Status of Women Committee on Jan. 13th, 2011

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds, whoever wants to go for that.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Anybody else?

I'll pass, then. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Anita.

Now we go to Mrs. Glover for the Conservatives.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I do want to acknowledge that shelters are an important component of what the Government of Canada is addressing, with $55.6 million announced for over a five-year period to invest into shelters. Just recently, $2.2 million more was dedicated to support the construction of five new shelters, including one here in Manitoba.

So I agree with what you said, Ms. Forbes, that shelters need to be available, because it's certainly something that will help these women get the resources they need.

Ms. Michell mentioned earlier that young girls don't wake up one morning and decide that they want to be prostitutes. The reason I bring this up is that the Government of Canada agrees that these are victimized women and that there are a number of things that have to come into play to protect them. What the government is responsible for doing is finding ways to do that, including legislation. The matrimonial real property legislation has been put forward. I believe many of the women who are missing or were murdered left reserves because they didn't have any rights, came to urban settings where they don't have transition centres, etc., and became exploited because of their vulnerabilities. They then became our missing or murdered. That is why it's so important that we have police and all these other agencies working together. So we're going to push forward with that bill to try to give rights back to aboriginal women on reserve, and the grandmothers are those women who are going to help us make sure those rights are given back.

Now let's talk about the kids at the other end, the small kids, and about what we're doing to capture them, to protect them. I'm in total agreement that taking them out of their families is a horrible, horrible situation, which is why I'd like Ms. Loeppky to describe the prevention-based approach. This is a new approach, and I believe $177 million has been invested here in Manitoba so that we can look at a different system. The CFS system before of taking them out of the homes was not working, so a new system has come about.

Perhaps you could describe that for us, Ms. Loeppky, and tell us why you think that might help these young girls from becoming further victims.

[Carolyn Loeppky]

Thank you.

The funding model that has been developed and agreed upon by the federal and provincial governments will be providing a shift of the resources. It will be going to prevention and early intervention. This means that if a family comes in and is at what would be determined to be low risk, there would be ways in which the social work system could refer and/or support the family in terms of the services they need.

It would be working with respect to not someone outside of the family telling them, in a prescriptive way, “Here's what you need to do: A, B, C, and D.” This would involve working closely with the family, with the mother, the father, the extended family if there is extended family, to talk about what they believe are the important things they need in order to take the kinds of steps with their children that they want to take.

It might be as simple as the fact that they can't get their laundry done because they don't have a machine in their house and they can't get to the laundromat. It might be something about wanting to get into the world of employment. Is there some educational support that we can either lever, link, or help to support? Is it going to be something around looking at basic needs within the house that are preventing the family from moving forward? Is it parenting issues they want to address with respect to parent-teen conflict and/or parenting of little ones who are going through difficult times in terms of developmental stages?

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

And there's the kinship, which is what you're addressing when you talk about the families coming into play. Rather than taking these kids out of the community and out of the family, it's trying to find foster parents within the family, etc. That plays a part too.

But continue: how is this going to help us prevent them from becoming victims?

[Carolyn Loeppky]

Well, we know that when families have a first brush with child welfare, it's generally when children are taken out of the home. It's generally not for a long time. We see a lot of children who come into care for very short periods of time. That's what we would like to address, because if you can avoid taking children into care....

We've done some analysis, and it's generally for about 36 days that a child would be taken out of the home while the home stabilizes in order to have the child back and the child be safe. If we can avoid taking that child into care in the first place, and provide the services and supports either in the home or with the extended family, it will avoid that first contact with child welfare. By stabilizing those homes, what you'll find is that children will do better in daycare and in the school system, and they may move forward in terms of being able to actually complete school. In the child welfare sector, educational outcomes are also not in the success range that we would want to see them at.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Ms. Michell, good or bad approach...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Glover, you've gone over your time now.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thanks.

Now I would like to go to Madame Demers for the Bloc Québécois.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Basically, in all the places we've visited so far, the people we met with insisted on the importance of opening centres for both the victims and the offenders. We were told that if we didn't try to heal the whole family, we would always end up with the same problems. What is your opinion, Lisa and Shawna, and perhaps you too, Ms. Loeppky?

In fact, Lisa, you are right: grandmothers are in the best position to take care of children and decide what is good for them. I've personally been taking care of my grandson for a number of years.

The suggestion to open healing centres for the whole family came up a number of times. What do you think about that?

[Lisa Forbes]

I could speak to that.

I've heard from people who definitely think that model is a good idea and that it is whole family healing. I guess what I mentioned before is what I heard people say: that there weren't enough programs to address issues with men, so sometimes.... There were programs for women. Women may learn some aspects of domestic violence communication skills and those kinds of things for prevention, but their partners in the home may not have any training in that matter. So to have an approach that addresses whole family healing would definitely be something that I heard service providers say they would support.

