Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on April 12th, 2016

[Dawn Lavell-Harvard]

From NWAC's position, we are very clear that our people are too important to be trapped in jurisdictional issues, where responsibility for ending violence is bounced back and forth between the federal government, provincial government, and local communities. We want to see a national action plan where all the players, all those who have responsibility for improving the conditions for indigenous families and indigenous nations, are at that table engaging in a genuine, collaborative, and participatory development of an action plan.

That's really key: not something that is handed to us to rubber-stamp, where we have to backtrack and fix a model or ideas, but something where we are involved in a genuine collaborative development of an action plan that includes addressing the root causes—the poverty, the child welfare issues, and the addictions. We talked about the supports for treatment.

All of these situations are contributing to the violence, and we need to be addressing them in a much more integrated way. It is not only frustrating for those on the ground who are trying to make a difference; it is fiscally irresponsible to be operating in silos and across jurisdictional boundaries, and then claiming we don't have the budget to make the significant upstream investments, because it is just not efficient to be operating in that way.

If we are talking about ending violence, that means everybody. It means housing, education, health, corrections, justice, and cops. There are so many players that have a role in this, and it's just not efficient to be operating in separate fields. It needs to be integrated, to be collaborative, and—I can't say this enough—co-developed right from the start so that we are not wasting time correcting things down the path, but instead are doing it right the first time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

You have 30 seconds.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

I am wondering if we could go back to the reference to poverty. How important do you feel it is not just to reduce but to eliminate poverty in indigenous communities?

[Dawn Lavell-Harvard]

Absolutely. Poverty is one of the main contributors to indigenous women, children, and families' lack of safety. Poverty is one of the main contributors to the loss of life, to the loss of future generations, and there is no excuse for that kind of poverty in one of the richest countries in the world where we have entire communities living in third world conditions. This cannot be allowed to continue for another generation. We need to address it.

This means upstream investments, so we are saving money in the long run—investing in education, employment, and the eradication of poverty so we don't have to spend triple the money on prisons and treatment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

Don Rusnak, go ahead, please.

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

Thank you for coming today. I know a little bit of the work that NWAC does, as well as its affiliate the Ontario Native Women's Association, in Thunder Bay. You mentioned a project in Thunder Bay, and I wonder if you can elaborate a little on that.

I am a real fan of collaboration and partnerships. I know from my time in the criminal justice system, both in Alberta and in Thunder Bay, that a lot of the supports weren't there for women. I know that the services the Ontario Native Women's Association provides in Thunder Bay are very helpful to women in the community.

Can you elaborate a little on that partnership in Thunder Bay for the benefit of the committee members and other individuals here? Perhaps they would want to look at partnerships like that in their communities and getting them off the ground.

[Dawn Lavell-Harvard]

Absolutely.

The Thunder Bay Centre for the Ontario Native Women's Association is looking at that wraparound model in which we bring in partners. In many of the things we do, we have partnerships with not only first nations but with the Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres and with the Métis Nation of Ontario.

Whether it be the housing corporation, so that we can provide housing, or employment and training initiatives, or the health outreach workers, very often our workers will have an entire family—the woman and her children—as clients. If it means that our worker goes with them to court, we go with them to court; if it means that we go with them to the housing office, we go with them there, to make sure that these families are getting the maximum supports, that they're not just being bounced around and told they need to go across town.

I don't know how many of you are parents, but if you have ever tried as a parent to get three little kids ready in the morning to get to an appointment, only to arrive there and be told that you missed this one thing and now you have to go across town to get something else.... Very often, people give up. Those kinds of systemic hoops are the reasons many people don't get the services they need and are entitled to.

That's why having those supports, having that person with you who knows what your rights are, who knows what services are out there and can facilitate getting them—that wraparound model to make sure that we're not losing clients, not losing families because of lack of understanding, when there are many opportunities and lots of partnerships—has been very successful in holding families together and addressing poverty. If their kids are going to be taken away because they have no housing, we get them housing, rather than paying triple the amount—thousands of dollars—to put those children in foster homes. How be we get that family food? How be we get those children jackets? These are the kinds of common sense solutions that can be found, if we're working in partnerships.

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

As a followup to that question for the benefit of my colleagues, are there any other partnerships across the country that can be used as a model to help women in distress or women in these situations, as an example to other cities and other communities in my colleagues' ridings? Are there any other examples?

[Dawn Lavell-Harvard]

Actually, I would like to extend an open invitation to anybody who would like to come to Thunder Bay to look at the model, look at the wraparound services, and look at the partnerships that are being done there to facilitate this. I can't speak exactly to the other partnerships that are in other provinces, because each province is autonomous and works on developing things within its own region. We know, however, that moving forward we have to become more engaged with what we call “cops, courts, and corrections”. We have to start doing a better job in the justice area so that our families in the future are not shying away from the authorities.

When a woman reaches out for help, when she realizes maybe that she has an addictions issue and requires treatment, very often reaching out to the authorities, if there's violence in the home, results in children being take away. Many women would rather continue to experience the violence than lose their kids. That results in yet another generation.... We can't break the cycle if we don't address it to make sure that when women reach out.... That requires prevention and support, and separation from those who will apprehend. That's a really key factor. It's a new, innovative way of thinking about how we create partnerships and use community grassroots partnerships to provide the supports, rather than use those who are tasked, unfortunately, with removing children as their obligation.

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

I'm just going to switch gears a little here. The recently released report by NWAC recommended that a national inquiry be independent from government, adequately funded, and be free of funding restrictions that will impede its ability to effectively address the scope and nature of the problem.

Can you elaborate upon how a national inquiry can be independent from government, along with any advantages or disadvantages associated with this approach?

[Dawn Lavell-Harvard]

There are legal ways they can set up the inquiry so it has authority, so it is not being directed by any specific department, making sure that it is truly arm's length so it's not beholden exactly to somebody's department.

The concerns that we've seen in the past inquiries, specifically in B.C., were with regard to the fact that even though civil organizations such as the Native Women's Association of Canada were given standing in the inquiry.... We had the right to go to the inquiry and to speak. It's organizations such as the Native Women's Association and the Feminist Alliance for International Action that have genuine independence, because we are not constrained by being paid employees of the government, and we have that voice. However, because we were not provided sufficient funding for legal counsel, sufficient funding to be able to attend the inquiry, it meant that our voice was in effect silenced. It significantly reduced the independence of the inquiry because those who had the independent thought, knowledge, and the grassroots' ability to speak out were silenced because we were not able to get to the table.

Our rights are only as valid as our ability to exercise them, and having the right to be at the table means nothing if we can't get there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

We're moving to the five-minute questions now, and Arnold Viersen is up.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you for joining us today and sharing the work that your organization does.

It's clear that NWAC has made combatting violence against indigenous women and girls the primary focus of your work.

I liked how you highlighted the point at the beginning that in order to eliminate poverty, we have to get rid of violence first. If we can eliminate the violence, the poverty will be reduced in and of itself.

When it comes to violence against women, there's one area that I'm particularly interested in hearing about, which was raised by your organization two years ago at a Senate committee. At that time, NWAC urged that the accessibility of online, violent, sexually explicit material and its effect on youth, and especially on boys, be at the forefront of our minds as parliamentarians.

Could you share with the committee why you believe this is an issue that Parliament should examine and take action on?

[Dawn Lavell-Harvard]

What I was pointing out was that this is a very vicious cycle. Ending violence helps to end poverty because it allows our women to get an education, to get employment, to take care of their families; and at the same time, the poverty is contributing to the violence and the lack of safety. It's an unfortunate never-ending cycle where poverty reproduces the violence and the violence reproduces the poverty.

I just wanted to be clear on that.

As well, with the issue of online, violent, sexualized content, we have seen significant research that shows that generations of young people now, and young boys specifically, who are being exposed to explicit, violent, sexualized content depicting the degradation, dehumanization, and objectification of women leads to increased violence.

We need only look at the situation that happened with Cindy Gladue to see one of the most extremely offensive, horrific atrocities that is the outcome of that kind of violent content. The fact that this perpetrator's computer, which had hundreds of graphic images of what could only be described as sexual torture, was not allowed as part of the evidence in his trial for the brutal murder of Cindy Gladue—who was then herself degraded and dehumanized by having pictures of her most vital body parts passed around the jury as evidence—shows exactly the kind of horrific outcome that happen when explicit, sexual, violent content imprints in young minds.

I think we are really just beginning to see the outcome in this next generation of what is a very different environment.

As a mother, and as representing the Native Women's Association, we know how many times children accidentally stumble onto some of the most horrifying sexual violence on the Internet when they are innocently typing in something. We're seeing that kind of long-term shaping of attitudes towards women and girls, shaping of attitudes towards sex, and shaping of attitudes towards relationships that then become based on violence. We're seeing it more and more because of the violent content on the Internet that, increasingly, large numbers of young children are being exposed to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

You have 45 seconds, Arnold.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

NWAC has also worked to end violence toward women and girls who have been victims of sex trafficking. Do you see a link between the accessibility of violent sexual material and sex trafficking?

[Dawn Lavell-Harvard]

I think that the availability online of violent sexual material contributes to the larger attitudes behind the degradation and dehumanization of women generally. Moreover, the racialization of indigenous women specifically contributes to trafficking, which contributes to a larger societal attitude that often blames the victim in these situations. For young women and girls, the average age they are recruited and trafficked is 13.

As for the arguments suggesting that prostitution is a choice, when we are talking about the average age of a girl being recruited and trafficked as 13, it means this is exploitation of children. We need to be very clear that human trafficking is one of the outcomes of the larger attitudes that degrade and dehumanize indigenous women specifically.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

Thanks.

Gary Anandasangaree.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Lavell-Harvard and Mr. Peters, for being here today.

You mentioned earlier that women are being jailed 30 days for stealing food just to survive. A disturbing statistic shows that 35% of women in federal prisons are aboriginal women.

I know it's a large issue, but where are the challenges? The social challenges aside, in terms of poverty and so on, but within the criminal justice system, is it issues like aboriginal women being targeted by police? Is it poor prosecution, lack of diversion, or lack of a judiciary that reflects the community? Where are we in the spectrum, and what are the challenges that we need to address? I think this number has been growing over the last couple of decades.

[Dawn Lavell-Harvard]

Okay, so yes, yes, and yes.

Indigenous women, unfortunately, are the most over policed, but less likely to get justice. Our women are targeted, and they're being monitored because of racial issues.

We know that justice is intimately connected to the representation you can purchase. It's intimately connected to poverty as well. If you don't have the funds to buy a lawyer, and if you don't have the funds to get justice, then you're going to end up with the least favourable outcomes. They're going to end up in jail.

There was a clear example of this when we were in Vancouver during the Stanley Cup riots and there were young men coming in from the suburbs and lighting police cars on fire. Across the country there were arguments about why a young man should not go to jail because he had a beautiful career ahead of him and a scholarship to some Ivy League university. This was not a matter of boys being boys, but they were actually going to set police cars on fire. That's large-scale damage and potential danger, and yet an indigenous woman who defends herself.... If somebody has their hands around my throat, I'm going to fight back, too. That's real honest. Often many of our women end up in jail because they have stood up for themselves, or because they have fought back in violent situations. Double charging means they end up in jail, too, if he says, “He hit, she hit back”. We've seen again and again that our women are over-policed. Because of the high levels of violence when women fight back, they end up in jail because of racism. Because of the absence of indigenous women on juries, and because of court processes, our women don't get justice. We get harsher sentences.

Often, when indigenous women end up in jail, one of our primary concerns is that some of the women who are sent there on essentially trivial charges can then be subject to indeterminate sentences because of things that then happen while they're in jail. Somebody who is jailed originally for stealing food for her family ends up doing a life sentence because judges can given them indeterminate sentences because of some petty thing that happened while they were in jail, such as throwing their papers at the parole committee, which is considered assault. We've seen it again and again, where they've gone in for petty theft and end up with a life sentence.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

On the issue of standing in the upcoming inquiry, what type of resources do you need as an organization to fully represent the issues at hand?

[Dawn Lavell-Harvard]

One of the things we've mentioned, and in fact the families have said, is that they want the Sisters in Spirit initiative to be done again—it was $2 million per year over five years—because they relied on that initiative. If a family member needed something, they called our office.

These families know they are going to be moving into a time frame of potentially being re-traumatized and revictimized. We saw this again and again in B.C. They have been asking us if we are going to be able to support them through this and be there for them. This is where they call the Sisters in Spirit, to even have that ongoing data analysis and that support for the families. That is the fundamental first step that many families want—the Sisters in Spirit reinstated so that they have somewhere to go and someone to support them, protect them, and speak out for them in this process, to make sure the victims are not put on trial and re-traumatized through this process.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

Okay, the final question of the evening is from Todd Doherty, on behalf of Cathy McLeod.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I'd like to start by saying thank you to Ms. Lavell-Harvard and Mr. Peters for being here today. Your passionate presentation can't help but touch our hearts.

I would also like to say that I am very proud to have two indigenous women in my life, and that is the reason why I am here today. I am very proud to say that.

Ms. Lavell-Harvard, we've seen many studies and inquiries done over the years for the MMIW. You spoke about breaking the systemic cycle. This government, in budget 2016, has announced that it is putting forward $40 million. I've read some of your recommendations.

What else can we do to ensure that we are leaving a legacy of action, and not a legacy of books on shelves? What other kinds of mechanisms can ensure that this money, and any money that this government has put in place or has pledged, gets to those critical areas it is intended for?

[Dawn Lavell-Harvard]

I think this is something that necessitates long-term independent oversight, so that it's not just a family advisory while it's in the public view because we are going through the process of the inquiry. This requires a commitment to a funded independent oversight that is going to have the kinds of human rights knowledge and grassroots knowledge to be able to ensure that the government is held to task and that the international human rights watchdogs are continuing to look at this situation. That is what is going to be really important here: that this isn't just a flash in the pan or something that's checked off on a to-do list; that we don't do the inquiry and then, as you said, it becomes one more report on a shelf that nobody ever looks at.

That's going to mean that the inquiry itself has to have some commitment—we are saying, at minimum—to a third phase. You have the pre-inquiry phase, where they're developing. You have the actual inquiry. There needs to be a third phase that ensures, for any identification of misconduct or lack of justice, or for cases that need to be reopened—because they are not going to be able to reopen them during the inquiry in the number of cases that will need to be—that there is a developed process where those cases are reopened, justice is given to the families, and there are resources provided for that, as well as long-term oversight to ensure there is implementation.

We know that's going to require commitments in budgets. This is about upstream investments. This is about making sure that we are investing now.