Status of Women Committee on Jan. 12th, 2011

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm going to pick up from Hedy's comments, and from Nicole's comments, because she touched on something I was going to ask, and that is in regard to the social violence and how it's perpetuated through communities.

Specifically, is the lack of affordable housing an issue here in Prince Albert and in other communities, the communities you serve? Could you describe your experience with that?

In terms of poverty, it seems to me.... Someone mentioned the fact that first nations people are often denied a job. They show up looking for a job and it's, “No, not you, we don't want you.” So to what degree is unemployment feeding that social violence in terms of what we're all talking about, that need for job training? Someone told us this morning that a lot of first nations people just don't have the skills or the academic background to get the training they need.

Finally, would some kind of child care, some kind of affordable and dependable child care, help women who are perhaps looking for training, trying to find a job, or just trying to sort themselves out in terms of dealing with addictions or the trauma of the abuse they have experienced? Would all of those things be part and parcel of what we've been talking about in terms of a community helping itself?

[Angie Bear]

With regard to the housing, that should have been one of the first things that was brought up in this meeting today. Housing is so hard for women. That's probably a big portion of the problem of why it's so hard to get into the women's shelter, because it's not just women who are being abused who are in there; it's people who have no place to go, people who have no housing, so they're taking up space.

I hate to say that, but somebody who is fleeing a violent situation won't have that space available because the housing issue is so bad. Even once they get in there, they are applying all over Prince Albert. Trying to find affordable housing is impossible. Usually women end up taking whatever they can get. The housing isn't always the best. They usually end up having to pay a large amount out of their food allowance to have the house so they have a roof over their head.

Further, there is the child care. I'm raising two of my granddaughters. I have a nine-year-old and a four-year-old. Child care is horrendous. It's so hard to get into day care. There are waiting lists. If you're a working person like me and your income is maybe just a little too high, you have to foot the whole cost of child care even though you're a grandparent. There is no support for grandparents. That's another thing. Some support needs to be put in place for grandparents when they are dealing with their grandchildren, because they're a large portion of the caregivers in the communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have one minute.

[Lisa Goulet-Cook]

When it comes to housing, employment, and shelter, yes, a lot of that perpetuates a lot of the abuse. It all ties in together.

The housing here is unbelievable. People are spending anywhere between $1,000 and $1,200 for a three-bedroom, with just a main level. Plus, with the utilities to run and operate a home with three bedrooms, you're looking at upwards of $2,000 a month. If you're not a working professional and your spouse is not a working professional, I'm sorry, it's just not going to cut it here. In social housing, there is nothing available. We checked around last week, and there is no social housing available, period.

The basic rent at Weidner Investment Services, which is a company that is buying up a lot of the apartments here, starts at around $850 for a one-bedroom apartment. The three-bedrooms are going for around $1,100, so how can we say we're providing a lot of services here for people when we can't even get them into affordable housing?

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

So there's a concentration of housing in the hands of a small group, and they're controlling the market and charging whatever they feel like?

[Lisa Goulet-Cook]

Yes. And they're kicking out a lot of single mothers who are trying to make something of themselves by going to school or seeking minimum-wage jobs. A lot of them are doing that and trying to help themselves. Yet you have this company coming in and literally throwing seniors out onto the street as well, senior citizens.

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

So social housing is a desperate need.

[Lisa Goulet-Cook]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I want to thank you all for coming and presenting to us.

There are some things I would like to ask, now that everyone has had their turn. I would like to follow up on a couple of things.

You had a question from Madame Demers about if you stop poverty you will stop violence. I used to be a physician in my other life, and I found that very wealthy women were also victims of violence. So I think it has to do with empowerment, and education might be one of the most important sources of empowerment. If a woman can find a job because she's educated she can basically walk away and say “I can take care of myself. I don't need you and I don't need the support systems you have. I can take care of myself and my children.”

So as you say, there are many factors, but I wanted to follow up on this issue we had talked about, domestic violence. I know that this morning when we met with other groups they talked about systemic violence. The missing and murdered women were not killed in domestic violence, were they? The question is why there are so many aboriginal women missing and murdered and have not been followed up on in our communities. Obviously there is another form of violence that we haven't talked about, and that is social community violence in urban areas, because this tends to happen to urban aboriginal women.

