Evidence of meeting #72 for Justice and Human Rights in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was complainant.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Randy Boissonnault Liberal Edmonton Centre, AB
Thank you. I agree that we've seen this across the country in terms of the underfunding or the lack of funding or, in many cases, no funding from the federal government for important LGBTQ2 organizations.
I want to ask W-LEAF a question, but I first want to ask you a clarification question. I was listening to your testimony carefully. Wouldn't it be more accurate to state that racism is present in the LGBTQ community, as opposed to a blanket statement that the LGBTQ community is racist?
Executive Director, Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity
That's a very interesting perspective. Our intersectional committee would carefully disagree and would hold to account my statement that everyone has the capacity for racism, discrimination, and sexism.
When we look at the International Day of Pink campaign that the Prime Minister, the current Leader of the Opposition, and Jagmeet Singh have all endorsed, and actually very passionately, one of the critical messages from the Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity is one of acknowledging that all of us have the capacity to hurt people, all of us have been hurt, and all of us have seen hurt happen.
Honestly, all of us struggle with the challenge around racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia every day. It's not necessarily a destination of not being homophobic or not being racist, but rather an ongoing effort that we all make in our daily lives to make the world a better place.
Liberal
Randy Boissonnault Liberal Edmonton Centre, AB
Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I have a quick question for W-LEAF.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
You're over your time, unfortunately. Maybe Mr. Angus will ask that question.
Mr. Angus.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Ms. Segal, I want to start by continuing this conversation about the codification and consent, because I think it is really crucial that we get this right. I am concerned about how we start to frame this and if there is a way within law to do this.
If we're talking about the moment of unconsciousness, of incapacity, we're talking about a number of issues: power and powerlessness, risk, incapacity, and what actually clarifies real, clear consent, especially for a woman who is not in a situation of power or security when the act happens. Is there a specific codification language that you think we need to put in which would at least help to address some of these issues?
Chair, Women's Legal Education and Action Fund
Well, there's no doubt that this is a very difficult issue. We are not talking about incapacity being something that touches unconsciousness. Incapacity actually can be a state that's removed from unconsciousness.
What we suggest is that—we haven't suggested legal or proposed language here—this amendment remove the unconsciousness provision and instead define incapacity in the following way. Incapacity means that someone is incapable of understanding the sexual nature of the act and the risks associated with the act, incapable of realizing that he or she may choose to decline participation, and incapable of communicating their voluntary consent. There are those three elements.
This is a very large problem. We are submitting our detailed written brief, but estimates are in the range of 50,000 sexual assaults happening each year in circumstances where complainants are intoxicated. This is a very significant problem.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
I certainly agree.
Ms. Dale, my wife worked with sexual assault victims in the 1980s. My oldest is working with them now. When I hear my daughters speak, they blow my mind about the pervasiveness of what they call rape culture. They say that in Ottawa there are “rapey bars”, and young women are told, “Don't go there: that's where you get raped.” I mean, I hung out with a lot of dumb doofuses when I was growing up, but I never heard of a rapey bar.
How do we start to address this? What my daughters tell me is that when one of their friends is assaulted—and these are young women with some levels of power and of education—their inability to even go forward with the complaint...because sometimes the people who are perpetrating these have power too. How do we start to address these issues? Incapacity becomes a central focus when young women have to bring their own drinks—with a top on their drinks—to a party. This is a much more pervasive problem. How do we start to deal with this crisis?
Executive Director, Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic
I like to think that we did start dealing with it.
We need to understand that in the global context, violence against women, and sexual violence in particular, has been named by the UN as a global pandemic. They don't throw those words around lightly. From a public health perspective, we've had Canada stand up and say that violence is a public health issue. If we were to treat this as a pandemic, we would be investing in it differently.
I don't want you to hear me say today that everything is about money, but it is true that without proper social investment we can't move the marker very far. We wind up with a revolving door of victims because we're recycling them into an environment that reoffends.
Doing this work has been my career for more than 30 years. I believe we're in a moment where we have the opportunity to make a difference. I believe there's enough of a groundswell of public support in beginning to understand this issue at a deeper level. We're not still in the headlines that we were in maybe 15 years ago when we had a cycle of just victim blaming. We're getting a bit deeper now. I believe there's public support for proper implementation of a proper program that requires all of us to sit down at an expert table and actually hammer out some education pieces.
Everybody says “prevention, not just intervention”, but prevention takes place every time we intervene. How we intervene, whether the experience of the justice system is a positive one or not, is a message sent out to everyone about prevention, because every time someone gets away with it, every time we have a crime that is treated with what is very near to impunity in a country such as Canada, that is a message to everybody about how we value these issues.
