Status of Women Committee on Jan. 21st, 2011

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Dona Cadman]

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are continuing our study on violence against aboriginal women. We're here today to do exactly that, and we would like to hear everything you have to say. You will have to keep it a bit short; you only have seven minutes to present. What you don't get to include in your presentation, you might be able to include in the question and answer period afterwards. So don't be too upset.

We're going to start with Mike Bartkus. You have seven minutes.

[Staff Sergeant Mike Bartkus, Domestic Offender Crimes Section, Edmonton Police Service]

Good morning, everybody. Thanks for having us attend this particular committee.

Domestic violence is a major concern for the Edmonton Police Service and the community, affecting all aspects of society. Violence in the home is a leading cause of injury, and children who grow up witnessing this violence are often affected for life. The EPS is committed to providing the most appropriate and effective response to domestic violence.

Edmonton Police Service members are consistently reminded that some victims might require more information and assistance specific to their situation and that in some cases unique specialized support may exist.

The following are examples of concerns aboriginal victims might have and/or misunderstandings: resources may be limited; a support system may be in the specific community in which they live; the suspect could be an important member of the community; the suspect may have possession of the family home; suspicion about the justice system may discourage many aboriginal people from viewing it as a viable option; victims may be reluctant to send a suspect into a system that is viewed as racist; many victims in cases of domestic violence fear police will apprehend their children; and in some communities, culturally appropriate services may be limited or not exist at all.

Within the Edmonton Police Service, our policy defines domestic violence as any use of physical or sexual force, actual or threatened, in an intimate relationship. It may include a single act of violence or a number of acts forming a pattern of abuse through the use of assaultive and controlling behaviour. The pattern of abuse may include physical abuse, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse, stalking, and threats to harm children, other family members, pets, and property. The mandate of the Edmonton Police Service's domestic offender crimes section is to provide a timely response to the investigation of serious or complex cases of domestic violence and to provide victim-based intervention and advocacy services cooperatively with partnering agencies.

Understanding that intimate partner violence is one of the most common and potentially lethal problems dealt with by police, the domestic offender crimes section endeavours to apply risk and threat assessment strategies identifying important victim vulnerability factors in each case.

Some of the risk-enhancing factors, which we consider but do not limit ourselves to, include the following: a lengthy history, both with regard to the relationship as well as offender-specific; victims, including children, who are fearful; a significant or imminent risk of harm; issues that are culturally sensitive; a recent breakup, separation, or divorce; high-risk stalking behaviours; criminal harassment and/or breach of a court order; mental health concerns and/or a pattern of irrational or violent behaviour; recommendations from the Integrated Threat and Risk Assessment Centre, I-TRAC, respecting a safety plan or offender considerations or concerns; concerns from other sources, including community agencies that have intimate knowledge of the victims or the offenders; and concerns and recommendations from the crown.

Briefly, our investigative response starts with patrol divisions that are responsible for the initial response in all cases of domestic violence. If doing so is deemed necessary, a detective from the domestic offender crimes section can respond and assume the primary role of the investigation. Detectives from DOCS are available on a call-out basis for incidents that occur outside of their normal working hours, and the assigned on-call DOCS detective is available 24/7 for consultation on domestic violence issues or concerns. There are five detectives assigned to the domestic offender crimes section within the city of Edmonton.

With regard to advocacy and intervention initiatives, the Edmonton Police Service and the City of Edmonton community services department have established intervention details to provide services to individuals involved in domestic violence. The details comprise a divisional constable and a registered social worker. The details are responsible for the review and assessment of intimate partner domestic violence cases. Registered social workers assigned to the details may perform a risk assessment on selected cases. Intervention is tailored to meet the individual needs of the victim and/or offender of domestic violence. Intervention may include further investigative strategies addressing issues or concerns not highlighted in the original investigative report; developing a comprehensive safety plan with the victim and proactively working with other divisional members, victims services unit, and other community agencies in an effort to provide appropriate responses to cases of intimate partner domestic violence. There are five domestic violence intervention teams that work under the domestic offender crimes section.

