Status of Women Committee on Jan. 20th, 2011

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Anita Neville]

Good morning. We'll start the meeting.

My name is Anita Neville. I'm a member of Parliament from...from where?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Anita Neville]

From Winnipeg South Centre. I don't know where we are; we've been on the move a fair bit.

Welcome. Thanks to all of you for being here on an early, cold morning. We very much appreciate it.

This is the 50th meeting of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. As you are all undoubtedly aware, we have been travelling literally right across the country speaking to the issue of violence against aboriginal women.

As for Yellowknife, I've been up here a number of times, but we knew that Yellowknife would be an important stop along our way. We're anxious to hear what you have to say.

We have four presentations. We're on a fairly tight timeline, but I'm going to suggest that you take seven minutes to make your presentations; I don't know what you've prepared. Following that, there will be questions by members of the committee. If you don't get in everything that you had hoped to say, you can use the question period to add to it.

Let's begin with Lorraine.

Lorraine, we're delighted to see you again. It's nice to have you here.

[Lorraine Phaneuf, Executive Director, Status of Women Council of the Northwest Territories]

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to present.

I am with the Status of Women Council of the NWT, and although we don't do front-line service, we do a lot of advocacy with women who come to us after they've probably exhausted all other resources.

Aboriginal women who come in for advocacy have indicated to us they are being terrorized in their homes, in the streets, and in the workplace. When they are thinking about and planning on leaving an abusive partner, they face many barriers and challenges in terms of housing, finances, and general well-being. It is important for women to have a safe place to go when they are fleeing from abuse.

Once out, they need lots of supports, both physical and emotional, to regain their power and start over. In Yellowknife we have both shelter and transitional housing, but not all communities have shelters, RCMP, or resources that are easily attainable. This year 314 women and 253 children used the shelter services across the territories.

INAC provides operational funding to a network of 35 shelters used by first nations women who ordinarily live on reserve. In the Northwest Territories most communities have a large demographic of aboriginal women. We have one small reserve that could potentially apply for this fund of almost $56 million, from which first nations communities are effectively excluded because a majority of first nations women of the northern territories simply do not live on established reserves.

In the NWT, five shelters service an area of over 1.17 million square kilometres containing 33 communities. Current shelter programming is limited in meeting the needs of women and children who are struggling with family violence in their homes. This limitation is compounded by a broad range of functioning among the shelters, which means women in some shelters receive more support than do women in others. For instance, some shelters operate with only three staff members and are able to offer only a safe place to stay, whereas other shelters are functioning at a level that allows for the implementation of limited supportive programming for residents of the shelter.

Currently there are very few services that are dedicated to the issue of family violence intervention, prevention, and risk management in the NWT. Rates of violence are high, yet there are few other options for families struggling with family violence.

The rate of reported sexual assault in the NWT in 2008 was more than six times the national rate. Most communities do have one of the following resources based in their community: a nurse, social worker, community wellness worker, and/or an RCMP officer.

With limited support and many responsibilities, the turnover rate is very high. Residents of these small communities also have limited means to travel to another community, meaning that at times they are often not able to access any additional supports or services that might theoretically be available to them.

Eleven communities in the north do not have RCMP and rely on members to come from other communities. Further, aboriginal women suffer from the most severe, life-threatening forms of violence, including being sexually assaulted, beaten, choked, or attacked. In some communities the rate of violence against aboriginal women is as high as 90%.

Council would recommend that funding be increased and that there be policy changes regarding the on-reserve funding so that shelter services and communities in the territories can do their important work of reducing violence against aboriginal women living off reserve. We respectfully request that the committee review INAC policies within the family violence prevention program to address this issue. We need to work on culturally appropriate strategies that include fair and equitable services to all aboriginal women living in jurisdictions that lack services. We need to consider a national strategy to increase awareness and prevention of violence against women and to maximize services for family violence prevention. We need coordination among all levels of government, non-governmental agencies, service agencies, police forces, aboriginal governments, as well as national and other aboriginal organizations.

The Status of Women Council of the NWT co-chairs the Coalition Against Family Violence with the Native Women's Association of NWT. Since 2000 the Government of the NWT has been working in formal partnerships with various service agencies, non-governmental organizations, and interested professionals to develop and implement specific strategies and action plans to improve service delivery to victims of family violence. Currently the family violence action plan phase two is in place.

