Status of Women Committee on Dec. 1st, 2020

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I call this meeting to order. Welcome to our witnesses.

Mr. Serré, you have your hand up.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

I just have a quick point of order.

I just want to—through you, Madam Chair, to the clerk—ask for an analysis of what just happened at the previous part of the meeting for redoing votes and prompting relating to the voting, and I ask that we reserve 30 minutes at the next meeting to go in camera with the clerk for a report on the procedures.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Very good.

Mr. Serré, the clerk and I also discussed what happened. One of the difficulties was that I couldn't see everyone's hands in the gallery view. We may have some suggestions in the future to do roll call voting in order to make sure that we get everyone. I don't think it would change the outcome, but I do think that we would feel better about it.

I mentioned as well that we would do no more steering team, that we would do full-committee choices, but we will go ahead and book half an hour of committee business, then, at the start of the next meeting.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Yes. I'm more preoccupied with the two votes. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Perfect.

Welcome to all of the witnesses. Sorry about the technical difficulties. We are studying the challenges faced by women living in rural communities.

For those of you who haven't participated before, wait until I recognize you by name in order to speak, and when you want to speak, you can click on the microphone icon to activate your mike. All comments should be addressed through the chair

Interpretation in the video conference will be very much like in regular committees. You have a choice at the bottom of your screen of either “Floor”, “English” or “French”.

When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly for the interpreters. When you're not speaking, your mike should be on mute.

I'm pleased to welcome today Dr. Vianne Timmons from Memorial University, Angèle McCaie from Femmes Fortes, and Fern Martin, who is here as an individual.

Each of you will have five minutes to make your remarks, and then after that we'll go into our round of questioning. Each member will have a certain number of minutes. I will try to gently end each of the questioning sessions fairly and kindly.

We'll start with Dr. Timmons for five minutes.

[Dr. Vianne Timmons, President and Vice-Chancellor, Memorial University of Newfoundland]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm thrilled to be meeting you from the ancestral land of our indigenous people in Newfoundland and Labrador.

This is a subject that is close to my heart, both as president of Memorial University and also, more importantly, as a girl who grew up in a small rural town in Labrador. I'll tell you a bit about that childhood, because it is so relevant to today's discussion.

I was raised in Labrador, but my grandmother grew up on Cape Breton Island, raised by her grandmother. She was forced to leave school in grade 4 to take care of her family. She became a housekeeper at age nine in rural Cape Breton. It was the worst day of her life. She knew education was a path to a different life for her, and it was not possible. At 16, she married my grandfather, and immediately had my mother and three additional children.

My mother did finish high school, but she also worked as a housekeeper all through high school. She always wanted to be a teacher, but she was unable to afford to go to university. She didn't want that for us, so all six of us were the first in our family to get an opportunity to go to university.

I had a great childhood, growing up in the sixties and seventies in a small town. It was a wonderful experience, but when it came to post-secondary education, it was definitely a challenge.

I went back to my home town this summer. A lot of things were the same, but a lot were different. I learned a lot about education in rural Newfoundland and Labrador when I took this trip throughout the province this summer. I saw and met many students who were forced to move home when we had to close our campuses due to the pandemic. I did learn that students are resilient, but I also learned the importance of a reliable Internet. Without it, there's no access to education for so many people in our province.

A father in a small town on the great northern peninsula sent his three children 470 kilometres to Corner Brook so that they could have reliable Internet to access their post-secondary studies. I heard of students downloading course requirements after midnight every night because they couldn't get access otherwise. Memorial has 13 locations, including six campuses, but our students do not have equal access to education. It is a real challenge.

I also saw the challenge women face. Many of our female students were in the retail business and the service industry. That's how they earn money to go to university. The pandemic has been a real challenge for them. With so many jobs lost in the service and retail industries, they have been really struggling.

I saw lots of unemployment and a sense of despair. In those communities, I saw myself in many of the young women I met. I never imagined I would be a university president. I'm a product of the Canadian dream, and I want the same for our young women today.

It's important to provide role models for them. We stand on the shoulders of the women who came before us. As the first female president of Memorial, I want to make sure that the first is not the end. I want a young girl from Labrador to see a future in this beautiful province, in this beautiful country. We have to do all that we can to ensure that she does.

As Senator Murray Sinclair said, “Education has gotten us into this mess and education will get us out.” I met many first nations young women who have additional challenges in access. The things we can do and need to do are to provide reliable Internet access, make sure education is affordable and accessible, make sure we have child care options for our young women, build solutions with communities for communities, be role models, listen, learn, and work with the women in this country.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you very much.

We will now hear from Angèle McCaie from the Femmes fortes program.

Ms. McCaie, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Angèle McCaie, General Manager, Village of Rogersville]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon. First, I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak about my community and the challenges faced by women in my rural community.

Before I begin, I would like to stress and acknowledge that I am on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq. I am fortunate to learn, work and live here today.

