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.
Conservative
Nina Grewal Conservative Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I really appreciate your concerns and the issues you have raised here today.
As a society, how can we break this cycle of violence to ensure that aboriginal women can live with confidence and dignity? What suggestions can you offer to help our government deal with this violence against women issue so that all of us can do still better?
Former President of the Native Women's Association of Canada, As an Individual
There is a lot this government can do. I mentioned a lot of it in my presentation.
One thing is language programs. This Conservative government cut language programs for our communities. Language is the source of our identity. It's the source of our teachings. It's the source of our laws, our traditions, and our culture. When we have language, it strengthens our spirit, which is part of the process of healing. In healing our spirit, the language is a part of that, as I said, and is part of those teachings.
There are very specific teachings in our culture about respectful relationships. I had to relearn those, because my grandmother, who was in residential school, wasn't able to teach me. It is part of the responsibilities of the women to teach our young people and it is part of the responsibilities of the elders in our community to teach us about how we have respectful relationships with each other when we begin a relationship. That cycle of violence will end when we're taught about those respectful relationships and when we're taught about self, about our identity, and where we come from.
As I said in my presentation, resources are needed, very specifically for women and men in our communities, so that's healing services. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation was one of those foundations that was able to provide healing services and counselling services. Whether Health Canada can also be involved in being able to have those kinds of services continuously available to aboriginal women and men who are healing from violence....
There are resources needed for families of the missing, as I said, and families of the murdered. There are very specific needs for each of them. When you think about someone in your life who has gone missing, you want them to be home every day. You think about it every day. There's trauma every day. When you're in that traumatized life and trying to come to terms with the fact that someone has gone missing and they're not in your life anymore, you have loss and grief. Then, when they're found murdered, there's a whole process of grieving. Somebody you know is not in this lifetime anymore. But how? They've been murdered.
There's education. There's prevention. There's so much that can be done. We do know that these are occurring in our communities, but there's more that's needed.
I'll stop there.
Liberal
Vice-President, Board of Directors, Warriors Against Violence Society
I guess one of the best ways to end violence is to prevent it in the first place. One of the things within the Warriors is recognizing the patterns that we have in violence, and a lot of times that comes down to an emotional situation. We provide tools to recognize that, to recognize those triggers, like triggers to anger. What triggers anger? It could be something simple like a transit person not letting you on the bus or something. That triggers anger in you. It's about dealing with that anger in a way such that you're not being violent to the transit person or violent to anybody who's around you.
Finding ways through culture is a good way, too, connecting to the culture and knowing those traditions. It's about redefining what a warrior is, because warriors weren't the ones who created war. They're actually defined as people who look after the community and who look after their family and individuals, hence the name “Warriors Against Violence”. We're protecting our families. We're protecting our community in that way.
It also is about finding other tools, like giving yourself a time out when you know you can't handle a situation. You remove yourself from that situation.
There are a lot of other tools available.
Conservative
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Okay, thank you.
Now we have Ms. Davies for the NDP.
I'm sorry--we've just received a message from the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs and—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
They're coming, but you'll have them on the next panel. We're trying to figure out what to do here, so I'm sorry if I was distracted.
Ms. Libby Davies for the NDP.
NDP
Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you very much.
Well, we've been hearing all day some really very incredible testimony and observations. I just wanted to come back to the way Beverley began, because I think everybody's raised it: another committee, another study.
I remember when I first got elected, the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples had just come out, and I started reading it. It was an amazing report, and there were hundreds and hundreds of recommendations. One sticks out in my mind. One of the recommendations was to hire 10,000 aboriginal health care workers. It sticks out in my mind because 10,000 was a nice round figure, and I just remembered it. I'm sure it was never done.
You really raise very huge questions, like here we go again. And we kind of all feel this as well. So it's another time around the table. It's another hotel. It's another hearing, and around we go. I could offer my own observations about why I think it keeps going around and around like that, but I'm interested in what you have to say as well.
One of the things that I wonder about is that when these issues come up, they seem so huge that people don't know where to begin. Even governments somehow don't seem to know where to begin. Money, as it relates to equality or inequality, is a big part of it. But I wonder if we need to shift to a much more local response. You kind of touched on that when you said no matter what we do, the grassroots stuff is going to happen. And that's what I see in Vancouver. The stuff that's coming out locally is the stuff that's really working. Maybe our role federally is to make sure there are adequate benchmarks and standards—and I know we're going to hear about CEDAW later. Maybe what we have to do is turn it back over to people. The more local, the smaller it is, in some ways the more manageable it is for people to take on.
I wonder if any of you could just kind of reflect on that. Maybe that's something we have to think about in our own structural responses so that we don't repeat this same cycle, the same kind of recommendations over and over again, and nothing ever happens. That's one thing.
The second thing is I am interested in the question of the law. We've kind of had two different points of view here. My own feeling would be that generally this simplistic idea that a new law, another law, is going to solve these complex issues is just absolutely not on. It's an illusion.