You are getting at it here, but it's not all that you need to do.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
No, and I appreciate that. The fact that we're having a discussion about consent says that we are moving the bar.
In terms of the pandemic and the lack of resources, I'd like to switch to the issue of indigenous communities, where we're having massive suicide death rates. There is always talk that there's a connection between sexual violence and youth suicides—
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
—particularly for the young girls. We were in one particular situation where I called the police officers who were on the ground and asked if this was prevalent. They said they had no resources. We called the children's ombuds office and asked them what they knew, and they said they had had no resources. The mental health workers are flown in and flown out. This is the front line of indigenous sexual violence, and then those children are put into the foster care system, and the foster care system is the conduit of sexual violence against young indigenous girls.
My question is—I know you have an area of expertise—who is there to start addressing the issues of potential sexual violence against indigenous children who are put into a system that's supposed to protect them but fails them? Because that is the beginning of the Highway of Tears.
Executive Director, Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic
Yes, I totally agree, and I did work in the far north in setting up a shelter in Nunavut. I have some direct experience with both the levels of violence and the impossibility, as my colleague said, of just incarcerating everyone who offends, because it's so endemic that you would literally be incarcerating the whole community.
Clearly, the responses need to be more broadly based. I would say that your resident expert is NWAC. NWAC works well with the indigenous northern women's organizations, all of which have very well worked out plans for how to stem the tide of violence against them.
The leadership within the indigenous women's community is some of the strongest in this country. They are some of the most articulate about how to deal with these issues, including the native friendship centres, which have just changed their name to “indigenous friendship centres”. You have great leadership in places such as Ontario, which is tackling the issues of gender-based violence as well.
Certainly, I would start with NWAC. They've done amazing work on this. They were the cry in the dark around murdered and missing indigenous women when no one was listening.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to those witnesses I've seen at status of women. We actually studied violence against young women and girls as well as the private member's bill on judicial training. Sadly, much of the testimony we've had today hasn't been to do with Bill C-51; it's actually been on the same issues we heard about.
One of the challenges, of course, is that we have federal and provincial judiciary courts, so where is the money coming from? Is it the provincial or the federal government? I hear what you're saying. One of the most compelling witnesses we had represented crown attorneys, who said that when survivors of gender-based violence come forward, they think the crown attorney is representing them and not the state, so they feel they have a representative in court, but then when they get there, they're let down when they find that that's not their representative.
When you were talking about the need for someone to be with them, I completely agree with you. I don't think that's something covered in this bill, though.
Do you think the right to legal representation during the rape shield provisions, that part of it, is a good thing?
Executive Director, Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic
You're looking at me, so do you want me to answer?
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
I actually want all of you to answer.
I recognize that it doesn't go nearly as far as all of us would like it to, which would be to have someone take the survivors right through from going to the police to the whole court process. When I looked at this bill, I was thrilled that we were at least taking some steps forward. There's been some concern about access to representation. Making it available doesn't mean that everyone will be able to access it.
Maybe all three of you could comment briefly on that provision. Is this a good thing? How would you see the federal government improving what's there, and do you think even having that there will encourage more survivors to come forward?
Executive Director, Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic
I think it's a step in the right direction for sure, and I think it's important to have representation during the rape shield provisions. We've seen how things go very wrong when those are not in place. I think it's absolutely the right step.
We mentioned further steps because we would like to incentivize provincial legal aid programs. LEAF can probably comment on this, because they were very active in these provisions and in lobbying the provincial legal aid systems to even regard this as an important place for representation.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
I'm sorry, but I need to interrupt, Ms. Dale.
The bells are ringing. May I ask for unanimous consent to continue until we complete this round of questions?
Executive Director, Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic
Okay.
We went further because in our experience in Ontario with providing independent legal advice, originally the province wanted to provide it when a trial date was set. We encouraged them to back that up, because the cases go wrong right from the get-go. Women do not understand, as you pointed out, that the state is not representing them. Simultaneously, they don't understand the implications of any of their conduct or that any of it will be held against them or that even collecting a rape kit and submitting it commits them to a path that they may not have consciously committed to.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Do you have any suggestions for changes to the bill?
Executive Director, Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic
No. Maybe those would be at the implementation level.
Executive Director, Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic
I'm here to encourage you in the bill and to say have us back so that we can help bolster the ways in which you can incentivize the provincial programs. That may be through additional funding or it may be through matching. I always like to have a carrot, to draw the provinces towards this by having matching funding that allows them to actually apply for funding that gives them a little boost if it's in a program area that you've determined.
I think there are ways to work with that provincial-federal gap quite creatively. That's what I would like you to consider as you go forward.