Status of Women Committee on Nov. 24th, 2011

[The Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

Thank you very much.

Now I'd like to welcome Ms. Bonnie Brayton.

It's good to see you. You're no stranger to this committee, and we welcome your input.

Ms. Brayton has a brief, but it's not translated yet. As soon as it is, it will be distributed to the committee.

Ms. Brayton, you have 10 minutes. Please begin. Thank you for being here.

[Bonnie Brayton, National Executive Director, DisAbled Women's Network of Canada]

Good afternoon, everyone.

We thank the Status of Women committee for inviting us to present today in this dialogue about the impact of elder abuse on women with disabilities and deaf women in Canada. It is vital to give us meaningful ways to participate at policy tables in the decisions that affect our lives. We are grateful for this opportunity to open what we hope will be an ongoing dialogue.

As visitors to the lands of the Six Nations peoples, we thank the Haudenosaunee people for the use of their lands for us to come together today.

Today we are here to offer the expertise of our lived experience as the basis for input and collaboration to increase our opportunity for inclusive attitudes and practices for Canadian women with disabilities in their quest to be free from violence. The reality is that very little attention has been focused in Canada on the issue of abuse against older women in general, but there is an acute absence of this focus on women with disabilities and deaf women.

The federal government's Human Resources and Skills Development Canada statistics page on their elder abuse website, for example, states the importance of understanding elder abuse from a gendered perspective: “On the issue of abuse of older adults there are indications that not only age, but gender, and power and control dynamics are at play, so the entire complexity of causes and remedies needs to be considered”.

Further, it states:

Some studies indicate that spousal abuse is a significant dimension of abuse of older adults. Many scholars believe that abuse of older adults is a form of spousal abuse “grown old”. Some feminist scholars explain it as one of the consequences of family patriarchy, which is identified as one of the main sources of violence against women in society. Some scholars have questioned whether spousal abuse is ever first-time abuse in old age. The model views this power imbalance between men and women in our society as rendering women more vulnerable and open to abuse, whether they are young or old.

Not taken into account in both of these theories put forward for understanding elder abuse are disability, race, immigration status, first nations experience, etc. Most definitely, how people are valued and the amount of access they have to power in society impacts their vulnerability to abuse. All we can do at this point is talk about the devaluing of women, older women, and people with disabilities. Each layer of marginalization creates more barriers and an increased risk to abuse in our lives.

Since there is a pronounced absence of work focused on the issue of older women with disabilities and abuse, I can share with you today some of our thoughts about its prevalence and the needs for women with disabilities. Currently we are applying to Human Resources and Skills Development Canada's elder abuse call for proposals--the new horizons program--to address this absence in applied research and, thus, strategies to combat what we feel is a critical issue.

We know that people with disabilities, particularly people with intellectual disabilities, are experiencing an increased life expectancy beyond the typical mid-life. With this increasing aging population of people with disabilities comes a wide range of housing, legal, financial, caregiving, transportation, and community support and access issues, all of which have implications regarding the extent to which aging people with disabilities are safe and included in society.

[The Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

Ms. Brayton, the translators are having some difficulty. If you could just slow down a little bit, we'd appreciate it.

[Bonnie Brayton]

I'm sorry. Thank you.

The current policy framework cannot adequately provide for the support and financial needs of aging people with disabilities. This has resulted in aging people with disabilities in situations of increased vulnerability, and a lack of access to appropriate services and supports in both the disability and the seniors sector.

Research has also clearly indicated that people with disabilities, particularly women with disabilities and seniors, are more likely than others to be subjected to acts of violence and/or to live in abusive situations. Numerous national and international research studies have confirmed that people with disabilities experience violence at a much higher rate than non-disabled populations. National and international research studies conducted over the last decade confirm that women with disabilities are abused at much higher rates than women without disabilities and than men with and without disabilities.

Studies indicate that women with disabilities are sexually assaulted at a rate at least twice that of the general population of women. The rate for women with intellectual disabilities and deaf women is even higher than for other women with disabilities. Almost 80% of women with disabilities have experienced physical violence by their intimate partners, compared to 29% of women without disabilities.

Research affirms that sexual offence is the most common type of abuse against women with disabilities. The nature of abuse against women with disabilities and deaf women differs from that in non-disabled populations due to systemic socio-economic exclusion and a related lack of appropriate supports and services. Like seniors, for women with disabilities there is an increased dependency on others for primary care and financial support, which makes them more vulnerable to abuse.

Internationally known researcher and disability rights activist from the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre, in Alberta, Dr. Dick Sobsey, was consulted for his input into the fact-finding working group on older people with disabilities and abuse--this was in the Office for Disability Issues, in 2009-10--in which DAWN Canada was a primary participant. He identified the critical need to examine the prevalence and nature of elder abuse for people with disabilities for the primary purpose of using the information to obtain and develop tools and strategies for addressing it. Dr. Sobsey indicated that information on elder abuse and people with disabilities is grossly absent in the literature to date in Canada. He said, “This kind of research is very basic but it is badly needed in elder abuse studies.”

