Special Committee on Indigenous Women Committee on May 2nd, 2013

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you.

I want to talk a little bit more about this whole idea of integration. It's probably what most affects what's going on in the communities right now.

Francie, you talked about the multi-pronged approach as a concept, and seeing how the bigger structural macro kinds of things could have a positive impact. I think for the purposes of our discussion here today, uniquely with Public Safety and Aboriginal Affairs side by side, it would be useful to talk a little bit more about how we could start to think about some of the prevention programs that are working on reserve.

I know in Kenora, through the Status of Women, there was funding at the Women's Place there, and we had a violence de-escalation program, which had tremendous impact. I was concerned that there wasn't an evaluative tool after the fact, but people spoke highly about it, and many of them came from first nations communities in and around the city of Kenora. But again, that just goes to how we're talking to each other as departments. When we are funding prevention programs, Francie, on reserve, when Status of Women is funding certain projects, especially in the last intake and beyond in this calendar year, many of these kinds of programs will focus on that.

Then there's the Public Safety piece. Of course, Shawn, we've spoke before, but you spoke earlier about a variety of different programs.

How do we pull this in together a little bit more effectively? I don't know if that's what Libby was trying to get at, ultimately. But on the ground, where I've spent a great deal of my time professionally, I still see great efforts, but a lack of collective inertia, if you will, that helps to give us data that we can use meaningfully, in terms of prevention and more nuanced or focused programs.

I'll stop there. I see a certain eagerness to respond to that.

Go ahead, Shawn.

[Shawn Tupper]

Well, I think about some of the things that Francie and I have been doing, just talking about social innovation, just looking at the different kinds of models and things that we could work on together to address our shared interest in communities. Prevention is a perfect example. A lot of the money that I invest is focused on young children and the basic principle: get to them early. Get them on the right path first. You save a whole lot of money and you ensure that they lead productive lives. So we're looking at ways we can work together through the kinds of investments I do and the kinds of investments Francie does, to figure out whether there are better models.

Equally, on the correctional side, as we talk about the return to communities of offenders, are there things that we can be doing to take advantage of the skills and the employment training that offenders get as they return to a community, and make sure that they're actually deploying those skills in a way that actually benefits the community? Part of the community safety planning effort is exactly that: to figure out ways that we can create paths back into the community that are safe for the offenders, safe for the people in the community who were victims of that offender, and create plans that allow the community to thrive.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Is there an awareness issue to this at the community level, in your view? I feel there is. Maybe you can speak to it.

[Françoise Ducros]

I think there is an increasing awareness of it. As we move on the education policies and programs and the first nations education acts and income assistance programs, the communities themselves are telling us that we have to work together. As Shawn said, you have to get in there early. They are aware that their dropout occurs at grade 8, so you have programs targeted at grade 8 students. There is an increasing awareness.

I would be remiss a little bit...Sheilagh reminded me to say that as much as we talk about the integration in how we design the policy approaches, a lot of this is very much integrated across departments, on the ground, in our regional offices. Where we are sometimes remiss, as one member pointed out, in doing the design in an integrated fashion...sometimes the actual delivery is forcing upon us new design frameworks, which is leading to policy approaches around joint management frameworks, as we have as we move forward.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

In fairness, Francie, too, I don't have statistics to support this, but my sense is, having represented communities in transferred education and health authorities, there's another clearing house there, where they can more effectively integrate some of those resources. It means this filters down and gets to people who can actually get out the information and do something effective with it in the community.

[Sheilagh Murphy]

I'll just add another comment regarding a new approach—I wouldn't say trend—that some communities are trying. We are working, for instance, with Health Canada to try to get to comprehensive community planning, so the communities would put together their plans and the departments would look at them jointly. That forces us to see how we could do better program integration.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Pikangikum is doing one right now, for example. We got that off the ground a couple of years ago.

[Sheilagh Murphy]

That's right.

The community is coming to us and saying, “We want one plan. We want one report. You departments need to get together.” So I think there's a growing trend for that, and we're being responsive.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

That's great. Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

Thank you.

We now go over to Ms. Bennett for seven minutes.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Thanks very much.

Just following on Greg's approach on integration, I was talking to the chair last evening about our tiny perfect committee on persons with disabilities. This was in a Liberal government. I think we called 12 ministers, and a number of them didn't seem to know that their department had anything to do with disabilities. We found the room would fill every week, as officials of the minister who would be appearing the following week would come. The transport minister didn't seem to know that they had to deal with buying Via Rail cars that weren't accessible.

So sometimes there is a bit of a disconnect. When it is about going to cabinet to get money, it's hard if you don't really know what's going on. Because there are so many things that are important, we ended up with a cabinet committee on aboriginal issues that the Prime Minister chaired. Each of us had to come in with our homework done and then take our “stupid hats” off, because the Prime Minister did not want us to read something sent by the department. We actually were supposed to solve this thing as humans.

I guess what I'm hearing today is that Minister Aglukkaq's department has the lead on these community initiatives, and then there are a number of people trying to fund them through a kind of portal, a “one stop fits all”. And then you're working with HRSDC. Last week we heard from the justice department and today we have Minister Toews and Minister Paradis.

I somehow think, Madam Chair, that we can't really do this without hearing from all the ministers who are actually being represented well by the departments, including, obviously, the two who have been selected, Minister Ambrose and Minister Toews. We actually need all of them to be engaged in this if we're going to get their help at the end of this. For all of these complex things, you have to take little pockets of money wherever they come from in many different departments, but we need this issue to be at the top of their radar when they go to ask for money at cabinet, or in the next budget, or to get their half a sentence in a Speech from the Throne.

You are saying the Public Health Agency of Canada has the lead. Can you just tell us again what that was?

[Françoise Ducros]

The Public Health Agency of Canada has the lead on an interdepartmental approach to strategies to combat violence against women.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

How many departments are in that strategy?

[Sheilagh Murphy]

I don't know the number. There are multiple—

[A voice]

There are 14.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

How often would they meet?

[Sheilagh Murphy]

It did fall off the radar. The committee did meet about a month or two months ago, and it's planning its next meeting. In between, the working group has been meeting to try to do this documentation of all of the programs and services we have as departments with interest in the issue, and then to figure out the lay of the land right now and where we could look for ways to work better and smarter with what we have, and figure out where there are opportunities within those programs to maybe alter how we address the issue and change on the basis of what's now—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

I know Francie has already offered to provide what you have in terms of evaluations and those kinds of things, but in this interdepartmental committee, can you list all the departments and the pockets they're picking to try to develop a strategy, and the budgets?

[Sheilagh Murphy]

I think the Public Health Agency of Canada committed that we would follow up and have them provide that information to the committee.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

The Status of Women Canada stuff.... Are we planning to hear from the officials from those areas? Clearly we need to hear from the officials from all 14 departments that think they're doing this, right?

[Françoise Ducros]

On the Public Health Agency of Canada and their approach, I certainly think they should be answering to how they're leading this initiative. Certainly we can follow up and have them provide the schedule of meetings and what they've undertaken in their action plan, but they will respond to that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

You have one minute and 30 seconds left.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Let's go back to the data gaps. How would we fix that, and who should we call?

[Lynn Barr-Telford]

We'll tag team this one.

We certainly acknowledge some data gaps, and certainly there are areas—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Just to help me, did the First Nations Statistical Institute help with that?