Status of Women Committee on Jan. 20th, 2011

[Arlene Hache]

Well, in the Northwest Territories there are no party politics. We have a majority aboriginal MLA representation. Those MLAs still have to work within a public government system. There are no reserve boundaries, at least that I can identify or more importantly that people in the communities can identify, to say we control what happens here . So when families run into trouble, there's no mechanism of their own, like a band representative, for example, that they can look to and say, “Help me out here. I don't know what's going on. My children are being taken”, or “I'm being attacked”, or whatever. They have to look to the public government that has those systems set up.

There's something I'll never forget. In a recent legislative sitting a community person asked their MLA to ask a question, so the MLA asked the question in the House. The minister who came back is an aboriginal minister, and he said, “You know, the policy is this. I'd love to help you out, but I can't, because this is the policy.” One of his buddies in another community, another MLA, said, “Well, are you a leader or are you a paper-pusher? Are you here to just spout policy? What good are you, then?”

So it's clear down south, where you have really clear boundaries around what happens on reserve and what happens off reserve. Bands get money directly. Up here it's one public pot.

Take NADAP funding, the native alcohol and drug abuse program, for example. We had a young Inuit man who wanted to go to an Inuit program in Ottawa, the only one that exists in Canada. He was on the street. He wanted to go to an Inuit program that spoke his language and that was certainly designed by his community. Our territorial government, unlike any other in Canada, wouldn't send him because it wasn't accredited.

So we have a whole system up here built around a European approach, and it looks as though aboriginal people agree with that, because they're aboriginal MLAs. Down south at least you have somebody standing up and saying “No, we don't do that here”.

I just find it a very common difference between the north and the south. And it's really important, because the federal government insists that the territorial government agrees with where the funding goes.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

That is very interesting.

Ms. Grewal, for the Conservatives.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My question is for Lyda.

If I remember correctly, it was in November 2010 that Ms. Ambrose announced your three-year project that is increasing safety for women in Northwest Territories communities. Right? That will develop and pilot safety options for women, many of whom are aboriginal and experiencing intimate or partner violence in eleven isolated communities where they don't have any RCMP detachments.

I would like to learn a little bit more about your project. Could you please tell us?

[Lyda Fuller]

We have two women, one long-time northerner and another aboriginal woman with a healing background, who have gone into five of the eleven communities, I believe. We're going in sort of under the radar. We're not going in saying we're here to talk about violence, because we don't want to get the community up in arms about that, but we're meeting with the women in small groups and then in larger groups on the second visit, talking to them and taking direction from them about what they would like to see happen and what their needs are. For example, in one community the women said they weren't really allowed to meet together, so they wanted to go mountain climbing because if they go climbing in the mountains around that area then they can be off by themselves and talk about things. That's the direction we've taken, and we're working toward their being able to go mountain climbing.

The women have said that traditionally they used to tan moose hides, and that's when they would go off by themselves. They talked about when you're scraping that moose hide you get a lot of your feelings out. Then the elders can say to you that this is analogous to the lives of women and take them through the steps. It is really interesting, but they aren't able at this point to get off by themselves and do some of those traditional things. So on the one hand we're looking for funding to allow that, and on the other hand we're also looking for ways to help them find other avenues to get off by themselves.

What seems to be critical is to do this in ways that don't raise a ruckus in the community. For example, in another community the women said if they wanted to be able to meet as a women's group, without fear, they needed the community to sanction this, so they had a community feast. We found the resources to have the community feast with 90 people in that community, and then a whole bunch of women could come to visit a women's group meeting the next day.

It is just feeling our way in each individual community but taking direction from the women there.

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

Madam Chair, do I have some time left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

No, that's it. I'm sorry, Nina.

Nicole.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Villeneuve, some people told us the other day that the bill on matrimonial rights was ill-conceived and that it was going to harm women in aboriginal communities rather than help them. Could you give us some details about that?

[Therese Villeneuve]

Yes, I understand the bill you're talking about, and the reason we are very concerned about the bill is that it gives a lot of power to the RCMP, rather than to the women in the community.