My name is Angèle McCaie. I am the executive director of a small francophone and Acadian municipality in New Brunswick called Rogersville, where I am also originally from. My community has a population of 1,066 and is geographically isolated in the southeastern part of the province.

I would like to tell you about the “Femmes fortes” program that we have created in Rogersville, which addresses many of the issues facing women and girls in my rural community.

Two years ago, I was very troubled by the comment of a recently widowed woman. She told me that, since the death of her husband, she felt powerless and useless. She told me that she realized how dependent she was on her husband for traditionally male tasks, such as mechanics and home maintenance. As a result of this discussion, I realized how the reality of rural women can cause significant challenges, since many services are not readily available, both nearby and in their language. As a result, many women can feel isolated and alone. Although independence and self-confidence can be challenges for the public at large, it seems to me that rural women are particularly likely to encounter barriers to their development and that their particular needs may go unnoticed in society.

Our “Femmes fortes” project was born out of a need identified by one woman, but it was able to grow when we realized that the need was much greater than we had anticipated. We consulted with a large portion of our population, and women and girls of all ages expressed their needs to us. The concept of “Femmes fortes” is simple: to provide free workshops, courses and sessions in French to all the women and girls in our community on a variety of topics that address many facets of an individual's physical and mental health. Workshops on construction, mechanics, depression, bereavement, LGBTQ2+ issues are just a few examples of the more than 100 sessions that have been provided and continue to be provided free of charge over the past two years in Rogersville.

Our municipality has a certain social responsibility towards its women regarding their development. The “Femmes fortes” project is a tool for the municipality to support our women and girls to ensure a next generation of more confident and independent individuals, while valuing the knowledge of women of various ages and backgrounds. In my opinion, it is unacceptable for a woman to feel unable to perform a task simply because certain gender norms in society have been pre-determined. We can and must do more for our women. By equipping our women and girls, we ensure the continuity of our community action. These ladies will pass on new skills acquired during the workshops to their loved ones, who will then be able to use the tools to become involved in the community.

The “Femmes fortes” program seeks to find innovative ways to make a rural community more resilient in these times of economic and social instability. In addition, providing the sessions free of charge increases the opportunity for women of all levels of economic, psychological and physical health to participate and have the same services that might be offered in urban centres.

It is easy to see the impact of this project on the people of our community. Many participants and presenters have told us how reassuring it was to realize that they were not alone in their insecurities and vulnerability. This project has created a community of women who support and sustain each other, rather than judge and criticize each other. When we empower our women, we are all winners.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Martin, you'll need to unmute at the bottom. There's a microphone icon. Click on it and it will unmute you.

There you are.

Ms. Martin is next, for five minutes.

[Fern Martin, As an Individual]

I've got it. I just didn't hear you.

In 1979, two women's groups, The Hub in Almonte and The Exchange in Carleton Place, worked together to establish Lanark County Interval House. I volunteered in the shelter and served on the board. Later I was hired as a counsellor and public educator.

Working in the shelter opened my eyes to the violence rural women were enduring. I didn't know that friends were being abused. No one talked about it until there was a safe place for them and their children. The following is a stark example of such hidden abuse.

My eldest daughter’s best friend—I’ll call her Mary—was raped for years by her father. I’ll call him Robert. We were friends of the family. Robert was the photographer at our wedding. Mary was a vivacious, smart, athletic and delightful girl. We had no idea of what she was enduring. At age 14, Mary became pregnant. Robert took her to the Ottawa Civic Hospital for an abortion and then bought her birth control pills. That is when Mary ran away from home. She told her mother, who took the children and left him. We knew about the separation but didn’t find out about the abuse until years later, when Robert was charged with the rape of his new wife’s sister. Both women had immigrated from the Philippines. He actually said to the police, “I don’t know why she complained. My daughter never complained.”

The police interviewed Mary. They charged Robert with the sexual abuse of his daughter but not the sexual assault of the immigrant woman. Robert was convicted and served two years less a day.

Mary is still a delightful person and holds a responsible position in the Government of Canada.

My book, A Narrow Doorway: Women’s Stories of Escape from Abuse, was published in 1996. It contains interviews with 10 women who had been in our shelter, as well as updates written several years later, because it took me nine years to find a publisher.

Recently I reread my book. What is stark is the fact that nothing has really changed. Men are still beating their wives, raping their girlfriends, committing incest against their daughters, abusing pets, etc. Our society, and especially our judicial system, has yet to find appropriate measures to address this reality and stop it.

Rural women face significant barriers. In rural communities, everybody knows everybody. An abused woman would be concerned about the reaction of her partner’s parents, who probably live next door, or concerned that others would not believe that Joe, a favourite on the local hockey team, could be abusive. The police officer who plays hockey on the same team may be reluctant to get involved or to believe the woman’s story. Neighbours of Joe, knowing that he was abusive, might be afraid to support his partner for fear of reprisal. Sometimes there is no telephone or Internet service in the home. Winter plays a special role in isolation in rural areas. Some women have no transportation. There is a higher ratio of guns in rural homes. A woman told us that after an argument, her husband would clean his gun. She took that as a threat.