Decisions to provide intervention may be based on but not limited to the following risk-enhancing factors: incidents involving repeat calls for service relating to couples in an intimate partner relationship; reports of domestic violence where no charges have been laid; and domestic violence cases where a common assault or assault causing bodily harm with or without a weapon charge has been laid; or in any of the above situations where children are present and exposed to domestic violence; cultural sensitivity issues, patterns of violence or abuse, including threats that appear to be escalating; financial strain; addictions and/or other stress factors; and the age of the victim or offender is under 21 years of age.

Public education is provided by the domestic violence intervention team members to a variety of professionals in agencies, services, and institutions. These include hospitals, post-secondary programs, schools, ethnic associations, churches, neighbourhood groups, business groups, and others.

The domestic violence docket court is a team that we also have within our section, and it is comprised of a constable and a City of Edmonton social worker. They attend domestic violence docket court daily in Edmonton. In consultation with the assigned crown prosecutors, the teams will review cases and perform the following duties: interview victims, the accused, family members, defence counsel, and other community agencies; assess concerns regarding family dynamics, release conditions, and counselling services, which may be required for the victim and/or accused; make appropriate risk-reducing recommendations regarding the victim, release conditions, and any other variances in previous court orders; follow up with other assisting agencies and coordinate plans for family reconciliation and safety.

Under our section we also have the elder abuse intervention team. That team is comprised of a constable from the Edmonton Police Service, a social worker from the City of Edmonton community services department, a Victorian Order of Nurses nurse, and Catholic Social Services. The team is responsible for assessing information from investigative reports about elderly adults aged 65 years of age and older to determine if they are in an abusive situation or care, and if required, provide intervention.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Dona Cadman]

Could you please wrap it up very quickly?

[S/Sgt Mike Bartkus]

Certainly.

In closing, I'd like to say that the Edmonton Police Service obviously takes domestic violence cases very seriously. We work with the community collectively to end the cycle of violence against women.

Thank you.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Dona Cadman]

Thank you.

Now we have Josie Nepinak from The Awo Taan Healing Lodge in Calgary.

[Josie Nepinak, Executive Director, Awo Taan Healing Lodge Society]

I'm from the Awo Taan Healing Lodge in Calgary, a 27-bed emergency shelter for abused women and children. We provide a broad continuum of support services guided by aboriginal traditional teachings—including prevention, intervention, and healing—to anyone affected by any form of violence.

There are two components to our program. First, we have the residential program, which is a 27-bed, full-service emergency shelter. We operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We have a 24-hour crisis line. We provide emergency health care—we have a nurse practitioner on board with us—as well as health intervention. We provide a child support program, transportation and meals, and cultural and elder support.

In our non-residential programs we provide outreach. Outreach is for moms and children who have left the shelter and are transitioning back into the community for healthier, violence-free lives. We provide a youth and family program. This is an early intervention program for our youth and pre-teens, which looks at healthy relationships, including dating relationships. We have an anti-bullying program with our partner school, Piitoayis Family School. We have a triple-P parenting program. We have healing and peer support circles for women, men, and children. We have a cultural enrichment program, as well as an elder support program.

We all know that the extent of violence against aboriginal women is huge. I took this quote from Dr. James Waldram to further enhance this point:

Among the most serious health problems affecting Aboriginal people in the decades since the end of the Second World War...are injuries sustained as a result of accidents and violence.

As for a definition of family violence, I wanted to bring it from a historical perspective to contextualize the reality of aboriginal women today. Family violence is a consequence of colonization, forced assimilation, and cultural genocide, the learned negative multi-generational actions, values, beliefs, attitudes, and behavioural patterns practised to weaken the aboriginal people.

In 2001 there were just under half a million aboriginal women in Canada, representing 3% of the total female population. I won't go into the statistics because we've already heard some of those.

One of the other points I wanted to make is that a research project by the Canada West Foundation stated that more aboriginal people live in urban centres than on reserves, especially in western Canada. Two-thirds of urban aboriginal people live in western Canada, primarily in Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver.

