Special Committee on Indigenous Women Committee on June 6th, 2013

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

For the other witnesses who are here, I'm on this committee because I feel it's a very important issue to be addressed by Parliament through a parliamentary committee. I'd just like to get your opinion on whether or not you agree with that statement. Do you feel this committee is important to that happening?

[Tracy O'Hearn]

Would our sister in B.C. like to go ahead?

My mike is on, so I would say yes.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

Great. Thank you.

[Tracy O'Hearn]

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but with a clearly defined and sufficiently broad scope, mandate, and inclusion of Inuit women, yes.

Thank you.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

I have 10 seconds left, and Katharine, your statement on human trafficking was quite impactful as well. Are you aware of some of the changes we have made to human trafficking laws in Canada over the last year?

How has that impacted some of the issues you've just raised? Are there any gaps that we still need to address from a legislative perspective?

[Katharine Irngaut]

I think Pauktuutit is known for addressing very sensitive issues in a culturally relevant, holistic fashion. We use a gendered lens. We use trauma-informed practices. We don't go out with anything public until we're sure that we have services or at least some sort of protective measures in place.

For the new legislation around HT, the update last July, I think it's amazing that Canada has done a tighter legislative process than the UN for human trafficking. It's now getting the ramifications of what that means to the front-line workers and the justice workers to have it translated into Inuktitut. The Criminal Code is not translated into Inuktitut. We need to have plain-language understanding.

There haven't been any charges yet in Inuit communities, yet we know it's happening.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

Perfect timing. Thank you very much.

Over to you, Ms. Crowder, for five minutes.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm going to split my time with Mr. Saganash, who's going to start.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

First of all, thank you to all the witnesses for your contribution to the work of this committee.

I want to address very quickly some of the points you raised, Tracy. You talked about how the term “aboriginal peoples” sort of buries “Inuit” in that expression. I agree with that. I also certainly can appreciate your comments about the Inuit being in a specific context, therefore requiring a specific approach. I agree with that as well.

The comment about development and what development will bring up north is also an important one. I still recall how in the early seventies, when the James Bay development came into our Cree territory, one of the first incidents that happened during that time was the rape and murder of two 15-year-old Cree girls by Hydro-Québec workers. So your concerns that you foresee in that respect are important to remember.

I have a quick question about the need for a national inquiry. I understand that the priority for the Inuit, because of their specific context, is the need for shelters. I clearly understand that. I've travelled to most of the Inuit communities in Nunavik, and they raise that issue a lot. But does that priority prevent the government from establishing a national inquiry or even starting work on a national plan of action to eliminate violence against women?

[Tracy O'Hearn]

No, it wouldn't stop such a process. Shelters are a critical need, but they're not even a band-aid on the solution. They're a way to save lives, hopefully, but they're far from the response that's required.

With regard to shelters, the federal government does provide some funding specifically for shelters, but on-reserve only. Inuit communities are specifically excluded from accessing federal funding for shelters. The federal government says it's the responsibility of the provinces and territories. The provinces and territories say, oh, I'm sorry, there's no money.

Certainly in Nunavut they're struggling with so many social issues—the lack of housing, the cost of health care—and we don't want to be adversarial with anyone who will be a partner with us, but no one really is taking responsibility for meeting that emergency need.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

You can hear from the testimony we've heard in this last hour that this is such a complicated issue. One of the mandates this committee has outlined, in the motion that was presented to us, was that we were to propose solutions to address the root causes of violence.

We don't have time to do that in this format today, but if you have specific solutions or recommendations that this committee might want to consider in dealing with the root causes of violence, perhaps I could ask you to send those to the clerk, along with the names of any specific people you think we need to talk to—people who have lived the experience, or people who are working in the field who could make specific suggestions.

I know that Ms. Porteous talked about Bev Jacobs. I think it would be incumbent on this committee to hear from Bev Jacobs, given some of the work she's doing in British Columbia. I'm sure in your life experience and in your professional life you know people who could come and help us, and give us some advice.

In whatever time I have left, perhaps someone has a specific suggestion that they'd like to the committee to go away with tonight. It doesn't have to be a solution, but just something that we want to go forward on.

Ms. Irngaut.

[Katharine Irngaut]

We recently had a community story project, a residential school project that we conducted in Kugaaruk, Nunavut. One of the things we based it on was that we build resilience through expression through art and culture. We heal through expressing ourselves in different ways.

What I've taken away from that particular experience is that people are far more likely to be involved if it's fun, even if it's a difficult topic. Healing can be very painful, but helping each other should be a fun activity.

So anything we try to do is done through a lens of building resilience and also of healing through levity. It's one of the only ways that we survive—and continue to do our work every day, too.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

Thank you, Mr. Saganash.

Now we'll go to Ms. Truppe for five minutes.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you as well, Rolanda, for coming to this committee to share your personal experience.