This is especially true of the women on reserves who stand to lose their homes sometimes. They can just tell them to get out of their homes with their children if it's deemed to benefit the men. That's why at the national level the Native Women's Association of Canada has rejected the whole agreement and the report on matrimonial property. That's one of the areas that really concerns us.

In the Northwest Territories we have some land claim areas. We don't even know if there's any section in there to address women in their homes. Right now the woman is the one who has to flee all the time, and the man stays home. I've seen it many times, because I worked at the shelter when it first opened in Fort Smith.

Sutherland House was the first one that opened. I was the executive director there. I remember that it was always women. Some of them showed up with their six children, and the men stayed home. It's still the case today that it's the women who have to flee their homes. So that's one area that really concerns us. That's why the agreement on MRP really concerns many women in aboriginal communities and on reserves.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you very much, Ms. Villeneuve.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Mr. Bevington.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thanks.

I guess I'll give my time to you and ask you, one by one, to succinctly give one message you want us to take away from this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Mr. Bevington, you don't have to do that. We'll do that after. So if you have a question, ask it. Don't use up your time like that.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Okay, Madam Chair, if you're going to take over my work, that's lovely.

I want to go back a little bit, because I didn't really get the answer I was looking for on aboriginal male issues. I wonder if any of you want to speak to that, because it's a key part of this problem. I've seen it over and over again through the years.

[Sandra Lockhart]

I'm the chair of the committee with PSAC, and we have a male vice-chair. We're really pleased to have it that way. We have a national aboriginal peoples circle with PSAC. Karen Wright-Fraser is our female representative for the north for all three territories. We have a male representative too.

Again, it's cultural. There needs to be a balance, because there's no way I could tell you what it's like to be male. My husband would need to do that. As his wife I recognize what the impact of cultural change has done when you talk about dignity.

My husband takes my sons out on the land. We custom adopted my grandson. Boy, there's a lot around that to talk about--and foster care. He has taken him out since he was two years old, so he's good on the land. He has FASD, so there's the healing power, the identity, and all of that.

I think if you're going to have a standing committee with aboriginal women, you're not going to get the full picture unless you do it with men too. You'll only see a small part of the picture. Men have been terribly impacted, because they lost their role of being good on the land--the power of the land, the recognition of all that. A lot of men are not educated, so they're not valued. Education is being valued more than the land. So there's a lot that's impacting our men.

I know in Yellowknife--I've heard about it, but I've never been invited--there's this healing thing for men. But I think there are a lot of women sitting on it, and a lot of people from Yellowknife. Forgive me if I offend anyone, but whenever I hear about violent men it tends to fall on aboriginal men from the community. They're not looking at the impact of trauma from residential schools and the stripping of who they are as aboriginal men as being contributors to that--and losing the role of being equal partners.

We used to understand each other. I was taught a little differently. When we did have violence and sickness, we had specific things we did for it. It wasn't that we were free of it. Some of it could get really harsh.

The worst thing I heard was that you could excommunicated from your community and live alone. That is the harshest thing you can do, be alone. They do that in the judicial system; they'll segregate and isolate them as punitive measures, right.

I think in some way, when you talk about healing and you're not including the voice of men and the perspective of men, we're creating that excommunication and isolation again. We're putting it all on their shoulders. Then we wonder why they're still responding.

Again, I think that aboriginal people, when they medicate.... I think a lot of our approaches are always addictions. We don't always look at it as these people medicating because they have nothing else. We're not doing enough harm reduction. I tell my children that I want them to be responsible with their drinking. I don't say drinking is bad and they will become alcoholics. You have to respect alcohol and this is how you show respect for it. Drugs are illegal; they come from plants. So I make it more holistic and it's working. At some point they're going to experiment, and I want them to talk to me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to give everyone a minute, but before we do, Sandra mentioned that she couldn't speak for men. We are not travelling as a committee to only meet with women. We're speaking to the issue of systemic violence against aboriginal women and the fact that very little has been done. We wanted to investigate that.