But, Beverley, you said you felt the U.S.A. enacted specific legislation, and you implied that you thought it was good, and it was working--I don't know--so maybe you could say a little bit more about that. I've always felt that the laws, as they are, are there, but it's what we do with them or how they're enforced or not. But it's also before that. It is the prevention. It is the issue of money and power and where resources go rather than the questions of law.
Anyway, those are just two points I'll put out, if you'd like to respond.
January 18th, 2011 / 3:45 p.m.
Former President of the Native Women's Association of Canada, As an Individual
With respect to what you're talking about--local resources--right now I'm actually teaching a course at the University of Calgary on self-determination, indigenous governance.
I've always approached it by talking about the self as an individual within a community. That's where the healing begins, with the self and the self-esteem. Everything that needs to be healed with the self has a ripple effect on your family, on your clan, on your nation. So to me it is where the resources are needed. They're needed on that individual basis to deal with the cycle of violence and to end that cycle of violence.
Russell's organization, Warriors Against Violence, is an excellent example of the resources that are needed for the men, because that hasn't been happening either. The women are healing. There are a lot of women who are healing, but we still need our men to heal. We still need our men to understand the role they play as warriors, as protectors, because that's what they were, and that's what they're supposed to be.
So those kinds of resources are needed. We could do a study on the resources that are being provided: where they are going, how they are helping, and whether they are helping.
The reason I suggested this new law or this legislation was so it could be a way to begin those local resources. It could be a way to start the discussion that we continue to have and then finally have something that you could actually see that might make a difference.
I haven't done enough studying about the legislation—because it is new in the United States—as to when it was passed and whether it has made a difference. I don't know if Janine has looked up anything on that, but she could probably answer that. But I do know women in the United States who are dealing with the same issues. I just don't know whether or not they feel that the legislation that was passed has been any help. That would be another good study.
As an Individual
One of the things about the Violence Against Women Act federally in the United States is that it names violence against women and gender-based violence as violations of federal civil rights in a system in which criminal law, of course, is state by state, so you don't have a unifying federal force.
I guess what I would say about this idea of local versus national is it may be very true that the actual programs that are happening, the most innovative, are at the local level, but there is no reason that the federal government could not pick five priorities--ending women's poverty, attacking attitudes that encourage male violence against women and the idea that aboriginal women are appropriate recipients of male violence and male sexual violence, promoting education, having some kind of a clearing house for funding, and setting standards and some kind of a program to encourage really good research about which programs are working and which should be expanded to other jurisdictions.
I know it seems like a big and overwhelming problem, but pick five things and do them. When you're finished, pick five more. At least then something would get done. That is what I would say.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you, Libby.
Now we're going to go to a five-minute round. That means five minutes for questions and answers. We will begin again with Ms. Neville for the Liberals.
Liberal
Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Well, Janine, you anticipated my question. I was listening to Bev, who I've talked to frequently, and her skepticism about yet another study. But we are here, and we're in the middle of it, and we are a committee reporting to Parliament that the government has to respond to. So we have some...I don't know whether it's “clout”, but certainly some standing.
I guess what I would ask each of you....
Let me back up. We were talking the other day about the report that we're going to put out. One of my colleagues from the NDP, Irene Mathyssen, who's not here today, said that it's going to be a very powerful report, we've heard so much. And we have heard so much.
So I would ask each of you to do a little bit of what Janine has said and give us your top three recommendations or top three priorities that we can put in. What would you see as the most important things--one, two, or three--that we can recommend as a committee? Because we will get attention.
If I can back up for a minute, Bev, while the process may be a cynical one, I do believe that the process raises awareness of the issue with legislators, and hopefully it has an impact.
I don't know who wants to go first.
Professor, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
As a person who is not an aboriginal person, I am interested in some recommendations that would be targeted towards non-aboriginal communities, the larger community, and the “us and them” mentality. I alluded earlier to the inhospitable climate that we have in our country, that starts with.... There are so many us and thems, but one of the us and thems is prisoners and non-prisoners. Very many of our prisoners are aboriginal people, and very many of the ones who....
In answer to your question, in Fraser Valley Institution right now 40% of the women are aboriginal, and 90% of those would have been sexually or physically or emotionally abused; 80% of the non-aboriginal women.
Those are our prisoners. They are feared by our society. They are shunned by our society. They are not welcomed back by our society.
So I would love to see a recommendation from this committee that puts a focus on education and public understanding and breaking down some of those “us-them” walls. If we can do that in a broader way, then we will definitely contribute to the situation of aboriginal women, because they are making up so much of that population.
Former President of the Native Women's Association of Canada, As an Individual
I don't know what more I can say. I've already talked about my recommendations. The first is language.
Former President of the Native Women's Association of Canada, As an Individual
That's my number one priority: language.
The second is the healing resources for individual women and families of the missing and murdered.
Number three is resources specifically for families of the missing and murdered, at the grassroots level.