Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women Committee on Feb. 13th, 2014

[Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond]

When that act was proclaimed in December—and it was a long time coming—I felt, very much so, that it would create a new remedy, or clarify a remedy, which is a protective order that could be obtained under that act and executed on a reserve to allow women and children to remain in the home, even if they were not, for instance, the holders of a certificate of possession of that property or a location ticket under a reserve Indian Act land system.

That legislation is important. It was proclaimed in December. We haven't had enough enforcement under that act yet. For instance, in British Columbia, I haven't been able to see a single order granted yet, but I'm following it. I believe it will create a supportive tool. It still requires police enforcement. If you have an order, the mom and kids are in the home, and there's a breach and the alleged perpetrator returns to the home and has to be charged or what have you, we haven't seen whether or not such a case would be prosecuted and whether it would be successful.

It is a step. Obviously, creating safety in a rural and remote community...some of the first nations communities in B.C. do not have an RCMP station, for instance. An order itself isn't going to be enough. You're going to need more in the community than that. Having a device that's normally available under provincial law is important. That's part of the arsenal of how to respond to domestic violence. So I think that was a very good step, and I was grateful to see it happen.

There was the ability in that act for first nations to create their own regimes to protect in situations of domestic violence, and I know there was support for a clearing house on violence and the act. I know some of that work is getting under way. I look forward to following it. I think it could be a tool. We'll have to evaluate it very closely and actively promote an approach to that legislation that protects aboriginal women and children.

It's promising, and I was certainly very pleased to see that.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Okay, great.

Some other tools that we talked about.... Our budget was brought down this week and we talked in the budget about creating a Canadian victims bill of rights; creating a DNA base, missing persons index, $8.1 million over five years, $1.3 million going forward; renewing the aboriginal justice strategy, $22.2 million over two years; and renewal of $25 million over five years to continue efforts to reduce violence against aboriginal women and girls. But I think the most significant investment was the $1.9-billion investment in first nations control of first nations education act. You mentioned education, and last week I was with the Prime Minister and National Chief Atleo to announce that act and the path forward there.

Can you explain, in your view, how a K-to-12 education system controlled by first nations could be used, or how it would improve and empower aboriginal women and children to make their communities more viable and safe?

[Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond]

Without a doubt, the education investment is a really important one, and as that issue proceeds at the federal level, if there is the ability to get broad-based agreement and have a legislative instrument through the Parliament of Canada, that can allow us to have a more solid footing for that, with greater accountability for outcomes and results, particularly for girls. I think that will be superb, and I think that's a major investment and long overdue. I think everyone will applaud and welcome that.

I think what actually happened inside that school initiative around girls' safety will be important, and again there isn't a broad-based program on reserve equivalent to what we have off reserve. As you know, off reserve we have anti-violence programs throughout Canada. The Red Cross pioneers some about the right to be safe. Other NGOs and education organizations promote anti-violence programming, anti-bullying programs. Many of these are very effective. They're not necessarily run consistently in schools that operate on reserve, and I think that a new education initiative.... Obviously, that act hasn't been tabled yet in the House of Commons. I'm sure it may be. I'm hoping that will have, perhaps, some particular attention and focus on the need to provide a supportive environment for girls.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I just have one more question. Sorry, we're up against the clock here, I appreciate that.

You mentioned twice that girls come up to you when you're travelling and say, “Get me out of the community,” and you talked about running from the community as well. My question is, off reserve if there has been physical or sexual abuse against a child, the offender is kept away from the victim by either a restraining order or there's some ability to put some distance between the offender and the victim. The challenge on reserve is that often the offender has nowhere else to go, and the victim has nowhere else to go, and so they're stuck, by geography, in that same community. How do you see that being resolved, again, the ability to create safety when you have both people who need to remain or do remain in the same community because they have nowhere else to go?

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

A fairly quick answer if you can, please.

[Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond]

I think the difficulty is the fact that the victim, particularly where it's a girl, will face retaliation from other members of the community, and the victim will suffer additionally and unnecessarily. There have to be supports around the victim. Unfortunately, in my work what I find is mostly it's retaliation against the victim, and you do not have the issue of sexual abuse, for instance, coming forward, being addressed adequately, because they're discouraged from doing so because they fear actual retaliation or retribution, which is a reality in their life. So the degree of safety they experience is just far from adequate.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

Thank you very much.

Over to you, Ms. Bennett, for seven minutes.

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

Thanks very much.

I too want to thank you for all your life's work on children and youth. Our country is a better place because you're fighting every day for this, so thank you.

If you were writing the recommendations for this report, what would they be in regard to creating safety? What I think you're seeing is that the on-reserve situation in the federal jurisdiction maybe doesn't work well with the provincial systems that may have the support systems and the expertise. How would it look in B.C.? How would it look in Saskatchewan? What would it look like if it was working well in creating the safety?

Certainly today, when we met with the Feathers of Hope young people on the conference that they held, they certainly did say exactly as you did: that the victims face retaliation if they report, to the point that the leadership seems to sometimes circle around.... The victims get called liars and then they flee.

