Evidence of meeting #3 for Special Committee on Indigenous Women in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was aboriginal.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Senior Counsel, Family, Children and Youth Section, Department of Justice
No, that the issue of missing and murdered aboriginal women is a priority for the government. I think the political statement has been made.
With regard to the NWAC funding, as I was explaining, I think there is an understandable confusion between Sisters in Spirit and NWAC, because NWAC has been—
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
I understand, but I'm wondering, what does Sisters in Spirit do anymore?
Senior Counsel, Family, Children and Youth Section, Department of Justice
Sisters in Spirit is and always has been an initiative of the Native Women's Association of Canada, but what I mean is that the government's funding continues to NWAC. Although I understand people have mentioned that the Sisters in Spirit work is no longer being funded, what's happening—and I think my colleagues at Status of Women Canada and NWAC, I believe, who are scheduled to appear, will explain better—is that Status of Women Canada has continued to fund NWAC for the next initiatives past that original initiative. They've funded them for “Evidence to Action II”—
NDP
Conservative
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
Okay, wonderful.
I'm wondering if you could also share some statistics on the root causes with us that the Department of Justice may have access to: the levels of poverty on reserve, unemployment, housing shortages, the number of shelters that exist on first nations, the average level of education that aboriginal women on and off reserve have, and other root-cause-related statistics—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Stella Ambler
Sorry, I know it's difficult.
Could we maybe have a very quick answer to that?
Senior Counsel, Family, Children and Youth Section, Department of Justice
I could mention that those will be addressed in my colleagues' presentations next week, with the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics and Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Stella Ambler
Thank you.
To Mr. Rickford now for five minutes.
Oh, he's passing it on to Ms. Block.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK
Sure. I can start.
Thank you so much, Madam Chair.
Thank you so much for being here.
I feel privileged to have been asked to serve on this committee to look at solutions for addressing this issue.
One of the questions I have might follow up with some of the comments my colleagues have made already. I too want to know a bit more. You've referenced Sisters in Spirit. We know there was an additional $25 million.
You also talked about a seven-point strategy. You've referenced that a couple of times. I'm wondering if you would be willing to tell me a little more about that seven-point strategy.
Senior Counsel, Family, Children and Youth Section, Department of Justice
Certainly.
The seven-point strategy is essentially the content of the October 2010 announcement. There are a number of initiatives that were taken by Public Safety Canada. There was the setting up of the new National Support Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains at the RCMP. There were a number of related initiatives by the RCMP around the national website, which was launched last January. The website currently contains information on 740 cases. There's a great deal of hope for the website, in that it's modelled on similar websites that allow the public to provide tips for outstanding cases. The Ontario Provincial Police had a similar website, and they solved a fairly large number of cold cases through tips that were received through that website. There's a great deal of hope for that website.
The national centre is doing a lot of other work as well. Beyond that, as I mentioned, there are changes to the CPIC system, to add fields to the police data information. Then there is the community safety planning at Public Safety.
At the Department of Justice, we had a couple of initiatives. One was to prepare the compendium of promising practices. There's also additional resources that are being made available, on application, to provinces and territories and aboriginal groups, for victims services, for culturally relevant victims services for aboriginal people, and for supports for the families. We have a couple of instances of programs for supporting the children of missing and murdered aboriginal women.
There are also other funding programs for pilot projects to look at reducing vulnerability, specifically of young aboriginal women. There was money in the first years for applications for awareness materials to reduce cycles of violence in aboriginal communities.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK
Okay.
Is this seven-point strategy, and all of these tools and different things you've highlighted as part of that strategy, co-managed by the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Justice, or does this strategy just fall under the Department of Justice?
Senior Counsel, Family, Children and Youth Section, Department of Justice
The initiatives of the RCMP and Public Safety are separate from the Justice initiatives. There's a general coordination of information across the government. The seven-point strategy is not all the work the Government of Canada is doing in this area. There are initiatives at Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. There are initiatives at Status of Women and at Health Canada.
These are additional initiatives. In many instances, additional funding was added to existing funds at the Department of Justice so there would be more money available for aboriginal groups.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Stella Ambler
You are done. Thank you, Ms. Block.
Now on to Ms. Freeman for five minutes.
Conservative
NDP
Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC
That wasn't my understanding. If we're going to continue with a round, we'll take our spot. My understanding was that the last questioner was Ms. Block.
NDP
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Stella Ambler
It's been almost an hour, and I know it's tough to be on the hot seat.
We can either keep going or we can entertain a motion to adjourn.
Conservative
