Status of Women Committee on Jan. 18th, 2011

[Prof. Jane Miller-Ashton]

When I was on the task force on federally sentenced women, we had six suicides during the course of the task force. I remember a woman, Sandy Sayer, who ultimately committed suicide. She didn't have any hope for herself. She had hope for our task force, and she wrote a very poignant submission to us. One line in her submission has always stayed with me, and it was “In ten years, when another task force is on the prowl, when they look at what has been accomplished will they feel satisfied?” That has haunted me. She went on to say, “But more importantly, will we feel satisfied?”--we meaning aboriginal women in prison. That has haunted me, because of course I was part of building five new prisons in Canada, and I felt both proud and shamed by that.

So I think for me accountability means remembering what this is all about. This is about aboriginal women and aboriginal people in general, but aboriginal women specifically and their families and their men. So the accountability will be to them, and should be built right into the most disadvantaged--and I would say aboriginal women in prison are among the most disadvantaged.

So what can you build into your report that will speak to ways in which they can be part of that accountability? I know you already have a plan, because I read in some of the material that you are going to be doing this with aboriginal women, so I took that for granted. I'm saying actually build in what Sandy Sayer would have asked for, which is are we going to be satisfied? That would be my recommendation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Any other takers on that question to be asked? Janine, you look as if you....

[Prof. Janine Benedet]

I agree with that completely. That was exactly what I was thinking: that it's one thing to say we're accountable to the electorate at the ballot box come election day, but it's another thing to be directly accountable to the women who are most directly affected by what it is you're doing. You've heard from many of them, and there are many more who are experts, the front-line organizations who work on behalf of aboriginal women and on behalf of the women's anti-violence movement generally. I think it would be great to see some accountability to them. They have so much expertise and they do so much with so little. I think that would be really important.

Part of it is not just simply recommendations that can be ignored, but an actual requirement to report on what's been done--

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Like a progress report.

[Prof. Janine Benedet]

--and what hasn't been done, and why. What is the justification for not moving on a particular issue? Then it's not just silence you're responding to--you know, next year, when we have more money, if we ever get a majority, whatever the explanation is.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Yes, Bev.

[Beverley Jacobs]

Just in the sense of your accountability as members of the committee, I agree with my co-presenters. When you're talking about accountability, to me it's action, it's about what is being done. What is actually being done?

Even when we did the national aboriginal women's summit, there were still two reports that were to come, and the next part of that process was to be reporting on what is being done. So I'm not sure exactly what's happening in that process, but to me that still is important to follow up on what is being done. Has there been an implementation report of the royal commission? There have been studies. There have been some meetings, a few. But has it come from government? I don't know if I've ever seen it. I don't think so.

Are there progress reports on other provincial inquiries? I know there has been with the aboriginal justice inquiry of Manitoba, but I don't know about other inquiry reports that have been done, or task forces reporting on what has been done. To me, that's being accountable. When you can actually see something that's making a change, to me that is being accountable. When you know that something that I've said today is going to make a difference and that someone is actually going to do something about it and it is done, then to me that's being accountable and being responsible. That's being responsible by acting on the promises that have been made.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

You want to say something, Russell?

[Russell Wallace]

Yes, a quick one.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Okay. We've finished Libby's round, but I'll let you finish. Go ahead.

[Russell Wallace]

Thank you.

One of the things is being accountable systemically as well, thinking about Bill C-31 and all these things that define status and define what women are in terms of all those issues that come to mind.

One thing that also comes to mind is that my wife has worked with Health Canada for 17 years in an office full of aboriginal women, but they have never got any further than.... I don't know what the terms are, but they never got into management positions. So looking at all these aboriginal women who might have worked there for 25 years or so but never got beyond a certain point, she called it the buckskin ceiling. Other women have a glass ceiling they can break through, but these women had the buckskin ceiling, where you would hit a certain point and they couldn't break through. So looking at systemic accountability in that way....

