Justice Committee on June 3rd, 2021

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Okay.

Has that amount varied since 2000, or is the amount the same?

[Stéphanie Bouchard]

It has probably varied. As you know, the funds are approved by the Treasury Board. There are some initiatives—

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Ms. Bouchard, please excuse me. I don't want to interrupt you and seem impolite, but we don't really have a lot of time.

[Stéphanie Bouchard]

Okay.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

If you don't know, just tell me.

To your knowledge, has this amount increased over the years, or has the amount remained the same since 2000?

[Stéphanie Bouchard]

The amount has increased significantly over the years.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Ms. Bouchard, has the pandemic had an impact on budgets allocated to help victims or families of victims?

[Stéphanie Bouchard]

Yes, the pandemic has had an impact on several aspects of victim assistance. The federal government invested a lot of money to meet an imminent need related to new situations. As you probably know, the provinces and territories also contributed and invested a lot of money.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

So you have invested more money over the past year than in previous years. Do I have that correct?

[Stéphanie Bouchard]

I can't give you any information on the victims fund because it is funded according to certain terms and conditions, and the money is allocated by the Treasury Board, but there has been a lot of other money coming in related to victim assistance.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

So you don't know if there was more money invested in helping victims in the last year than in the previous year, for instance.

[Carole Morency]

I could add a comment. It is true that the federal government announced funds to support victims during the pandemic.

We can undertake to provide the committee with some information about the funding provided, particularly that announced through Women and Gender Equality Canada.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Morency.

I'll change the subject. I don't know which one of you would be in a better position to tell me about this, but I'd like to hear about the programs that exist to help victims and their families.

Then, I will ask you to tell me about the evolution of these programs since 2000.

[Stéphanie Bouchard]

On the federal side, there has certainly been an evolution in terms of various services through partnerships with the provinces and territories. There's a lot more information out there and childhood support centres. It's an initiative—

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Excuse me, I know that it's not polite to interrupt, but six minutes goes by quickly. There must be less than two minutes left.

I understand there are counselling programs, for example, for victims and their families. There are probably legal aid programs, as was discussed earlier, to advise them.

Would you be able to list the programs that exist to help victims and their families?

If you're unable to do so, please let me know.

[Stéphanie Bouchard]

The only thing I can say is that immediate victim services and the administration of justice are the responsibility of the provinces and territories. So there are a variety of programs across the country that provide an immediate link for people.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

So, Ms. Bouchard, the programs are different from province to province. I understand that your role is more to ensure the transfer of funds to the provinces.

I also understand, Ms. Morency, that you will send us the details of the amounts transferred to the provinces for assistance to victims and victims' families since 2000. The hearings will end next week. Will you be able to do that by early next week?

I think Ms. Morency is having some technical difficulties.

[Stéphanie Bouchard]

I can answer.

We should be able to get you the figures in question.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

You're very kind. I see my time is up, so thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Thank you very much, Monsieur Fortin. I appreciate that.

We'll now go to Mr. Garrison for six minutes.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to give a special thanks to all of our witnesses for being with us for this important study on what I know was short notice for them.

The fact that we're commencing this study this week raises one of the concerns I've always had about our approach to victims' rights: It has been focused on individual victims and cases. I thank the chair of the committee for mentioning missing and murdered indigenous women and girls this morning. We know that many thousands of women and girls have been lost to indigenous communities, never to return. This week we discovered 215 bodies of children at the Kamloops residential school. The many hundreds of children who died in residential schools and their families are also victims.

We have some categories of Canadians who are more likely to be subject to high levels of violence and to become victims. They of course include transgender Canadians and other members of the SOGI community, like the racialized members of the Toronto community who were subject to a gay serial killer for more than 10 years [Technical difficulty—Editor] high levels of violence in Canada.

I know it's a long preface, so here's my question. Because the act and the funding seem to be focused on services for individual victims, which is very important, I want to ask about support to victims organizations, and particularly community-based victims organizations. They quite often are able to work with and serve the larger communities of victims, if I can use that term, and help communities cope with the toll of loss in the community and the challenges of the legal system in achieving justice in those cases.

Do the funds actually serve community-based and victims organizations, as well as individual victims?

[Stéphanie Bouchard]

Yes, the funding does support victims organizations and community services. They're not simply targeting individuals themselves. They go to bigger and broader initiatives, such as the family information liaison units that have been mentioned as well as child advocacy centres. The fund also receives applications for different initiatives and promising practices. It's of wide breadth.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Have the funds been adequate to fund all of the requests for service that you have evaluated as positive applications, or are you in the unenviable position of turning down some very good requests?

[Stéphanie Bouchard]

There are, of course, always different needs, but we do our best to allocate the funds to the maximum capacity that we're provided with for the year. There are new announcements in the budget that will increase a lot of the funding for some of these initiatives that have been announced recently, in particular for the independent legal advice for sexual assault victims.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

But really what we're saying now, or what that acknowledges, is that there have been some unmet needs in the past. Certainly, an increase in funding is welcome to help meet those challenges. I will grant you that.

Among those victims organizations, is there support going to victims organizations from indigenous communities across the country? Is there any support going to residential school survivors? We do have the unfortunate situation where the federal government is fighting in court against some of those residential school survivors. Are they as victims receiving support at the same time for those legal challenges?