Tracy and Katharine, I want to find out about some of the funding you've received from Status of Women and Aboriginal Affairs. Maybe you can elaborate on what it did, and how it helped maybe prevent violence against women and girls, or what the teaching is doing.

I think you received $80,000, jointly between Aboriginal Affairs and Status of Women to promote entrepreneurship. I think $40,000 went to GBA, and $100,000 went to economic self-sufficiency of Inuit women. Then almost $300,000 was for reduction of family violence in Inuit communities.

How did all or any of those help young girls or women so that they're maybe not in a violent situation?

[Tracy O'Hearn]

Thank you.

We have had long and strong working relationships with a number of departments. One of the keys to our expertise is very close relations with people in the communities who tell us what's needed. There's a great need for plain language information in English and more than one dialect of Inuktitut. I mentioned earlier that we try to fill in the gaps in communities by developing resources that everyone can use.

As for the workshop in Kugaaruk that Kat was talking about, we've come out with a workshop model that any community can use if they want to use that approach, which is one of bringing adult survivors of residential schools together with youth. In this case they worked with a remarkable group called BluePrintForLife. They use hip hop as a form of healing.

I think that's a very good example of how we can take a fairly modest investment and maximize the output. There are copies of it and we have it online, including things to think about and the resources that you need. You might need some money. We've done that with Status of Women projects as well. I think we've developed a unique on-the-land healing model for women, tested in Tuktoyaktuk, Nunavik, and Iqaluit. Again, it was very successful.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Could anything have been changed in those projects? Did they work really well, or could anything have been improved in them?

[Tracy O'Hearn]

I can speak specifically about an economic development project that we just completed. We worked with AANDC primarily—and Status of Women did want to partner with us because they thought it was very important. We wanted to develop a model that could be used in other regions.

What did women who are already in business need? If it was more about information; I heard that someone, for example wanted to know more about what her responsibilities were as an employer. There's a lack of accounting services in the north. We've put together specific information. Who are the funding bodies in Nunavut? How can you access them? How can you get some capital?

We intended to develop a model, and as people became aware of the project, about six months into the last fiscal year we had 70 members across the country asking for information and support that we weren't ready to provide. We're hoping to renew discussions with the federal government to sustain what is already so successful in Nunavut and to bring it to the other regions. I think that is why we ask: what do you need, how can we help you? I think we develop very useful information.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you.

How much time do I have, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

You have one minute.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Ms. Porteous, as I tell everybody in my city of London, Ontario, my favourite project is Be More Than a Bystander. I love that program. I thought it was one of the best funded programs I've heard of because it engages men and boys and involves the B.C. Lions.

Can you explain how that is helping to maybe prevent violence against women and girls—and I say “girls”, I guess, because they're going to high schools in that area.

[Tracy Porteous]

This is another opportunity to talk about the last question as well, in terms of the root causes of violence against women. One of the many root causes is how we socialize men and women and boys and girls.

This program, “Be More Than a Bystander: Break the Silence on Violence Against Women”, has B.C. Lions football players speaking to young men in high schools across the province. They're also doing public service announcements for us on T.V. and radio to try to get the vast majority of men who don't commit violence to begin speaking up to the minority who do. This is my favourite program after 31 years of working in the field. Women can talk to groups until we're completely exhausted, as many of us have, but men don't listen to women. Men will listen to men.

I think we need to make violence against women as socially unacceptable as we have in focusing on smoking in anti-smoking campaigns and also as we've done in campaigns against drinking and driving. These are 30-year campaigns with multi-million dollar budgets in each province and territory, because we know that in trying to get people to quit smoking we're going to save money in health care down the road. It's the same thing with violence.

If we try to get people to speak up and to change the scenario, instead of women suffering in silence.... As one of the women spoke about earlier, when she experienced violence, everybody around her knew what was going on and nobody said anything. I think that phenomenon has existed throughout our history. It's time to break the silence on violence against women and to make this everybody's issue, because it's not just a women's issue.

It's an incredible program that we're doing with the B.C. Lions. My hat goes off to Rona Ambrose, because she was the first of many funders and partners to step in and see the benefit of having CFL players—it's kind of counterintuitive, having these big guys do it—speaking up about violence against women. In the first two years of this program, we've reached 29,000 kids in person. Because of the PSAs and the bus shelter ad space we've been given by the City of Vancouver and the City of Surrey, our message was viewed 66 million times.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

Thank you.

Thank you to all of our witnesses. I know that some of you have to leave, but before we suspend and go in to committee business, if it is the will of the committee to have a moment of silence....

Ms. Bennett, would you like to speak to that for a minute?

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

I was just made aware of a 16- or 17-year- old girl who is missing in Scarborough. Her mother is on Facebook asking.... As well, the families of Sisters in Spirit are posting about people who go missing every week, and if the committee would look to that or it's something we could do, I think it would ground our work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

Do you know her name?