Status of Women Committee on April 26th, 2007

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

And thank you for your very insightful comments.

I'd like to continue with the same question that Ms. Davidson was asking, about urban Métis women with children and that 42% are lone parents. Why are urban Métis women more likely to be lone parents than their rural counterparts?

[Melanie Omeniho]

First off, I'd have to answer by telling you this: I don't know that they're different from the rural. I'm not sure what the stats are for the rural, but I know that of the urban ones who were statistically studied, 42% were lone-parent families.

In our culture, there's a real value placed on life, on who we are, and...we have nothing to analyze statistically for this, but it is my belief, just being a part of my community for as long as I have been, that young women in our communities who may get pregnant at a very young age do not get rid of their babies. They won't give them up for adoption. They don't use abortion as a form of birth control. So they give birth to those babies because those are values we were taught.

As women in our communities, our whole premise of our worthiness is based on motherhood. We're taught from the time we're very young that being a mother is important. Even when we go to meetings now, if we sit and hear an elderly Métis woman tell us about her 13 kids and her 45 grandchildren and her 85 great-grandchildren, we sit in awe. We never say, gee, how hard was it to do that? It's something of admiration for the rest of us that this wonderful woman was able to achieve those things. Those values are perpetuated even in our young women today.

So what I believe is that many of them make choices that may not be made in other cultures. So they often have those children. Then we, of course, have problems with the child welfare system, where we're overrepresented in those systems and they're too young to take care of them and they don't have....

As I said, we used to live in small communities where auntie was next door and grandma was across the street and everybody was close to us. Well, now they're living in an urban centre where everybody is each man unto himself and may the strongest guy survive. So there are no supports in place to help those young girls raise those children.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

In your presentation you also indicated that the experiences of Métis women are often different from those of Indian women. Can you please elaborate on that statement?

[Melanie Omeniho]

I want to be really clear. It's not that one is better than the other or anything like that, but they are different.

Many of the first nations women, other than in maybe the past two decades, have come from reserve communities where there were structures in place and homes in place and things that were available to them that have never been available to the Métis women.

First nations women have access to health care resources, so they can get medicine for their children. They can get eye care or dental care. Those things have never existed for Métis women, so our experiences have been very different.

I'm only going to tell you this from a Métis perspective: I'm grateful that we were never put into the dependency of social mechanisms like many of our first nations people were. In our community we went to work. We were proud to work. We acquired things. We built our own houses. Sometimes it was a fight to get there, but those were things we could call accomplishments and achievements.

I think some of the first nations challenges now are based on the social dependencies that were created from a long time ago. Our community doesn't have those same social dependencies, so there are differences.

And there are differences in our cultures. We come from a mixed race of people, and our elders always tell us that we took the best of both worlds to make who we are today. We are of a mixed place, so we have cultural things that we've brought forward both from our European ancestors and from our first nations grandmothers. So we have to accept both of those things as part of who we are.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

I know it is a Thursday and I'll go to Ms. Neville, and then if you have extra questions, we'll give you a couple of minutes so we can wrap it up.

Ms. Neville.

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

Thank you very much.

I, too, want to say thank you to all of you for coming.

I have lots of questions, but I want to focus on the issue of economic security for women, particularly as it relates to education. The previous two questions, one about child care and one about motherhood or parenting, have some bearing on it.

I look at the statistics you provided us with, and the large numbers of young women in the Métis community, particularly the large numbers of single parents you've just spoken about. I know your community is not homogeneous and there is not a one-size-fits-all response to things, but in terms of education and training, what could we best recommend to enhance the ability of members of your community to go back to school, assuming they want that? I was struck by the comments you made that these young women earn $8 and $9 an hour. That's limiting in terms of life's expectations.

We know the labour market partnership agreements that would have addressed some of the skill development for Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Ontario were cancelled.

Can you tell me, in terms of your community, how would we best serve it in terms of allowing access to education and the necessary supports?