The Coalition against Family Violence was a partner in the development of the family violence action plan phase two. It also helps monitor the plan, and has begun the work to present further recommendations that will be presented to the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Lyda Fuller, executive director of the YWCA in Yellowknife, is a founding member of the Coalition Against Family Violence. She has been an integral stakeholder in family violence plans one and two, and she will now continue.

[Lyda Fuller, Executive Director, YWCA Yellowknife; Representative, Northwest Territories Coalition Against Family Violence]

Thank you.

As Lorraine said, since around 1999 the non-government organizations have been working on social issues relating to family violence and engaging the Government of the Northwest Territories, especially the social envelope departments, to improve social conditions relating to this pervasive issue.

Originally, the coalition began by doing research. We wanted to describe the nature, extent, and impacts of violence against women in the territory. We released a report in December of 2002 called Family Violence in the NWT: A Survey of Costs, Services, Data Collection and Issues for Action. Some of the key findings of that report helped us to develop the ongoing work. Those findings included: a lack of understanding in the territory about the dynamics of family violence, and the presence of attitudes and beliefs that perpetuated it; an underfunding of the shelters for abused women, which led to staff turnover and to shelters doing bingos in order to keep their doors open; a need for improved and consistent collaboration so that there wouldn't be gaps in collaboration; a need for more resources devoted to children, youth, families, and communities; and a concern for the response of the justice system.

The research led to the development of recommendations. We tabled in the legislative assembly an NWT action plan on family violence for 2003 to 2006. Actions were around changes to policy and legislation; expanding the reach of the coalition outside of Yellowknife; capacity-building for communities; culturally appropriate training; prevention through support for healthy family relationships; education and awareness for the public; and service system enhancements for women, men, and children.

This led the government to provide an official response, called “A Framework for Action”, in 2004, which described and coordinated the efforts of various social envelope departments on 71 actions that they agreed to take. An implementation steering committee was formed by the social envelope departments, but it also included two members from the non-government associations to meet and talk about progress that was being made.

Unfortunately, a number of the 71 issues were things that were already in progress and sort of tangential to the issue of family violence. However, real gains were made. New legislation included the Prevention Against Family Violence Act, which allowed women to get emergency protection orders and have the partner leave the home so that the women and children could stay in the home.

We started developing inter-agency protocols so that we could work together to better address family violence in Yellowknife, with templates for the communities. Research was summarized around programs for men who were abusive. So we felt that we'd made progress. We entered into phase two with another set of recommendations through 2012. That was funded. We all worked together to try to condense 17 critical actions into the funding available. That happened. We are now embarking on phase three.

I guess when we look at engaging with the government, one of the barriers we have to overcome is the turnover here on both sides of the table. We need to keep people connected and engaged; it's easy to lose momentum when you have the levels of turnover that we have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Perhaps we can follow up on some of the other things you have to say during the question and answer period, because we have gone over the allotted time.

[Lyda Fuller]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Now, for the Pauktuutit Inuit Women's Association, Sandra Tucker.

[Sandra Tucker, Manager, Abuse Prevention Policy and Programs, Pauktuutit Inuit Women's Association]

Good morning, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Tucker, I'll give you a two-minute warning when you have two minutes left, and then one. There's leeway, but it helps you keep your head in the space.

[Sandra Tucker]

Absolutely.

Thank you to the honourable committee members for allowing me to present today. I am the manager of the abuse prevention policy programs at Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada. On behalf of our president, Elisapee Sheutiapik, I wish to extend our thanks to the committee for the opportunity to present on the development and implementation of our national strategy to prevent abuse in Inuit communities.

Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada is a national organization that represents all Inuit women across Canada. Established in 1984, our mandate is to foster greater awareness of the needs of Inuit women and to advocate for their equitable participation in community, regional, and national concerns.

Pauktuutit is active in a wide range of areas. Files include health policy and programs, gender equality, violence and abuse prevention, protection of cultural and traditional knowledge, economic development, climate change, and leading in policy development and community social change.

