Evidence of meeting #49 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 women.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you very much.
Now we're going to go to the question and answer section. This is a seven-minute segment, and that includes the question and the answer.
Again, I'll just warn everyone that we have to stick to the time. We have another panel after this, and we don't want to eat into their time. I'm just going to ask you to be concise and address the issue.
We will begin with Ms. Neville for the Liberals.
Liberal
Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Thank you.
So many questions....
First of all, let me ask you, Janine, have you done writing on what you've told us here today so that we can further read your arguments? Perhaps you wouldn't mind letting the clerk know what those are so that we can access them.
Liberal
Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
That would be great. Thank you.
I'm going to ask you the question that Jane thought I was going to ask her. I asked it this morning, and I don't know whether you can help me or not. The government has implemented a number of crime bills, most of which have mandatory sentencing. I've asked for a gender-based analysis on those bills and the impact on them, but we know that a disproportionate number of women who are incarcerated are in fact aboriginal women.
Do you have any knowledge of whether those women--and I think you referenced this--have been responding to the violence against them when they then have been perpetrators of violence, and then have been apprehended and incarcerated? Have you done any work on that?
As an Individual
I'm not a criminologist, so I have to rely on the work of others in that regard. There's certainly lots of research, and Bev has mentioned some of the studies, to indicate that women who are serving federal sentences for crimes of violence almost exclusively, almost 100%, have themselves been victims of violence in the past. There's also some writing on the relationship between the sentencing of women and their violent history.
I mean, to connect that to the mandatory minimum sentence and the gender-based aspect of that.... The real concern with mandatory minimum sentences is that of course the only way to get out from under them, at least in jurisdictions where they're used a lot, is to finger somebody else, right? So eventually people go down the chain, trading off information about something else, and it's the people at the bottom who have no one else left to finger.
I can say with some confidence that aboriginal women are less likely to be at the top of that chain than they are to be at the bottom.
Vice-President, Board of Directors, Warriors Against Violence Society
Yes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
So if you have any questions to address to him, please, can you just...finger him?
Liberal
Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Thank you. I'll come back in a minute.
Ms. Jacobs, prior to your arriving today there was some conversation about Sisters in Spirit, which I know you were instrumental in making happen. Can you comment, or are you willing to comment, on the impact of the government reluctance to fund the continuing work of Sisters in Spirit in terms of the research capacity and the ongoing work it's been doing, and the impact that will have on communities and women?
Former President of the Native Women's Association of Canada, As an Individual
Actually, I haven't been involved with NWAC since I left in September of 2009, but I do know that the intent of Sisters in Spirit was to have the families as the leaders, as the ones who were guiding the process. So we had family gatherings, but with the resources we had, we couldn't collect and be inclusive of families. Part of that process in gathering families, because it was such a network for them to be able to gather and talk about issues that were affecting them and their healing...it was such a good process for them to be able go through.
I'm going to talk about myself as a family member, as someone who was part of Sisters in Spirit, in the sense that this is going to continue whether that stops or not--families on the ground are going to continue their work. They've told me that they're going to do it anyway, so it's a matter of time and resources and what can be done for them. My recommendation in leaving a political organization is that it's not a political issue in the sense that political organizations can't fight for jurisdiction of the issue; it's a grassroots movement that's occurring. That's what I'm saying: it's going to happen anyway. But when it comes to the research and the policy development, that needs to continue. It needs to continue, and whether it's the families that do it themselves is the question.
The purpose of this study and being able to determine what the root cause is was the whole intent of Sisters in Spirit as well, and I think part of the study and part of the report identified that. It's difficult when I'm talking to families as a fellow family member about the need, because that's what it is; it's about the need in order for them to heal through what has happened to them and to us.
Having that experience of meeting with families now for...it is almost 10 years now since I started with Amnesty. Part of this whole issue is an acknowledgement that this cycle of violence that's occurring started from somewhere. It started from what I would say is contact, because of the disrespect to indigenous women in this country and because of the policies, the genocidal policies, of the Canadian government to totally eradicate.... How do you eradicate a population? You get rid of the women.
In order to deal with that, the healing is occurring in our communities. The resources are needed. I don't know what else to say.
Thank you.
