Status of Women Committee on Oct. 26th, 2010

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I think we will move on. It looks like we have four people left on the call. For some reason, Ms. Kinney has gone off the call.

Now we'd like to go to the Conservatives and Madame Boucher.

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

Good morning, everyone.

I do not know whether the witnesses understand what I am saying.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

The witnesses should hear the translation.

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

Bonjour. I will try to do this in English and in French, because sometimes my emotion is in French.

Violence against women is unacceptable in Canada. For all of us it's very important to understand why violence against aboriginal women is so common. You speak about men and the violence against young women--

I'll say this in French.

It is very important for us to understand this.

As Ms. Demers has said, we have another reality here. We know little about aboriginal women's reality and what we do know comes either from the media or from what we hear.

You have talked a lot about education and intergenerational problems. What can we do, the committee, the government and the opposition together, to provide as much help as possible for aboriginal women in this situation? How can we give you the best means to protect yourselves?

We have heard that the police in some communities are slow to intervene. Physical, verbal, emotional and sexual violence are unacceptable. So what can we do here to give you as much support as possible and help you to succeed as well as possible?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Madame Boucher.

Because we're on a teleconference, we can't see you, so I would like to ask, starting with Ms. McGee, if you would like to respond.

[Joanne McGee]

I'm not really even sure how to respond. I find that the question seems to be directed as if I were a victim of violence myself, and I'm not. I'm here representing the health organization of the community. I honestly don't know what I can add to what we've already shared in terms of what we feel.

Certainly, my role is as a health professional and a support person to the community in terms of what can be done, but I'm personally not a victim of violence myself and I don't know if I can answer that question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Germaine Benuen.

[Germaine Benuen]

I will speak from personal experience because I was the victim of violence in a relationship years ago, but that's not there anymore. At that time, I was young. I didn't know anything about violence. It was acceptable in the community. As I got older, I got out of the relationship.

At that time, I would have probably needed the support from, say, counsellors, or support workers, or RCMP, or nurses, just to get information on what my rights were or where I needed to go to get help, how I could get help, and if I would be protected if I charged this person. What is needed today is education regarding violence.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thanks, Ms. Benuen.

Ms. Hancock.

[Carmen Hancock]

I don't have anything to add to this question, so I'll pass it over to Kathleen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Kathleen.

[Kathleen Benuen]

[Technical difficulty--Editor]...question?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Sorry, Kathleen, you cut out there. What were you saying?

[Kathleen Benuen]

What is the question?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I think Madame Boucher asked what we could do to help women who are actual victims of violence.

[Kathleen Benuen]

Like I said before, we need training for the staff in the shelter who are currently working there. I find that the women who are being victimized by violence are keeping silent. They're not seeking help as they should be. They're ashamed of what is happening to them.

A lot of people here--including me--have witnessed violence and alcoholism in our families and in our parents for the last few years. We need to start assisting those women, reaching out to those women who are in need, before something drastic happens to them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Kathleen.

We'll go to Irene Mathyssen from the New Democratic Party.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank all of you on the phones for agreeing to participate in this discussion and helping us with our study. It's very important that we hear as much as possible in order to have a sense of what needs to happen in order to end this kind of violence.

My first question is to Ms. McGee. You talked about the piecemeal nature of funding. One of the things that we know is problematic in the status of women department is the fact that there have been changes to the funding. It's now all about small projects. There's none of the longer-term follow-through that you described.

I wonder if you could give us an example of one of the projects that needed this longer-term funding, and I wonder if you could comment on the cancellation of the aboriginal healing program or the fund.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. McGee.

[Joanne McGee]

Perhaps I can give an example around the piecemeal nature of the funding. Recently we were actually successful in a funding proposal to the Women's Policy Office here in Newfoundland and Labrador to access funds. Again, it's project oriented, and it's not a large amount of money. We would like to have the ability to access funding through Status of Women Canada, which we are only now learning about in terms of what they offer, and that was through our application to the provincial grants process.

What we learned was that in order to access that funding, we need funding in order to facilitate that proposal development. We have been successful in getting that funding from the provincial level, and as for what we want to do, we mentioned earlier that we really feel we're missing out on the outreach component, on reaching out to women who might be vulnerable or women who might be in desperate need right now.

We plan to use the grant we received to do that work, but also to engage women in such a way that it facilitates the development of further proposals or project ideas that we might put forward to funders such as Status of Women Canada. It is very piecemeal and, in terms of sustainability, it's difficult for us without the support from funders to look at sustainable programs, because, essentially, the project we now have funding for finishes at the end of March. At the end of March, unless we have other funding, our outreach process is longer supported financially. We have to always think ahead in terms of how we can utilize that little bit of support we have in order to access other funds.

I don't feel that I can speak to the cancellation of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. I'm not all that familiar with it. Most of my work has been with the Labrador Innu comprehensive healing strategy and Health Canada and sort of their core or A-base funding program. I don't feel I can speak to it or make any comment on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Does anyone else want to answer Ms. Mathyssen's question?

Ms. Mathyssen, do you have another question?

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

Yes, it's for Germaine Benuen. You talked about the court system failing women and the fact that police sometimes don't respond as they should. I'm wondering, first, in terms of what it means to a family, to a woman who experiences this violence, if better police training might help to create a better relationship.

In terms of the court system, when we were in Iqaluit last spring, one of the things we heard very clearly was that putting young men in jail is not the solution to addressing violence against women and girls.

Could you comment on both those questions?

[Germaine Benuen]

I'll comment on the policing issue first.

I think the multicultural training would be very helpful for the police. There has been training for them. Some of them may have taken this training. Other than that, I'm not aware of any other training.

With the court system, we need funding for it. I believe that anybody who is going through the process and has gone to jail, who has been incarcerated in the jail system...they don't get any help when they go to a provincial system. They don't get any services or programs. They're not delivered there--unless they go to the federal system.

Having said that, we had a program we looked at to see if we could do it within our organization. It was supposed to be treatment-based. We had our probation officers, victims services, court interpreters, and prison liaison, yet the provincial government didn't.... That was what we needed. We needed a coordinator for it. We needed a treatment-based program for the people who were going through the court system or going to jail, but we couldn't get the funding for it, so we only have our employees in place. They have very little to do, but they do deliver the programs to the people in our community and that has had a very positive effect on them. The people who were on probation, say, went to the people in their own language, and that really helped.

But we still don't have anything in place with the treatment services, like addiction treatment. That's one of the things that we were trying to get going, but due to the funding we couldn't get that on the go.

I believe that it doesn't help the individuals who go to jail to not have the services there or to not have programs offered to them. They just sit there, do their time and get out, and do the same thing very soon after that. I think treatment would be more effective than going to jail.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

That ends the session. We have run out of time.

I want to thank you all very much again for taking the time to respond to us. It's a difficult way of doing things when we can't see each other. You did very well indeed in responding. Thank you, again. We'll say goodbye now.

The meeting is adjourned.