Developing safe and affordable housing options for older women with disabilities and assistance in the transition to independent living is an option that is preferable to residential or long-term care for seniors. It is a well-documented reality that institutional and congregated living settings for people with disabilities--particularly women--people with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities, and deaf people have been environments where abuse is widespread and ongoing. In addition, as I'm sure you have heard from other experts, elder abuse in seniors residences, long-term care facilities, and nursing homes has been identified over and over as a critical issue.

Ironically, the potential for abuse occurring in congregated or institutional settings occurs for the same reason for bringing people into such settings: the need for support with everyday living. Abuse can and does occur when other people are making decisions for the resident, where people's wishes are denied, and where attitudes and practices deny people their respect and dignity.

Older women with disabilities and deaf women are at a double disadvantage and are extremely vulnerable to abuse, with their increased need for health and social supports and different communication styles that often make it difficult to express themselves, and the lack of knowledge of how age-related conditions affect people with disabilities.

This excerpt from the Public Health Agency's “Seniors on the Margins” provides a good example of how the needs of older women with disabilities may result in increased vulnerability:

Differentiation between dementia, depression and those behaviours directly linked with the developmental disability is especially challenging, as is the difficulty the senior may have in expressing psychological problems. As well, there are few specialists with expertise in both developmental disability and psychogeriatrics.

This is the rationale behind the work of the disability movement in Canada, including the Community Living and Independent Living movements, which actively seek the inclusion of people with disabilities in living a safe and supported life in their communities, like other citizens. DAWN-RAFH Canada and the Canadian Association for Community Living have developed a national strategy that pursues this objective by implementing a local-level community development approach that operates on all levels--municipal, provincial, territorial, and federal--and in all key sectors to develop a coordinated response to addressing the issue of abuse of older people with disabilities and the elderly deaf, with DAWN focusing particularly on women.

The Government of Canada, through the federal departments of Status of Women Canada and Justice Canada, is acknowledging the critical need to address the issue of violence against people with disabilities and deaf women and has demonstrated this support by working closely with the Canadian Association of Community Living and DAWN Canada in the development of a pan-Canadian initiative entitled “Preventing and Responding to Violence in the Lives of People with Disabilities and Deaf People”.

This strategy would bring the key sectors and people with disabilities together in local communities to assist in the development of sector-specific tools and activities that will address the issue of abuse against people with disabilities. DAWN-RAFH Canada and CACL, the Canadian Association for Community Living, came together earlier this year, with support from the Canadian Women's Foundation, because of the critical need to address the alarming rates of violence that people with disabilities, particularly women with disabilities and deaf women, are experiencing throughout Canada.

Currently many women with disabilities and deaf women are unaware of their rights, are not being appropriately protected from violence, and are not able to access and fully participate in the systems that are there to prosecute their abusers. DAWN-RAFH Canada and CACL are aiming to address this issue as soon as possible in order to put an end to the violence that is too often a part of the lives of people with disabilities.

In summary, older women with disabilities and deaf senior women face multiple risks of abuse, yet elder abuse in these populations has not been examined or addressed in any practical and effective manner. DAWN-RAFH Canada and the Canadian Association for Community Living are proposing a cross-ministerial, cross-sectoral strategy that aims to combat the many manifestations of violence and abuse that women with disabilities and deaf women in Canada are experiencing.

We ask you to ensure that women with disabilities and deaf women are empowered to protect themselves from abuse and discrimination and that public policies, programs, and funding reflect the stated value through legislation with impact and regulatory power.

We will be happy to expand on these points in any questions you have. We thank you for your time and for this opportunity. We ask that you use us and call on us as we work together for equality for all Canadians through addressing the issues of women with disabilities.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

Thank you, Ms. Brayton. I know that you took extraordinary measures to get here. We appreciate it.

Madam Boutin-Sweet.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, ladies.

My question is for Ms. Bevilacqua and Ms. Brayton.

Other witnesses have told us that cases of abuse often go unreported. You also said that. And when they are reported, they do not necessarily make it to court. But even when they are reported and heard by a judge, the problems do not go away. I have here a statistic saying that 49% of single elderly women live below the poverty line. They can report abuse over and over again, but they still need the resources to pay a lawyer.

The federal government used to help pay for legal aid, but in the 1990s, that funding was cut and eventually disappeared altogether.

I want to know whether you think the federal government should once again help pay for legal services.

[Vanessa Bevilacqua]

Thank you for bringing that up, especially since it was the last item in my presentation and I ran out of time before I could get to it.