We have had men come and speak with us. They have actually spoken to the issue of a loss of self, a loss of dignity, and a loss of value. We've had women plead with us to understand that about the men and to understand that the men have been taken away from who they are. Because so many of them are unemployed and have little education, they can't go to anything else to give them value. They become useless. They become angry.

The women we heard yesterday, interestingly enough, said that as the women get stronger—because the women are still undertaking their traditional roles, which is to have children, nurture the children, make sure the children get fed, etc.—the women in fact actually assume a larger role in the families than the men. These particular women told us they have to learn to be careful in how to do that, because then they revictimize their own men.

This is a very important issue. Dennis, I'm glad you brought it up. We have been hearing about it very, very often, about how the men have been denigrated and how they have completely lost their dignity.

I will ask Therese, Lyda, Arlene, and Sandra, in that order, to summarize in one minute. In that minute, I want you to actually focus on how you feel we could make recommendations that will get to the heart of what we're hearing.

We heard about systems, etc. It may very well be that the systems need to be changed. What are the things you think we can do? What are the most important things you can pick as priorities that you think will hit the heart of the problem and resolve it? So give me two things.

Therese.

[Therese Villeneuve]

My priority, naturally, will always be the on-the-land program. I've witnessed it. I've taken people on the land: elders, youth, and young adults. That's where I found that they really connected with one another. They could talk about anything when they're out on the land.

When we talk about being out on the land, we don't just mean sitting there, sitting around the campfire, and talking. That's not what it is. It's good for physical exercise. It's good mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—all the four directions. It touches us. That's why I really am always clear on that. We have activities. We're never sitting down doing nothing when we're on the land. There's always something to do.

You either have to get water or you have to get wood. You have to cook and you have to visit the nets. You make dried fish; you make fillets. You make dried meat; you cut meat. There are activities from the time you get up until evening. Evening time is spent in relaxation, getting together, and communicating with one another.

This is what “on the land” means. We don't just go on the land and sit around all day and do nothing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

Lyda.

[Lyda Fuller]

I would say, have pots of funding that can be accessed by women at the community level so that the control is in the hands of the women about how they want to proceed in their community and what they want to do.

I would just say that so much needs to be done. We need to have strong support systems. We need to have training around cultural awareness. It's a huge issue here, the racism that you see at the community level.

I think if we just had control in the hands of women at the community level, we could do so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Arlene?

[Arlene Hache]

There are two things that I think would be really helpful. One is to follow a family support model rather than a service delivery model. That is how we recover together. We were able to recover so that we could contribute back to the community. That model is a really critical thing, and if anyone's interested, I can provide you information on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Would you please send that to the clerk?

[Arlene Hache]

I could, yes.

The other important factor when you're talking about nations that have been colonized within Canada would be a trauma-informed approach.

In the Northwest Territories the approach that is taken is medical, addictions, and kind of psychiatric blaming. Women staying in our shelter can't access battered women's shelters sometimes and they can't access the hospital because their behaviour supposedly prevents them from accessing things.

Women and children in the Northwest Territories, from my perspective, are never assessed for post-traumatic stress disorder, and I suspect if you really looked at that question, you would have levels in small communities that you would find in prisoners of war. I think if you looked at the trauma-informed approach, we would change how things were done in aboriginal and Inuit communities and it would make a world of difference.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

Sandra?

[Sandra Lockhart]

I'd like to look at a commitment to co-existence with aboriginal governments that really acknowledges and has the governments at the table when you do international agreements, because it would protect trade agreements. Right now our lands aren't protected. Canada is doing agreements that give other countries jurisdiction over our land, our water, our plants. That is because Canada is not recognizing the nationhood of aboriginal peoples.

The other thing I would like to see is a decolonization program and Canada-wide education on what that is, starting with service providers working along with community in that process. People are put in a system. They don't recognize what it is. Even me--a lot of times I say, “Oh my God, I'm doing it again”, because we're used to being service providers, and when we are, even in our own aboriginal agencies, we'll get caught up in being the provider. We have the authority. We make the mandates and all this. Decolonizing is giving back to the community, co-existing, and having partnerships where everybody has that cultural safety, and it is the people who are deciding what their culture is and who they are.