Since its inception in 1984, abuse and violence prevention has been a high priority, yet a lack of recognition and resources has caused change to be painfully slow. Those who work in abuse prevention and community services--shelter workers, crisis counsellors, Inuit healers, and police--are discouraged, and nowhere is this discouragement more acute than in the north.

In the north, for example, the circuit court system can be a significant barrier to accessing justice for Inuit women. Furthermore, dynamics of family violence and abuse can be different in smaller communities that are facing the unique challenges and circumstances of overcrowded housing, poverty, and high costs of living, combined with lack of basic community programming. In addition, over 70% of northern and remote communities do not have a safe or emergency shelter for women to access when fleeing abuse.

New and emerging issues for Inuit women are related to resource extraction activities, transient workers, and the associated increases in sexual and domestic violence, exploitation, and substance abuse and alcohol addictions. A considerable sustained effort with adequate resources continues to be urgently needed.

The strategy was created through consultation and collaboration with those most affected by abuse and those whose mandates include prevention and treatment--safe shelters, justice, and corrections. Pauktuutit brought together a multidisciplinary team of health and social service workers, RCMP, court services, safe shelter operators, and Inuit associations from across Inuit Nunangat. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation, NAHO, and observers from the Inuit relations secretariat and programs branch at INAC, Justice Canada, and Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women were also involved. We all share a common interest in preventing abuse in Inuit communities and collaborating on the development and the implementation of this unique community-based strategy.

The strategy is based on the six Inuit principles of healing and working together: working together for the common good, environmental wellness, service to others and leadership, empowerment, resourcefulness and adaptability, and cooperation and consensus.

The strategy began with a vision of an Inuit society of healthy individuals who respect the past and embrace the future as Inuit, and who live in supportive families and caring communities where violence and abuse are rare occurrences and are dealt with swiftly and justly, according to the Inuit ways. Abusers are held accountable for their actions, and both victims and abusers are supported in their healing process.

The goal of the strategy is a steady reduction of violence and abuse in Inuit communities and the eventual predominance of caring, healthy, and respectful relationships. We envision the attainment of these goals by meeting objectives outlined in the strategy: to develop sustainable relationships among partner organizations that are committed to the reduction of violence; and to coordinate efforts so that resources can be best used to the best advantage, and implement effective and culturally appropriate services and programs to prevent abuse and promote healing.

In addition, the national strategy sets out strategic priorities for the implementation. Our first priority is to make abuse in Inuit communities a priority issue, which we have done. Priorities also include: to raise awareness and reduce the tolerance of abuse; to invest in training and capacity development; to sustain front-line workers and community services; to deliver services that heal Inuit; and to expand programs that build on Inuit strengths that prevent abuse.

The accompanying guide, “Sharing Knowledge, Sharing Wisdom”, provides inspiration, ideas, and examples of successful initiatives that can help individuals, groups, and communities implement the national strategy. The guide includes tools to use designed for Inuit communities. They include information on community mobilization; advice on the national advisory committee on advocating for change; facts and statistics that can be used to convince others; some thoughts on the root causes of abuse in Inuit communities; Inuit principles of healing and working together; steps in planning activities and actions; and sources of information and help.

Since 2006 Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada has used the national strategy as a guiding tool in the development and implementation of projects aimed at abuse and violence.

In 2006-07, through the support of Status of Women Canada, Pauktuutit implemented the violence against women and children project. The objective of this project was to identify promising practices in violence and abuse prevention. In total, we consulted 11 communities, and each community formed its own coordinating committee in order to address the needs of the community they live in.

During the same period, we undertook a broad dissemination of the national strategy, including presentations at various events and workshops. Because of the national strategy, we began the process that led to the development of the national Inuit residential schools healing strategy. It has been implemented predominantly through support of projects by INAC.

Concurrent to this work, we began our work on the women's shelter component, including the creation of the National Inuit Women's Shelter Association and the development of our “Making our Shelters Strong” training module for front-line workers. We continue to work on these two components. The shelter training has now been delivered in each of the four regions of Inuit Nunangat, and there continues to be an ongoing demand for the training, not only by shelters but also by various community and governmental agencies and departments.

In response to participant feedback, we are currently developing a web-based training module, as well as peer-to-peer user forums for shelter workers and a single point of contact for the shelter association. This site will also contain a blog, which will serve as a means for us to disseminate emerging resources and practices to the shelters across the north.

