Status of Women Committee on Feb. 17th, 2011

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

That's not the same thing. I would like to talk about a situation which shocked me and deeply affected me.

In Iqaluit, there is a shelter for women which covers all of Nunavut. Unfortunately, there is no transition house. As a result, the women have to stay in the shelter as long as possible because they cannot go home again. I remember one situation in particular involving a young girl of 15. Every day, she went to see someone at the school to ask that her mother not be allowed to leave the shelter because her stepfather would kill her if she went home again. Her mother had already exceeded the length of time she was allowed to stay at the shelter, and there was no transition house in Iqaluit. There still is none.

Ms. Matthews, you said that money could be spent on second-stage housing. How can we access those funds? It's not right for people to experience those kinds of situations.

[Sharon Matthews]

As I said, we have a number of programs that various community members can access.

Off reserve, the majority of the funding that the federal government puts to housing is delivered through the provinces and territories. Through the affordable housing initiative, in any community, a group could approach the province. The benefit of the way the federal government does this by partnering with the provinces is that the provincial government matches every dollar the federal government puts in. That means the trade-off is that the provinces and territories are making those decisions on the affordable housing money, on whether it's going to transitional housing or to new social housing stock. They're making those local and regional trade-offs.

On reserve, another example would be the shelter enhancement program. That is funded out of an overall budget envelope that we use for our renovation programs on reserve, and we work through liaison committees. We have a national liaison committee, with the AFN at the table, to do a national allocation across the country.

We then work with regional committees as well, which involve various members of the aboriginal community, and then the funding eventually gets allocated down to the level of how much money is going to a particular first nation. That first nation will then take a look at that renovation funding, for example, and decide how much it wants to put to a shelter through the shelter enhancement program, or perhaps they're going to spend the money to renovate a different type of housing, so--

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

So, if I understood correctly, the groups looking after these women cannot access the funding.

Ms. Lawless, you talked about a program in Onion Lake, which enables 27 members of the community to get training in carpentry and in the operation of heavy machinery.

Ms. Mitchell, do these people have access—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Excuse me, Madame Demers. Can we just stop for a second?

I think Ms. Lawless is having a problem with the translation.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

In any case, I was mistaken. My question was for Ms. Mitchell.

Were these people able to get work? Did they eventually get jobs?

[Gail Mitchell]

Yes. It is a very small program, but until now, it has enabled women to find work.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Could this program be implemented elsewhere?

[Gail Mitchell]

We hope so. But the issue is always finding partners who are willing to adopt this kind of program. Of course, we also need to find the funding. Regardless, we found that this program was really a success.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Ms. Lawless, you said that since 2007, 57 projects totalling a little more than 27 million dollars are funded—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Madame Demers, while we're waiting for the technical problem to be solved, would you like to have Monsieur Barriault answer your question about second-stage housing in Iqaluit, since that's where he is based and he knows about the housing there?

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

I know what the answer is as far as Iqaluit is concerned. It's because they cannot tax their own residents. I was hoping to get an answer to this question, but none was forthcoming.

Of the 57 programs which were funded by your organization, through three funding streams totaling over 27 million dollars, how many targeted aboriginal women only? How many targeted the needs of aboriginal women who were homeless because they had been victims of violence? Where were these programs operating and how effective were they?

[Barbara Lawless]

Merci de la question.

First and foremost, what I do want to say is that under the homelessness partnering strategy we do take a very community-based approach. The funding does go to communities and they identify the priorities they want to address on homelessness and the projects they want to support to address those priorities.

In terms of the numbers I've mentioned, there are generally two types of projects we will fund. One is related to capital investment projects, which could be renovations of shelters or the creation of a new shelter or transitional housing with support, or it could be projects that simply deliver support services to aboriginal women.

So on the numbers I quoted to you, the $27 million, that did represent 57 projects that were serving aboriginal women exclusively. That included capital facilities as well as support and prevention services across the country. Specifically, of that, 21 of those capital projects of approximately $7.9 million were invested exclusively for aboriginal women experiencing domestic violence. Projects through that amount of investment are expected to create an additional 142 beds.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Can you send us a list of these projects?

[Barbara Lawless]

Yes, I can give you the list.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Madame Demers, I think your time has run out. Thank you very much.

As Mr. Boughen is not here, we'll hear from Ms. Cadman for the Conservatives.

Go ahead.

[Dona Cadman, Conservative, Surrey North, BC]

Ms. Lawless, how long have you been on the job?

[Barbara Lawless]

About a year.

[Dona Cadman, Conservative, Surrey North, BC]

Ms. Mitchell?

[Gail Mitchell]

I've been in this job for two and a half years.

[Dona Cadman, Conservative, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you.

I would like to ask you a question, Mr. Hill. I'm not picking on you, but you're in the group I'm interested in. It seems that we have a problem in that there aren't enough safe houses and wellness centres for the women who need them.

Your people say that it takes seven generations to see change. We've had the residential schools. You're going on with that.... Is there an influx in abuse to aboriginal women? Have you seen that? Is there a rise in it? Have you noticed it? Or is there a rise? Is it just the same?

[Charles Hill]

That's a very hard question to answer.

[Dona Cadman, Conservative, Surrey North, BC]

I don't mean to pick on you or--

[Charles Hill]

I know. I didn't say you were picking on me--

[Voices]

Oh, oh!