I won't talk about the various barriers faced by aboriginal women. Rather, I will move on to the Awo Taan Healing Lodge and the composition of our clients coming in. In the past 10 years, we have served 2,500 women in the emergency shelter alone; that's not counting our other programs, which I mentioned earlier. Our statistics show that approximately 50% of the women coming in have been first nations women. What that means is that the burden of the service needs of first nations and aboriginal women coming into the city is on some of our aboriginal organizations. There is a need to increase support and funding for our agencies.

In the province of Alberta, from March 2009 to March 31, 2010, Alberta domestic violence centres, including Awo Taan, accommodated 6,169 women and 5,601 children provincially. That's among 43 emergency shelters in the province of Alberta.

In that same year, the shelters were unable to accommodate 10,364 women and 6,474 children. We know for sure, from the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters' statistics, that 67% of the women entering emergency shelters in this province are aboriginal women.

I just gave you the number of the women and children that we've turned away. We think approximately 17,000 people were turned away in Alberta, and 67% of those are aboriginal women and children. What does that mean? What about the women who are not accessing shelters? Where is their safety? Where are their cultural supports? Where are their healing places to go to?

We are severely lacking supports and services for aboriginal women in this province, and I'm sure across the country as well. Our statistics indicate that the rural and urban migration is increasing at a rapid rate, yet the dollars are not matching the needs for service. Therefore, we can assume from these numbers that thousands of aboriginal women in this province are not receiving the care, the intervention, and the safety required to live violent-free lives in this province.

My recommendation from the Awo Taan Healing Lodge, based on the 20 years of service that we have put into advocacy for aboriginal women, is to develop a comprehensive strategy to develop a research agenda for aboriginal women and children. This would take a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach to the issue of violence against aboriginal women.

Thank you.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Dona Cadman]

Thank you very much, Josie.

We now have the Métis Child and Family Services Society, with Donald Langford and Kari Thomason.

Who is going to speak?

[Donald Langford, Executive Director, Métis Child and Family Services Society]

I will, Chair.

Good morning. I am the executive director of the Métis Child and Family Services Society in Edmonton. Our agency delivers 10 community programs to the citizens of this city, specifically to the aboriginal community.

Violence against aboriginal women begins at an early age. We deliver 10 programs. I'll speak about five of those programs because they affect violence, certainly family violence and violence against individuals at all levels.

We look after the aboriginal family violence program in Edmonton. Kari is one of the outreach workers. She also works with our SNUG and community outreach program on the street. In that program we have currently more than 430 women on our database, working girls. We try to provide the best support we can to them.

We also work with the protection of sexually exploited children—this program was formerly called protection of children involved in prostitution—and we've been involved in this program since 1998. Unfortunately, many of these girls, who we started working with at ages 14, 15, and 16, are now adults of 24, 25, and 26 who are on the street and can't exit that lifestyle.

Our aboriginal child and family support program provides in-home family services, and we've been doing this for about 25 years.

The other program we deliver is foster care. That's the most troubling one in our community right now because 65% of the children in care in this province are aboriginal.

We also deliver what I call the Choices school program, where we hope to keep our children in school and make life a little easier for them. We have five registered social workers working in five public junior high schools.

Each of our programs deals with the different issues and allows us to work with all groups in the community that experience instances of violence, from the girls on the street to moms and children in the family as well as children and youth in the schools and the community. In the last 21 months we've served more than 700 families that have experienced issues of family violence of one kind or another. We've documented 745 cases of physical abuse, 253 cases of sexual abuse, as well as financial abuse and spiritual abuse. Also, more than 200 of our girls on the streets have experienced physical abuse and beatings in the last two years. In fact, in the last two days—that's why we're running a little bit late—we've been conducting a street outreach program with our partners from the city police, and seven of the girls who were brought in that we had interviewed and tried to provide some support to had reported bad dates where they'd been beaten. The strange part was that only one chose to lay charges and report the incident. And I think it took Kari some time just to convince her that maybe she should report it, because not only was she beaten but she was cut up.

Last year we did a research project funded by Public Safety and interviewed more than 309 working girls. Our findings on that really didn't surprise us. We found that they were all abused at a young age by a family member or friend. Currently, all are abusing drugs. They said that it was these two factors that really allowed them to be coerced or forced or persuaded to do the life on the streets.

