Status of Women Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2011

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

Thank you.

We're going to have a question from Madame Boucher.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

I was listening to you just now and I think what you are telling us is very interesting. Unfortunately, as I said earlier, we are not often called upon to see the reality of aboriginal women. We are familiar with it because we are parliamentarians. But many people don't know how isolated you are.

Does the Native Women's Association of Canada work with other aboriginal organizations? Earlier, I was wondering about the missing and murdered aboriginal women. I am not necessarily talking about the police forces, but do you work with other aboriginal organizations that help you to collect these data and information?

[Katharine Irngaut]

We're the voices of families and we've come from the grassroots level. We recognize all the grassroots organizations that have come together to help us with the Sisters in Spirit movement in general. Specifically, one that instantly comes to mind is Walk4Justice out in Vancouver. Working with these organizations to bring this approach has been invaluable to the work that we've done. What we know that's isolating about our communities is the rural aspect and the infrastructure that's not there to connect us.

[Jeannette Corbiere Lavell]

I was just going to say that within a very recent time I have been able to speak to the grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations. We have agreed to work on dealing with stopping violence against aboriginal women and dealing with the missing and murdered women. So we have developed that collaborative approach on this, and it's just beginning, but we look forward to broadening that and making it work. I believe they also have a specific chief who has been assigned to work with the RCMP. That perhaps will also assist us.

[Katharine Irngaut]

I'll also just throw in that social networking sites have been invaluable to us as well. It's free. It's cheap. News travels fast in communities, so we hear pretty quickly when events are happening in the communities that we would need to add to our database.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

We're at three minutes. I'm so sorry.

Madam Demers, please, you have three minutes.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

During the time Sisters In Spirit compiled information for your database, from 2005 to 2010 that is, you provided us with an outstanding report on over 500 missing and murdered women.

The Vancouver RCMP did a similar study and created a database on the aboriginal women that disappeared along the highway of tears. That's just 18 cases. And it was done with resources far more substantial than those of Sisters In Spirit and with amounts of money much larger than what Sisters In Spirit had.

How do you explain the fact that now you no longer receive the support to keep your database going, that you cannot continue to update and maintain it if you don't have the money to do so? And this database is so crucial to shedding light on the truth and finding out what is going on.

[Katharine Irngaut]

Yes, I think it's the fact that we're not considered direct service delivery providers, and we're not actually conducting investigations into these cases. We're only cataloguing in a kind of survey the cases that have happened. We do talk with family members and potentially talk with the police officer who is assigned to the case, but we have no power to influence how investigations get started in that method.

I am happy to say that when we did work with the Manitoba action group, we were in touch with one of the key starters of the Highway of Tears. He is also very passionate about data and is encouraging of our database, because we want to do this sharing of information.

I think the simpliest explanation I can give is this. One, we're not funded for research, and that is out of our control; two, we're not direct service delivery providers, although I think some experts in victim services could counteract that and say that we are, through the work we've done with families in bringing them together. That is a service in a way, but we're not collecting money in the sense of direct services to families.

[Jeannette Corbiere Lavell]

I would like to add that we have provincial and territorial member organizations in every province, which would have that opportunity and the mandate to work with the various police forces. We would be the conduit to get to these organizations.

Talking about the Highway of Tears, we have women's organizations in British Columbia; if they were working with the RCMP and were provided the resources and funding, obviously they would work much better, and you could take that right across Canada.

In Ontario, the Ontario Native Women's Association has been working on stopping violence for about five years now. They've been doing excellent work in education, awareness, and dealing at the community level, to work with the men in our communities.

There is a program with another of their collaborators through the Indian friendship centres called “Being a Good Man”--someone was asking if there were any programs. So there are programs available. They're at the provincial level and not at the federal level, but it is happening.

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

I appreciate that.

It's very clear that NWAC has an important role to play, but the criteria seem to exclude you. Would core funding be important in terms of the work you do and the resolution you seek?

[Katharine Irngaut]

For sure. I think the project money doesn't allow for the gap between when projects are sealed and a contribution agreement. Core funding is important to help organizations be able to support each project during those overlap phases. I think a perfect storm could be every three years when people are having to reapply or renew funding in that sense.

The core funding that we have is a holistic look at how we want to do our work. I'm a person, I need a computer, I need to work in an office, and that's how I conduct the work that's needed to have the outcomes of the project fulfilled.

[Jeannette Corbiere Lavell]

If we had core funding to continue to work specifically on this, it would enable us to recreate our communications department. Right now we don't have any communications people. And that is so crucial to reaching out not only to our own women in our communities but also to all the other service providers. Our website is very minimal right now because we just don't have the personnel to deal with it in terms of communication. And even to work with government departments, we're very sparsely funded. In fact, we don't have any funds to provide this right now. But even on the basis of getting our other programs to provide it, it's fairly limited. We would really like to see that expand.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

Madame Dumont-Smith.

[Claudette Dumont-Smith]

I was just going to say that core funding allows you to plan for a longer term and to put things in place. You're better able to manage programs. You do your long-range planning. You're able to evaluate.

One thing about the evidence to action is that it is a three-year funding program. So that's good. But the core funding is a very necessary component of our organization, and we do need more. If we really want to reach and have the impact we want to have, then that is very necessary.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

Thank you very much. I want to say thank you on behalf of the committee.

Madame Corbiere Lavell, the committee had the pleasure of meeting your daughter in Thunder Bay. She is a dynamic and quite capable young woman. I see leadership there. It must be a family trait.

Thank you to members of the committee for allowing this extension of time. I think it has been very beneficial in terms of our study.

Again, thank you for being here.

[Jeannette Corbiere Lavell]

Again, we'd like to thank you for the opportunity.

I just want to say that it's too bad you didn't have the opportunity to meet my mother and grandmother, because it's our role within our community, I guess. It's a responsibility.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

It would have been our privilege and our honour. Thank you.

I believe the Conservatives have indicated they want to elect their chair on Tuesday. So we're good.

The meeting is adjourned.