How could we do this better? What would make your heart go pitter-patter if you saw it in our report?

[Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond]

Thank you so much for that.

First of all, I want to say that the December 2011 report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women, “Ending Violence Against Aboriginal Women and Girls”, contained extremely valuable recommendations. I go back to those again and again, and I look at them and I think about them. I think they're very strong, and many of them are outstanding, so I think we have a good path there.

In terms of the process, I think that when we talk about a commission of inquiry that has been recommended, my take on it to create safety is to actually have a commission of inquiry about the safety of girls on reserve, where you perhaps could have a bit more of an inquisitorial process, not an adversarial process, and where you actually allow girls to speak about what is happening in their lives, in community, to someone who has enough authority and responsibility to actually help create some safety around them immediately. I think this is missing. It's absent. Although there are many brave organizations and individuals who have come forward, I would have to say, regrettably, that at this point 90% of the girls who disclose violence, sexual violence, neglect, or maltreatment end up the worse for it.

The initiative that I think we need to have at a national level is a very strongly empowered reach, an in-reach to first nations girls. Also, we need to have a strong consensus on the part of everyone in those communities that safety for those girls is an unequivocal value that we will represent, and that we will listen to them and we will actually do something about it. For the little girl who I reported on who committed suicide, the big issue she had prior to her suicide was that she said, “I keep telling people about this, but no one does anything.” In point of fact, the recent report I did.... She was telling people, and no one actually did anything. When I went back into the community to investigate and ask why no one actually did anything, they said, “Well, we're all too afraid to do anything.”

This is not acceptable, so we in Canada need to reach into the community to girls and create the safety so that they can actually come forward, disclose, receive support, get the resilience they need and can achieve, and go on to do well, but we need to disrupt the cycle of abuse.

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

Are there other policies or programs that you would see putting in place?

[Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond]

Again, I think the recommendations around having strong crime prevention strategies, strong aboriginal-driven strategies around family violence, and filling the gaps that exist in Canada around that—on reserve especially—are so crucial. The anti-violence work with aboriginal women is crucial to making sure there is a component of the training for anyone who works in the social services system in regard to understanding these circumstances.

Most importantly, as I said, it's actually the footprint of services in child and youth mental health and anti-violence support inside the criminal justice side and inside the education side that will really make the difference, because people actually need a service. They don't just need a study. They need a service.

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

You've written a lot about FASD. Both in terms of children in care and in terms of children with special needs, are there recommendations you think this committee should make on either of those things, the children in care and FASD?

[Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond]

On the issues around children involved in the child welfare system, there is an extremely high level of aboriginal children involved in the child welfare system for a variety of reasons, mostly because there are intergenerational issues, but also because there's maltreatment, and that has to be addressed.

A recommendation is that there be a stronger effort to outline, if you like, either through a first nations child welfare act, or what have you, stronger standards around what services will be available on reserve so we don't have these terrible gaps. Much like we're talking about in the education side, we need this. In the U.S. they've had the Indian Child Welfare Act for almost 40 years. This has allowed communities to have a fairly strong role in order to support and look into issues around persistent maltreatment and abuse of children, and respond to them appropriately. We haven't had that type of national coordination in Canada that's needed.

I think these initiatives are crucial.

Around the issue of special needs, just the committee recognizing the intersecting vulnerabilities that happen when you have a girl or a woman who is not only facing these life issues, but may have a developmental disability.... In particular, it might be something for which there isn't adequate support and understanding, which might lead to an expressive language disorder or other things that make it very difficult for her to protect herself or to be able to find a position of safety. That recognition that there are these intersecting vulnerabilities that occur in the first nations community.... It is very important to recognize and make sure that it's a component of the response.

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

Mary Ellen, is it in the American system that children cannot be removed for poverty, cannot be removed because the housing's bad? Is there something we could do in terms of policies around why children are removed from their homes?

[Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond]

Absolutely. There has been a massive system of improvement in the U.S. based on outcomes, measures, and incentives, so it's a much more coherent policy framework. But the U.S. has two concepts. One is there's a duty to protect children from abuse and maltreatment, but it also comes with a duty to support families where you know there are known intergenerational issues. If there's deep poverty, if there's an issue where you have a particular segment of the population that's experiencing deep challenges, you have an obligation to look at the presenting problems and work on them.

If you look at the U.S., there's very significant work being done, for instance in domestic violence, saying when there's domestic violence, you don't punish the mothers by removing the children, therefore placing them into greater vulnerability and despair. You actually support the mothers to adequately respond to domestic violence by actually creating safety and supports for them and their children.

The U.S. jurisdictions have done much stronger work around the duty to support families in crisis. For first nations families in Canada, they've really been so far outside even the nominal supports that are in provincial systems that they've taken the brunt, largely, of removals, hence they're very hostile often to the child welfare system. But at the same time we have serious maltreatment of children, and girls in particular. We're only going to crack that if we actually make a stronger investment in support, and support that works and is based on evidence.

