Status of Women Committee on Oct. 26th, 2010

[Carmen Hancock]

Hi. It's Carmen speaking. I had a quick message from Valerie. She's had a personal issue come up, so she won't be attending the call.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you so much, Carmen, for telling us that.

Now, what we're going to do, for the five of you who are there, is have a question and answer period. We'll have four people doing that. We will have seven minutes for the questions and the answers. I'm asking the members of the committee to keep their questions short so that we can have more time to hear from you with regard to the answers.

We will begin with the Liberal Party members. We'll start with Mr. Russell.

Just for the committee, Mr. Russell will be replacing Ms. Simson for this part of the meeting, and Ms. Simson will remain as an observer.

We'll go to Mr. Todd Russell.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good morning to all of the folks back in Labrador.

I first of all want to thank the committee for undertaking this particular study. I know how important it is to the communities that are represented on the line this morning.

Of course, it is an issue that is prevalent throughout the nation. It is always important to repeat a particular fact: the Sisters in Spirit have documented over 580 murdered or missing aboriginal women in this country in the last 20 to 25 years, and this is a trend that continues. It highlights the importance of the work this committee is undertaking and what is happening in communities like those in Labrador.

I want to say thank you to all of the participants from back in the big land, Nitassinan, Nunatsiavut. You do fantastic work and you've given the committee a very brief but I believe a very deep understanding of some of the challenges we face in our communities in Natuashish, Sheshatshiu, and the Inuit communities, and in other places. I want to thank you for the work you have undertaken.

I note that Michelle said something about it being reactive. There has been a reactive approach to much of the violence, and there are many reasons. I just want to shift focus for just a little bit and ask each of you to underline one strategy you think is working to address this issue.

If you had one ask of this committee in terms of something we can move forward to help you in your work of trying to prevent violence against women and girls, what would that be? I know that there's not a lot of time, but I think that's where we want to focus. How can this committee help? What strategies can this committee promote to help you in your daily work to prevent violence against women and girls?

I thank you once again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thanks, Todd.

I will ask Kathleen Benuen to start by telling us one strategy that currently works and one thing you would like to ask this committee to recommend.

Kathleen.

[Kathleen Benuen]

I see from the community that there is a division in the community. It's a struggle for the women who are trying to move forward. I think we need more resources in the community to help the women and more training for the women and the caregivers in the community.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Yes.

[Kathleen Benuen]

Promoting anti-violence empowers women and girls, especially the children.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Carmen.

[Carmen Hancock]

I'd actually like to echo what Kathleen has said in terms of what's working. Currently the provincial government has the violence prevention initiative, and right now there is a regional coordinating committee in Labrador to create and address some of the public education and awareness issues related to violence against women but also other target populations. I think some of the strategies are working in terms of the public awareness campaigns.

In terms of us looking forward, it's definitely about creating strategies and partnering with the aboriginal communities to bring some education and training to communities and help develop resources, those types of things. I think those strategies, as Kathleen mentioned, are very positive.

It's also about working within the education system, not only with children and youth, but also in terms of post-secondary training to teachers as part of the curriculum around cultural sensitivity training around violence and violence issues. Having those types of training becoming part of the core curriculum within post-secondary institutions is key.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

Germaine Benuen.

[Germaine Benuen]

I would think that it's more funding to educate the women and children against violence. I would like more funding for educating the family and to get the prevention programs, addiction treatment programs, on the go, and to treat the family as a whole, rather than just women and children. I think if we treat the family as a whole, it will not eliminate the whole violence, but it's a start, right? So I would say more funding in education, prevention programs, treatment programs, and all that stuff.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I'm sorry, Ms. McGee, did you have anything to say?

[Joanne McGee]

Yes. In response to Mr. Russell's question around one thing that works, I think certainly from my work and experience with the Mushuau Innu in Natuashish that women traditionally are very strong leaders and have a very powerful role in the community. I see that as a strength.

Also, there's the fact that the Mushuau Innu have maintained and retained their language and their connection to the land and their traditions. I see that as very positive.

Certainly one thing that works, whether it's in violence prevention, addiction, or whatever kinds of programs the community runs, is that those particular attributes are definitely strengths, and this is definitely one thing that works.

I think it's important to invest in prevention programs, in having the ability to do outreach work with women. It's great to be able to respond to crisis, but oftentimes we work in crisis mode, and that's not always effective in terms of getting at and addressing the root causes, I guess. So it's about having the ability to empower women and to offer some of the things that the other speakers have already said around education and training and also to involve them in policy discussion. Oftentimes, the women, in particular in northern Labrador--and I'll speak again just to Natuashish--are geographically isolated. It's very expensive to travel out of the community and participate in discussions that might inform policy, yet they have a tremendous amount to offer to such discussions.

