Status of Women Committee on Feb. 17th, 2011

[Gail Mitchell]

Indian and Northern Affairs, through its social programs, does provide support to communities and we do fund a program related to prevention of violence against women. We can provide a more detailed response to that question.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Okay. It was my understanding that the shelter itself had to cover the costs, which meant they were taking money out of programming to make sure these women were able to get in and out of their communities.

Also, in some cases, the reality was that a woman would leave more than once. She'd go home, desperately looking to be with her children, and find that nothing had changed, that the abuse was still there, and that she had to return to the urban centre.

One of the things that troubles me very much about the homelessness partnering strategy is its temporary nature, the ad hoc nature of it. It's funded now, am I correct, to March 31, 2012?

[A voice]

To 2014.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

To 2014? But once that date passes, then we're back to, “Is that money going to be there or not?” This must be very frustrating for you for planning things and to put in place something substantive that will make a difference over the long term. As we've heard, we're seven generations behind.

[Barbara Lawless]

Well, I think what I can say to that is that the commitment was made back in 2008 and was a five-year commitment to address homelessness issues. It was the first time that we had received that length of support. It was a five-year commitment at that time. I think that is significant. We have just had the strategy renewed until March 31, 2014.

We did consultations with a number of community stakeholders and provinces and territories across the country in 2009 to determine whether or not the approach we were taking, which is essentially the community-based approach, was the best approach. It was almost unanimous that taking a community-based approach to address the issue of homelessness is a very strong approach, and it was even recognized as a best practice by the United Nations. So in terms of the approach, definitely, and I think the significant investment of five years of funding, which was the first time they received that amount of funding in any one block, was significant.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Okay.

Certainly a community-based approach is very important, but wouldn't core funding, funding you could depend on, help to build the capacity within communities and also ensure that the housing was going to be there? We could rely on incremental new housing.

[Barbara Lawless]

Well, I think the other interesting thing that's happened in the last couple of years is that you do see provinces and territories doing a lot more around homelessness and housing. In the last couple of years, seven provinces and territories have announced a housing strategy or a housing and homelessness strategy. I think that's significant, because it's not just one level of government or one NGO out there that can solve the problem. I think it does take a very collaborative approach.

I think the approach we take under the homelessness partnering strategy is successful. For every dollar we invest, roughly about $2.31 is invested from other resources, so that allows us to leverage additional funding, and I think that is significant.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Yes. I understand that the need for other—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Mathyssen.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I thought I could sneak one in there.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm going to get a buzzer that's going to go off for everybody.

Thank you.

We have to go in camera in about five minutes, and we do not, therefore, have time for another round. Sometimes we do and sometimes we don't. We don't have time for another round, but as chair I'm allowed to ask questions occasionally, and I want to ask some questions today. I haven't had an opportunity because of lack of time during the last few times we have had witnesses.

Something that concerns me is that wherever I go, I hear the same problem, and I also find that it's not being answered to my satisfaction. I still don't get it.

INAC is responsible for aboriginal people. This is a fiduciary responsibility of the federal government. Therefore, if anybody is going to help aboriginal people on reserve, whether it is with regard to housing, health care, education, or training—you name it—it's going to have to be INAC, working, of course, with partners within the federal government. But it is the federal government's fiduciary responsibility, so I fail to understand why it is that this is not happening appropriately on reserve.

But secondly, I understand that off reserve—and I hear that three-quarters of aboriginal people leave and go off reserve—once aboriginal people get into the cities and off reserve, they are abandoned by INAC to the other levels of government.

I know that you give money to other levels of government, but are there no criteria? Do you not say, when you give money to the other levels of government, that every time you send them money, it's going to be for shelters, for transition housing, for housing for aboriginal people...? That's what your money is coming for: it's for aboriginal people and not for use by anybody else.

We find that the problem for women—and I think Mr. Lanigan said it well—is housing, housing, housing. You know: “It's housing, stupid.” That's the sort of bottom line I'm hearing: it's a first thing. We see and we've heard, and it has been very difficult for all of us—I'd like to think that I speak for everyone here, regardless of party, and that this is a non-partisan issue now for us—that aboriginal women leave the reserve because they don't have safe places to go to escape domestic violence.

