Status of Women Committee on Jan. 18th, 2011

[Prof. Janine Benedet]

If I had to pick my top three, I guess, in no particular order, I would say tackle women's poverty, which I think is at the root of much of what is happening here. It's simply unacceptable for aboriginal women and children to be living in poverty in such great numbers in this country.

Number two, I would say focus on the over-incarceration of aboriginal women. It is fine to talk about, and I completely agree that we do talk about, what happens when they're released from prison, but the percentage of our inmate population that is aboriginal women is a scandal. It's completely inappropriate, and it just gets worse and worse and worse.

Number three--this is not an uncontroversial suggestion, but I believe it very strongly--I think Canada ought to adopt a Nordic model in relation to its prostitution law: public education, criminalization of johns and pimps, and extensive public funding for women so that prostitution doesn't become the social safety net for aboriginal women.

Those are my top three.

[Russell Wallace]

I would agree with everyone along the line. Probably my top three are all there.

I would reinforce the idea of providing resources for aboriginal men. A lot of them who are in prison have been abusive, and when they get out they're not provided any resources to become healthy again. They just repeat the same cycles over and over. We should provide resources inside the prison but also outside the prison, when they get out.

Ending poverty would be another good one.

Mostly, though, we should be providing resources for men who are abusive, and finding ways to get them out of that cycle.

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

Thank you, all.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you. That was good.

Now we go to Mrs. Cadman for the Conservatives.

[Dona Cadman, Conservative, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you.

You said that the cycle repeats itself. Now, breaking that cycle is going to be very hard. I'm not just saying for aboriginals but for all people: breaking the cycle is very hard.

Would it be wrong to maybe suggest parenting courses or self-esteem courses in high schools? Would this help everyone, or would it hinder?

[Russell Wallace]

Speaking as an aboriginal male myself, I didn't go through a lot of the traditional high schools that a lot of other people go through, so a lot of those resources wouldn't have been available to me, I guess, if I were going through high school.

We do find that a lot of the violence is emotional violence, and then the emotional violence becomes physical violence and then economic violence against the women. These are perpetrated by the men. So it's finding a way to actually end each of those kinds of violence against women.

Like I said, there are not a whole lot of resources for men who are incarcerated, so it's finding those that would help them overcome their anger issues. Men do have issues, whether it's residential school residue or it's actual abuse on themselves. There's a whole long list of things that aboriginal men have also suffered, but they take it out on the women or on their children. It's finding ways to end all of that.

It's never too late, because you're able to change yourself.

[Dona Cadman, Conservative, Surrey North, BC]

If they're incarcerated, could we give them--I don't want it to be like a lesson plan--some sort of help for them so they can gain more self-esteem so they could become better people, just for themselves? So much is open to you after that.

[Russell Wallace]

That's true, finding your own self-esteem, but also finding it within the community, so reaching out to a community, whether it's a cultural thing.... Like I said, we gather the men together to go to a sweat lodge and there we bond as men, or we sing together as men. We're finding cultural ways that have traditionally been there and that have been erased, basically, by colonialism. So it's trying to reach out to all the men in these ways. A lot of them have never sung a traditional song, or have never been to a sweat, or never experienced anything that was remotely cultural to them. So it's finding things they can go to and feel accepted, but also overcoming a lot of those issues.

There's that issue, but it's also providing them with tools, with counselling and peer support groups. If you get angry, then find a way to do something with that anger, rather than lash out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Does anyone else want to answer the question that Ms. Cadman posed with regard to self-esteem courses?

Yes, Beverley.

[Beverley Jacobs]

It's more than that. It's more than a course in high school, but that would be a start.... No, it has to start sooner than that.

[Dona Cadman, Conservative, Surrey North, BC]

Well, in grade school? It has to start at home, but--

[Beverley Jacobs]

Part of the difficulty is that schools themselves are not providing a safe place for a student, in the first place. That's what this is about, providing safety. So if they're not provided a safe place, whether it's in their own community or in the urban centre, having a specific course may be one part of many things that have to happen, because they're also talking about family dynamics. They're talking about a student living with violence.

