Evidence of meeting #50 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 community.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
I'm going to go to Madame Demers again, so we'll give you some time to get your headpieces on for translation.
9:40 a.m.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I would like to ask you one last question. There are people from the media present here this morning. I would like to know what type of relationship you have with the media. When the time comes to expose discrimination, social problems and problems in the community, do you get media attention? Are your problems interesting enough to the media? Are they there for you or are they only present when the Standing Committee on the Status of Women visits you?
What do you have to say, Lorraine?
9:40 a.m.
Executive Director, Status of Women Council of the Northwest Territories
I think we're very media-rich in the north, as you know.
The media are everywhere, all the time.
They are everywhere. Even if we're having small events, the media really covers issues for women and family violence. That's been our experience. When we had our northern women in mining, oil and gas project , having come sometimes from different jurisdictions, funders were amazed at the amount of media coverage we got from our project. For us, the media has been quite rich.
9:40 a.m.
Manager, Abuse Prevention Policy and Programs, Pauktuutit Inuit Women's Association
We also have a very good relationship with the media. In the past, they've been great supporters of us. We would always like to see more media coverage. We drive our media contacts crazy with press releases and news releases, but we're doing it because we want to get things out into the forefront.
One of the big challenges we've had is with the national newspapers. The local and regional newspapers have been phenomenal. CBC North and the radio have been phenomenal. It's the big newspapers—The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, and the National Post—because we can send them information over and over, and it doesn't seem to catch at that national level.
I don't know how we can change that, but it's something we really need to see some growth in, getting these issues into the national forefront, so they don't just stay as regional issues. We keep spinning our wheels. People need to know what's going on. I'm open to any suggestions from the committee on how we could encourage them to listen.
9:40 a.m.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
In your opinion, how do you think you could share what you are doing here? Because you are doing extraordinary things, you are achieving extraordinary successes, as opposed to some other places, like Williams Lake or Prince Albert, for instance, where the situation is more desperate. These communities are experiencing tragic situations.
According to you, how could you convey to others what you are doing here; how can you let them know how you are managing to achieve your objectives? How could we share your way of doing things with them, so that these people are given hope that they will some day get out of their situation?
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
9:40 a.m.
Manager, Community and Family Services, Child Protection Program, Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority
I just have a comment. You're really building up our self-esteem this morning. I am starting to feel wonderful. Wow, look out, we're out to advocate now.
Honestly, I don't know. I oftentimes feel very isolated in the program I work within just because child protection is sometimes frowned upon. I still try to get out there and do the best I can for the families that come to our attention. I find that in Yellowknife, and I also find this in Lutselk'e and Fort Resolution, if we want something, we ask for it, and we usually get people who want to work together on a project, if there's something. For instance, if I need some housing from our transitional housing here, I have built a relationship with Kate, and she will say, “I'll see what I can do for you”. It's really working one-on-one. You just have to build those relationships.
9:45 a.m.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
I concur with everyone's vision of the Northwest Territories. I do think that, although our problems are very large, and I don't disagree with that, there are some things that we do here very well, because we are a balanced society.
We have great empowerment of aboriginal people throughout the Northwest Territories. We have built over many years good relationships that are really the driving point of our lives. They are the things that we all hold very dear. Those are things that are real strengths for the people of the Northwest Territories. We have the challenge of creating a society that is unique in Canada, in that we will have strong aboriginal governments as well as strong public governments. That is something that I think drives all of our equations.
Getting back to the economics of this, we have seen great economics in the Northwest Territories with the development of mining. We have chosen a pattern of taking people out of their communities for two weeks and then putting them back as being the pattern we're going to follow. Do you see that as having a positive or negative effect on family violence?
9:45 a.m.
Manager, Abuse Prevention Policy and Programs, Pauktuutit Inuit Women's Association
It can have both.
The development of the resources in the north brings in additional income. But what we are tending to see, especially in this area and also in Nunavut, is that when the husband or the breadwinner in the family has gone out to work in the mines or on the oil pipeline, he makes wonderful money, and coming home, he makes some pit stops along the way and that money kind of all disappears. He comes home and he's broke. The rent is not getting paid and there is no money for food.
