we want to bring is that the meaningful consultation with indigenous women needs to be done in compliance with and respect to the principles set out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, first of all, article 18 and article 21(2) of UNDRIP, with respect to indigenous rights to participate in decision-making and the state's obligation to take account of particular rights of indigenous women. The policy of the legislation must be informed by evidence and by those who are impacted by it. Legislation must be reviewed so that the justice and conviction or sentences are increased where violence has been committed, and this would include, but is not limited to, the recent incidents at Val-d'Or. As well, increased public awareness is needed of the human rights crisis in terms of lack of safety and protection of indigenous women.

We need to look at the investment factor of indigenous women in Canada through skills and development, employment and education, and opportunities to participate in the economy. As indigenous women, we contribute 90% of our income back to our families and our communities.

While we are currently working on addressing the procedures and processes that will drive the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry commission, we are the lead organization for indigenous women to bring their issues, their concerns, and sometimes their missing voices to effectively address the crisis of violence against indigenous women and girls. It will be through raising public awareness aimed at changing attitudes which devalue indigenous women and girls and the contributions of indigenous peoples as an educational tool for violence prevention.

Kukshem. Thank you very much for your time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you very much.

Now we're going to hear from Awar Obob, of Babely Shades. You have seven minutes.

[Awar Obob, Member, Babely Shades]

Hello, and thank you for inviting me and the collective.

My name is Awar Obob. I'm a writer, activist, and general show booker within the collective, Babely Shades. We are made up of marginalized genders and minority status people. We do a lot of art and positive things within the Ottawa community.

I wasn't quite sure what I had gotten myself into by coming here. I don't have anything prepared, but it's going pretty well. I'm liking it so far.

One of the main things I would like to bring up is the treatment of LGBTQ youth—lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth—within Canada, and also the current treatment of people of colour due to the violence going on in the U.S. and the current election, and what it has spurred within the country.

Though racism in Canada is not a very new thing—it's not new at all, it's kind of what the country was built upon—it has recently seen a new wave of targeted and very vocal violence against any person of colour, mainly people from middle eastern backgrounds and south-Asian countries. A lot of anti-Semitic violence has been brought forth, a lot of anti-indigenous and anti-black violence has been seen throughout Canada, spurring from this thing that happened in the U.S., which we like to think we're not really that attached to, but it has a huge effect, and factors in on the proceedings that go on within this country.

The pain that the majority of the minorities are feeling within the country really needs to be addressed and heard, and dealt with properly; just dealt with, period. There needs to be some type of vocal outrage that is not just from the lower working-class people who have most of this pain on their backs. It also needs to come from above, from the government, from high-standing officials to show that they do not approve of this, to say that this is not a proper Canadian thing to do, and this is not who we are as a people. I feel that's a very major thing that needs to be addressed.

That also does connect into the treatment of LGBTQ youth. Yesterday was the International Transgender Day of Remembrance. I'd like to remember all of those who we've lost, and those who are still with us who deserve all the love that they are not quite getting at the moment with a lot of the hate crimes, and it being one of the most deadliest years in a very long time for a trans woman.

There is a lot of negativity, and a lot of quiet brewing that goes on. It affects youth, especially the youth of today, the youth of first- and second-generation new Canadians who came here a while ago. It affects their children, and it affects their children's children. Everyone who I know personally has not only intergenerational trauma from the pain that their family members and ancestors have faced but they also have their current traumas going on due to what they face within their own lives, and what they've had to deal with just day to day.

No one should deal with these things at any point, especially when just going through one's day. I don't feel these things are properly addressed in Canada; they are seen as more of an American issue, though they are just as loud and prevalent as anywhere else.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's excellent.

We'll start our round of questioning with my friend Monsieur Serré for seven minutes.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Merci, Madam Chair.

I'll be sharing my time with Mr. Fraser.

Thank you so much to the witnesses for your presentations and your commitment.

Ms. Joe, thank you for mentioning that more needs to be done on the messaging to include indigenous women and girls in the conversation.

We heard earlier about Bill 132 from the Province of Ontario. Other provinces, such as Manitoba and Nova Scotia, are looking at trying to incorporate some of the education at the provincial level.

Have any of the provinces approached your organizations? You have quite a bit of expertise and knowledge. Are you working with any other provinces to try to ensure that the curriculum is reflective of indigenous women and girls?

[Francyne Joe]

Excuse me. I just got back from Morocco on the weekend, so I'm just becoming familiar with any changes.

At this time we haven't been formally contacted by some of these provinces. You're right, though. We do have a lot of resources that we are more than willing to share.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Talking about the research and some of the data that is missing in some of these conversations—and I would ask that you share that research with the clerk—do you have anything right now when we look at women and girls? We had a lot of witnesses to talk about cyber. We had Twitter. We had other social media. When we specifically target indigenous women and girls in social media, how has that had an effect?

[Lynne Groulx]

We have somebody in our office who specializes in taking a look at that question, but the research has just started, so we haven't progressed much on it. We could certainly get back to you with what we do have unless, Marilee, you know about anything else.

[Marilee Nowgesic, Special Advisor, Liaison, Native Women's Association of Canada]

We have worked through the years with some of the provincial-territorial member associations and their external stakeholders in addressing this very issue and making Internet and public surfing safe. We're showing how to protect the webcams at home, making the home much more Internet-savvy, and looking at campaigns that would help address this at school without scaring our youth or the teachers, but helping them with information to make informed decisions about how long and where you're going to serve, how to look at safety mechanisms, and how to plug up certain words so that the parents can catch it if they can.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Ms. Rico, earlier you talked about spousal sponsorship and the long processing times. As the government right now we're trying to see how we can reduce some of the wait times. From your experience, can you elaborate and expand a bit on what effect the long processing times has had for the spousal reunification program?

