I wonder what the implications are of answering that question.
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.
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.
1:45 p.m.
Co-manager, Aboriginal Women's Program, Battered Women's Support Services
I wonder what the implications are of answering that question.
1:45 p.m.
Co-manager, Aboriginal Women's Program, Battered Women's Support Services
Well, I don't know...I'm just a bit of a conspiracy theorist.
1:45 p.m.
NDP
Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC
Say what you feel comfortable saying. I just want to give you an opportunity to say what you think needs to be done.
1:45 p.m.
Co-manager, Aboriginal Women's Program, Battered Women's Support Services
Battered Women's Support Services is a member of the Valentine's memorial march committee. Members of the committee, other community members, and organizations have meetings with the VPD around those issues, questioning their structure, the police structure, the jurisdictional issues, and the continued and ongoing violence against women in the downtown east side and existing Vancouver areas. It's a slow process and it's new. They're trying to build trust with us, and I don't know...accountability.
1:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Lisa, can you keep speaking into the microphone? When you turn aside, we don't hear you at all.
1:45 p.m.
Co-manager, Aboriginal Women's Program, Battered Women's Support Services
Okay.
Do you have anything to say...?
1:45 p.m.
Collective Member, Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter
Libby, I want to encourage you to ask those officers who will be coming today, because on Friday the VPD had a big community meeting, and they tried to brag that only in the downtown east side there were 666 reported cases, and they showed what happens before they get before the courts. I believe only 50 cases were actually brought before a judge. So I don't know how they think it's going to be a positive spin on their work.
The rate of dropout, before those complaints go before judges, is enormous. First and foremost, how many women are complaining, and how many actually get justice in the criminal justice system?
The second point is there is no civilian oversight of police, and it's crucial in a democracy. It's crucial for civilians to have an ability to oversee police work. The two police complaints commissioners have nothing in their reports about violence against women, although we know that women's groups and victims of male violence, including the Battered Women's Support Services and Rape Relief, are constantly filing complaints. They have no echo in the police complaints commissions.
We have great expectations from the Oppal commission. We're hoping it will bring many women's groups standing. I think the decision will be made next month. You have the framework agreement on women's equality, male violence against women, and state responsibilities, through the police, to protect women.
1:50 p.m.
Collective Member, Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter
We don't have a formal relationship. We're not interested in that.
1:50 p.m.
Aboriginal Outreach Coordinator and Youth Counsellor, Women Against Violence Against Women
I'd just like to add that I think it really comes down to the responsibility of the policing forces to find out exactly what it is we do and how we do it. I think there needs to be more than just sensitivity training on a cultural value. There are some real losses in understanding throughout the judicial system as well, which are totally and completely cultural.
We have traditional youth who are bearing their banners and wearing their headbands in society, in Vancouver, who are being harassed as gang members. These are kids who were born into ceremony, who are using their headbands for ceremonial purposes. So the police are not even aware of those types of understandings, that knowledge. It's really important that there be a critical understanding of aboriginal people as distinct.
I'm Cree and Ojibway, and I have no idea about the ways of Coast Salish people, as far as my own inherent rights go. So understanding that every aboriginal women who is in the downtown east side, or anywhere in Canada, for that matter, is not going to have the same belief systems, or understandings, or ways of being is crucial.
This is unceded aboriginal territory. The people who belong here have a right to be understood. That's not happening, and it is creating further violence.
We have many instances. I run two youth groups, and out of those youth groups, 90% of our aboriginal youth females have been dog-bitten, by dogs from the RCMP and from the VPD. I think there needs to be much more work done than just sensitivity training. I think it's the responsibility of the RCMP and the VPD to look for that training.
1:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you. That's the end of that round.
We're going into a second round, and it's going to be a five-minute round. I would like to ask everyone to please work within the time. We've gone a minute over time on every one. The point is that we have other people waiting to come in to other panels. As we bump the panels later and later, it's not fair to the people who have been waiting. So can I ask you, please--and I know the sensitivity of the issue, and I'm fully aware and understand the emotions behind it--to try to be as concise as you possibly can with your questions and answers. Thank you.
Now we'll go to the second round. The second round is a five-minute round, as opposed to the last one, which was a seven-minute round. I will begin with Ms. Neville for the Liberals.
1:50 p.m.
Liberal
Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
I just quickly want to ask something.
Darla, you made a comment at the end that 90% have been dog-bitten. What does that mean?
1:50 p.m.
Aboriginal Outreach Coordinator and Youth Counsellor, Women Against Violence Against Women
I mean by police dogs.
1:50 p.m.
Liberal
Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Oh, okay. Thank you.
I have a comment and then a question.
My colleague across the way asked why we haven't heard a lot about it. I would beg to differ. I think the issue has been very much on the table for a long period of time, and I would say that it's amazing that this is getting as much play at the moment, given the lack of funding for advocacy groups right now, and the fear, on the part of many organizations who are funded by the federal government, to speak out for fear of further retribution. So I thank those of you who are here for being here, and I think this issue has been there at various levels for a long period of time.
I want to ask you something that we haven't quite addressed here. In the late nineties there was an inquiry done by the Minister of Justice at the time. People were involved and met with aboriginal women and dealt with the issue of violence against aboriginal women. I was told by one wise woman who was very intimately involved in these discussions that the reality for many aboriginal women is that incest and violence in their homes is viewed as a norm of life. You may choose to differ with that.
My question to you is this. Is that still the experience that you have--or perhaps not at all--that aboriginal women have come, over the years, to accept violence and incest as how a family operates? If so, what do we do? And if not, good.
1:55 p.m.
Aboriginal Outreach Coordinator and Youth Counsellor, Women Against Violence Against Women
First of all, I'd like to just state that I don't think that incest and childhood sexual abuse is normal in any family, aboriginal or otherwise.
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
If I can interrupt you, Darla, it's not that I'm saying it's normal, but it is viewed by many to be the norm in their....
1:55 p.m.
Aboriginal Outreach Coordinator and Youth Counsellor, Women Against Violence Against Women
Does this happen? Absolutely, it happens, and we know this is one of the prevalent pieces that was handed down to the aboriginal people of this country through the legacy of residential schools. I think those are the things in that legacy that need to be addressed.
Is there sexual assault that happens within aboriginal families? Absolutely, there is. Is it the norm? I don't know the stats for that, and I don't know how we would even begin to collect stats for that, with it being such a sensitive subject. However, I think these are the issues.
As far as counselling, I can say that 95% of my clients have suffered from childhood sexual abuse due to the legacy of residential schools, and this is why we're here asking for assistance. This legacy is so detrimental to an entire nation of people that I can't even describe how I feel about the need.
1:55 p.m.
Co-manager, Aboriginal Women's Program, Battered Women's Support Services
In response to the normalization of sexual abuse and other forms of violence that happen in our intimate family homes, I don't think it's.... Of course, that extends into our community and so forth. I think the problem is that we talk around it being a normalization, but I think the mechanisms of denial within society, within that abusive relationship, within the families and so on--the denial and the oppression of the issue of that sexualized violence and sexual abuse--are the normalization. I don't think we walk around thinking it's normal. I think how we deny it becomes normal and how we talk about it becomes normal. When we talk about it being a normalized state, then it becomes normal, but it's not.
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you, Lisa. We are now past five minutes, so I'm going to go to Ms. Cadman.
Ms. Cadman for the Conservatives.