So they come into the city, and when they get into the city, they don't have any access either to shelters—or if they do, it's very temporary—or to a place to live. They are given money that is welfare from social assistance, which is, in many instances, $1,000 or $950, depending on the province, and they're expected to look after the kids they've brought out of the abusive home. They're expected to find housing and feed and clothe their kids with money that is not sufficient. So their kids are apprehended, taken away, and given to non-aboriginal families to adopt, who then get $2,500 to look after two children.

Now, if this is not discrimination—and blatant, systemic, institutional discrimination—against aboriginal women, I don't know what is. I'm not blaming here...I'm just saying that it's a fact we heard and it astounds me. I don't understand why it's happening and why it is that the federal government does not believe it has a duty to ensure that aboriginal women escaping violent situations off reserve are given the same amount of money to look after their kids that a non-aboriginal family is given. That is certainly fair, equitable, and reasonable.

Can you explain it to me? I don't get it.

Ms. Mitchell, we'll start with you.

[Gail Mitchell]

Thank you.

I'm not sure that I can fully explain it, but I will take into account—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Do you think it's explicable?

[Gail Mitchell]

Well, I guess the issue of INAC's responsibility vis-à-vis aboriginal people really derives from class 24 in section 91 of the Constitution. That also links back to the question of where communities are: the land base. The issue of access to the appropriate types of support in urban centres really becomes a matter of provincial jurisdiction related to the provision of social housing and support or community-level support. Can we do a better job of coordinating efforts? Absolutely. I don't think there's any question that we can do a better job.

When it comes to housing on reserve, the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs has provided financial support to enable the community level—we've talked a bit about community-level decision-making—to provide housing to members.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm talking about being off reserve, Ms. Mitchell. I just want to focus on off reserve.

Every time we ask this question, we're told that it's not our problem, it's the provinces, we give them money.... Don't you have criteria? Don't you have strings attached to that money? Isn't it clear? The money is obviously insufficient.

[Sharon Matthews]

Maybe I can speak to this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Yes, Ms. Matthews. Please, somebody help me here.

[Sharon Matthews]

I don't have the answer either, to be clear, but in terms of setting the federal parameters, certainly with all of the funding the federal government puts on the table through CMHC--and it's not insignificant, there's a lot of money on the table--

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Sure.

[Sharon Matthews]

--there are agreements with all the provinces and territories. We've arranged it such that they design and deliver those programs.

You sort of ask why we don't set parameters that say “thou shalt” do this or that. We do have some of those “thou shalts”. They are not this client group versus that client group; they are how many federal dollars there are per unit, for example, or “yes, we're open to energy efficiency”. There is accountability in terms of reporting and understanding what you're doing with the funds within that global framework.

But the real reason, frankly, that we don't set a “thou shalt serve this client group in this particular circumstance” to the degree we would have done, say, 20 years ago, is that the relationship is different. We partner with the provinces and territories. They come to the table. For every dollar we come to the table with, they come to the table with a dollar, and they're working to the degree they can to bring it to being as local as they can.

As we've heard others say in the room, the local community—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

But you're speaking about housing in general. I asked INAC because I think that INAC has a responsibility for aboriginal housing money and for anything that goes to aboriginal people.

I think my question is.... It is so inequitable. I mean, how can you compare $1,000 with $2,500 for non-aboriginal families? It is institutionalized discrimination when the institutions of government are not ensuring equitability in making sure that aboriginal women have the same opportunities to look after their children that other people have for looking after aboriginal children.

I know that all of us have questioned this. I still don't get an answer. I still don't have an answer and I really don't know why I don't have an answer or why we can't get an answer for this. It's been going on for a very long time now. This is not news. This is not something that just happened the other day. One of the things we have a problem with as a committee is understanding this institutionalized discrimination against aboriginal people.

Mr. Hill.

[Charles Hill]

I can't answer the question specifically, but I have my suspicions. It harks back to the efforts that have been made over hundreds of years to eradicate us as a people, first through confining us in the concentration camps they call reserves and expecting us to die off. There were only 192,000 people left in the late 1800s.

That mentality of doing away with the Indian problem still exists at the higher levels of government. That is the sad part of it. The efforts that are going on right now are intended to make us assimilate rather than help us get back on our feet. If you assimilate us, then the Indian problem is gone. This is unacceptable to us as nations, as aboriginal people. I think that is the reason that there's a continued drive to—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Mr. Hill, I'm sorry, but I've just gone over my own time. Everybody should smack me across the wrist for it.

[Charles Hill]

That's all right. I'll forgive you.