[Loly Rico]

Right now it's taking 26 months to receive permanent residence from the spousal sponsorship. In the majority of cases either the person has a visitor's visa or is without status. In that case, when they go through the process with the emotional strength they put in the relationship, there is also a power dynamic because the abusers are using that as a control in the relationship. When the process takes that long, and if you are in the middle of the process and the sponsorship breaks down, the person stays without any other solution to continue an immigration process here in Canada.

There could be a Canadian baby, and the mother is facing deportation because the spousal sponsorship is over. There is another process, the humanitarian compassionate grounds, but it doesn't stop the deportation.

That's why we are saying the process is too long. When it started in the nineties with Prime Minister Paul Martin, it took eight months. Now it's taking 26 months. For us, that's a long process.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Fraser.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Ms. Joe, you mentioned an interesting economic statistic, that about 90% of the money spent by indigenous women goes back into communities.

Has there been an economic assessment or analysis done on the cost of violence against women to indigenous communities in Canada?

[Marilee Nowgesic]

Yes, Mr. Fraser, there has been.

However, we haven't given much credence to it, because of the numbers that have varied between what has been collected by law enforcement, what has been collected by Statistics Canada, and what has been collected or reflected by our resources at Native Women's Association.

Some of the things that I think become cumbersome are what is actually reported—the extra monies that women bring on the side vis-à-vis cooking, crafts, child care, these types of things—versus those things that sometimes don't get reported. We mentioned 90%, by looking I guess at the aggregate data of some of those sources.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I think that's fair. By no means should this be an economic issue. I think it's the right thing to do. However, for whatever reason, sometimes that helps impact policy change, and I'll use any tool I have.

I have only about 30 seconds left. I'm wondering if there are any initiatives that you're aware of to help men choose non-violence in indigenous communities.

[Marilee Nowgesic]

We have a couple of them in Ontario, but mostly in central Canada. In Ontario, I'm aware of a program, “men in hide”. They learn how to deal with domestic violence, intimate partner violence.

This is also another issue or topic that is being dealt with in some of the mainstream organizations vis-à-vis men. One, in particular, is the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada. They have learned how to deal with indigenous intimate and domestic partner violence guidelines in looking at how to have healthy relationships.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Excellent.

We're going to go now to Ms. Vecchio, for seven minutes.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Hi, and thanks very much.

I'm going to start with the Canadian Council for Refugees.

You noted the permanent residence and some of the changes you're advocating for, and that this government has spoken for. I worked in Citizenship and Immigration for 11 years. I recognized the need for some of the policies that I saw.

Do you think there is a way of having a policy that would fit, so that it's not held over a woman that she'd have to be deported or anything like that? I worked with a number of cases where men came to Canada to get here, and then left their wives immediately. That was from the out-of-country sponsorship, because there are two types, of course.

Is there a program or a way that we can check both boxes, to make sure there's not fraudulent immigration, as well as making sure we're being cautious and our female victims are being protected?

[Loly Rico]

One of the things is that the policy shouldn't be done on the basis of looking at it as if it will be a fraud. If you see, even in the percentage of the reports....

At IRCC, we have been asking for the statistics. In the majority of the reports of fraud, when they send a letter, there is a way that we can look at the exceptions for domestic violence, because the person had been reporting to police, the person had been in a shelter. That's when they meet the exception. The percentage of the fraud that we can see could be 1%.

The policy should be done in a way where there is a kind of balance, and the majority is to be the protection for the most vulnerable. We have been seeing very few cases—and not because I work directly with women—where the man is the one who has been brought to Canada and has left the relationship. We had that before.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Excellent.

Now, on to the Native Women's Association of Canada.

Recently we have had different organizations—the BC Lions was one we had in last week—talking about men not being bystanders and being part of the solution. Has there been anything through the Native Women's Association of Canada to get men to be part of the solution, and have there been any funded programs for that as well?

[Francyne Joe]

At this point, we have are looking to work with the Moose Hide Campaign, organized by Paul Lacerte, the original executive director for the B.C. aboriginal friendship centres.

[Marilee Nowgesic]

We have had an opportunity to work with the Canadian Federation of Students in the past. Some of the issues got bogged down, of course, by their studies, which we want them to do, but at the same time, by other issues that were much more pressing at the time.

We are still somewhere on their radar. We still come up every so often as an important concern. They're addressing it I think through sexual reproduction or sexual education campaigns.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Yes, that's fantastic.

I want to ask a few questions of the representative from Babely Shades. Maybe I'm just ignorant, and I'm happy to say that. Coming from smaller communities...I'm from a rural community and my son has just moved to Toronto. It is a different lifestyle.

Do you think part of the issue that we have today is the generation gap? Do you find when we talk about violence and we talk about harassment, it is coming from a particular age group? Is it coming from a group of uneducated persons, like myself, who may have grown up without understanding such issues?

I've gone to many different things for gender equality. I think that they're doing a much better job than we've ever done before when it comes to gays, lesbians, transgender people, and such.

Do you think we're not educating properly? Do you feel that the same age groups that are harassing and that the violence is coming from those age groups? What demographics are we looking at?