We have provided support and help to all of these individuals as best we can over the past 25 years. Unfortunately, it's not getting any better. There's lots of work and lots of support that needs to be done in this field and there's lots of opportunity at the front line. Unfortunately, there are lots of people who want to advocate for our community. They like to meet, they like to talk, they like to plan, but it doesn't appear that they want to get down and actually do the front-line work. I find this frustrating as a member of our community because resources and funding are very limited.

Not a day goes by that we don't have some individual who has been beaten, has had her house ripped up, and has had her possessions taken. Then she has to go back to try to find support or help within the community.

We commend the city police, because they have worked very diligently with all of our units and agencies in the city, but we need other supports. For example, if you're given a move or they help you move and relocate, you can only do that once.

I had a case last week where a women's mate had come in, beaten her up, thrown her out, smashed up her house, and left the water running. We tried to get her relocated, but because she had already had one relocation three years ago they would not consider it again.

Those are some of the issues that affect our community, and they're not getting any better.

We're prepared to answer questions later on.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Dona Cadman]

Thank you very much.

Madam Jo-Anne Hansen is going to entertain us, I believe.

[Jo-Anne Hansen, Representative, Little Warriors]

That's my job, hey?

My name is Jo-Anne Hansen. I'm a registered social worker and I own a little company called The Spirit of Healing. I'm here to represent Little Warriors. Little Warriors is an organization that's pretty new, and it's to support victims of sexual abuse.

I'm from northern Alberta. My father was Carl Frank Hansen-Halcrow, and my grandmother was Sarah Halcrow. I'm passionate about this work because of where she came from. My grandmother married my grandfather when she was very young, 16 years old, when she was stripped of her treaty status. She was beaten pretty much until she died at 47 years old. I'm here to represent my heritage. I'm first nations, Métis, myself.

Seven minutes isn't very long, so I have only two things to address that I've learned from my counselling with residential school victims--because that's what I do. One is codependency. Codependency is the key and probably worst effect of residential schools, because children were forced to keep the peace just to survive. It doesn't surprise me that there's so much abuse in aboriginal communities because of that. The other key that's important is bullying. I learned a long time ago that the only way to protect yourself against others is to know yourself well enough so that others can't use you against yourself.

I wanted to make an impact from a traditional perspective using my music, so I wrote this song to address that. There will be little bits and pieces where you'll see that I imagine my grandmother being beaten and then trying to figure out how she was going to survive the next day. I wrote this song for that.

Bear with me. I've never done this before in public--not this way, anyway. But it's very important to me, so I'll take a few chances and see what happens:

In the night after I wake up,
And feel the teardrops in my eyes,
For a moment I am startled,
What's in dreams that made me cry?
So I crash through the shadows,
Stumble through the empty halls
Turn the radio on softly
I want to make sense of it all.
Call into the night, hear the voices.
Hurting image on the wall.
Each is my memories, echoing I am nothing at all.
The images are scaring me, like I have no control.
Don't forget they are just shadows; they don't have any power at all!
So I crash through the shadows,
Stumble through the empty halls
Try to find a warm steady heart beat,
In the cold, steel concrete walls
The steel guitar is screaming
Stings the center of my soul
Overwhelmed that I am not dreaming, fighting my way to stand up tall.
The struggle is drowning a voice of reason;
The tears are me believing
That all this is me! “Realizing,” that it “Really, isn't me, at all!!!”
So I crash through the shadows,
Stumble through the empty halls
Turn the radio on softly
I want to make sense of it all.
Then the voice starts with humming, harmony to my soul
Resonating a common moment as she takes my hand in her palm.
Saying, “It's not your home, not your friends nor your lover,
The truth is it's in your song.”
“We all need a little help.
When our walk feels like a crawl!!!”
I'm not crazy, I am healing and can rise above despair!
This is real and I'm not dreaming!
The truth is, “I really care!”
I'm not crazy, I am healing and can rise above despair!
The tears are real, and I'm not dreaming
The truth is, “I really care!”

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Dona Cadman]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to questions now. It will be a seven-minute round, starting with Ms. Neville from the Liberals.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you all very much for being here this morning. We've been travelling the country with this committee, and I think all of us have been quite overwhelmed by what we've heard. We're realizing that what we have taken on is significantly more than we might have anticipated.

