Evidence of meeting #45 for Status of Women in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was family.
1:50 p.m.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Perhaps most of those communities have a nurse and maybe a few community health reps?
1:50 p.m.
Chair, Women's Commission of the Prince Albert Grand Council
Yes, and that's it for support services in the communities.
1:50 p.m.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Wanda, you said earlier that, to reduce the incidence of violence against women, we absolutely must get men involved in the process. I agree with you. I saw that, as part of one particular program, abusers who agreed to participate in treatment avoided imprisonment and could return home to their spouse. Does this program still exist and, if so, is it effective?
1:50 p.m.
Treasurer, Saskatchewan Aboriginal Women's Circle Corporation
There are none with the program we have in our community. The men who want to get help have to come south to Prince Albert or Saskatoon. Most of those men don't want to leave the community. They like to stay beside their children. Men too have feelings, just like women. They cry just like women. They hurt just like women. I feel that if there was a counsellor, a therapist, whoever, to come in and talk to these men, there would hardly be any violence for women. It would just be all happy.
1:55 p.m.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
Earlier, you talked about a family healing centre. Do you believe that similar centres could be established within communities? Could that help matters?
1:55 p.m.
Treasurer, Saskatchewan Aboriginal Women's Circle Corporation
Yes, it would.
1:55 p.m.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
Does everyone agree with this? Yes? Would the operating of such centres be expensive? Do you have an idea of how much it would cost?
1:55 p.m.
Treasurer, Saskatchewan Aboriginal Women's Circle Corporation
No, we don't.
1:55 p.m.
Treasurer, Saskatchewan Aboriginal Women's Circle Corporation
We have a detox centre in Ile-a-la-Crosse. That's the only centre we have.
1:55 p.m.
Treasurer, Saskatchewan Aboriginal Women's Circle Corporation
No, it's not.
1:55 p.m.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
So, there are currently no centres where the father, the mother and the children can come together to encourage healing.
Angie?
1:55 p.m.
Community Development Worker, ISKWEW Women Helping Women Co-operative Health Centre
Thank you.
I am also employed by the mental health...and I do work with the program, Choices for Men. I'm a co-facilitator for the Eve program, which is kind of a mirror.... Where the men go into the program, the women get the exact same program. I have also worked with probation services for the past four years, which work with the men who are charged with domestic violence. That one is done by probation services. I've worked in that one for four years.
The problem we have in Prince Albert is we've been trying to develop a domestic violence program. In Saskatoon and Regina they have a domestic violence court. When men are charged with domestic violence, they go into a program. In Prince Albert we do not have the funding for that type of program. We've put a proposal together. We've had the chief of police, prosecutors, and judges sit on that. It's gone forward. A little bit of funding was given to the police services to develop some programs around that, and they're doing their portion of it. But that domestic violence program is really essential, especially since we service so many of our northern communities. That's a really key part of what's missing in Prince Albert.
1:55 p.m.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
I am very pleased with the work done by police services; I congratulate you on that.
Do you feel that similar work could be done in collaboration with other services, such as social services?
1:55 p.m.
Community Development Worker, ISKWEW Women Helping Women Co-operative Health Centre
Yes, we're actually trying to put together a child apprehension program. Usually when a woman's child is apprehended, it is kind of like going to the doctor and being told you have cancer. When your doctor tells you that you have cancer and then goes on to tell you what your treatment is going to be, you walk out of that office and all you remember him saying is that you have cancer. When a woman's child is apprehended, social services tells her what her rights and responsibilities are, but when she walks out, all she has heard is that her child has been apprehended.
We would like to develop a program, and we're working with social services right now to put that program in place so that when children are apprehended, there will be a program delivered in our community to address that, so that they will have somewhere to go to talk about their challenges, their rights, and their responsibilities, and so families can be worked with on a first basis like that. We are all working toward that at the Co-operative Health Centre.
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
1:55 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I have a couple of questions.
