Status of Women Committee on Jan. 21st, 2011

[C/Supt Mike Sekela]

The Calgary Police Service has come up recently, in my understanding. Again, you will appreciate that I have been gone for 9 months...14 months to the Olympics, and now in Manitoba. However, I checked with them. The Calgary Police Service is interested and has come up, and they have observed how we do this Pro Active registry. Have they started yet? I can't comment on that.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Ms. Dzus, you have told us that the time has come for action and I believe you. That is true. Exactly what kind of action do you want?

[Suzanne Dzus]

When I look at what needs to occur within the Treaty 7 area or within the province of Alberta for us to see a difference, and the fact that we have a huge number of women who choose not to engage with the police at all...there needs to be trust built and it has to come from the top; it has to. I don't know how else to put it without saying that it needs to be mandated.

When I talk to aboriginal women and people who are employed by the Calgary city police, I hear consistently that there is a huge piece of racism involved within that organization that goes to the top of that organization. There are people who are employed by them who say that if they raise a stink, they are told very clearly that they will be at the bottom of the ladder very, very soon. They have to choose whether they're going to stay employed or move forward with filing any kind of complaint against superiors about racist actions within the police force. When I see that, I know that has to change for us.

One of the other things we look at.... I talk to women and their families, and I see the impoverishment, as Jo-Anne mentioned. We have a huge number of aboriginal women living in urban centres who have no idea how to access services. There may be services there, but they're not accessible for them. If they don't know they're there, then they're absolutely useless, and that is huge. So the services need to be appropriate.

We're looking at healing these women. Between the residential schools and the sixties scoop, which was the apprehension of children, which removed children permanently from their homes...again, I look at the destruction of family circuits. You're destroying the family units. Without support, those families can never grow. They can never become whole and healthy again.

I look at the family from which I came, and it is so fractured. It is so fractured. I have eight aunts. Every one of my aunts was raped, more than once, and it was okay because it happens to everybody. Really? Does it need to? When we talk about those kinds of acceptable numbers.... My daughter is 15, and if I have my way she will never be raped, ever, because it's not acceptable, and that's what I'm asking from you, that those pieces of violence are no longer acceptable.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Dona Cadman]

Thank you.

Next is Ms. Grewal. You have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

After sitting here...I don't know where to start and where to end. I'm listening to your stories and I feel the pain. No human being should be living in fear. Violence against aboriginal women is a very serious issue, and I think serious attention needs to be given to this issue.

Let me reassure you that our government considers ending violence against aboriginal women a top priority. We're dealing with an issue, however, that's a shared responsibility among all levels of government, whether it's the police, whether it's the justice system, whether it's aboriginal peoples, or whether it's civil society as a whole.

Our committee has previously heard about the need to address this issue of jurisdiction and whose responsibility it is to provide services. I think it is important that the federal government articulate a vision for all Canadians and that it establish guiding principles that will aid all players in dealing with this very terrible problem.

I have a question for each one of you: what suggestions can you offer for helping government deal with violence against aboriginal women?

Let's start with Jo-Anne.

[Dr. Jo-Anne Fiske]

Thank you.

I think this is really important, and I want to speak to the position of the police as an example. I want to remind the committee that they are not the only example, but they are here today, and we tend to emphasize who is amongst us.

To my mind, no matter how hard Mike works to address the issues throughout the ranks of the RCMP, he is not going to be successful if in fact the character and behaviour that he is asking of his members is so contrary to the public behaviour and the socialization in which those members must work. When they end up in the small communities in northern British Columbia, they are going to be lonely if they cannot socialize with the dominant community around them. And when the dominant community around them is downright racist, discriminatory, and contemptible of aboriginal women, it is extremely hard for those individuals, who are posted there for only short periods of time, to walk a line between those communities.

So what can the government do? I think first of all the government has to have a very strong education campaign on the human rights of aboriginal women. It needs to carry forth a very strong campaign such as the excellent example we just heard of, the streets of angels, but a campaign that goes beyond that to address the serious problems of bias and prejudice and vulnerability, recognizing that aboriginal women are citizens who contribute and who deserve the full protection of all levels of government.

I would not be so despairing if my research showed only the police as carrying this dilemma, but it is every level of government. Every little piece of work I do in education--gambling research, health research, etc.--shows that the same problems run right through. Aboriginal women are discredited at every level: their citizenship is denied. Public education programs are needed.