[Melanie Omeniho]

Labour market development. The aboriginal and human resource development agreements have been in our communities for a long time. I can't tell you about the other communities, but in the Métis community more women than men have accessed those resources, so they have provided a tremendous amount of support toward getting women some education.

The problem with those agreements is this. It's a one-year intervention to help support them in getting employment. A one-year intervention doesn't really even get you a diploma in a post-secondary institution. It's a limited intervention to get them a limited job. Many of them might move from an $8-an-hour job to an $11-an-hour job, but in the marketplace and economics that exist today, $11 an hour still doesn't pay the rent. Our community is even experiencing kids at 30 who are not leaving home. They can't afford to leave home. They can't afford to grow up and move away, and that's because an $11-an-hour job will not get them where they need to be.

So if we're going to provide educational supports, I think we need to look at educational supports. I believe the reason women have accessed them more is that it marginalizes them, and they're accustomed to being marginalized. Most women get $800 a month in training dollars when they go to a post-secondary institution, and then they get a certain amount, about $200 per month per child, over and above that--but I could be wrong. For instance, an average person who might have two or three children will have to live on a training allowance of $1,200 to $1,500 a month. Many times that hardly pays the rent, never mind buy groceries or pay for day care. In the Métis communities, we don't get day care dollars over and above. Child care is not an increased amount of money.

It is very challenging, and we make it really difficult. If there were more supports put in place--and we need more than one-year interventions, because traditionally in women's work...and I know we don't encourage our women to go into traditional women's work, but they generally are prone to going into things like home care service or child care or social work. Even for our social workers, it's usually youth work because they can't afford to get a bachelor of social work degree, so they are limited in the kinds of jobs they can get. We need to provide more supports so they can get a degree education or an undergraduate education, so they can go out and earn a good income so they can survive. They have more than the intellectual ability to do it.

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

There is no question.

Jennifer, could you comment in terms of access to education in the north?

[Jennifer Dickson]

It's very difficult because of the distances and the remoteness and the isolation. It's also difficult because there are all these gender problems right now too, and then the hunting I mentioned. What we really need to do is look at education across the high north and decide what would benefit the people there.

There is training for specific jobs for people laying pipelines and mining, and there is specific day job training that benefits. It turns out it is benefiting the girls more than the boys because the girls want an office job when they're finished and want to sit still all day and the boys don't want to anyway.

Education is a problem in the high north and should be looked at by the national government. I know that education is provincial, but it would be nice to have a national look at it.

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

You spoke about the importance of language for the Métis community and, because of the Berger report on the north, the recommendations that have been put forward to preserve the Inuit language. What recommendations should this committee make in terms of language as an ingredient of economic development for women, or do you see a relationship between that?

[Jennifer Dickson]

Is there a relationship between language maintenance and economic development? That's a very interesting question. It depends upon what you mean by economic development. If what you're talking about is jobs right now--

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

Economic security. Think about it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

They can do it as a wrap-up comment.

Since the Conservative members have no questions, I'll give you three minutes, Madame Demers.

Mrs. Mathyssen, do you have any questions, or can we wrap it up with the last question here?

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

I'd like to hear the story Ms. Dickson was talking about that she could tell with regard to the journey to success. I'd like to hear at least one. We should end on a positive note.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Okay, I'll do that.

We will go to Madame Demers first. Then they can do that as a wrap-up.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you. I think it's a great idea.

Ms. Dickson, a study involving aboriginal women was carried out between 1996 and 2001. Innu women were found to have the highest fertility rate at 3.4 children per woman, but the lowest life expectancy, namely 71 years. Other women in fact do have a much longer life expectancy.

On average, Innu women have 3.4 children. However, if their situation doesn't change drastically, how many of these children can expect to grow into healthy adults, both physically and mentally?