[Shawna Ferris]

I can just add something.

When I used to teach in Ontario, I heard from speakers in the Six Nations reserve who actually have an internationally recognized program that does exactly that. I can't remember the name of the program, but I can e-mail or send it to the committee. They've been invited all over the world to talk about the groundbreaking work they're doing with exactly that kind of program.

[Lisa Forbes]

I'd just like to add, too, that one of the things I haven't heard made mention of too much here.... I did hear Lisa mention it and I think Carolyn might have said it. Regarding poverty, housing, and those kinds of issues, some kind of a healing centre may be helpful, but if the family is still experiencing these kinds of things.... So to have policies and put money towards poverty reduction, affordable housing and also education and training to improve an economic situation...those things all have to happen together. That's the thing with this. With such a pervasive problem, we do have the opportunity, in that there are so many places to intervene, and they do have to be...we have to intervene on all fronts in a strategic coordinated effort.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Lisa?

[Lisa Michell]

Thank you.

I just want to say that in terms of healing in our community, it's not just about smudge; our culture is a way of life. That's how we live. It's not just something that we do on certain days. It's the way we live and how we walk in our communities. That's what culture is all about.

I would also agree, too, that in terms of healing it has to be the whole family unit. It takes a whole community to raise a child. And you know what? I'm still somebody's child, so there are times when I need that.

We also need tremendous support for our men. Jail is not the solution. Incarceration doesn't work. We need to have a holistic approach, a way of life.

Talk to those elders, because the elders have all the answers. When I hear them talk about the child welfare system or any kind of system--the federal government, the provincial government--how much consultation has happened with our elders? I have to ask that question. It's something to think about.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Are there consultations between aboriginal communities and the various levels of government?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Who would like to try that?

Ms. Loeppky.

[Carolyn Loeppky]

Actually, within our legislation in the child welfare area, there is the opportunity for communication, for consultation, for leaders at the political level. It's a required activity. Within the working level, there are also legislated entities we have that provide the opportunity both for collaboration and for communication and consultation in the child welfare area.

In Manitoba, we also have Healthy Child Manitoba, which is a group of seven to nine ministries that come together on a regular basis to talk about the priority programs. We do joint work together around some priorities for services and programs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

That finishes that part.

Ms. Mathyssen, for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to go back to some of the things I heard. We know that it's important to have shelters and that they be functioning. In previous testimony we've heard that there's money for capital, so you can build the shelter, but there's no money for the operations, the important part of the work that goes on there. I wondered if you could comment on that.

Also, in these surveys that Lisa and Shawna talked about, you said that people said there need to be safe homes for sexually exploited youth. I found that extremely disturbing. I wondered if you could expand on that and explain to the committee what is happening to kids on the street or kids who are being exploited.

[Lisa Forbes]

For the first aspect--I'm trying to recall different conversations we've had with various service providers--as you said, there's money for capital but not for services. What I can say is that service providers are frustrated that they don't receive multi-year funding in order to be able to initiate programs and see them through.

To have to constantly be writing funding proposals according to the flavour of the month, for whatever they are being asked to address, is a constant problem. It is hard to keep trained people in when you have to say to them, “Well, listen, March 31 is coming up, and I don't know if I can hire you after April 1”. That is a constant problem; everyone across the board in social service delivery says that. That's the first aspect.

Regarding safe homes for sexually exploited youth, there has been some really good work done in Manitoba with the Sexually Exploited Youth Coalition, the SEY Coalition. That is several different social service agencies; I believe that policing is involved. It has a whole bunch of different ranges. From what I've heard, it's a good model for being able to think of integration across many different social services and across policing and government agencies and that kind of thing. That seems to be working well here in Manitoba.

In regard to spaces, I've heard that there are two elements to this issue. One is that there are not enough spaces for those sexually exploited youth to go to for shelter. The other aspect--this may sound a little controversial--is that funding and programs need to be across the board for needs as needed--not just to say that we're addressing sexually exploited youth, we don't want to see those 13-year-old girls on street corners, we want to address that, and that's our flavour of the month.

It also needs to be addressed that...some of the concern is that we put efforts into some programs for youth, for instance, but not for women and maybe not for children. Some people are saying there are fewer services for women. The truth is that it needs to be across the board, and that's not to belittle the fact that we do not have enough services and outreach workers for sexually exploited youth or, specifically, enough beds for the safe houses.

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

Are these kids ending up in the judicial system and ultimately being institutionalized? Are they ending up in prisons?

[Lisa Forbes]

Anecdotally, I would just say yes, but I don't have expertise about that specifically.