I think government members need to speak out every time we see the media carrying the lurid conversations it does about sex trade workers. This immediacy of listing mothers, grandmothers, aunties, and daughters as sex trade workers or people at risk--it's got to stop. The minute that taint comes out, there's a huge public reaction that these women got killed because they deserved to be.

You can be on Highway 16, our Highway of Tears, very briefly, and it's palpable. As I say, my neighbours lost their child very recently, a blond Caucasian child. No word of question about the dignity and integrity of that family showed up anywhere in the press. The people who were investigating two missing aboriginal women, one who was found murdered within 24 hours of the young girl, were called off the other cases even though the arrest for the first young girl was made simultaneously to finding her body. The other two women's cases were dropped.

We need a government with a strong, consistent, absolutely repeated message at every level of every service, because it's not just the police the women are afraid of. They are afraid of the hospitals because they're afraid the hospitals will report them to the police; they're afraid of the social service workers; they're afraid of going to get a driver's licence because they're afraid something might be on their record that will take them back to the police. They live in fear because there is an intertangled domination of discrimination.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Dona Cadman]

You have a minute.

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

That's fine.

Suzanne.

[Suzanne Dzus]

I believe that Jo-Anne speaks very well and covers many pieces.

When I look at all of these pieces, I've heard stories of women who will not go into a homeless shelter because they're no longer safe. So when I listen to that, I need to know the same thing she does from the start, from the top; the message has to be clear all the way.

It's the same for me as a parent in my family, that there will be no swearing in our household. As a parent, I not only need to be a role model for that but also to enforce it. And I'm looking at the Canadian government and saying, you need to be a role model on this, so that this racism and sexism and the marginalization of aboriginal women will no longer continue. You need to be a role model for it and enforce it all the way down the line, right from you down to me—and that's it, that's how it's going to work.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Dona Cadman]

Thank you.

Now we go to the NDP and Ms. Crowder.

You have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank you all for coming.

I'm actually going to continue along Ms. Grewal's line of questioning.

I just have a quick comment first. I think most of us can talk about the endemic discrimination that is present throughout institutions—schools, hospitals, the justice system, and the social services system—and I think all of us can tell pretty terrible stories we've heard from friends, family, and loved ones about how they've been treated when they have dealt with the system.

Ms. Fiske, you started outlining some of what you see as important. It seems to me, pretty clearly, that government leadership is absolutely critical at all levels of government.

Ms. Wiberg didn't get an opportunity to respond to that.

I guess what I'm really saying is that we all acknowledge there are significant resources and support and cultural awareness that need to go toward first nations, Métis, and Inuit. I think that's agreed. It seems to me, though, that until we start dealing with the non-aboriginal community, it will be very difficult for the healing to happen, because you're still going to bump up against those institutions every day, no matter how healthy your community becomes—and people will gather strength by pushing back.

But if you were going to tell the committee the one or two things you thought were needed to deal with the non-aboriginal community, what would they be?

[April Wiberg]

Thank you.

I grew up in rural Saskatchewan, and my sister and I were the only aboriginal kids in the whole school. I think—and my sister could agree—there was a lot of racism, not just by the children at the school but the teachers. I think if there were more education from the beginning of a child's education, with more focus on aboriginal awareness, that would be a great start.

I also know that various organizations in Edmonton have talked about something like a pilot project for aboriginal victims' services. Because so many of our people are living in urban areas, I think if we had aboriginal victims' services, just to start, in each major city in Canada, it would help bridge the gap between the aboriginal community and the police services.

But when you talk about all levels of government, I think quite often we leave out our own first nations governments, and they, too, should be held accountable; the responsibility should not just be left to non-aboriginal organizations. It really has to start in the home, it has to start in the schools, and it has to start in our communities.

Thank you.

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

Ms. Dzus, before I ask you a question, I want you to continue on that from your perspective. You've already outlined some things that need to happen in terms of raising awareness. I have one brief comment. I just want to remind people that it's not all high-risk people who disappear. Part of the response from the police force has been that when an aboriginal woman disappears, she obviously is high risk. And I've had families in my office crying because their university-attending young mother has been murdered or gone missing and yet the police response was, don't worry, she's just off doing whatever it is that women do on the street. I just wanted to put that on the record.

