Evidence of meeting #20 for Justice and Human Rights in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was witnesses.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid
Thank you, Mr. Clerk.
Ms. Dahya, can I please ask you if you can just slow down? Speak slowly and clearly, so that if there is a lag in the interpretation we're able to accommodate.
You have a minute and a half left on the clock.
Please go ahead.
12:30 p.m.
Lawyer and Family Law Mediator, The Redwood
Yes, of course. We'll make written submissions to fill in whatever we missed.
The benefits of criminalization could outweigh the harms if it takes into consideration the complexities of the criminal law system, the family law system, the immigration system and the unique vulnerabilities of immigrants, family relations and family systems principles, and if it is based on a sound understanding of different types of intimate partner violence and incorporates measures to protect and—
12:30 p.m.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
The interpreter is telling me that the audio is constantly cutting in and out. Under these circumstances, she is not able to provide a faithful interpretation of what the witness is saying.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid
Thank you for pointing that out, Mr. Fortin.
Ms. Dahya, your sound is really choppy and we're having difficulty providing interpretation. Perhaps you can make your submissions in writing and send them to us, and we can go on to the rounds of questions, as I understand that time is also of the essence here as we try to go through our rounds of questions.
We'll go into our first round of questions, then, with Ms. Wagantall, for six minutes.
Go ahead.
February 18th, 2021 / 12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
Thank you, Chair.
I want to thank all the witnesses I had the opportunity to hear this morning in regard to this bill.
It is a step in the right direction as far as prevention goes to intervene at a stage of coercive control before physical violence takes place. However, in conversation around this with the previous witnesses as well, there was talk about that prevention. It just brought to my mind the fact that the perpetrators whom The Redwood witness was talking about needing assistance as well to deal with their issues...takes us back to where this really all begins. There are negative factors in our society that create the behaviours that encourage intimate partner violence.
For example, very dear to me is something that we've been working on in the House of Commons: dealing with the ease of access to pornography in our society. It scars and impacts attitudes towards women from a very early age in life when exposure to pornography exists. I had a meeting with the provincial YWCA of my province. They were very discouraged to see how easy it was to get that access. I'm wondering if the witnesses—perhaps someone from the police perspective and then the others as well—could comment on how important this is and if it would be a factor that they would see as important for the government to address.
12:35 p.m.
Vice-President of the Board of Directors, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police
Thank you very much for the question, which is focused on the police perspective at this point.
When we look at the trauma that children and youth experience through even Internet child exploitation with these types of offences, we continue to invest in and investigate areas of pornography to ensure that we are addressing the needs of our communities. This is a focus not just for police but for the whole judicial system, and we need to continue our focus in this area.
The use of pornography to degrade individuals in intimate partner situations is a form of coercive control, definitely. Coercive control is all-encompassing, but that is one area we would certainly study if we were to use such a tool as the framework.
Police services across the country have implemented the Canadian framework for collaborative police response to intimate partner violence, and an additional framework that focuses on sexual violence. When we look to our partners in the United Kingdom, we know that they have a guideline specific to coercive control behaviours. These domestic violence tools, these tools for coercive control, look at all of the different behaviours. Pornography would be one of many.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
Thank you very much. I appreciate that and I would love to hear more, but I would like to hear as well whether the other witnesses have a perspective on that and how it is impacting the amazing work they do as well.
Thank you.
12:35 p.m.
Jocelyn Formsma Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres
Madam Chair, may I speak?
12:35 p.m.
Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres
Thank you.
I just want to highlight that through friendship centres, we actually have a program that's running out of the Alberta region, called “I am a kind man”. This is a program that engages directly with men who have been violent and works with them to basically work through their issues. The idea is to hopefully work with them to get to a place where they are no longer violent.
A lot of our programming does focus on prevention, including children and youth programming focusing on cultural connection, and then providing those safe spaces so that young people, if they are experiencing sexual assault or other kinds of abuse, will have a safe place and mentors to come to.
I won't speak specifically on pornography, but I'd just say that there are those intergenerational effects from trauma, from sexual assault, from residential schools or from child welfare and other matters. I can't say it's not an issue, but I would say that some of those other cultural systemic factors are probably more conducive to our seeing people becoming violent in intimate partner relationships and other relationships.
I'll just leave it at that for now. Thank you.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
Thank you. I appreciate that very much.
I'll ask another question here.
I am wondering, to those of you involved in on-the-ground services and doing the great work you're doing, whether you feel you have the necessary resources to provide the supports for survivors, and whether there is a greater difficulty right now in light of COVID restrictions.
I would appreciate your comments on that. I don't know if The Redwood folks are able to participate or not at this point.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid
Ms. Dahya, would you like to go ahead? We can't hear you.
You have 30 seconds, Mrs. Wagantall. Would you like to ask Mr. Sheppard, perhaps?
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
12:40 p.m.
President, National Association of Friendship Centres
It's— [Technical difficulty—Editor]
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
That's great.
Ms. Formsma, I would be pleased to hear from you.
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres
Ms. Dahya, I hear sound.
Do you want to try her first, since she hasn't had a chance yet?
12:40 p.m.
Lawyer and Family Law Mediator, The Redwood
What I can say is that The Redwood has started the iDetermine platform, which is a platform for women who seek to leave abusive relationships or cope with abusive relationships. It's also available to non-binary people.
It was launched and it has already exceeded 70% of the projected user rate since the pandemic has begun. We're seeing that it clearly underscores a need for more resources and more supports in this area.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid
Thank you.
That concludes our time, Mrs. Wagantall. Thank you very much.
Now we'll go to Mr. Virani for six minutes.
Go ahead, sir.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for the work they do on the front lines to address such a pressing issue.
I want to say a very warm welcome to the folks from The Redwood, which is a shelter based in my riding that not only serves folks in Parkdale-High Park but assists women and children throughout Toronto and provides incredible service and incredible safety to them. Thank you very much.
I have three questions, so I would ask Ms. Ajibolade and Ms. Dahya to keep their responses to about 45 seconds.
The first question is simply about the racialized women you serve at The Redwood.
Abi, if I could turn to you first, can you talk a bit about—and we've heard this from other witnesses—how coercive control manifests vis-à-vis newcomers, immigrant populations and racialized women in particular? What kinds of characteristics does it feature when it's coercion vis-à-vis a racialized woman? Thanks.
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, The Redwood
Thank you, Mr. Virani.
This plays out in different ways. Just like all of my colleagues previously have shared, we serve a lot of women from different backgrounds—racialized women, like you said—and it's something we see play out all the time, things that women are sharing with us when they first come into the shelter. Sometimes they tell us, “You know, it's not that there is any physical form of abuse, but I shiver when this individual comes into the house.”
Like Raheena would have shared, we've been doing a lot of work lately with racialized women in particular—black women and Muslim women—with our Building Muscle project, and that's to really hear from these communities how all this plays out, including coercive and controlling behaviour.
One of the strong things we keep hearing from them is that they don't always want to involve the state. So many things are involved in that. Overpolicing, child protection issues and all of these issues—even immigration—play out in what informs this decision.