Status of Women Committee on Jan. 21st, 2011

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Nice to see you.

I want to thank you as well for coming and listening to a lot of the testimony. I have a brief comment before my question. It actually saddens me to hear what you're saying, because back in 2004-05 a number of us sitting at this table on the status of women committee did an extensive study on what women's organizations—it was broadly women's organizations—needed in order to continue to provide the very good work that they were doing, and the clear, consistent, strong message was that they need core, consistent, sustainable funding. And here we are in 2011 hearing exactly the same message from you, all these years later, and what we know over the last five or six years is that women's organizations have in fact been weakened even further. So I think it's a very grim fact that we're hearing that message once again.

My question is this. I wonder if any of you are aware of anyone who has taken a look at how the Indian Act contributes to perpetuating the ongoing victimization of women?

Sandra, could we start with you and then just go across?

[Dr. Sandra Lambertus]

No, I have to say not directly, but I also have to say that when I was conducting the research across Alberta, I did come across some communities that, from within, were really working towards becoming healthy and productive. I don't know if they had really strong women's organizations, but I know that they were definitely grassroots. Again, the problem was having stable funding, but even those communities, because they wanted it to come from within, really wanted to create the community just coming together, and I think a couple of them were actually successful.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Sandra, before I go to Jennifer, if I could take what you're saying to the next step, what I'm hearing you say is that there are communities out there that are successfully working around healing and moving on.

[Dr. Sandra Lambertus]

They are working on it, yes.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

What might be helpful—and I'm leaping to a recommendation that you haven't made—is to know who some of those communities are and what elements were in place in order to help them take on those challenges.

[Dr. Sandra Lambertus]

I'm thinking of Fort Chipewyan in particular. It's a very isolated northern community. In my discussions with the chief at the time, he talked about how they decided several decades earlier that they wanted to change the violence in their communities. They approached the federal government for funding. The federal government was actually very reticent about providing anything, but they stuck with it and actually came up with their own homegrown treatment programs and counselling services. It's an amazing and very tiny community, but they've come a long way.

Again, the chief himself said it had to do with leadership, because if you don't have that kind of leadership, it won't happen.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Right. Thank you.

Jennifer, would you comment on the Indian Act?

[Prof. Jennifer Koshan]

I'm glad to have a chance to address this point, because there's a bill before Parliament right now dealing with Indian status and band membership for aboriginal women arising out of the Sharon McIvor case. Sharon McIvor has been a huge figure and is really a leader in the aboriginal women's community on the question of rights for aboriginal women. She has staunchly critiqued the bill that's currently before Parliament. It doesn't rectify all the problems—

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

It's actually passed.

[Prof. Jennifer Koshan]

Oh, it has. Okay.

The issue I want to address is that in this situation, again the voices of aboriginal women were not listened to, and that lack of respect does lead to violence against aboriginal women. I think you've heard that repeatedly over the course of the morning, and while the Indian Act itself doesn't necessarily say anything specifically against violence against women, it's the fact that the voices of aboriginal women continue to be denied that allows that kind of violence to go on. The passing of that bill is just the latest example, and it's a real travesty.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Muriel, would you comment?

[Muriel Stanley Venne]

I first want to compliment the government on endorsing the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This is, to my mind, a very hopeful and very real opportunity for all of us as Canadians to address the needs of aboriginal women in full consultation with them.

For every aboriginal woman I know, the Indian Act was very harmful. It went from denying their rights to be an Indian to denying their own identity to everything else that's included in that act. I have stated many times that every single act of discrimination against indigenous people has been legislated by the government. There is no other way to state that. Everything that has been done has been legislated by the government. When they were taking away the children, by law they had no defence. We as Canadians need to address the horrific outcome of legislating against, as Madam Demers said, the people of this land.

I'm not saying you're guilty. I'm saying we need to address it in a very wonderful way. Canada can become the best country in the world if it addresses the needs of aboriginal women, because on the international, on the national, and on the global scene, Canada has not treated aboriginal women right.

They are the blight on Canada, and will continue to be the blight unless some real things are done. It can be done. This is what keeps my hope up. Yes, there are measures that can be taken in the communities and by our leadership, by every parliamentarian, and at every level to identify this and to take it on as Canadian leaders so that this can happen.

So I ask you, as the leaders of our country, to address this in every kind of passionate way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

Now we're going to a second round. The second round is a five-minute round—in other words, five minutes for questions and answers.

We will begin again with Ms. Neville for the Liberals.

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

Thank you very much.

There are two areas that I want to explore with you. Let me start with the first one, which we haven't talked a lot about today but which has come up considerably in our discussions with other panels, and that is the relationship between violence against women and the apprehension of children.

I'm just wondering if any of you or all of you....

Jennifer, you are nodding. Go ahead with your comments on that.

[Prof. Jennifer Koshan]

I think fear of the apprehension of children is one of the main things that keeps aboriginal women from reporting violence to the police, because as soon as social services or child welfare finds out there is violence in that home, and if the woman has not left the home, the solution seems to be to remove the children.

I think this is a very complicated issue, because it's really important to recognize that violence does have an impact on children, whether they are aboriginal children or non-aboriginal children. But still, the rapidity with which social services seems to think the solution to this problem is to remove the children, rather than put resources into that family to allow the family to remain together, or perhaps to remove the man rather than the children, is a huge barrier to the reporting of domestic violence by aboriginal women.

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

You had the recommendation of removing the man. Do you have other concrete recommendations on that?

[Prof. Jennifer Koshan]

We need to provide the services and supports to the family to allow the children to remain within the family.

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

Thank you.

Sandra, go ahead.

[Dr. Sandra Lambertus]

I'd like to extend that as well.

A lot of the women I interviewed talked about losing their children and how that actually prompted them into taking greater risks in their lives, sometimes engaging in drugs and prostitution. It really led to their spiralling downwards.

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

Was that was because of the removal of the children?

[Dr. Sandra Lambertus]

Absolutely, and they go through a lot of grief. So one can imagine how that would prompt them not to bother phoning the police or engaging the criminal justice system at all, no matter what the incident was.

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

Muriel.

[Muriel Stanley Venne]

The saddest story I ever heard was from a mother who gave birth to her baby and a worker came in and said, “I'll watch the baby and you can take a shower.” When she came back, the baby was gone. If as a mother you lost your newborn, you'd go crazy—and that is what happens. It's so inhumane; it's so wrong. We as women need to say in the strongest terms that the apprehension of children has to stop.

This conversation just began casually, and then I talked with her about the loss of a child and she told me the story. I have never forgotten it. What she did to try to cope was this. She was in Edmonton and she moved to Slave Lake. She had heard that the social workers were better in Slave Lake, and she did get her child back.

But to arbitrarily take a baby out of a mother's arms is just inhumane. It's not respecting what we as women recognize.

I think we have to bring this back to the table and deny the authorities that right.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds.