Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on June 17th, 2021

[Cherry Smiley]

If we're thinking about drug use and addiction, one thing that we often advocate for is the Nordic model of prostitution policy. It's three-pronged. You decriminalize those who are prostituted and you criminalize the sex buyers and the pimps. There's a public education campaign. There are also robust social services to support people and to support the community.

You could kind of apply that to drugs as well. You have a population of people who are suffering from all kinds of different things. There are all kinds of issues going on there that make certain people more vulnerable to being trapped in addiction. Then you have the drug dealers who come in and exploit that vulnerability for profit.

I definitely think people should not be criminalized at all for drug use. I don't think that's a crime. I think that's a response to the conditions of our lives and the oppressions we deal with. There is a difference, again, between those who are in an active addiction and those who are exploiting and profiting from those people's vulnerabilities.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Okay.

Finally, we have $2.2 billion in the national action plan to end systemic racism and violence against women. What organizations do we need to fund to help women who are vulnerable right now? Just quickly, what's the most efficient use of those dollars?

[Coralee McGuire-Cyrette]

I can jump in there if that's okay.

We need to not only do national indigenous organizations. I know that was a comment earlier, and I want to speak to it. We have to get the money into the communities where they'll do the community work best. When you're looking at autonomous indigenous organizations, the majority of them are not connected to any national indigenous organization. We need to have a balanced approach of the organizations that have a mandate to do indigenous women-specific work.

What is each agency's mandate? What are their priorities? You end up with mission drifts. We have to look at funding those organizations that have been doing the work, largely unfunded and unrecognized, for generations. That's where that comprehensive approach needs to come from. Autonomous indigenous women-specific organizations and agencies in Canada have been largely unfunded to date, and they need to be included in that funding model.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

I'm just wondering if I'm hearing you correctly. Just give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. I'm looking at you on the screen. Are you saying that we need to fund the local and regional organizations, not the national ones? Is that what I'm hearing?

[Coralee McGuire-Cyrette]

I think you need to do both. You can't just do only one model, because otherwise you miss an entire, large urban indigenous population of organizations that have been doing this work but are not connected nationally.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much.

Committee and witnesses, I understand that we're trying to connect with the missing witness, Chris Stark. If we do that, we'll finish this round of questioning. Then we'll allow the witness testimony and see how much time we have left.

In the meantime, Madame Bérubé, it's your turn, please, for two and a half minutes.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Earlier, we spoke about programs and services that can be provided to children survivors of exploitation and human trafficking.

What types of care and services should be available to those children, who have been so deeply affected?

[Coralee McGuire-Cyrette]

Is that for me? Okay, I can jump in there.

We need to take a holistic approach that includes the family, that includes the parents and that includes healing together, especially around childhood sexual exploitation. This is where culture plays in, as well as a two-eyed seeing approach, which means that we blend both mainstream services and practices and indigenous culture. We need to make sure that whatever the children need is provided—and not just for the child but for the whole family.

If we don't deal with the trauma in childhood, it carries on to mental health and addictions into adulthood. That holistic approach to healing the family unit from that experience is what's needed. We have to look at day treatment models where the family doesn't need to give up the children to go to addictions treatment services. We have to heal the whole family.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Tell us, if you would, about the situation of children who disappear and fall victim to human trafficking. Has the number of cases gone up in recent years or during the pandemic? Do you have any statistics?

[Coralee McGuire-Cyrette]

Yes, there are statistics showing the increase in demand. That's really what we're looking at. You have to decrease that demand. Here in Ontario, we finally started to build into anti-human-trafficking strategies and making it illegal. We have to enforce those laws.

Our statistics have greatly shown.... I do believe that this year we've seen a 37% increase in exits since 2020. The demand continues to increase, especially when you're looking at access to the Internet, the sexual apps, porn and all of those pieces that continue to increase. We're being so reactive to this issue. We need to be more proactive. We need to start shutting down.... This is where police services need to be equipped with cyber...childhood exploitation in order to prevent it with regard to that piece.

We need a holistic, systemic approach to address this issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you.

Rachel Blaney, please go ahead.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Ms. Skye, I'm really struggling with understanding this divide that I've been hearing through testimony for the past several witnesses and days. We've heard testimony that there is a difference between sex work and human trafficking.

Adding the layer of the colonial history of Canada and its impacts on indigenous people, how do we balance a response? We're hearing two sides. How do they come together, or how do you work on these two approaches simultaneously?

[Courtney Skye]

I think that's really important. It's a huge struggle all right, because there are different people who have different experiences and different advocates and organizations that view how to best support women.

I think it's important to recognize, because there is an emerging dichotomy between the types of services people are willing to access. There's an increasing stigma around certain women's organizations and certain support networks that aren't necessarily accessible to women who are engaging in sex work and who are looking for oversight and regulation.