That of course again exacerbates any situation related to domestic violence, because housing is now at risk, there is no food, and there are no basic services. I don't know how we are going to change that. We're dealing with people a lot of times who have had very limited income and now have access to a whole lot of money. When you get a whole lot of money in your hand, the urge is that you sometimes really want to spend it.
We're also dealing with addictions issues, particularly alcoholism, and that money is being spent quickly. We are hearing from our contacts in the north that most of the money that's being made is being spent before it ever gets back to the family unit.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you very much.
That ends this round, but before we end, we have a couple of minutes left.
Without belabouring it, I want to remark on what my colleagues have said, which is that you are indeed a unique community, although I must say, in Nunavut we also found that same sense of uniqueness. I don't know if it's because you are territories, because you are smaller.... You're talking about colleagues you work with, Ms. Nelson, by their first names. In British Columbia you have a hierarchy in every bureaucracy, with a deputy minister and five ADMs and six directors general, and by the time you get down to the field worker, that hierarchical system is a difficult one to deal with. I think that may be the secret of your success. Let's do away with hierarchical systems right away.
That's important, and there are many best practices that we can learn from you and from Nunavut. When we were there, we heard that same thing.
I want to talk about a couple of things. Dona talked about couch surfing, and actually it's not a phenomenon up here. It's not because of the cold weather. Couch-surfing is a way for women to stay under the radar. It happens in Vancouver more than you would ever realize and in the cities; it keeps them under the radar. Children and family services don't know that they don't have a place to live. They stay under the radar and their children are not taken away from them.
I wanted to talk a little bit about that. Ms. Lacey said something very important that touched me deeply. She said, “I really tried. I tried. I was running around confused, and they still took my children.” At the heart of all this is the fragmentation of families, and children who are already traumatized by watching violence in the family, children who are already traumatized by one parent leaving the home, invariably the mother, and then to be wrested away from that mother is extraordinarily traumatic. You can see how, generation after generation...we know that 45% of children who live in abusive homes turn out to either become abusers or to have partnerships with abusers later on in life. So there is that intergenerational thing.
I need to ask this question, and it's a difficult question, Sheila. I'm not trying to say, you guys are nice because you don't have any options. I know that you seem to really get it and you seem to care. Ms. Lacey really moved me with her statement, “They still took my children.” In many places we went, one of the biggest fears of women reporting violence at all was that they have nowhere to go; there were no shelters for them, and in isolated communities they are just stuck. As you said, they don't have money for a plane ticket to get down to wherever there are shelters, and the shelters are limited--30 days in some areas, but six days is really terrible. So really people just stay where they are and they continue to live with the violence.
We've heard something really important, and I want to ask about this. Housing, of course, is extremely linked, but we've heard that another reason women will not leave the violent situation is that once they get out of the shelter they have such little money from social assistance with which to pay rent.... Nicole brought this up earlier. We heard in certain areas that the foster parent can get $2,500 a month to look after three kids and the mother of those three kids gets about $600 to do the same work. I'm not asking anybody to say what's wrong with that system; it's obvious what's wrong with that. But I would like to find out what we can do to change it. Everyone is aware of it, and surely there is a built-in bias. I understand that women who have been victims of violence quite often aren't good parents because they themselves have been so beaten down, but surely there's a way we can intervene to find a way to give these women.... If we can't find housing for them, at least we can pay for market housing for them, appropriately, if we can do it for a foster parent.
I'm specifically directing this to Sheila and Barbara first, and then I'd like to hear your opinion on it.
Sheila, what can we do to stop that real unfairness and total tragedy from occurring?
9:50 a.m.
Manager, Community and Family Services, Child Protection Program, Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority
I wish I had the answer for you. As hard as it may be for people to believe, apprehending a child from a woman who has left an abusive relationship is the last option we want. We put out a significant amount of money to assist families that are on a very limited income, and sometimes income support just doesn't pay enough. It's not uncommon for us to give out gift cards on a regular basis.
