Who would like to tackle this?
Ms. Cormier.
Evidence of meeting #46 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 children.
Evidence of meeting #46 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 children.
January 13th, 2011 / 8:50 a.m.
Shannon Cormier Project Facilitator, Ka Ni Kanichihk Inc.
I would say Leslie or one of the other women would be better to speak to that. I'm not sure exactly how much money administratively gets to the actual organizations.
8:50 a.m.
Board Member, Native Women's Transition Centre
I'll say a little bit about the funding, and maybe you can follow up with Leslie a little bit about it.
Right now, say you were to give us $50,000. When you talk about $50,000 and how that spreads, everyone around this table knows that we spread that $50,000 over a population that is maybe 40 or 50.... So when we talk about dollars and cents, you're talking--and I'm just being as generous as I can--maybe even 25 cents to 50 cents per dollar. You have to think that we're getting more complicated with our organization. We've lost that ability to really look at the community as a strength in the sense of accessing the funding. What ends up happening is that applying for it becomes more extreme and intense. Everybody around this table is applying for the same funding, which could be a very small pot. Not only that, but the requirements change, and then you have to become more creative rather than looking at something that's been solid and that has been working to continue to provide funding because you know it's working.
The other whole thing about funding has to do with what government sees as a success story. What is that? Is it the percentage of people who are actually moving forward? Is it that one woman who has made a change and is no longer in domestic...or is no longer living in poverty? What is that success? Or is it the numbers that say out of the 100 families you're working with, 100 of them are going to walk out the door and be okay?
We have to realize that aboriginal communities look at oral teachings, which are not part of funding requirements. Or when you bring elders or people from the community in and we talk about complex issues of mental health, addictions, violence, the sex trade, what dollar value can you put on those pieces of it? So even though the money is coming in, we also look outside of that. But we find the challenge at times is whether we have the right person coming in, because it is challenging to hire someone who fits the profile, and to find the person we need to work with those families. Funding really has an impact when we're talking about training, and sometimes that's not even an issue. Sometimes we can only get capital when we need operational funding. Sitting down and really strategizing around what is working and why it is working and using that as the strength rather than trying to change policy because something has changed with regard to the direction of the government is something we have to look at.
8:50 a.m.
Representative, Ka Ni Kanichihk Inc.
I'll give you a short answer.
When you asked about some of the solutions, I'm going to tell you to put the funding into education. For those of us who do get educated.... I came here 20 years ago with 16 garbage bags and two children, and because of strong warrior women who helped me through my journey, I'm here to be able to take another sister along with me, chain-linking. When funding is asked for, make sure it's put into education. If you want us to be sustainable and healthy and taxpayers, we must be able to get that education.
Being invited to other places is another open door so that we can continue to say the same thing over and over till the message is delivered by women like you sisters, who can help us. For those of us who are not yet at that level, like I said, with Ka Ni Kanichihk, Moon Voices, we need to bring more women there so that when we are able to sit down and never relax but be in the back, we could encourage others to carry on.
I want my grandchildren to have a healthy lifestyle. My daughter is a third generation and I'm a second generation of residential impact. It affects me, yes it does. Most of all, it's difficult because it is Caucasian people who bring those stereotypes. With my dad being French and my mom being aboriginal, first nations, Métis, it has affected me.
I look more like an aboriginal person, but then my father is a Frenchman from Quebec, Saint-Théophile. Yet I know if he were alive today he would be here to support.
I think we need to be able to understand that for aboriginal people--our children who are going to school, our grandchildren, my grandchildren--the schools will give us back our language and teach. We should not be segregated to one school system. If they allow the French to parler français, we should allow the other cultures in this country. I know we have a lot of different cultures, but for those that are first nations and Métis, I would say look at the funding part.
When Ka Ni Kanichihk is doing Moon Voices and you remember us women, remember that behind that we have to have that funding to become successful, and that there are many of us who don't even have a voice, many women and children.
If the message could be taken back that we look at the Native Women's Transition Centre, where my journey began, and Ikwe, where another part of my life is, those places for women are important, and there are not enough of them.
They built a brand-new humane society for animals, for crying out loud, and yet we are second-class citizens, even to that, because there is not enough. What happens is children come into care, things happen, and then the mothers end up on the streets. We're tired of the people being murdered and killed.
Thank you.
8:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you, Ms. Chartrand.
We're really going over time here. We're not going to be able to do a second round. Because everyone's gone over on this round, I'll let this round go over. But if we have a second round, I'm going to have to be really sharp on timing with you; otherwise, we won't be able to get to the second round.
Now I'll go to Ms. Glover, who is a Conservative.
8:55 a.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
I'm new to the committee. I want to thank the committee members for being here. I'm sorry, I thought Ms. Mathyssen was going before I was, but I'm glad to speak to the witnesses today.
I want to say meegwetch, first of all. I know many of you from a couple of different hats that I wear. It's a proud moment for me to see you here with the courage that you have, speaking about how we can change this horrible system our women have lived through. I have to acknowledge some of the things you've said, because you're absolutely right, money isn't going to be the only thing that solves this. It's collaboration and it's cooperation between different people and different agencies, including the government. The government is here today to find out what is working and what's not working.
Leslie, when you said there were non-aboriginal-led organizations asking for your input, that is not right. Those reports you submit, once the funding is done and your projects are done, are so important. That piece of information ultimately should lead decisions to go another way. Right?
I would ask--and I don't want to put you on the spot here today, Leslie, but I would love to know, perhaps through a written submission to the committee--how that happened, the story of that, and which organization that was. Because when we get applications for funding--and the Government of Canada gives more money to this issue than it has ever before in the history of Canada--that is the reality. When you ask for money, and if there are 20 organizations that ask for a pot of money that might be able to support only 18, those pieces of information you've just provided are really important. So I encourage you to work with us so that we know exactly what worked and what didn't work. That's what I'd like to focus on.