We have also undertaken what we term as on-the-land projects. In the last fiscal year we were able to take two groups of women, one group aged 20 to 55 and the other group aged 55 to 82, for a week-long on-the-land project. Our younger women's project had women taking the leadership role in family violence, where we integrated traditional activities of kamik-making and being on the land. We combined that with education, resource building, and information sharing, so that the women could take the leadership role.

Our most successful project to date has been with regard to elder abuse awareness, where we took eight elders on the land—and our youngest was 82—for a week-long expedition out into the country just outside of Kuujjuaq, Quebec, where our elder women not only returned to their traditional practices but we were able to provide them with information, resources, and a safe place to talk about the elder abuse occurring.

I'm going to stop here. If you have any questions, by all means.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Ms. Tucker.

We go now to the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority, Barbara Lacey and Sheila Nelson.

Who's going to speak for the group, Ms. Nelson?

[Sheila Nelson, Manager, Community and Family Services, Child Protection Program, Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority]

I guess I'm nominated to do that. I'll start off.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

All right. I think everyone seems to have gone ten minutes. I'm not going to give you ten minutes, but we're going to play with it.

[Sheila Nelson]

I won't take ten minutes.

Good morning, everyone. On behalf of the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the committee for the invitation to appear before you today.

I'd like to begin by saying that as a service provider mandated to carry out the roles and responsibilities of protecting children, we see the devastating impact that family violence has on aboriginal women and their children daily. Violence against women has a ripple effect. Violence creates fear, and this fear impacts all women, including the service providers whose role it is to support and protect them. Our child protection staff is currently all women. Acts of violence tend to trigger emotions for people, and on numerous occasions I have witnessed staff being intimidated by the high-risk situations that some of the aboriginal women they work with are faced with every day.

We see and hear many reasons why aboriginal women find it difficult to end an abusive relationship. There is fear of retaliation, not only from the perpetrator of the violent crime but also from community members as well as members of their own family. Often the women lack resources to support themselves and their children with the basic necessities of life. We see some aboriginal women who have tried to leave abusive relationships only to return because they didn't feel they received the support from their family, friends, and the agencies tasked to help them build lives free from violence.

A number of the aboriginal women we see have poor self-esteem due to a history of witnessing and experiencing violent acts since they were young children. To ease the pain, they sometimes turn to substances such as alcohol, street drugs, prescription medications, or solvents. Unfortunately, doing this can in turn have a spiralling effect, and quite often it's the reason their children are apprehended.

In 2010 Yellowknife Health and Social Services received 74 reports of violence occurring in homes where children were present. This number does not reflect the reality within which we work. The majority of these calls came from law enforcement when they were called to homes where there was family violence. A large number of the reports we receive are referred because of neglect or alcohol-related issues. Once a report is investigated, we learn that family violence is also prevalent, and it is often the underlying cause of the neglect.

In December 2010, just one month ago, our agency had 51 active family service files. Out of this number, 34 of the families had been identified as having ongoing family violence issues, which is a contributing risk factor to the safety of the mothers and their children. These families have a total of 71 children who have been exposed to or affected by domestic violence in one form or another.

Children who live with domestic violence face numerous risks, such as the risk of exposure to the traumatic events, the risk of neglect--which is often the reason given when we receive a report from someone who is concerned about a situation--along with the risk of being directly abused.

In order to develop solutions that will empower aboriginal women to sustain themselves, they need to be provided with tools that are readily available and easy to access. I can't stress that enough. It is important that aboriginal people be respected and listened to when they share with others what is in the best interests of aboriginal people.

It is equally important that perpetrators of violent acts be held accountable. Programming needs to be accessible in small communities for all parties, for without some form of change in this regard, aboriginal women and children will continue to be at risk of harm. It's imperative that the Standing Committee on the Status of Women continue its efforts to support the human rights of aboriginal women to be protected from acts of violence.

To the aboriginal women who have suffered acts of violence, lost family members, and overcome challenges they have faced along life's journey, we salute you. As an agency, we will continue to do our part to advocate on behalf of aboriginal people in order to get the services they deserve to deal with the conflict issues we see every day.

I thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much. That was great. You were under five minutes.