What I wanted to explore very quickly is on reserve--and that is why we are visiting reserves, we are visiting urban areas, we are visiting isolated areas, because we think that the issues are very different in each of those areas.... What we find and have found in all the things we've heard so far is that in urban areas there is always this inter-jurisdictional wrangle: is it a city issue, is it a provincial issue, or a federal issue? So we have jurisdictions that are coming into play in urban aboriginal problems where there is societal violence, etc., as well.

My question is twofold. Why is it that there aren't resources made available on reserve? The federal government has the fiduciary responsibility on reserve. Why is it that INAC is not providing all of the one-stop-shopping services, the shelters, and everything that is necessary on reserve? That's my first question. And if they did, will that at least deal with the on-reserve problems?

My second question is why is it that urban aboriginal people who leave the reserve and come into the city do not have the care and the funding from the reserve following them in? That's the second question.

And thirdly, there was an attempt by Paul Martin when he was Prime Minister to bring in something called the Kelowna accord, which was going to place in the hands of aboriginal people, whether they were urban or on reserve, the ability to take care of the three components: housing, education, and health. Would that, if it had in fact continued on, have been something that would have answered some of your problems?

That's basically what I'd like to hear from you.

[Lisa Goulet-Cook]

In those areas, if they were tackled and if those fiduciary responsibilities followed us from the reserve to the urban centre, if we had all of those at our disposal for most of the time it would have made a lot of difference for a lot of people living here in the urban setting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Why is that not happening?

[Lisa Goulet-Cook]

It is not happening because a lot of the funding that reserves have for their people will be given first to people who are living on the reserve, first and foremost. That's the way most chiefs and councils operate. I know because I've lived on a few and worked on a few different reservations. That's who we look after first, the people living on reserve. As soon as you move into the urban setting, you are basically on your own.

A lot of the times we can't access the educational portion of your entitlement as a treaty person. I've been treaty since 1993 only, because I lost my treaty rights when I got adopted by a Métis family. I got my treaty rights back in 1993, and I have not accessed or been able to access one cent of my right to education.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Is that educational allowance lost by the reserve when you leave the reserve, or does the reserve still get your educational allowance?

[Lisa Goulet-Cook]

They still get the educational allowance. They get the housing allowance or the portion for housing, and they get a portion for social development or social assistance as well. So even though you're not living on that reserve, you're still getting your allotment going to that reserve and being administered by that first nation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Do you think that if one looked at legislative and other ways of ensuring that this followed the person, that would make a difference? Could that happen? Is that a solution?

[Lisa Goulet-Cook]

You know, I don't want to disrespect chiefs and councils that are on reserve....

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

This is not about chiefs and councils; this is about a solution, a concrete thing.

[Lisa Goulet-Cook]

About a solution? Yes, it would help a lot.

For me, because my family placed a lot of value on education, and because my mom and dad educated all of us and helped us the most they could to get educated...if they couldn't afford it, then we had to pull student loans. Because I got myself educated, I've been independent enough that if I found myself in a violent situation, I was able to pick myself up only because I had my education to help back me up, to help get me back up, to start walking again, and to start living a better life.

You know, if we did have this, that access to housing, education, and health that would follow you wherever you went, yes, that would help a person become very, very independent in many ways, in many respects.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Would the Kelowna accord have addressed that?

[Lisa Goulet-Cook]

Yes, it would have. That's what many first nations people were hoping for. That's what we were counting on and it never happened.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

It was a signed interjurisdictional agreement between provinces and the federal government and aboriginal communities to be able to have access to that money specifically for those things....

Thank you very much. I want to thank all of you for coming and for being open and honest and answering our questions as well as you could. I know that we really need to have six hours if we're going to do a proper job, but I want to thank you for giving us the answers.

I think I can speak for the committee when I say thank you very much for helping us to understand some of these issues and to try to sit down.... As you know, what will happen with this report is that we will write down what we've heard and out of that we will discuss what we as a committee think are recommendations, based on what we heard. That will then be tabled in the House of Commons, as parliamentary committees do. The government will respond within 90 days. That's what happens with these reports, just so you know.

[Lisa Goulet-Cook]

Will we be able to get a copy of that report?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Once the report is tabled, it goes onto the website of the Status of Women Commons committee.

Thank you.

[A voice]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I forgot, because we were so busy having a nice chat here.... Could someone move that the meeting be adjourned?