Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 16th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

I'm sorry, Amy, but we're right out of time there.

[Amy Nahwegahbow]

Oh shoot. There's a fact sheet. We have developed a fact sheet geared towards indigenous women and girls just to talk about where they can phone if they need help and what signs to look for. Things like that are what we are working on currently.

[Don Rusnak, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

Thank you very much.

Maybe you could leave that behind or get us a copy. Thank you.

The next question is from Cathy McLeod, please.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you for coming today and for your patience while we dealt with the bells and the back and forth.

Two weeks ago, a portion of our committee was travelling. Part of our travel included youth panels. We did a few in different locations. One of the most profoundly disturbing things we heard during these youth panels was from some beautiful young girls who were talking about sexual assault. I think we all left those panels feeling very heavy. One girl talked about that and then cutting behaviours.

I notice that there have also been some articles out there recently saying that we need to be talking about this, and we probably also need to be talking about this in the context of the study. I'm just opening that up if you have anything to say. As I say, I think that what these young women and girls were sharing was very profoundly disturbing.

[Lynne Groulx]

Yes, when we are out there for our projects, as Amy was saying, we do hear about these other things as well, including sexual assault and even human trafficking. It's something that we are also hearing more about, and we are engaging in some research on that.

These issues are very delicate and sensitive, and I think that's why an organization such as NWAC is very useful, because there is a network across the country. We have the ability to go in and do more kinds of research and help out from that perspective. We are happy to be called on to use those networks when we have them available.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

It was suggested that perhaps we're not talking about this as much as we should be. Would you agree with that?

[Lynne Groulx]

Yes, definitely. They're difficult questions, but we need to talk about them.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

On the other points you made, I noted that you talked very specifically about both on- and off-reserve support. I know that we have infrastructure on-reserve, although it's far from perfect. I continue to look at where the largest population lives, which is off-reserve, I think it's now 60% plus. I look at the capacity of the organizations, such as the friendship centres. I have the utmost admiration for friendship centres, and I see that their budget is minuscule and that they are having to reapply every year. Some of them have been delivering good service for a long time. In terms of the whole focus on offering support off-reserve, do you have some comments?

[Lynne Groulx]

I think it's very important. It's very necessary. Again, maybe there are things that we don't talk about enough. How do we provide the different services that are needed on-reserve versus off-reserve? The capacity to do that is so low, but there's so much expertise inside the organizations. It's historical expertise. NWAC has been operating since 1974.

There's a lot of corporate knowledge there that's underutilized. Unless there's more capacity and more funding.... We're talking about resources and funding. I think we and other organizations are in a unique position to help in a very concrete way, but resources have to flow there in order to have them flow back to the communities in a way that we know can be very helpful.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Maybe by the time I finish in my role here we'll have a system whereby you have organizations.... I don't have any trouble with having competitive processes, having reviews, and having evaluations, but for proven programs that have to reapply year after year, sometimes lay off staff, and sometimes give up office space, is the idea of a contract of perhaps a little longer duration something that...?

[Lynne Groulx]

Thank you very much for raising that. I would describe it as a crisis. I've been at NWAC only since November 1. I have a long history of working on indigenous issues, but my observation is that we have an incredible amount of requests coming in from all levels of government and from the international level. People want our opinion and they want us at the tables, yet the structure and the funding are not there. The funding that is there is program funding. It's hit-and-miss funding; you get it one year and not the next. We can't stabilize the organizations and we can't participate as equal partners if we don't have proper funding in place.

To be very frank with you, this is a government city, of course, this is Ottawa, and the organization does not have a strategic policy unit. We talk policy—this is what we're doing, we're talking about policy—and there's no stable, strategic, core policy unit within the organization. The funding simply is not there, yet everyone wants to talk to us. I came back from Mexico City last night. The American and Mexican secretaries of state are asking us to give our opinions on human trafficking. How do we do that without the base of funding that is needed?

Thank you.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I probably don't have enough time, but I was interested in digging a bit more into those five recommendations. I understand that perhaps we can get that tabled and we'll have an opportunity—

[Lynne Groulx]

We'll get you a copy.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

Thank you.

The next question is from Charlie Angus, please.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you so much for being here. I have a great respect for the work of your organization, Ms. Groulx and Ms. Nahwegahbow.

Ms. Nahwegahbow, are you related to David Nahwegahbow?

[Amy Nahwegahbow]

He is related to me.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I figured as much because you're so quick on the draw. He is a mentor to me.

I'm very interested in putting the gender lens on the issue of suicide, because we're dealing with issues of inequality. You've raised issues of human trafficking and sexual violence.

This has been raised a number of times, and now we see in it the national media about the sexual abuse of children leading to issues of suicide, but when I call various areas to try to find out about it in talking to police and to the front-line workers, they don't have the data because, they say, they don't have the resources. Have you found that this is the problem? How are we going to protect children if we don't have the teams that are qualified to go in and do this work in the various communities?

[Lynne Groulx]

There is no way of doing so. I believe this is the question. There is no way of protecting them unless there are people to do the work. I think it's a question that needs to be addressed immediately

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

This is one of the reasons why we pushed so hard for the government to finally be in compliance with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. That money, the government said, was like confetti, and they didn't want to throw it around, but that's money that goes to the front-line workers who are dealing with child protection right now in communities where we don't have those workers. I'd like to follow up with you on that later.

I'm interested, though, in the issues of what resources there are for women facing sexual violence in communities. We have the murdered and missing inquiry that is under way, which will certainly raise many questions, but I'm looking at the documents the government tabled at this committee. They have planned to build only one shelter a year for the next five years, with nothing offered in the far north for the Inuit. Is that even close to being adequate in terms of the needs of women at risk?

[Lynne Groulx]

No, certainly it's not anywhere close to being enough. This is nothing less than a crisis. There are basic services needed immediately. There is enough research. There is enough information. We don't need more pilot projects on this. We need adequate services immediately and the resources for them. How can we ask the women to wait for those basics? These are basic human rights. They're basic services. These are not luxuries. People in the city have access to them and we need those services.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Right.

Because we had the minister here today, I was looking at Health Canada's travel policies for non-insured health benefits. We've had doctors flag to us how many serious issues Health Canada will not cover travel for, and the policy says specifically that under no circumstances will they provide transportation for a woman from an isolated community to an interval or safe house. Why do you think government would identify women in crisis as a category they would absolutely not fund to get them into a safe situation?

[Lynne Groulx]

I'm not sure why they would do that, but I think we would see it as a fundamental breach of human rights and a breach of equity in services.