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

Thank you very much.

Over to you, Ms. McLeod, for seven minutes.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you.

I'd also like to thank our witness tonight. I'm also from British Columbia. I'm the member of Parliament for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, so certainly familiar with the work that you've done and want to thank you for the tremendous work that you've done.

From your perspective, because you have a very unique opportunity to look at the intersection of federal government responsibilities, provincial government responsibilities, and first nations responsibilities, can you talk about some of those challenges and barriers in terms of that particular aspect of the work you do?

[Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond]

When it comes to preventing violence and responding to violence, I think the first and foremost principle is that everybody has a responsibility. It comes down to those issues of whether you're a friend or a neighbour, whether you're a government—municipal, first nations, provincial, or federal. We spend a lot of time, when it comes to first nations girls and women, finger-pointing about who has the responsibility and who delivers what, as a contract or what have you. I think we can see that, unfortunately, this framework does not work. There is a need to have a very different framework around looking at the needs, for instance, of safety for girls, and building the system around the need for safety with a degree of collaboration that perhaps we've never had. Maybe it's overly idealistic in Canada, but it's going to be needed to actually respond effectively.

We have adopted Jordan's principle, around supporting the person and figuring out who pays for it later. I have to say on the ground that's more of a theory than a practice. Frequently, for girls, they're just caught in that situation where everybody apparently has a responsibility, but nobody's on the ground to respond. That type of accountability is needed. If someone has the responsibility, I expect them to be accountable and be present and serve. I find significant barriers there on the ground around who's actually doing what and are they present in the lives of the victims who need them.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you.

You talked about the lack of support and services. I've spent quite a few years of my life in a rural, semi-remote community. To what degree is that lack of support and services related to the more isolated or rural aspects of the community, and to what degree, perhaps, is it related to other aspects?

[Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond]

I think you're absolutely correct that surveying communities that may be rural or remote is significant, and there are often big barriers. When we look at the 203 first nations in British Columbia, many of those are rural. Of course, some are remote as well. Some are more contiguous to urban areas. But in the rural ones the service barriers are huge. For instance, it may require an hour of travel to get to the community. Often the services that are provided are governed by some really odd contracts, so someone works a 9:00 to 4:00 day, but it's two hours to get to the community, then they'll only have an hour, because they have to turn around and return because there may be inclement weather. They're not going to work differential hours, which means they're not necessarily going to work when people need them.

Many of the services have not been aligned to take into account the needs of those who live in rural or remote first nations. So it is going to cost more. You need flexibility, and you need to have a different type of partnership. That has to be understood up front, so the cost metrics around how you serve victims need to reflect this. As you know, in British Columbia the supports, for instance, in the area of domestic violence start to disappear once you get into rural British Columbia, and they become virtually non-existent in remote communities. Hence, you have a real need to fill that service gap.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

One of the things that, again, from my experience has changed over time, and maybe I could hear if you've observed this, is that the access to very high-quality, highly skilled day care is becoming more available than it was 10 or 15 years ago. Are you noticing any improvements in that area? In my past there was nothing. I certainly know that in the many communities around where I live now there seem to be some pretty good structures, quality, and trained staff.

Are you noticing any difference there?

[Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond]

That's another good example. Child care, for instance, on reserve through Head Start and other programs.... These are important programs. They're not always equivalent to what's offered in a provincial or municipal spectrum, but they're important programs. They need strong service accountabilities as well to make sure they're focused on infant and child development.

Around the supported infant development centres that may exist in, say, rural communities in British Columbia, we don't always have an equivalent aboriginal infant development approach, so the children with special needs are frequently not identified until they enter school or are school-age, and even then they're frequently missed.

Child care and early childhood education are key strategies, and there needs to be a strong understanding about vulnerability there. I think we still have a long way to go to make sure there are programs and services. Even just, for instance, nurse home-visiting, good maternal fetal care, we still don't have that from place to place yet in British Columbia on reserve with a strong model. We're always sort of constructing it in a place and deconstructing it. So some of the basics that are proven in the evidence to be quite helpful are under construction, but they're not there yet. Certainly, your work could support that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

Thank you very much.

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

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'll share my time with Mr. Genest-Jourdain.

Thank you, Madam Turpel-Lafond, for your advocacy and for presenting here tonight.

I have a quick question in regard to what you've been talking about and the protection of children. You talked about B.C. and you talked about Saskatchewan, and about the fact that they have different regimes. There's no consistency.

When it comes to looking after or protecting children, and making sure that girls are safe, that safety is created, that there is consistency in terms of child care—my understanding is that child care is not funded at all adequately when it comes to first nations children—does the federal government have an important role here? I'm thinking in terms of investing in local community action grants to support the community, helping that community develop its own action plan with an emergency management team so that communities are in fact equipped to intervene in incidents of violence, to intervene and make sure that these children are indeed safe and that we've provided in the best possible way.