I heard many of you say that aboriginal women's rights have not been observed on reserve or off reserve. I understand that the funding is important. When the Native Women's Transition Centre asks us for $72,650 they get the $72,650, and we expect that it all goes to the project that it was supposed to sustain. But what do we do outside of money? Because that is an important piece. You've all said something about rights. At this point, we have bills before the House. That is a big part of what the Government of Canada does and what all the MPs sitting here do. We put bills before the House to help manage and to help protect the people in Canada. One of those bills is the matrimonial real property bill. As Elder Sutherland--and I want to acknowledge the elder here today--and of course Suzanne Chartrand said, they didn't have any rights when they came off reserve. They didn't have any rights to keep the marital home. Yet all other Canadian women across this country, as Sharon Morgan said, have the ability to phone the police and get a protection order or a prevention order and have safety for them and their children while the violence and the situation dissipate and everybody calms down. Yet aboriginal women on reserve don't have that.
There's a bill before the House called the matrimonial real property bill. I'd like to hear from you, Elder Sutherland. How you think that bill might help or hinder? If we have time, I'd like to hear from Suzanne as well, seeing as you've both suffered from having no rights on reserve.
9 a.m.
Staff Member, Native Women's Transition Centre
What is going to help in the reserve--because I go and visit in the reserve, and I have learned a lot in the western society, and I bring back the good part into my home and to my daughters--is for the women, as I always say, to use their voices. I have to use my voice. I have to fight for who I am. I have to protect this body. I have to live. I have a lot of talks with women in my reservation back in Duck Lake, Saskatchewan. You guys must have gone by it. That's where I come from. It has a population of maybe 8,000.
9 a.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
I come from Saskatchewan. My family used to play Duck Lake rummy.
9 a.m.
Staff Member, Native Women's Transition Centre
Yes.
If we could have the voice.... I'm fighting for my reservation women to have that voice. Get into the chief and the council. Vote for each other to have that voice. I fight for rights for the women in my reservation because I have granddaughters, and I would want my granddaughters to leave their home and their husbands to live comfortably with what they have earned in that home.
9 a.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
If I'm hearing you right, you think that kind of bill to give women rights on reserve is a good step forward.
9 a.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
Suzanne, can I ask you the same question? Is there a bill like that we ought to be undertaking to help them, or is there some other idea you have that we might seize so that we can get aboriginal women their rights?
9 a.m.
Representative, Ka Ni Kanichihk Inc.
Coming here 20 years ago, the number one thing that I look at is that there was a place to come and transition into. The Native Women's Transition Centre has always opened the door. What I think needs to happen is we need to emphasize that we support these places, that we see there's a place for women to come when they're trying to get away from domestic violence.
Sometimes we leave everything and we take what we can. What we need to do, though, is encourage these young women. We need to build up warrior women who will come to speak and bring these changes. When that happens, poverty affects us. Either you're going to go down.... What I chose is not to fall through the cracks of society or to bow down to ignorance.
Like I said, if we can find that, when we hear there are no transition homes and places for women from those communities to live, we have the right, if we don't want to live on a reserve--because I didn't, I lived in a community--to go anywhere in this country we would like to go and reside, and to teach our women to be a voice against domestic violence.
When these bills are being talked about, we will know the right time to be there, and when it's election time we will teach our women to vote, and allow politicians to be accountable for why we voted for them. That's where the change will happen.
9 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Ms. Glover, Ms. Marin would like to answer your question. Through the chair, Ms. Marin would like to answer your question.
9 a.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
Could I just finish, being that it's my question period?
9 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
No. One witness would like to answer your question, so I will allow her to do so and then you can ask a second question.
9 a.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
I will allow her when my nine minutes are up.
I just want to finish with this organization, because reclaiming the power is important. The Government of Canada provided some funding for your project called “Reclaiming the power”, which gives women their power. I want you to talk about what that did for women and what it does for women so that I know whether you would like to see this continue.
9 a.m.
Board Member, Native Women's Transition Centre
It's just a follow-up with Jojo. She had asked me to also indicate around the Indian Act and what effect that bill is going to have, because it does fit with all the questions you're asking about empowerment.
That legislation, when you talk around discrimination, is the legacy. So when we look at that, when you're looking at those bills, and hearing the voices of the elders and the stories, it's really important that the voices be heard around how that impacts the act as well as the changes to bills, because it does impact all the way down.
9:05 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Everyone seemed to get nine minutes, so I will give you one more minute if you wish to engage.
9:05 a.m.
Project Facilitator, Ka Ni Kanichihk Inc.
Just to add to what everybody's saying, another option is to also honour the commitments that have been made. At the national aboriginal women's summit, I think it was in Kelowna, the Kelowna accord, the government agreed to do four aboriginal women's summits. There have only been two. One was supposed to be held here in Winnipeg at the end of last summer. That has not happened. So yes, money is important, but so is having an opportunity for aboriginal women to have their voice heard so that these issues can be talked about in more than the few minutes that we do have available, and which we're very grateful for. These aboriginal women's summits are also extremely important.
Part of the aboriginal women reclaiming our power program, with Ka Ni Kanichihk, is to offer women a sacred place, an opportunity to find their voice. How we do that is through cultural programming. It's through education. It's through connections.
Culturally relevant programming is not what we do. We don't “aboriginalize” our programs. It's who we are. That is the biggest reason why we don't have to go ask other organizations to help us find people to come. That's really important, and that makes a very big difference.