But the thing I wanted to ask you is whether there is a zero-tolerance policy in the RCMP with regard to racism and discriminatory practices. And I mean zero tolerance.

[C/Supt Mike Sekela]

Absolutely. If there is any incidence of that nature, it is immediately and swiftly dealt with. We do have processes in place, as do all other government institutions and organizations, but again, it's not tolerated.

I'd like to go back to your first comment, if you don't mind. The definition of high risk we use involves anyone--not just aboriginal women but anyone--whose behaviour, lifestyle, or circumstances place them at high or extreme risk of being a victim of violent crime. So that's critical, and that covers off your concern in relation to the university student. An example l can give is the file of a young lady who went missing in 1982 or 1983, I believe. She was a young girl, Caucasian, coming from school. Her lifestyle didn't put her at high risk, as would, say, a sex-trade worker's lifestyle, but the behaviour did in the sense that she was walking down a highway and she disappeared. It was the circumstances and what was left behind for police to review.

All of those things are taken into consideration. I just wanted to make sure...it's not a minimizing definition and it's not.... I know language is so important in these things, so I just wanted to make sure I cleared that up. It's regardless of gender or ethnicity. It's the circumstances, behaviour, and lifestyle all combined.

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

Ms. Dzus, do you have anything else to add regarding the issue of the lack of awareness and racism in the non-aboriginal community?

[Suzanne Dzus]

I believe that if we do not engage our men at a very personal level, we are never going to get rid of this issue. Every one of those men has a mother, and if you can make these women personable, if you can bring them back to humanity in their minds, we will have this issue dealt with in no time, really.

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

When you say “engage men”, what would you specifically like to see happen?

[Suzanne Dzus]

Let's start in school. Let's start in elementary school and let's start with teaching our boys about how to respect women, all women, without giving them a race. Teach them that all women are important and that they are to be respected. If we can teach them at a young age, right from the get-go, about respecting women, we have a better chance. But if we don't engage the men, we're hooped. I can stand up against violence as long as I want.

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

Thank you, Suzanne.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Dona Cadman]

Okay. Now we go for a round of five minutes, and with this one, try to keep your answers kind of short, please.

We go to Ms. Neville first.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just sitting here trying to think which question to go with, because there are so many.

On the missing and murdered aboriginal women, Ms. Fiske, you talked about living on the Highway of Tears. I was up in Prince George last year. I've travelled very substantially, and I have worked with the women in Manitoba a fair bit. Two or three of you are involved in marches for the women.

What we haven't talked about very much is the impact on their families. When I was in Prince George I met with the Highway of Tears governing council, and there were some family members there who were profoundly eloquent in expressing their sorrow, the impact on them, and their messages to me.

What would your message be to the families who were left behind by the murdered and/or missing aboriginal women?

[Dr. Jo-Anne Fiske]

I think that first and foremost we have to look at Sisters in Spirit. We have to see what the Native Women's Association accomplished, and the walks for justice. I think all these aboriginal women's organizations need very strong funding for both research and advocacy--and I know the Native Women's Association of Canada lost their funding for that--because the families need to be able to heal, they need to be able to work with people they can trust, and they need somebody who can bridge that very weak relationship with all levels of authority.

The first thing I would do is get that funding into the hands of those community workers and back into the hands of the Native Women's Association of Canada--which has an international reputation for its accomplishments on that campaign--so that the families can feel and know that there are people there who are acting as advocates on their behalf. If they don't have that bridge, they are really cast aside. They can see little steps being taken, but those little steps disintegrate. They don't have a holistic aboriginal approach with women they can trust.

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

Thank you.

Suzanne, April, and Gloria, would you comment?

[Suzanne Dzus]

I'd like to add that I agree with Jo-Anne in her presentation of that information. I also think that it should be added to so that appropriate services in healing could be offered at the levels of the families. April mentioned looking at an aboriginal victim's services; they would be able to have support from the moment they've lost their loved one until the point that they're able to completely finish their grieving. There's so much that needs to be spoken to in terms of how that's being handled and in having someone there who is able to walk with them through that process and help them access support and services to help them through that process as well.

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

Thank you.

April and Gloria and Mike, I don't mean to be rude and pass over you. If there is time and you have a comment, I'd appreciate it.