If we're looking at what kinds of policy approaches and regulation might exist around different types of places or industries where there's a suspicion that there is trafficking or exploitation existing within them—whether they be massage parlours, strip clubs or the like that are legal and operate under municipal regulations across Canada—we look towards strong regulation, we look towards sex workers as workers and ensure that they have workers' rights and stigma-free access to employment standards and employment supports that are accessible for workers. There should be ways that they connect and have barrier-free services and, if we do have a genuine interest in supporting women who have this experience, again, it comes back to the other supports and services that are necessary and that exist outside of making it less safe for other women to engage in sex work.

We're looking at things like basic income, accessible services and an increase in the number of shelter services across the country. Right now there are over 600 first nations in Canada that don't have access to a women's shelter and don't have women's shelters in their communities. Those are the kinds of solutions that need to be balanced with the kind of moral judgment that comes with discussing this topic.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Clerk, just before we go on, are we having any luck with our other witness?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Naaman Sugrue]

Yes. She's in contact with IT. We're working to get her in, but it might take a few minutes, so I suggest we go to another questioner.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Absolutely.

Mr. Viersen, you have five minutes. Go ahead, please.

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

I'll give my time over to Mr. Vidal.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Gary, go ahead.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On Tuesday we heard from Grand Chief Settee from Manitoba. He was talking about some of the rate differences between northern Manitoba and southern Manitoba.

I represent a riding that's in the north half of the province of Saskatchewan and has lots of remote and rural communities.

I'm going to open it up to any of the three of you, but I'm just curious if you would confirm what the grand chief told us about the rates being significantly higher for people from the northern or remote communities than they might be for southern communities. Is that information that you would agree with and back up?

[Cherry Smiley]

I don't know in terms of the exact numbers or quantity. Also, I don't know if that's even the most useful way to think about it. I think there are very unique barriers that people from more remote communities have, for sure, that are distinct from those in more urban centres.

In terms of the rates, I think it depends. We can think about reporting and how people are able to report or not. That's going to impact that. I don't know if it's worse or better depending on the location, and I don't think that's the best way to look at it. I think that it's an issue. I think there are a lot of cases, obviously, that are unsaid, and women will never speak about what's been done to them.

I think it's more focusing on the unique barriers that remote communities have as opposed to trying to quantify where things are worse or better.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

I'm sorry. I want to interject here to let you know where I am going. I'll let the other witnesses jump in.

My point in focusing more on northern and remote...was that he also talked about some significant points of critical intervention, where there's an opportunity to intervene or interject at the right points in the journey as a preventative measure. That was more of the stage that I was trying to set.

Do any of you want to come back to this idea of some critical points of intervention that we could learn from, for a longer-term prevention measure, rather than necessarily quantifying? It wasn't my intent to talk about comparisons. It's more to find those points of intervention.

[Coralee McGuire-Cyrette]

I agree. That's a really good question.

What we're seeing is that there definitely are different northern realities and different interventions needed. I do agree. What we're seeing and hearing is that childhood sexual exploitation is happening so young, and we're not addressing it in our communities.

Sexual violence is a learnt behaviour from colonization. When we're looking at high rates of suicide and we're looking at it not being safe to disclose being sexually abused, in that we're blamed for that situation happening, where do we see that addressing sexual violence in our first nation communities? We need to begin there. If we want to get to the root cause and intervene early, we need services for children who are being exploited very young, at home, in those communities. That's one piece. We're seeing a huge gap. It does lead to trafficking later on in life as well, if you've been sexualized as a youth, going forward.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

I'm going to jump in and pick up on that again, because you led me right down another path that I wanted to ask about. You talk about the very young children who are being exploited and whatnot. Bill C-92 is a move for first nations communities to take over their own child and family services. I'm sure you're very aware of that.

Could you speak to the benefit of children being able to be in the care of their own communities and having a culturally appropriate upbringing, and the impact of that longer term as well? What benefit might that have from a longer-term prevention perspective?

[Coralee McGuire-Cyrette]

Yes, it doesn't go far enough, unfortunately, because it doesn't take into account and consideration the parents and the mothers. Once again, the most successful programs we've seen are where we're able to help support mom being mom, dad being dad, or grandma being grandma. If we don't include the parents in this conversation, we're going to continue to spin our wheels.

There hasn't been any healing. When we continue to look at child welfare as the only option here, we're not actually transforming what we need to do. There's so much healing that has to happen in our communities, and we need to include the parents in all of these conversations. We need to help them on their healing journey. We need to support them. We need to begin to really unpack our current approaches.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thanks very much.

Jaime Battiste, you have five minutes.