One of the things that I'll speak quickly to as well that's bound to be a challenge is the jurisdictional issues that often come up. Somebody spoke about the provincial violence prevention initiative. We did succeed in getting funding from that, but for some of the issues that we had to work around in terms of Natuashish being a reserve and around federal and provincial jurisdiction, those can be challenging sometimes. I'm not sure if it's something this committee can address, but certainly it's something that we face sort of on an ongoing basis: whose responsibility is it?

I see it as the responsibility of both levels of government and I look at it more around the perspective of “do you want to work with us?”, and if you do, then this is what we want to do. Do you want to be part of it or don't you? Sometimes those jurisdictional issues can be challenging.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Kinney.

[Michelle Kinney]

There are two things. I'll go back to some of the comments I made. Education is key. From the fund that other people have talked about, we got some funding to develop a program, Boys to Men, where we educated boys, 10- to 13-year-olds, around respect for women, healthy relationships, and those kinds of things. Those kinds of prevention programs are essential both for boys and for girls, and too often we put all our eggs in one basket.

I fully support women having the resources and the ability to say no and to ward off violence, but we also need to put some of our efforts into education for males. The whole education piece around healthy relationships is key to many issues in our communities and to the ability to be able to make choices, when in the past choices have been taken away.

The one key thing I would like to say comes down to money. It is not the amount of money necessarily, but the sustainability of funding. Most of the funding we receive is project-based, so we're continually writing proposals. It's short term. It's piecemeal. It's not always the amount of funding but the fact that it could be sustainable that would give a lot more support to our projects or to our communities, more than just piecemeal short-term funding.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Kinney.

Now I will go to Madame Demers, from the Bloc Québécois. She will be asking you questions.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Good morning, ladies.

I've been listening to Mr. Russell, who is from Labrador, and he had such good questions to ask you and you had such good answers to give him, that I will just tell you what I think about what you told him.

I've been listening to what you told us this morning. I believe you are very brave women. You touched me when you talked about what you have to live through in your communities. In most of your communities, you are cut off from the rest of the world. In most of your communities, you have to live in situations that we don't know anything about back here, down south. In most of your communities, there are young people who have nothing to do with their lives because they don't have opportunities like we have here, and young people here do nothing with their lives because they have too much. They have too much money and too much opportunity, and they still don't know what to do with their lives.

Over there, you say the system has failed aboriginal women, and we know that. Mr. Russell said that 500 young aboriginal women--and it is more now--have died or have been abducted. We know that is the truth and we know we should do something to find out what has happened to those women. You say the police forces are not responding correctly to your plight, and we know this is also the truth.

What can we do about that? We don't know. How do we respond to your plight while we are over here? I don't know. How do we respond to your needs? I don't know.

I am tired of saying that's what we should do for you because that's not the way we should do it; as you say, we should work together. Instead of telling you what we should do for you, you should tell us so we can help you better. You tell us that you need sustainability. I believe that's the truth. I'm not in the government, though; I'm in the opposition, so it's hard for me to give you sustainability. We'll work hard on that.

I believe you need more resources. I believe you need more training. I believe that promoting anti-violence is very important. Education, I believe, is at the heart of everything. If you have education, if your children have education, I think you might be able to save the next generation. You have my support for that. I do hope you'll get it.

Thank you for being here this morning. Thank you for sharing with us what you have to go through.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Michelle.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

It's Nicole.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm sorry. Thank you, Nicole.

We have another three minutes left for this. I was going to ask if anybody wanted to answer the question Nicole brought up but that hasn't been answered yet, which is, why are the police not responding and what do you think we can do about it?

Michelle, I wonder if you, as a member of the local government, could start off and tell us what you think. I just want a quick answer from everybody.

Michelle? Joanne McGee? Ms. Benuen? Has everyone been cut off? No?

[A voice]

I'm here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Okay. Germaine, did you want to comment on that point about why the police are not responding and what can be done about it?

[Germaine Benuen]

Whenever there's an question about this, we question the police on that, and they usually say they go by the priorities of the calls. For instance, there was a point there...[Technical Difficulty--Editor]. We said, okay, we need a detachment in our community. We have a detachment in our community and it doesn't make a difference. Across the street from the detachment, somebody called the police, saying there was a disturbance there, and the police didn't get there until two hours afterward. They're only across the way from this building.

So I don't know, but maybe they need more resources, maybe they need somebody working with them from the community, or maybe we need more funding to train our own people to deal with the issues in our community. That always involves more funding.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Is there anyone else who would like to offer an answer? If you do, can you please give you name just before you say it?

Kathleen?

[Kathleen Benuen]

I don't think we really have that problem here in Natuashish, as it is a small community. I know first-hand that when I call them they usually come right away. Sometimes the woman doesn't want to place charges against her partner, but I find that the police look at the individual and what evidence they can get and they go from there.

I don't think we have a problem here in Natuashish. I haven't heard complaints from other members or women here.