Status of Women Committee on May 30th, 2006

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

For example, with respect to prison sentences, there seems to be a very high tendency to hand down probationary sentences. Probationary sentences make up approximately 8 per cent of sentences, I believe. Full prison sentences are less prevalent among women. I am not sure if I am making myself understood, but I gather that there are not as many women in the prison system because they are less likely to commit offences. I would say that this has always been the case in the past. The rate of crimes committed by men has always been higher than the rate of crimes committed by women. On the other hand, crime committed by women has always been less violent.

Currently, we are studying Bill C-9 on the abolition of conditional sentences in the House of Commons. In fact, the bill deals with a sort of extension for conditional sentences, by making a 10-year imprisonment term ineligible for a conditional sentence.

Do you believe that this will have a significant impact on the sentences handed down to women, thereby further criminalizing them, and causing more of them to be imprisoned?

[Karen Mihorean]

I could provide some of that information to you, but perhaps not today. Certainly we are looking at the impact of the elimination or reduction of the use of conditional sentencing. At this point, we haven't looked at gender differences, but it's something that we would plan to look at in the future.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you.

Ms. Smith.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you, and I would like to thank the presenters for this very insightful presentation today. I always like to take a look at the stats. There are always variables in play that aren't reflected in the stats, but this concise work is very important to us. So I want to thank you.

Karen, if you don't mind, there's one thing: violence against women in Canada. The statistical profile I thought was extremely insightful and useful and alarming is that young women in relationships, whether they be common law or boyfriend-girlfriend relationships, are at a much higher risk than anybody else because, I would assume, a lot of these are not relationships that are supported. Many young people--I know if you have a daughter--often like to keep their relationships to themselves, and often you don't know things. As a former teacher, I know often we didn't know things until after they had already happened. You couldn't predict.

One thing I've been working on over a long period of time is trafficking against women. I noticed in this statistical profile nothing talked about women who were either trafficked or in prostitution. I've been doing quite a bit of work on it, and it's very alarming to see. It's a slave trade right now, women being trafficked from different countries. I just came back from Israel, where I spoke to three women who had been trafficked through Egypt. Often these women come to Canada as well and the U.S.

Has there been any statistical profile in this area about violence against women? Has any work been done? They seem to be a forgotten community. It's a very volatile community, and these women are really treated in the worst possible way. Could you comment on that?

[Karen Mihorean]

I'd be happy to.

Actually over the past year and a half or so I have been a member of the interdepartmental working group on trafficking in persons, and as a Stats Can representative, I have been working with Canada Border Services Agency, CIC, and the RCMP looking at ways to measure this. Certainly, as we sit around our table, we constantly look at what is the true nature and extent of trafficking in Canada.

We certainly know that Canada is a transit country, but we also are concerned about trafficking within our borders, especially among aboriginal and young aboriginal women. We don't have the statistics at this point. We are currently developing a research and data framework, and we hope in the near future we will be collecting that information.

At the same time, I'd say it's probably the most challenging piece of work I've ever embarked on. It's probably the most hidden of all offences or types of violence against women, just because of the dynamics involved in trafficking in persons and the risk to the victim and having women come forward. But we are moving in that direction. We certainly see it as a priority. I'm sure you've discussed the whole issue of trafficking in persons in Canada; it's something we want to move forward on.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

It's really good to hear that, because I think when we start to move forward on it then that protects these women. I think we need to ascertain the statistics on which women disappear, because in two cases I know of, two young women just disappeared, and they can't find them.

So I don't know if that has a correlation with the missing persons aspect when you do violence against women in Canada. Could you comment on that? Do you deal with that at all?

[Karen Mihorean]

We haven't looked necessarily at missing persons. I know certainly we have worked somewhat with the RCMP in their missing persons area. This area is looking specifically at human trafficking. We are working with them, looking at these women who are missing, especially aboriginal women, and looking to see whether or not these are cases of trafficking. So it is something we are looking at, but again we don't have the information. We haven't got to that point yet.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

One other question I have in this same area is this. There used to be, and there is currently, the integrated child exploitation unit. It is a unit based on cybercrimes, chat lines, which has grown to alarming proportions as crime where young boys and girls are lured, and some of them do become missing persons. Some of them get into very unhealthy relationships. Certainly the predators are out there and growing.

In terms of violence against women in Canada, this is something that would be very important, because this is violence as well. Often these young children are sexually molested. Often they are hurt. Some of them disappear.

I know from first-hand experience, because my son, who is in the RCMP, was in that ICE unit.

My concern is that I don't think the general public is really aware of this horrendous crime, and I'm wondering if Statistics Canada is currently looking at this. I wouldn't say it's a relatively new crime, but it almost is, because in the past decade it has escalated. Child Find has been involved in this as well.

Could you tell me, please, is there anything that Statistics Canada is doing to profile this crime and get a handle on exactly how many children are involved? There are children within our own communities, our own families, children we know next door, involved in this. Could you comment on that?

[Karen Mihorean]

You're right in saying the whole issue of Internet luring is fairly new. With technology, crimes are always changing and becoming more sophisticated. Really, the crime doesn't change. It's for the purpose of child sexual abuse, or whatever. It's the method in which these children are lured that is changing.

On our police-reported system, our uniform crime reporting server, we have in fact just included measures that will get at Internet luring and how the Internet is used to commit various crimes. So we'll be able to look, for instance, at child sexual abuse cases and whether in fact the use of the Internet was involved in those crimes.

Again, it's very new. It will probably be a year or so until we have the information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Mathyssen.

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

Thank you very much.

My first question is for Mr. Lindsay. I was taken by the fact that 38% of all families headed by lone-parent mothers had incomes that fell well below the income cut-off in terms of poverty, and I wondered two things.

What proportion of poor children live in mother-led single-parent families? In my own community, the United Way and the University of Western Ontario have done a study, and in London-Middlesex--a fat cat, a very affluent community--more children go hungry than anywhere else in Ontario. I think that's a statistic that shocked our community. So I want to know about the poverty rates among those children.

The second part of my question has to do with child care. All the literature I've read in regard to affordable, not-for-profit, regulated child care indicates that is the key, the very first step in reducing and ultimately ending child poverty. Has any of the research you have done or the information you have from women or women's groups corroborated that or supported that?

[Colin Lindsay]

Yes, in fact, part of my presentation was to mention the statistic you asked about initially, and for some reason I had forgotten.

In fact, yes, the serious issue here is that female-headed lone-parent families account for a very disproportionate share of all children with families. Currently, 43% of all children classified as living in a low-income family live in a female-headed lone-parent family, whereas these families account for only about 13% of all children. So obviously there's a disproportionate share there.

In terms of the day care and that part of the question, we didn't tie the two together. In fact, we didn't do a whole lot of research into the low-income statistics for female lone parents, but I did some work on this in the past. We actually did a full publication on female lone parents a few years back. The data are a little old now, but as I recall it, there was a strong correlation between the incidence of low income in these families and the non-presence of an earner. So in a female lone-parent family, if there is no earner, it's almost assured that 95% or 96% of those families will have low incomes.

In fact, if you took our two charts on female lone parents, the percentage who have low incomes...and if you inverted the one with employment rates, what you'll see is that they track very closely. Whether that's a real statistical conclusion or not...but certainly having someone who is employed in that family has a very strong correlation to the incidence of low income.

Now, we didn't then take it to the next step and ask, well, why are the 35% of female lone parents who are not employed not employed? That's certainly one of the questions that comes out of this.

Is the lack of child care a factor? It could be, but at this point in time we certainly don't know. Certainly the issue of these families and employment is absolutely key to the relationship with low income, no question about it.

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

So if we want to dramatically improve the lives of low-income women and their children, should we most definitely take a look at this? Would there be some wisdom in pursuing that?

[Colin Lindsay]

Well, it's certainly a question. Why those 35% are not working is a very good question. They may simply choose to stay at home, and say, “I'd rather be at home with my children.” That's a possibility. Or there are other barriers to their being in the workforce. And again, that would certainly be a question.

There are three questions that came out of this report. In terms of our thinking, the first one was asked by the very first questioner. That's the second one. Why in fact are these low income rates persisting among these types of families, and what are the factors keeping these women out of the labour force, if they want to be there?

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

Yes, okay, and I suppose we could link it back. I was quite astounded by the statistic in regard to literacy, that only 19% of women aged 16 and over have high literacy rates, and that 20% of both female and male populations weren't able to perform simple reading tasks. I assume that if we looked at numeracy, we'd be looking at the same kind of shocking reality.

[Colin Lindsay]

The same kinds of numbers, yes.

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

So that excludes 20% of our youth, an incredible number of our population, from contributing to our communities, to our economy.

Would there be a connection in terms of those literacy/numeracy skills? And on my question in regard to child poverty, is there a possible extra piece—

[Colin Lindsay]

That would be beyond the scope of certainly what we did, but the earlier part of your question is really quite interesting. I often get asked this question: how is it that you are a male doing Women in Canada?

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

You're the most fascinating Canadian.

[Colin Lindsay]

After 20 years of doing it, I am used to it. The other question we sometimes get is this: where's the report on men?

We do react to demand at Statistics Canada, and at this point in time there does not seem to be a great demand for that kind of thing; however, in doing this report, every statistic in here has a male component to it. One of the things that jumped out at us, and one of the things we would like to follow up on, is that you have very high drop-out rates among young men. Some 20% of them did not complete high school, a considerably higher figure than for younger women. For the first time ever, that figure is actually tracked down. With every generation the percentage who are not completing high school has declined, and the current generation is the first generation where that has not happened. So that's an issue for the other side of the gender equation.

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

Yes, it's certainly something of concern.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'm sorry, Ms. Mathyssen, your time is up. We'll keep going with another round.

Ms. Neville, go ahead, please.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you very much. Thank you to all of you for coming out this morning.

I have a whole series of questions on a different tack, on aboriginal women. But before I go there, Mr. Lindsay, what's the third question? You said the second question was asked by Ms. Mathyssen, and that there were three questions that came out.

[Colin Lindsay]

For the moment I've blanked out. It's in my notes here, and I'll dig it out. I'm sure we'll come to it during the course of the morning.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

I find the whole report very interesting, but I looked with particular interest at your chapter on aboriginal women, and some of the data that you provided there.

You talk about the number of women who identified themselves as aboriginal being 22% higher than it was in 1996, whereas the non-aboriginal population grew by 3%. Do you attribute that solely to the increased birth rate, or is part of it now due to self-declaration for aboriginal women?