Evidence of meeting #51 for Status of Women in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was inuit.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you.
I have a very brief question, and Melanie, it's for you as well.
In your brief, you referred to 42% of Métis women who have children and are lone parents. I think that's an extremely high number. I have a couple of questions around that.
Do you know what the national standard would be on non-Métis or non-aboriginals? I don't know that number and I don't know if you do or not. I'm assuming it would be much lower than that.
National Board Member, Women of the Métis Nation, Métis National Council
I don't have that here. I'm sorry.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
All right.
Getting back then to the purpose of the study, which is economic security, can you think of anything that would specifically address that specific group of Métis women that would be of benefit to address their economic security? Maybe it would be different for Métis women as a whole.
National Board Member, Women of the Métis Nation, Métis National Council
Actually, all I know is that the only way we're going to develop economic security for Métis women is to start, even when they're young women, and work with them to help them understand the ways of how to live. They should be able to collect and gather in their way so that they can save for economic security when they have children.
The reality is that we're talking about these things, like the 42% lone families, and we say that we are underemployed. When you take into consideration...and I can use myself as an example. I have three daughters and all but one is of post-secondary age. How does one then afford to pay for all the tuition and things that are needed to go to university so that our daughters will have economic security? Those are things we are going to have to work toward. We know there's no quick answer for any of those things. It's going to be one step at a time for us.
Bloc
Johanne Deschamps Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
First of all, I'd like to thank you for accepting our invitation to come here and talk to us about the rather bleak situation in your communities. Your account was most touching. The women in your community experience serious hardship, particularly on the economic front. You mentioned that assault is a common problem, and you alluded to cases of incest.
You also said that the suicide rate was 18% or even higher. Which age group is most affected? Are young people more vulnerable? Are they the ones who opt for this unfortunate course of action? Are they driven to suicide because they have few dreams or ambitions? To what can we attribute such a high suicide rate?
Executive Director, Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada
Thank you.
The suicide rate I was referring to is for teenage suicide. And I didn't say 18% or 17%; I said 17 times higher than the regular Canadian numbers. It's just outrageous.
There are all sorts of theories. Most of them are boys. Hunting is changing in the north due to diminished resources, and also due to climate change, due to laws changing, and due to the expansion in the number of human beings.
We are now in the third generation after people were sent away to residential schools, and the problems the residential schools caused are multiplying because of that. We're very involved in the residential school problem, in what we call ongoing service to the people. That's rather than just writing them a cheque. And that's a big thing. It's third generation now, and it is a problem.
By the way, it's not just Canada. There are a whole lot of third world places right now where teenage suicide is off the scale. So it is a serious problem globally. The point I was making was that Canada is not immune from it, and the Inuit youth are very stressed out.
Bloc
Johanne Deschamps Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Ms. Meniho, is the suicide rate higher in your community?
National Board Member, Women of the Métis Nation, Métis National Council
I wouldn't be able to give you that statistically. That is one of those things they have never tracked for us. I don't think many of the statistics we compare to the first nations.... I believe there's a higher rate of lower education, suicide, FASD, and those issues. We work on those issues, but we don't actually have stats.
I want to tell you one little thing about the stats and why they're important to us. It's not just so we can say to government or to somebody that these are the stats, so this is a problem. Through the analysis of those stats, sometimes we can assess the root cause of a problem. Then, rather than trying to fix it with a band-aid, we as a community can develop a solution based on the root cause.
Bloc
Johanne Deschamps Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
You spoke of what was most basic for a society, any society, namely the importance of defending and preserving its traditions. It's a matter of never forgetting where you come from. This sense of belonging is a core community value. I come from Quebec and as a people, we also share this sense of belonging.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Thank you very much, Ms. Deschamps.
We're going to go to Mrs. Mathyssen, for five minutes.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
In the 2006 strategy proposal, Pauktuutit noted that the poor quality of housing and the overcrowded conditions had a devastating effect on health and social well-being. I wondered if you could talk about the impact of poor housing on the economic security of women. Do Métis women face the same difficulties? And finally, does Canada need a national housing program, something to address this?
Executive Director, Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada
Yes, Canada needs a national housing....
I'll just describe housing in the high north a little bit. Sometime in the fifties, somebody designed a house that they thought might work up there, and everybody's putting them up there all over the place. I think they drive by in airplanes and just drop them. I don't know where they belong, but they don't belong in the north, because they're airtight, which means that if you have 17 people living in one and 11 of them smoke, then every single two-year-old in the house has an upper respiratory disease. If you look at the sick kids' hospitals across Canada, you'll see that 80% of the two-year-olds in all those sick kids' hospitals are from the north. That's just one thing. That's just health directly related to the tightness of the house.
In terms of numbers of houses, there aren't anywhere near enough. In terms of the design of the houses, they're not designed with the north in mind. If I've gone out and shot a seal, I bring it home and butcher it on my kitchen floor, which has no drain in it. You can just imagine that sort of.... And I'm not being dramatic; that's the way it is.
The houses are not designed with the Inuit culture in mind. Often you open the front door, you're in the living room, and it's minus 47 degrees outside, so there goes all your heat.
The housing is a huge problem. If you did one thing in the north, and it was housing, that would help. So, yes, let's get a national housing strategy. Absolutely.
National Board Member, Women of the Métis Nation, Métis National Council
In our Métis communities there are a few social housing programs. The waiting lists for most of them are five to six years long. And housing is a major issue for Métis, especially Métis women.
I come from Alberta. Housing is actually at a crisis level. You couldn't buy a house if you had $1 million in the bank on most good days in Alberta, and I'm not kidding. Most two-bedroom apartments are $1,700 or $1,800 a month to rent. So when you look at our women, who are making $7 to $8 an hour in jobs, often the only way they possibly can afford to live is by risking their safety and the safety of their children by living with people who may not always live the quality of life you would want your children exposed to. And many families live together in homes so they can survive. It's not the best situation.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
You were talking about the number of one-parent families and the problems that creates. Would a national child care system, something to provide support for these young moms, be something we should be aiming at as a federal government?
Executive Director, Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada
Yes, if it isn't pre-designed and one-size-fits-all. The needs for early childhood in the north--well, anywhere, but in the north is where we're talking about today--vary from town to town and from community to community. But, yes, if we looked after the...can we start at prenatal? If we looked after the early childhood, that would help a lot.
Director of Programs, Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada
I was going to say, too, that there are various ways of looking at early child care. For example, some people down south will put their children in day care, some will put them in home day care families, some will have grandparents who take care of their kids. Programs should not be one-size-fits-all, and they should be community driven. What are the needs of the community? How does the community see how it could address its early child care?
National Board Member, Women of the Métis Nation, Métis National Council
I want to tell you that as far as lone-parent families go, child care is a really important issue. In many of our communities, and I've heard this right across our homeland, it's advisable that if you're planning to have children, prior to even getting pregnant you should put your name into a day care so that you can have a day care spot when your child is 18 months old. So you're basically looking at a three-year wait to get your child into day care in several of our provinces.
So child care is important, but for lone-parent families, I also want to tell you that child care is only a small component of it, because we've always gone to work and stuff. There need to be other supports in place. I told you 69% of Métis people live in urban centres, and they've moved away from what our cultural communities were. So they lose their culture and their connectedness. Grandma doesn't live next door any more. We need to make sure that there are supports for lone parents.
Liberal