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Now we can go to a third round, but I'm going to be really tough about timing. I've allowed people to sort of free-wheel a bit here, but this is going to be a tough one. It's going to be a three-minute round, so we're going to have four questions with the three-minute round. That's 12 minutes, given that everybody, no matter what I say, is going to go over two minutes on each round anyway. That's going to get us to the time when we're going to end.

We'll begin with Ms. Neville, for the Liberals. And feel free to say “I don't have a question”. No, Anita, I'm not meaning it specifically for you.

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

Actually, I'm not sure that I do.

I would like to go back to Janine. I was really interested in your whole approach. I haven't been at all of the committee hearings. I've been at many, but to the best of my knowledge nobody has come forward with quite the same message that you have.

You talked about the biased sentencing of aboriginal women. Could you speak to that a little bit more?

[Prof. Janine Benedet]

I guess what I mean by that is you see that coming up in a variety of different ways. The point I was making specifically is that we have legislation right now that allows us to name criminal acts against women as crimes that are committed on the basis of race or aboriginal status or on the basis of sex. Yet sexual violence is not understood in that way.

We tend to limit that provision to gay bashing and other kinds of crimes, for which it's entirely appropriate. But I would really like us to see this problem of violence against aboriginal women and sexual violence against aboriginal women as not just a series of independent discrete acts by bad people who need help to not be bad people or bad men any more. That's one way of looking at the problem, but it doesn't get you very far.

It really has to be understood systemically as an act of sex discrimination. That's what it is. That's how sexual assault functions in society, because it takes away opportunities from women. It makes them poor, it makes them afraid, it makes them disabled. The effect of trauma is often disability. I don't think we often recognize that connection, that even though it's a series of acts perpetrated by individuals, it's collectively a practice of sex discrimination that contributes to women's material inequality in society.

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

Would you add the word “racialized” sex discrimination?

[Prof. Janine Benedet]

Sure. In this context, I think that's right. I know sometimes aboriginal communities don't like being lumped in with sort of racialized minorities, but however you wanted to describe that, sort of colonialized and gendered as well, I think in this context that's right. You see that intersection.

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

Thank you.

That's three minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Yes, that's very good. You have about 30 seconds left, but that's okay.

Ms. Grewal for the Conservatives.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

There is one more question I would like to make clear today. According to Statistics Canada, aboriginal women experience spousal violence at a rate three times higher than non-aboriginal women. A few years ago I think Health Canada suggested that aboriginal women are eight times more likely to suffer abuse than non-aboriginal women. Of course, 87% of women had been physically injured and 57% had been sexually abused.

In your opinion, are these numbers accurate, or have they overplayed or underplayed the magnitude? Could you comment on that?

[Prof. Janine Benedet]

Yes. I think what we know is that in the area of sexual violence, the statistics that we have are generally accepted to be on the low end. There is a persistent pattern of under-reporting of sexual violence for a variety reasons. So I think we can be quite confident that the numbers we are hearing about sexual violence are not overstated, and I'm fairly confident of the fact that they are understated, and they're already disturbingly high.

In the area of physical violence, you will not see as much of that phenomenon. It's not as pronounced, but it's still also there. There's a considerable amount of violence that is not reported or not even recognized as violence by the victim because the victim is convinced that in some way she deserves it or that it's just the way things go. Again, I think you would have to say that those figures are actually pretty robust, if not underplayed.

I don't know whether others would agree.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Are there any other questions, Nina? You have a little bit of time. We have a lot of time left, actually.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

No, I'm fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Very good.

Then I'd like to go to Madame Demers.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to know why there is more systemic violence committed against women here, on the west coast, than elsewhere. It is very surprising, and we are wondering why it is so. We tend to think that, on the west coast, like in California, people are more relaxed, they eat better, they have healthier lifestyles, they drive cars that emit fewer greenhouse gases.

Why is there more violence here?

[Prof. Janine Benedet]

I do think it is generally acknowledged that one of the factors of that climate in Vancouver is that you do get a migration of people from all across Canada.