The status of the abuser in the community is significant. Sometimes he is the employer and his employees are dependent on him and can’t support his wife, or he is the landlord and a friend of the abuser and doesn’t want to get involved by renting to the wife. He may be the reeve of the township and highly regarded by many.

The number of church ministers who were abusive was a revelation to me. One minister immediately cleaned out his wife’s bank account on the day she left him. The teller didn’t question his action. After all, he was the local minister.

A group of rural ministers used to meet with me in the shelter. There were four women and two men. I eventually learned that both men were sexually abusive. One was sexually abusive to one of the female ministers.

She puzzled about how to deal with this man. She didn't want to upset his wife or damage his reputation.

A public health nurse told me that when she was in training in Toronto in the mid-1960s, the students were sent to North Lanark, where there was the largest percentage of people in Ontario with congenital heart anomalies, an indication of a small gene pool. She said it could be due to the result of isolation, intermarriage with cousins or incest.

I used to assist the local health unit in finding transportation for women who needed abortions. Some of these women were new immigrants working as nannies. I was curious as to how they got pregnant. I am sure that some were raped by the man of the house, but couldn't risk losing their job by revealing their condition to his wife.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm so sorry—

[Fern Martin]

Yes, I'm done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm sorry. You're at your time. What heartfelt testimony.

[Fern Martin]

Yes, I know.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm really sorry to have to cut you off.

We'll start our round of questions. Hopefully we can hear more as we go.

We're going to begin our six-minute round with Ms. Sahota.

[Jag Sahota, Conservative, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Thank you to all the witnesses for your presentations and the personal experiences and stories that you have shared. As Madam Chair said, it's very heart-touching. Thank you for your time here.

I'm going to start with my first question. Pretty much anybody can answer this of the three of you, or all three may want to give your views.

We've heard throughout this pandemic that telling everyone to stay home has resulted in women being trapped with their abusers. In the urban areas, there are shelters and other sorts of emergency service locations that women can go to. However, in the rural parts of this country, your nearest neighbour can be a few kilometres away, which means access to emergency services is not an option.

My question is this: What sort of training should our first responders receive to better identify and help address this issue?

[Dr. Vianne Timmons]

I'll begin.

I think this is a huge issue, and anti-bias training is critical for all people because of that bias that many people have, in particular people who grew up in rural communities. Just as Ms. Martin said, there's the idea that “He's a good man; he wouldn't do anything bad.” They're all biases. I think that would also be really important.

I think they need to also be trained in trauma and understand how trauma affects in particular women who experience violence and sexual violence. It's critical that they understand how to approach, how to deal, how to listen, how to look for the signs.

I also know Ms. Martin would have information that's very specific to this.

[Fern Martin]

Again, I don't have any solution. That's the problem. I've often thought that it makes sense to remove the man from the household and allow the women and the children to stay in the home and to take him to a place where he learns a better way of living and how to cook and has counselling. He would be in a women's shelter, but it would be a men's shelter for men who abuse.

[Angèle McCaie]

I think that for my area, something that is missing is mental health services, urgent care to hopefully address it before it gets to a paramedic issue.

I know that right now in New Brunswick, if you actually go to the step of asking for help—and we all know it's difficult to even ask for help—the waiting lists are long and the help is not necessarily close by. Regionally, communities would need to have resources to address these mental health issues at their base, at their core, and sooner, which I know is not an easy task, but there definitely is something that could be done locally that could certainly help.

[Dr. Vianne Timmons]

I'll also mention that it's not just first responders but also the judicial group that needs special training. I know there's been some discussion about that nationally. My sister was in an abusive relationship in a small rural community, and she did go to court to try to get support and help. It was awful. She was re-traumatized, and they did not put a restraining order on her husband, so even though she separated, she continued to be verbally abused and harassed until the day she died in 2009 of H1N1, actually.

I think we must also get the courts to really be better trained and understand the challenges women face.

[Fern Martin]

I would add to that. Too often abusive men are given access to the children. I did a talk one time to law students at Ottawa U, and a defence attorney was also making a presentation. When I suggested that abusive men not have access to their children, he lit into me. It was as if I were in a courtroom. He said there's no way you can do that, and that men must have access to the children.

I think it's something to consider.

[Jag Sahota, Conservative, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Just to follow up on what you said, Ms. Martin, in regard to the story you were telling us when the husband cleaned out the joint account after he continuously abused his wife, law enforcement cannot be aware of and notice every situation. How can we train and support local establishments on what to look for and when to notify law enforcement?

[Fern Martin]

It's education. That's it. We have to listen to people who are telling stories like I've just told.

[Jag Sahota, Conservative, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Do you have anything to add, Dr. Timmons?

[Dr. Vianne Timmons]

I would agree. I think the only solution is education, and also to ensure that advocacy is provided for women when they meet with the police forces so that they are able to bring an advocate, a support, to help counter the re-traumatization. I think it would be an important support to women in rural communities to have trained advocates who can help.