[Barbara Lacey, Manager, Clinical Supervisor, Community Mental Health and Addictions, Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority]

Can I take the other five?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You'll get your chance. As we go into the question session....

Oh, you wanted to do another few minutes. Fine. I thought it was just Ms. Nelson alone. You have time. Go ahead.

[Barbara Lacey]

Thank you.

I'm the manager for Community Mental Health and Addictions for Yellowknife Health and Social Services. Community Mental Health and Addictions is made up of family counselling. Family counselling provides individual work to men and women as well as couples therapy. We do the mental health work for children for Yellowknife Health and Social Services, so 30% of our referrals are from child and family services for work with children. And the children they're referring to us are the children who, for the most part, have been victims of family violence.

The other issues that might show up could be grief, sexual abuse, at-risk behaviours, or not attending school. Those might be the primary factors that are identified, but family violence is most often behind them.

Reasons adults are referred include depression, stress, individual partners in relationships seeking support, grief, separation and divorce, and addictions. If we look behind those, most often there is the issue of family violence.

In the last three months alone, according to our intake person, who does same-day appointments--we've provided two same-day appointments daily, so someone can call in the morning if they're in crisis and get an appointment--she's seen 19 aboriginal women living with family violence, and another ten aboriginal women have made it on to our wait list. That's just in the last three months.

I've been here only a year, so Yellowknife is very new to me, and I can speak only about Yellowknife. We have two communities, Lutsel K'e and Fort Res, which I've become familiar with. But when I have looked at our caseload for the year I've been here, at any point I could have pulled five or six men out of that caseload. If we had a group to support these men who have had issues of violence, that would be great. I know we're working with the justice people. I know there's a partnership to get this kind of a group going, but to me it's one of the significant missing links. So we really need to be supporting the men who have the issues of violence if we're going to make a difference to the family.

The second piece I have noticed missing—I've worked on task forces concerned with family violence since 1989—is the education groups. I know they were spoken about, but we don't have one in Yellowknife. If we don't have one in Yellowknife, we probably don't have one in the rest of the Northwest Territories. They're called survivor groups, and they're usually run by transition houses. So the women would maybe do some individual work with a counsellor, and then we'd refer them to this group program through transition services. They'd go through this education program, and then maybe they'd come back and do individual work. We don't have that kind of a group, and our shelters don't have the funding support or the staff support to run that kind of a program. We do individual work with these women, but I'd love to see a group program started. That doesn't mean that family counselling can't do it--we're looking at it--but it's tough to do everything.

We have a family violence protocol group, and we're working on a common tool, the ODARA tool, Ontario domestic assault risk assessment tool, which is wonderful. We are training across the Northwest Territories on how to use the tool. Having a common screening tool is very important, and I think we're doing great work on that.

Family counselling uses a screening tool for couples, so we have many. For one thing, we're still funded to do couple work, and there isn't that kind of funding anywhere else in the country. So that is a real blessing. We certainly need it here because of the family issues that we address. So we are still funded to do couple work, and we have a screening tool. With that screening tool, most of the couples are initially screened out for violence. It would be really nice to be able to do the education with the male partner around the violence issues, but so far we haven't been able to put that group together. And we need the training to put that group together. For me, those are big pieces that are missing.

Primary care is another project that Community Mental Health and Addictions is involved in. We've moved into this primary care clinic downtown, and we've moved family counselling in. That means that our physicians can refer clients coming in to see them to family counselling quite easily. We build the connections.

We did this exercise yesterday as a team where we were clients, and we all had of these case situations. We had to go around to housing, in one part of the YPCC, and income support somewhere else, and mental health somewhere else. I had 22 steps I had to take as a client to try to get what I needed, and in the end my children were taken away from me.

You know, we're trying to do primary care, and we're really trying to help, but if we look at the client.... It's so cold out there, and there's no transportation. Housing in Yellowknife is very expensive. Employment is really tough to come by. I felt dizzy, absolutely dizzy, with those 22 steps, trying to get to all of the places I had to get to. In the end, I'd done everything I should have done--I'd gone for addiction help, I'd gone to mental health and income support, I'd talked to child and family, the whole deal--and still my kids were taken away.

So we've got lots to do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Ms. Lacey. That was very interesting.