9:50 a.m.
Manager, Community and Family Services, Child Protection Program, Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority
Oh, supplement. As a matter of fact, I can tell you that on average we probably give out between $5,000 and $6,000 a month to supplement.
9:50 a.m.
Manager, Community and Family Services, Child Protection Program, Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority
It comes from our department.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
This is unique again. It doesn't happen anywhere else but with your department here in Yellowknife. It doesn't happen elsewhere.
9:50 a.m.
Manager, Community and Family Services, Child Protection Program, Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority
The reason we do it is that I don't believe the child should be removed from a parent if they're able to look after the child. If they're short on money to pay.... Often we pay utility bills. Often we pay housing arrears so that a person can get back into the housing system and have rent geared to their income.
Like I said earlier, there is work we need to do between our departments, and I think that change has to come from above me. I certainly speak out about it, but the change has to come from higher up than my level.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
But the supplement is an important piece.
Did anyone want to tackle that a little bit? Ms. Lacey?
Then we'll close on our questions.
9:55 a.m.
Manager, Clinical Supervisor, Community Mental Health and Addictions, Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority
I wanted to answer the question from more of an assistance perspective. I really do believe that the case management model is the model we have to put in place.
It doesn't matter if you're a woman in family violence coming out of a family violence situation and trying to get yourself reorganized, or a mental health client, or a homeless client, I believe that having an advocate, having that support, that case manager, to help with the negotiation and navigating the system.... I came from methadone maintenance treatment in P.E.I., and we had to work with income support all the time because our clients were the injection drug users, and nobody likes them. To have a good relationship with income support was often the key, because that kept them in their housing. If I could keep them in their housing, maybe child and family services would then look at getting the children back in.
My clients did not have the skills to negotiate any of that. Often, our women getting out of these situations don't have the skills to negotiate everything, as we found when we did this experience yesterday. So I really believe in the case management model. That means more money. That means more funding and more positions. Lyda has some of this in her outreach team and the independent supported living program. We know how much good this does. Our individuals trying to negotiate a system need somebody with them. That would be my answer.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you. That was very helpful.
I want to thank all of you for coming and for sharing with us. We've learned a lot. It seems as if pennies are dropping. As we go everywhere, we're getting more pennies just clicking down.
This has been a very good session for us to listen to and to compare and contrast with other areas. Some of what we've heard has been heartbreaking, but you seem to have had a certain amount of success, as has Nunavut. I think maybe it's because you're territories and you're not as fragmented as all of the provinces.
I think this is good. Thank you very much.
I'm going to now suspend until the next session.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
I will now call the meeting to order.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), this Standing Committee on the Status of Women is studying violence against aboriginal women.
You know that standing committees are made up of all four parties. It is by and large a non-partisan effort, because we are parliamentarians here and we all want to come together. Whatever we find and report will be presented to Parliament first, and then of course the government of the day will have to respond to the report and the recommendations within 90 days.
Given what we heard from the Sisters in Spirit reports, that there are over 580 missing and murdered aboriginal women around the country, there have been calls for a national inquiry. We know that this is an issue, with best intentions or not, that people have been trying to remedy for a long time with very little success. While most people tell us that this has been studied to death, we're not trying to study anything. We know the data. We know the statistics. What we really want to do is talk with people on the ground and see if they can cut through all of this to tell us what the root causes are and tell us what is the nature and extent of the violence against aboriginal women. By nature, I mean different types of violence. As you well know, violence can be sexual, it can be physical, it can be emotional, it can be systemic. Racism is a form of violence.
So we wanted to look at the nature and the extent of violence. We also wanted to look at the root causes, and I think we've been hearing now a repetitive measure of what the root causes are. But we'd like to also, more than anything, listen to solutions you can offer us--solutions that are not the same old, same old, because the same old, same old has not been working. So we'd like to hear about creative solutions, innovative solutions, systemic resolutions, but we also want you to be as frank and honest with us as you possibly can.