Ms. Hansen, thank you. This morning you captured something in your song that other words have not been able to bring together. Thank you very much.

I'm not sure quite where to begin; I have lots of questions.

Ms. Nepinak, you indicated that you have a number of statistics that you aren't going to read into the record. Will you ensure that our clerk gets them so we have them for the report and the discussions that will follow? That will be very helpful, thank you.

[Josie Nepinak]

Absolutely.

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

I want to start with the police. I hope I won't be rude; I don't mean to be.

We have been hearing almost everywhere we've gone about the systemic racism of institutions in dealing with aboriginal women--their fear of going to the police, non-aboriginal organizations, and social service organizations for help.

One community I was in--not the committee--told me that their women did not feel they had any protection from their police force. From what you've presented today, you're clearly making an effort. You have a comprehensive outline of programs and activities.

What are you doing differently? Would you say that there are people who will not come to you because of fear of racism? If so, how are you dealing with that?

I'm not sure of the question to ask. I want to know what you're doing, because on paper you seem to have a lot going on.

[S/Sgt Mike Bartkus]

Yes, we recognize this as being an issue, and that's what keeps us going.

We prepared an environmental scan for the Edmonton Police Service in 2010 and recognized some of the Canadian Centre for Justice statistics. It's quite appalling in terms of what is actually happening out there. We had 6,500 cases of domestic violence that we responded to as an organization last year. We're well aware of the issues--

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

What portion of those, Staff Sergeant, were aboriginal women? Do you keep those statistics?

[S/Sgt Mike Bartkus]

That's why I brought Nancy along: in case somebody asks a statistics question. Nancy can probably fill you in on where we sit with that. Just so you understand, because we are so focused on working with the community and in partnership, we see the success of collaboration. An example is working in communities such as CIAFV--Community Initiatives Against Family Violence--which includes 99 community victim-servicing linking agencies within the greater Edmonton area. We're a proud member of that organization, and we work on a regular basis with different groups to address the issues surrounding marginalized women in our community. Today Family Violence Help Centre is a co-located facility that we're in membership with as well. That's for drop-ins, for people who don't want to go to the police organization.

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

Did you say “co-located”?

[S/Sgt Mike Bartkus]

It's a co-located facility, and it's called the Today Family Violence Help Centre. Again, we're a part of that. Social services is a part of that. A number of other community agencies come together. It's in the downtown core, and it takes walk-ins. It does referrals. There are phone numbers of people to contact if they don't want to deal with a policing agency per se from the beginning of when they want to tell their stories.

Nancy, maybe you could talk a little about the reasons we can't bring you stats in terms of....

[Nancy Leake, Criminal Intelligence Analyst, Serious Crimes Branch, Edmonton Police Service]

Right now the Edmonton Police Service is not mandated to collect race information when they're filling out a police report, so in 2010 only 13% of all police-related occurrences had a race populated for at least one person involved in the incident. We do collect race information for people involved in hate/bias crimes, but because we're not mandated to collect the information, it is very sparsely populated in our record management system. When race does exist in a person record, we do not have a way of knowing whether the person self-reported to the police officer at the time of the incident what race they were identifying with or whether the officer used visual characteristics and his or her own opinion to populate the race information. So without knowing how the race information got entered and without being mandated to collect that information for every person involved in a police occurrence, we do not have the capability at this time to report any statistics on the percentage of aboriginal women who are victimized by domestic violence.

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

Do I have time?

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Dona Cadman]

You have about 40 seconds.

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

I'll continue with the police for a minute.

Do you have a significant number of aboriginal officers?

[S/Sgt Mike Bartkus]

Actually, we do. One of my best friends is an inspector with the Edmonton Police Service. He's actually my neighbour. He is the driving force behind some of the initiatives that we're attempting in our organization as we speak.

Demographically, most of my section is made up of females. On my domestic violence intervention team, one female social worker and one female constable are aboriginal. We pride ourselves on having that connection, and it's always in the back of our minds in terms of improving that situation as well.

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

Do you share best practices--