We're now going to go to the question and answer section. This is a seven-minute round. I'm going to be.... Please look at me, because we can't keep going over. If we go over too much, then the next panel gets a shorter period of time. We need to remember that.

We will begin with Ms. Neville for the Liberals.

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

Thank you, Hedy.

Thank you very much for your presentations. I'm sitting here trying to formulate a question. As you're undoubtedly aware, we've been on the road and we've heard about a number of situations, much of what you've identified here today--lack of resources, lack of staff, the need for more help.

One of the things I'm struck by, listening to you, and maybe I'm missing something, is that there seems to be a community willingness to coordinate, to plan, to work together that we haven't found in quite the same way in many other communities. In fact, in some it's been quite the opposite and quite disastrous.

The other thing, as I'm listening to you, is that you all represent service delivery organizations, and you talk about.... One of you, and I think it was Lyda, made the comment that it's important that our clients be respected and listened to.

It was you, Sheila? I'm sorry.

One of the things we've heard on our travels is that aboriginal women particularly do not feel respected, do not feel listened to, do not feel valued by the communities, and are frequently marginalized and treated in a very disrespectful way.

We're just getting a half-an-hour view from five of you sitting here, but I guess I'd like to know a little more about the dynamics. If I'm right in saying that you are working together, recognizing that your problems are not insignificant but that you're making a coordinated effort to address them, what's making that possible--if I'm right?

[Lyda Fuller]

I'd like to answer that.

I think the Coalition Against Family Violence has been very effective in having all of us work together. It's not easy. It takes a lot of work--it takes skill--among the members to compromise and to come to agreement. But the issue in the Northwest Territories is so pervasive and so impactful on the lives of women, and the front-line workers hear and experience so many chilling stories and examples, that it really motivates us to work together as a group.

We want to make progress in a planned way. Barb Lacey was talking about services for men who use abuse; well, the coalition has been working on that issue over a long period of time. We're finally now at the point where there's going to be a pilot project, but a huge among of time has been spent in the development of a good program for that, a program that will be effective and that takes into account all the learnings across the country.

We had a real arm-wrestling experience when we were trying to fit those 17 action items into the amount of money. We knew that we had to support the existing shelters that were underfunded and we knew that the women keep asking us for services for their partners, so with limited funding, how do you do that?

Our government partners were at the tables with us. We finally came to an agreement that we would fund the shelters and seek outside funding to augment the territorial government funding for the development of the program for men who use abuse. We have heated debates and heated exchanges, but we are all really driven by what we see every day and by the pain for women, children, and whole communities--and for the men, too.

We're a small territory. We form relationships with each other, and trust develops over time. We work hard to try to preserve that and to move forward in ways that will really, at the end of the day, have a positive outcome for those women.

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

Thank you.

Does anybody else want to comment? Sandra?

[Sandra Tucker]

Yes, I'd like to comment as well. One of the things that Pauktuutit takes exceptional pride in is that any project, any program we deliver within the communities, starts with the communities.

All of our projects are driven by advisory committees made up of community members, local subject-matter experts, and input from our partners, which are often the land claims organizations, the GNWT, the GN, and the Nunavik Regional Government. We start off by going in and saying: “Here's an idea. Let's work together. You tell us what's going to work for you”. We do that rather than going in and saying, “We think you need to do this”.

This model has been exceptionally successful in that it creates community mobilization. From the inception of the project to the delivery, the end of the project, the community has a stake in what's going to happen. All of our projects are tailored to the needs of the specific communities. We'll go in with the model and that model gets adapted to what the community needs are.

Not unlike what Lyda was saying, we see it nationally that women are fearful of going into safe shelters--if they're even available in the northern communities--out of the fear that their children are going to be taken away. Even if they go to the shelter, the protocols and procedures of various organizations that need to come together in order to support a women's transition to safety are incongruent and often opposing. So you need to be on the housing list, but in order to get on the housing list you need a letter from income supports to say that you're going to get income support. But if your husband has damaged the residence you're at, you're still responsible for the arrears. It is a vicious cycle that keeps women down.

One of the major concerns that we've had, Anita--and we've spoken of it--is that lack of sustained funding for shelters. We have 53 northern remote fly-in communities. As of today, we have 14 operational shelters.

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

Wow.