That having been said, I'm going to start the presentations. We have four groups represented here today. We will give you between five and seven minutes; seven is the upper limit. If you can just check me out occasionally, I will give you a little signal as to whether or not you have a minute left or you should wind up; it doesn't mean stop immediately, but it means winding up within about 20 seconds.
We will begin with the Native Women's Association of the Northwest Territories. The presenter is Therese Villeneuve, but she also has Ms. Thomas with her for support. Thank you.
Ms. Villeneuve.
10 a.m.
Therese Villeneuve President, Native Women's Association of the Northwest Territories
Mahsi cho for having me here.
[Witness speaks in Dene]
I would like to thank you for taking the time to visit Yellowknife and to find out first-hand what is occurring in the area of violence against aboriginal women in the Northwest Territories. As you probably already know, the incidence of violence is much higher in the Northwest Territories. Statistics indicate the incidence is seven times higher, and we know the actual incidence is probably much higher than that reported.
These statistics have not changed over the past few years, and the nature of assaults seems to be getting more serious in many cases, and by more serious we're talking about deaths of spouses. Women are sometimes being beaten up in their own homes.
Sentencing has not reflected the serious nature of these assaults. As you can well imagine, the future does not look good in terms of reducing the incidents, considering the number of children who are witnessing these acts of violence.
I will ask you to excuse me, because sometimes this becomes very emotional, especially for aboriginal women.
The Native Women's Association of the NWT was established and incorporated under the societies ordinance in 1978 as a non-profit organization. Headquarters are located in Yellowknife. We offer a victim services program, aboriginal human resources development program, and a full-time aboriginal adult training centre. We also have a contribution agreement with HRSDC to pilot a literacy and numeracy program specifically designed to reflect the needs of students throughout the Northwest Territories.
We get core funding from the Government of the Northwest Territories, and this provides us with an executive director, financial manager, and administrative assistant. NWA of the NWT also sponsor workshops and special events, such as Sisters in Spirit luncheons, judo programs for youth, etc. One of our main services in Yellowknife is directly linked to the topic we are discussing today.
The mission of Yellowknife victims services is to offer compassionate support and system information referral to victims. The majority of our clients are aboriginal women; however, we also see men and non-aboriginal women. We have one coordinator and one victims services worker. As well, we hire a trainer to train volunteers, as the after-hours work is done by volunteers. We provide 24-hour services that include court accompaniment and preparation, support through RCMP statements, victim impact statements, information about the criminal justice system, emotional support, crisis intervention, and referrals. Although we mainly see victims from Yellowknife, there is an increasing demand in communities that do not have victims service workers.
About 25% of the people victims services provides services to are aboriginal adult women who are victims of serious violent crimes. The demand for our programs at the training centre continues to grow. New funding from the GNWT as well as the federal government has allowed us to diversify our programming as well as focus on curriculum development.
At this time there are approximately 15 students enrolled in our adult education and pre-employment. Our classes continue to focus on math, English, computers, employment skills, and life skills, including traditional activities. This is a unique program. We service mostly women who have very low literacy and numeracy skills who would not be able to upgrade, as no other similar holistic programs are available for this population.
Obtaining funding on a yearly basis is always problematic, and is getting even more so, as the funding for this population is getting harder to obtain. Federal money from INAC or other departments is just not available for a long-term commitment that is needed for this population. We believe that if the federal government is serious in reducing violence against aboriginal women it will invest in education and housing for at-risk women.
Our students are dedicated to making a difference in their lives, but they face many uphill battles, including addictions, homelessness, poverty, violence in their lives, and lack of child care services, as many of these women are single parents themselves. The best way to reduce violence against aboriginal women is to provide them with education. Other resources that are lacking include outreach workers and counsellors. The Government of the Northwest Territories does not see a need for funding these resources.
In terms of violence against aboriginal women, one of the things the federal government could do would be to change the on-reserve and off-reserve funding process. Another recommendation would be national awareness, with an education program to raise awareness, at local and national levels, of family abuse, sexual exploitation, and alcohol and drug abuse.
You talked about the root causes. Well, one of--