[Jennifer Dickson]

What percentage? It is a very serious problem in the north. Who decides whether someone is in good mental and physical health? If you're a smoker and you have diabetes, you have no income and you have five children, are you in good mental and physical health? It's a mess. It is really seriously difficult. The numbers are much higher now actually than what you're thinking. When you look at the demographics in the north you see very few elders, a few more middle-aged people, and everybody is young. In terms of toddlers, we were in a town about six weeks ago and 75 women were pregnant, so within the next several months there are going to be 75 new babies in one tiny town that only has 400 people in it.

Things are changing, and we need to pay attention to them.

Does that answer your question at all?

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

There's not enough time to answer the question, because there is so much to say. I'm really sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

I'd like to give you each a minute or so to wrap up, but before we do that, I'd like to make a comment.

When we were doing the economic security of women, we were very careful that we took the whole envelope, and you are not the forgotten sisters. We have included the sisters of the north, and it was important for us to listen. At times you have seen our faces show, “Oh, my God.” It's a challenging situation, but you have proven to us that you are able. You have tenacity. Your ability to rise above these challenges is there and therefore there is hope.

What we would like to hear from you is how can we, as we move forward with this report, give that hope and ensure that hope comes to the remote communities.

I used to be an auditor with INAC, and I know how difficult it was when we did the buildings and why social housing was becoming so expensive or whatever. There are challenges and there will be challenges, Canada is vast. How can we move forward? Women find solutions. They look at the problems and say there is a challenge and let's move forward.

On that note, could you each give us something that we could put in our report that would help enhance the economic security of our sisters in the north.

Who would like to start?

[Melanie Omeniho]

Actually, the one thing that would be a big help is developing real relationships and partnerships with the Métis community to help come up with solutions, because Métis people are a very proud people. They never like to be perceived as needing to be taken care of. In fact, you'll find that we're quite stubborn and arrogant about it. We don't want to be taken care of. We want to be a part of what we do, so I believe that part of how we're going to fix economic security for Métis women is by developing real partnerships and relationships.

I appreciate what's been said about the Status of Women. We will go back and do some investigation and access whatever resources are available. We want to do micro-business projects with our Métis women, much like the Inuit women talked about. That was where we came from and historically who we were, and we do want to put that forward, but we want real partnerships and relationships. It isn't about us wanting you to come and fix our problems for us. We want to work together and come up with solutions and get the data we need, so that we can analyze things and really know where our root problems are, so that we can resource out, and so that we don't have to be forgotten or even look like we're sitting here telling you how much worse off we are than the rest of you. We want to be just like all other Canadians.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Ms. Komaksiutiksak.

[Ulrike Komaksiutiksak]

Thank you for hearing us today. This is the first time I have spoken at something like this.

I would have to agree that it's the relationships and the partnerships. It's working with communities to find out what their solutions are and supporting communities to create their own solutions for economic security for women, for economic development. We all have to work together from the community or regional level to the provincial, territorial, and federal levels. We all have to work together, working with organizations such as Pauktuutit, which works with grassroots and brings the voice to the national level.

Again, I would have to say it's partnerships and relationships.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Ms. Dickson.

[Jennifer Dickson]

Pauktuutit just completed, by coincidence, a document called “Keepers of the Light”, which I can get you. We really boiled a strategic plan down to four items, from the perspective of Inuit women. The very first one is about economic stability, but it goes to political issues too.

As everybody knows, there are six national aboriginal organizations in Canada. Five of them are recognized by the federal government; the sixth one, which is Pauktuutit, is not. That's for another whole meeting, but just know that when senior policy is developed, sometimes we're in the room because someone thinks we're doing good work and they want us there anyway and sometimes we're not. That has repercussions.

It's a Status of Women issue, because where are the women? The women comprise more than 50% of the Inuit, and where are they? So that's one of our four items. But I'd be happy to e-mail you the “Keepers of the Light”. It's in English and Inuktitut, unfortunately, but I can send it to you. I'll be glad to do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you so much for coming from so far and giving us a real taste of what others face, while we sit here and try to make decisions for everyone.

We will share this report. Once it is ready it will be on the Internet.

I have to adjourn the meeting because somebody wants to take a picture of you people sitting here.