Thank you, Madam Chair.
Madam Chair, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss an issue of grave concern to the Government of Canada and the Department of Justice Canada.
My name is Lisa Hitch. I am the Senior Counsel at the Family, Children and Youth Section of the Department of Justice Policy Sector.
In my brief opening remarks this evening, l'd like to set out an outline of three areas: the background to this complex issue; the scope of the Government of Canada responses to date; and, finally, some of the more recent Justice Canada responses.
Disproportionate levels of violence faced by indigenous women and girls, and in particular levels of violent victimization, have been of serious concern to governments in Canada for some time. As with the previous 1999 general social survey and the 2004 general social survey, the 2009 general social survey showed that aboriginal Canadians are three times more likely to suffer a violent victimization than non-aboriginal Canadians. Most of those are young women aged 15 to 34, and most of the violence is perpetrated by someone known to the victim, although aboriginal people are also more likely to be victims of violence by strangers. Aboriginal women are three times more likely to be victims of spousal abuse, seven times more likely to be victims of homicide, and unfortunately, it appears, victims of serial killers. My colleagues at Statistics Canada will provide more detail to the committee next week on the available statistics.
Beyond the statistics, however, a large number of reports and studies on violence against indigenous women and girls guide our work. Over the last few decades, these have ranged from the 1995 Royal Commission Report on Aboriginal Peoples through the 1999 Report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba, focusing on the deaths of Helen Betty Osborne and John Joseph Harper, to the work of the Native Women's Association of Canada and many others. Indeed, the 2005 report of the Ending Violence Association of British Columbia and others is entitled “Researched to Death”. As the title would suggest, it is not alone in urging the need for action. Together, these reports represent a rich resource and background for the many actions taken by governments at all levels in the development of policy and funding of programs designed to address this violence, in particular because many include the voices of indigenous women, men, and children, speaking about their lives and experiences of violence.
Despite the many actions taken by governments in Canada at all levels, individually and in concert with one another and with aboriginal peoples and communities, recent Statistics Canada publications point out that violence against women continues to be a persistent and ongoing challenge, and one that is still considerably more dangerous for aboriginal women. One of the reasons is the complexity and interrelatedness of the root causes of the greater vulnerability to violence of aboriginal women and girls. Although there are commonalities in some instances, individual instances of violence are diverse geographically, culturally, and in situation.
Given the wide range of root causes for the violence, the way those causes interact, and the great cultural diversity, no single solution can resolve the violence for all first nations and aboriginal communities in Canada. The intergenerational cycles of violence and abuse that threaten aboriginal communities by factors such as their lateral violence, collateral damage on child victims and witnesses, and impact on the vulnerability of women and girls who leave their home communities will require time to effectively be broken community by community.
The Government of Canada has focused on making significant expenditures in a number of core areas to improve individual and community well-being, including in economic development, education, labour market participation, housing, health, family violence programming, policing, and other relevant areas. Government of Canada officials are engaged in that work in a number of departments and agencies, including Public Safety Canada, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, Status of Women Canada, Health Canada, and others. My colleagues from some of these other departments will be able to provide more details on some of those broader initiatives.
Much of this Government of Canada action is in partnership with aboriginal organizations and groups, the provinces and territories, and other stakeholders. They respond to the myriad studies identifying the root causes of violence in aboriginal communities and the additional vulnerability to violence of aboriginal women and girls. As an example, federal-provincial-territorial ministers in several portfolios have declared that finding solutions to violence against aboriginal women and girls is a priority.
In the Justice and Public Safety portfolio, at their November 2012 meeting, federal-provincial-territorial ministers approved an implementation plan for the 52 recommendations in the 2012 report to them from the Missing Women Working Group. That report set out findings on root causes, including research on serial sexual predators, identifying characteristics that increase vulnerability for victims, such as age, gender, perceived race, ethnicity, addictions, and mental illness. The report also discussed best practices in detecting potential serial murderers and strategies to identify and protect marginalized persons from becoming victims.
Ministers also directed officials to develop a framework to coordinate federal, provincial, and territorial responses to the higher levels of violence experienced by aboriginal women and girls across the law enforcement and justice spectrum.
Provincial and territorial ministers responsible for aboriginal affairs had earlier directed officials to develop a document on root causes of the violence, and federal-provincial-territorial ministers responsible for the Status of Women had adopted a declaration in 2007, in Iqaluit. The Government of Canada also provided $5 million over five years, from 2005 to 2010, to the Native Women's Association of Canada for their Sisters in Spirit initiative, through Status of Women Canada, in response to concerns about missing and murdered aboriginal women.
When their research showed a disturbingly high number of missing and murdered aboriginal women across Canada, the government announced a further investment of $25 million over five years, in budget 2010. This supported a seven-point strategy aimed at improving the response of law enforcement and the justice system to cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women and girls, and increasing community safety, as an important criminal justice priority.
This commitment included a number of initiatives at the RCMP and at Public Safety Canada, including establishing a new National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains; enhancing the Canadian Police Information Centre database; creating a national website to help match old or missing persons cases and unidentified human remains; and working with aboriginal communities to develop community safety plans, as those communities are best placed to establish priorities for effective change. It also included initiatives at Justice Canada, including support for the development and adaptation of victim services that are culturally appropriate for aboriginal people and can provide support for the families of missing and murdered women.
A number of important community initiatives have also been funded, including support for extending the Canadian Red Cross's Walking the Prevention Circle to Inuit communities.
We would also like to draw the attention of the committee to the recent compendium of promising practices to reduce violence and increase safety of aboriginal women in Canada. The compendium is an online resource developed by the Aboriginal Research Institute to support aboriginal communities seeking practical responses to violence in their communities, by allowing them to build on the experience of other communities facing similar challenges.
We know from the work of the Native Women's Association of Canada, the earlier work of Manitoba's Aboriginal Justice Inquiry, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, and from the work of many others, that the higher vulnerability of aboriginal women and girls to violence is a complex issue. It requires coordinated action from federal, provincial, and territorial departments responsible for justice, public safety, policing, gender issues, and aboriginal affairs, working with aboriginal people and other stakeholders to develop more effective and appropriate solutions in each community to bring lasting change.
Honouring the women and their families requires government at all levels to know their stories, to learn from their circumstances, and to take action towards ending the violence and preventing further deaths.
Thank you.