I'm going to talk about myself. As a child I was violated, and school was a way for me to disappear from my family. It was an escape from what was occurring to me as a child. So school was a safe place for me. But in some places school isn't a safe place. So you can't put resources into a school unless you know that it's a safe place.

Again, if you're talking about self-esteem, you also have to talk about culture. You have to talk about where they come from, about their identity, and part of that—and I'll keep coming back to it—is language. We have an immersion school at home, where I come from, where they're teaching the language, but those who are coming out of some of those schools are still not in healthy relationships. So if they're not taught the teachings from the language about healthy relationships, to me, that is the core. Part of our teaching as we're growing up is that there are certain things that you're to do and certain things you're not to do. Our elders would teach us that responsibility from the time that you're a child and then when you reach your change in life. There are ceremonies for that. That teaches you about self-esteem, those ceremonies that are done during that time. If you're not taught those, you don't know.

So it's bigger than a little course in school.

[Dona Cadman, Conservative, Surrey North, BC]

I realize it's bigger than that, but we have to start somewhere. Where do we start?

[Beverley Jacobs]

But I wouldn't start there.

[Dona Cadman, Conservative, Surrey North, BC]

Do we start at a younger age? Do we--

[Beverley Jacobs]

We start with language and we start with teachings.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

I wish to move on now.

We're going to go to Madame Demers, from the Bloc.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Beverley, I know you're a grandmother, and I know you love your grandchild, the one I know, very much. I know that you talked about the language program that existed before. I know that one of the language programs that existed before in some of the communities was for grandmothers to teach the language to the grandchildren, to the children in the community. I thought this was a great program, because not only does that permit the children to spend time with the grandmothers, but it also allows them to learn their identity through their language.

When you presented, you talked about going seven generations into the future. I think that's one of the most important beliefs of the first nations, thinking seven generations into the future. I think we all ought to do that, think seven generations ahead. Unfortunately, that program was stopped. I don't know why, because this was one of the most important programs.

What Mrs. Cadman was talking about I think is one of the most important things. If you want to instill self-esteem into a child, that's where it starts, with the knowledge of the child's identity. And that starts with his culture, his language, his traditions, and his values. It starts right there within his community with his parents, with his grandmother, his grandfather. That's where it starts. And if you can't have that, you cannot have self-esteem. So I think that would be the most important program to start again. That language program would be one of the most important ones.

Another one that would be important was a prevention program for the young girls who were getting pregnant and who were having a problem with alcohol, with fetal alcohol syndrome. That's also a program that I'm very sad I saw was cut back, because it's very sad to see young kids being born with that syndrome. It makes for more people in jail. More young people going to jail is also very sad.

So if you want to make recommendations to us, I would suggest you recommend to us to put those programs back.

[Beverley Jacobs]

Yes, maybe I'll recommend that.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Beverley.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

All right. You have a minute and a half, Nicole.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Do you want to add something to that?

[Beverley Jacobs]

Sure.

I totally agree with you, actually, about the grandmothers program and teachings in schools. If that's something that could be done to teach about self-esteem, then that's exactly what I'm talking about. But it's not coming from the Eurocentric education system; it's coming from our own education system, from our own teachings and our own languages. And whatever sources they can use to be able to revitalize that I think would be really helpful. That's the core of it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Now I'm going to go to Ms. Davies for the NDP.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

A lot of the witnesses earlier today, and I'm sure elsewhere across the country, talked about accountability and how important that is. We have the Oppal inquiry that's just beginning here in B.C., the public inquiry, and that's going to be a huge issue around the accountability. It strikes me that the same is true even of what we're doing here on this committee and whatever report that's issued. So I just wonder if you have any suggestions or thoughts about how we write in issues around accountability.

We're talking about cycles of violence. We're talking about systemic issues. We're talking about inequality and the growing gap between wealth and poverty; we're talking about colonization, residential schools--all of these cycles. So how do we begin to build some mechanisms around accountability into whatever reports come out or whatever recommendations there are, so we break that cycle of how these reports come out?

Beverley, what you said is really bothering me, because I think it's so true. So do any of you have thoughts about how we actually factor that into the work of the committee and what is actually produced? I'm sure it will be a fantastic report. I have no doubt of that. How do we ensure accountability, even within that report, about what is followed through? Any ideas you have would be helpful.