Liberal
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Mr. Wallace, I would really like to know what the success rate of the program you talked about is and whether the program could be set up elsewhere.
Vice-President, Board of Directors, Warriors Against Violence Society
I don't have all the figures available, but we do have a lot of men coming to the program who stay on for a number of years, even though they feel they've stopped the violence, but they want to help younger people. So to say that the success rate is at a certain level, we'd have to determine what that success is.
But yes, it is an ongoing thing, and men and women do come and go. But I know a lot of them have been there for 10 years, and they feel comforted by the peer counselling and comforted by their friends, and they feel compelled to help other people in that.
Vice-President, Board of Directors, Warriors Against Violence Society
Yes, we actually have a lot of men and women from other cultural groups as well. We also help people who are in same-sex partnerships.
The basis of Warriors is respect, respecting the family, respecting the traditions and beliefs of other people. So we include all of that in that.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
Thank you very much.
Ms. Miller-Ashton, you did not have the opportunity to finish talking about the program for youth at risk. Could you tell us more about it?
Professor, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
Merci.
I was using it as a way to talk about concerns about aboriginal women. And I like those concepts of belonging and mastery and independence and generosity as concepts that are key in the aboriginal community. I think for women coming out of prison, which is the area I know best, these are key things we could build recommendations around.
We need to do the community piece better. And I say that not because I am necessarily in support or not in support of prisons but because prisons are a reality of our world. So coming back out is a reality of our world, and we need to do that better. We need to give women not only a chance for belonging, which I spoke to, but a chance for mastery. Mastery is in comparison not with others and standards and inflexible rules, but in comparison with their own past performance, so we have the flexibility to work with women in ways that work for them.
In the case of the woman I've been journeying with for the last year, she may have relapsed, but she is doing better than she was a year ago. So the system has to be able to find ways of acknowledging that, rather than re-victimizing her and putting her back in places where she can't recover and where she is further away from her child, and find ways of working towards acknowledging achievements that have been made, even if they've been small and incremental. That's one.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
So, you think that we would benefit from investing money in rehabilitation programs, rather than from putting more beds in prisons, as we are currently doing.
Professor, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
We know from the research that community-based programs work better. They do. And it makes sense, when you think about it.
That doesn't mean that I don't think people can learn some things in prisons. In fact, one of the ironic things is that it's in prison that aboriginal women sometimes find out about their culture for the very first time. I have seen some incredible things happen in prison when aboriginal women connect with our culture and elders. It's not the nature of prison that creates that opportunity; it's the spiritual people going in and the opportunity for sisterhood and gathering and belonging that so many of them have not had.
The problem is that when they gain that, and they do that transformation and that hard work on their own and with the support of their spiritual people, then we can't move it out. When they come out, it seems to fall apart.
I had an ironic situation where an elder suggested to me that we gather some of my students with women on parole in the community rather than me going in; usually I go in to the prisons with my students. I said sure, and we gathered at a friendship centre. My students had a wonderful experience, as they usually do. It was transformational for them in their thinking and understanding. But the aboriginal women on parole said, “Why can't we do this?” It was the first time they had gathered.
I'm not saying there are no programs--that would be just wrong, because there are programs--but we need more. The research tells us that if we offer those opportunities in the community, they'll work much better.
We need someone to accompany them. We keep talking about that notion of accompaniment. I read recently that they're suggesting in the health care system that there be somebody who's assigned to you once you're diagnosed with cancer so that you'll have someone who guides you through the system. We need that guide, but we really need to mean it. We've talked about it before, in corrections, but we need to really mean it and assign a guide. I don't think this has to cost a lot of money. It could even be volunteers. You need someone who is your guide, who maybe has been there, so that when you get out you have that guide to help you.
Then we need to create opportunities for the belonging and the mastery and the independence. That means the chance to have power. In aboriginal societies, power doesn't mean power over; it means power to run your own life. We need to create those opportunities.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
Our tour will perhaps have some positive results. We have been meeting with groups that do extraordinary work. They work with people whose experiences have marked them and who are now getting better through their work with others. This will perhaps help to pass on the message and the ways of doing things to other regions. Listening to you brings back memories of places we visited, where incredible work is being done.