Status of Women Committee on April 10th, 2008

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you for being here this morning, ladies.

Ms. McHugh, you talked about your balanced approach, the framework you have developed to ensure that you put tools in place for helping first nations women have greater autonomy and better economic security. For some years, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, like all departments, has been supposed to use and introduce the gender-based budget approach in new programs and in new measures and policies that are developed. You have developed an approach that is specific to your needs and the needs of your communities.

Have you submitted it to the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development? Does it take it into account in its new policies and new measures? Have anyone asked to consult you so that this new approach can be taken into account? If not, can you explain why?

Ms. Frawley-Henry said that you needed resources to achieve the various objectives you have adopted. Have you thought about applying your women's programs? This year, one of the goals and objectives is to promote equality. I think that projects can be submitted starting in August. Certainly you will get assistance for setting up your program.

[Marie Frawley-Henry]

Thank you for your question.

If I could answer that, yes, the Department of Indian Affairs does have a GBA unit. We are in the early process of presenting our framework, so that's an opportunity. As I indicated earlier, we certainly want to share our framework and to meet with various departments. Actually, we're meeting today with Health Canada.

We've also met with Status of Women Canada. We worked with Status of Women Canada in preparing our framework. We've also submitted to the community fund of Status of Women Canada without success, so we're hoping that we can have an opportunity to secure funding. As we indicated, we have not been able to secure funds to date.

So we're looking at Health Canada. We're looking to meet them. We know that Health Canada is a huge area—

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

I'm sorry to interrupt you, Ms. Frawley-Henry, but we don't have a lot of time.

What was the reason for Status of Women Canada's refusal? Its mission is implicitly to help women achieve equality and autonomy.

[Marie Frawley-Henry]

Basically the reason they refused our proposal to date—and there is an opportunity to apply again—is that they wanted to see more long-term outcomes of how this would impact on first nations women in specific communities. We want to test this in pilot communities, but they wanted to ensure there would be more outcomes in this area.

We're hoping to get back to the table and that nothing interferes with this process in the meantime.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

One more question? If you don't have one, then I can use the time.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Based on what you have established from your cultural perspective, to achieve equality between men and women in your communities, what would you advise us to do? You see what we are trying to do here. What changes would you suggest so that we could implement a policy that would be consistent with the kind of access that the women in this Parliament are trying to achieve?

[Kathleen McHugh]

I think the whole point of our culturally relevant GBA is to ensure that it's not about equality but about balance.

When we talk about the roles of our men and women in our communities, prior to European contact the roles were very specific and complemented each other. Through the various laws that have been imposed upon our people, that has changed to the detriment of our women and our children.

Now we are bringing this educational tool to our young people to teach them the roles of the men and the women. It's not about equality; it's not a male-bashing concept, but it's a very, very important document that will go far in educating our young people about the role of the male and the female in the communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Ms. Mathyssen, you have a question—and then I'll give you one minute to finish that off.

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

Thank you.

I'm delighted that you're here. I appreciate that you are bringing this important lens to our discussions about GBA

On Tuesday night the House of Commons passed a motion that recommended that the government endorse the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. I think you've been very clear here today that Bill C-47, the matrimonial real property legislation, just doesn't provide the remedy that women and communities need. In that debate on Tuesday, the government was very specific that we don't need the UN declaration because we have legislation on matrimonial property rights, and they cited a whole list of things they had done to date in terms of supporting first nations women and first nations communities.

Do the things that the government has done to date in fact approach the same principles as the UN declaration? Are you pleased that Parliament has now passed this motion and indicated that we should move ahead on it?

[Kathleen McHugh]

I think we're very pleased that the document has been approved by Parliament. But again, going back to matrimonial real property, as far as we're concerned, it doesn't provide fairness in the issue of a marriage failure. Because the lands we live on are communal lands and they're not individually owned, there is no way that property can be divided between a man and a woman. On those issues we're governed by totally different legislation.

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

Have you done your own gender-based and culturally sensitive analysis of Bill C-47? If so, have you presented that to government and said this is the direction we need to take?

[Kathleen McHugh]

I know the Assembly of First Nations has done presentations to the federal government.

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

So we're still hopeful that--

[Kathleen McHugh]

We haven't done one on the GBA specifically.

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

Recently--actually about the same time as the 2008 federal budget--the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives brought forth its own alternative budget. In that a gender analysis was conducted on the aboriginal peoples chapter. Have you seen it? Could you comment on it? Is this something you think the federal government should use as a model for future budgets?

[Marie Frawley-Henry]

I know our office has taken a look at it in terms of a policy, and we've had input into that, but I can't say we've had input into the whole context.

Your latter part of the question was whether government could use some parts of that?

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

Yes, as a model.

[Marie Frawley-Henry]

We certainly want to add to that; it needs to have more of that cultural component. But it certainly serves to move some of these issues forward at this point.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Ms. Mathyssen, are you done?

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

I'm going to squeeze in a little more.

So today you're going to Health Canada to have discussions that you hope are fruitful. Is there any plan to see other ministries? The determinants of health are really housing and the reality of violence against women. Is there any plan to pursue those in terms of seeking to improve the health of first nations women?

[Marie Frawley-Henry]

Yes. Kathleen mentioned earlier that we are involved in areas of the National Aboriginal Women's Summit that look at key issues impacting on aboriginal women in Canada. Throughout this summit there will be various provinces at the table. We're looking at GBA, lands. We're looking at violence against women.

We're looking at those areas, but again, we need to do more work. We need more capacity to do this kind of work, to present at varying committees and meet with various ministers. We've sent our more comprehensive proposal, accompanied by our framework, to some of the ministers. It outlines a budget, and it outlines further steps for a more enhanced culturally relevant gender-based analysis.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Ms. Boucher, a very quick question.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you for being here.

I recently met with some first nations women's groups who told me that they were trying to do things — regardless of the government in power; unfortunately, nothing is perfect in the best of all possible worlds — but they were having problems even within their own communities. They said that your chiefs were impediments to progress for women.

Is that true?

[Kathleen McHugh]

In reality, I suppose there's the odd person, or the odd male, who's not in support. We are very confident of the support we have from the chiefs of Canada because the Assembly of First Nations is the largest first nations organization, and when the chiefs unanimously supported the gender balance analysis framework that we had presented, we knew we had the support of the majority of the males. I'm sure that in each community there are discrepancies, but when they come together as one group, we have their support.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you very much.