Wanda, you said that very often women are killed by strangers, and you also said that your niece came into a shelter and she was called down. I'm assuming that you mean there were racial slurs. If we look at that and at the fact that first nations women are being killed by strangers rather than by intimate partners, what do you think that tells us? Is racism a serious issue in the communities we're talking about?
1:55 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
This has to do with the proposal to have a family centre and cultural programs and counselling. Is there a role for the federal government in terms of providing support funding for capacity building? It would seem to me that capacity building is at the centre of what you are talking about and the needs you are talking about. I wonder if everyone or anyone could respond.
I see you nodding, Angie and Lisa.
2 p.m.
Urban Aboriginal Coordinator, Prince Albert Métis Women's Association Inc.
Thank you for asking that question.
At this point in time one of the mandates of the urban aboriginal strategy is to get all the stakeholders together here in Prince Albert to get them to the table to provide almost--I hate to say it--a one-stop shop where we can provide services to the clients who come forward to us once we put them through a needs assessment. That's on the table right now with our committee. I developed that program and we're going to be going through that.
Once we do that we're going to be contacting stakeholders within Prince Albert, such as Angie, various agencies that we are going to invite to a meeting and ask how we can best serve the clients that really need our help the most here in Prince Albert. It can't keep on going the way it is. There are so many different innovative programs here in Prince Albert, but not all the clients know about those programs and how we can help them. We've got to actually do that work, bring that information and educate our clients on what they have offered to them.
The UAS is a pilot project with the Department of Indian Affairs that's being run through different cities within Canada. What we need more and more often is to get core funding for us to develop more preventative programs. What I'd like to see here for Prince Albert is for all the agencies to come together and start developing how we are going to best serve our clients. Yet we don't have that core funding. Our project ends at the end of 2011 fiscal year, which is next March. So we don't have any money to survive past that. That was one of the issues we all have here: once we have a really good program across the board, across the spectrum for aboriginal agencies, whether it is preventative, whether it's an action plan of some sort, or what have you, once it starts working for our clients the core funding just stops like that. What are we supposed to do with our clients?
With traditional programming that comes right from community-based organizations and that most of the time is based on client needs, once that program is developed a year or two and it really starts making an effect on people, that funding is shut down. That long-term sustainability is not there. How are we supposed to treat clients and send them over here and treat them like a pinball and in the end they start giving up on their wellness plan? They are starting to get independent and then all of a sudden those services are not there for them.
2 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
I assume also you would lose the expertise of your staff. If you can't guarantee a job, you would lose that experienced staff person. It's interesting, because it comes right back to cost. It is certainly much less expensive to fund those support systems than a lot of jails and the mental health costs and the apprehension costs and overall.
I take it I'm out of time, Madam Chair.
2 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Yes.
We have actually about 25 minutes left, a little over 25 minutes, so we could go to a third round.
I just wanted to ask the committee and the witnesses to look at the mandate, which not only speaks to the issue of domestic violence, which seems to me what we have been speaking about a lot, but it talks about the nature of the violence. In other words, is it only domestic violence that aboriginal women face, or are there other types of violence? If so, maybe this round might be a way to explore other kinds of violence, other than domestic violence. Is there society violence? Is there community violence? Is there systemic violence? If so, what are the ways in which one can deal with those and try to either prevent them or find therapeutic ways to deal with them or look at rehabilitation, education, or whatever?
I just thought that one might want to explore that, because we have only been talking about domestic violence, and I know we've been to other places where they've told us it's not the only form of violence that aboriginal women face, especially in urban areas; it's not the only type at all.
I'll leave that up to you. I just throw that in there. I know you will ignore me if you don't want to do it. So you can just go ahead and ask whatever questions you want anyway.
Anita, five minutes.
2:05 p.m.
Liberal
Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
How can I let that pass? I would like you to comment on what Ms. Fry said, but I also have one other question for you. I had others, but I have just one quick one.
Are there, in your experience, many instances of violence that go unreported? If so, is that because of fear of child apprehension or other issues? I'm curious about that, but I also would appreciate comments on what Hedy Fry just indicated as well.
You were nodding, Angie. Do you want to go ahead?