I don't know what the scales are in each province, but in Quebec, when someone receives the maximum Guaranteed Income Supplement benefit and is now able to reach the low-income cutoff level for Canada thanks to the top-up that was recently introduced, that person no longer qualifies for free legal aid because they have hit that threshold. Actually, people can access legal aid through a contribution that can be as much as $800. People don't have that kind of money. When your income is $1,100 a month, you pay for your rent, your medication and the necessities, but you don't go out and you certainly can't afford to see a lawyer.

Even when people call us to report a situation, we tell them they need to see a lawyer. In some areas of the law, it is not enough just to file a complaint with police; you really have to go through a lawyer to assert your rights. But these people cannot even do that.

Thank you for your question. You raised an excellent point.

[Bonnie Brayton]

The poorest women in Canada are those with disabilities. We are talking about women whose annual income is sometimes less than $10,000. When it comes to legal aid access, there are certainly major barriers for women with disabilities.

Take, for example, a women in Nova Scotia who called me because she was being abused by her spouse. She was an older woman. She had tried contacting the legal aid service in Nova Scotia but was told that she had to go to the office in person to file a complaint. The woman was alone and lived in the country. She was completely dependent on her husband, who would not let her eat or receive any personal care. I could spend the whole day listing off examples of women in similar situations.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you.

I am now going to hand the floor over to my colleague, Ms. Freeman.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Bevilacqua, I want to pick up on a question Ms. Young asked you.

The NDP is trying to introduce a new benefit for informal caregivers to help low-income families caring for an elderly family member bear the cost of life's daily necessities.

Would that kind of thing help?

[Vanessa Bevilacqua]

There is no doubt that receiving a monthly benefit is a much more tangible form of assistance; receiving a tax credit a year down the road doesn't help all that much, especially for people who don't pay any taxes anyway.

In some cases, working women take care of an elderly person, but when that person suffers from Alzheimer's or dementia, for instance, these women can no longer work at all. Some people opt to stay home so they do not have to put their parent or relative in a nursing home, and obviously their income drops. Clearly, a benefit would be better suited to their needs.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Brayton, I have a question for you. We hear again and again in this study that housing and poverty are major issues for women, for older women, and for women who are facing violence. Can you speak specifically about the condition of poverty in which many disabled women may find themselves?

Also, can you make a couple of concrete recommendations to the government about how we could target poverty among disabled women and elderly women?

[Bonnie Brayton]

There are big systemic problems and there are already recommendations in place with respect to these.

“End Exclusion” is a well-known activity that takes place here in Ottawa. It was last held just a few weeks ago. End Exclusion has been looking exclusively at the issue of poverty and people with disabilities. As I said earlier to your colleague on the panel, women with disabilities and deaf women are the poorest people in this country. Senior women with disabilities and deaf women have absolutely one of the greatest risks of finding themselves alone and with very little means.

In terms of concrete recommendations regarding poverty, the most fundamental way this country is going to address poverty among people with disabilities is through changing from the approach we have now to one of full inclusion. Canada signed and ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities two years ago, and we're no further along than we were when we signed. We've signed, but we haven't implemented. The convention clearly articulates Canada's obligations, and those are very clearly pointing to the issue, first and foremost, of social and economic inclusion of people with disabilities.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

That's perfect.

Thank you.

I'm going to pass this on quickly to my colleague, Ms. Brosseau.

[The Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

I'm sorry, but we'll have to go to the next round for that. We're out of time.

We'll go over to the government caucus, please.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We do appreciate both of you coming here today, as we're all here for one common cause, which is to end violence against elderly women.

This question is for Vanessa.

In your speech--and I'm reading the English one--you showed the economic gap between older men and women, and you talked about the first victims of a sick health care system. You talked about how there is not enough GIS and about how much money they're making, but our focus is actually on the abuse of elderly women, so I'm going to jump to page 4, which is the part that it pertains to.

You mentioned that the program was funded by the new horizons program and Status of Women. Could you elaborate on that? I really didn't get much information on that because you were focusing on the other stuff. Could you just elaborate on what exactly the funding was for in both of these and how it helped you?

[Vanessa Bevilacqua]

I see the economic and health considerations as crucial, so that is why I talked about them. Women who are in good health and who have very good incomes are much less likely to suffer from abuse. In my view, you absolutely have to understand that before you can discuss abuse. As was also mentioned, able-bodied women are not the ones who are usually the victims of abuse, but rather people who are disabled or vulnerable. That is why I talked about income and health first.

Now let's discuss the two programs. As I explained earlier to Ms. Young, the program that Quebec put in place was a telephone help line. It does not qualify us for funding, but it was created so that any senior in Quebec could call and receive a referral to the health and social services system.

The new horizons for seniors program allowed us to establish Senior Aware, an awareness and information program designed to educate seniors on the various types of abuse and fraud, and make them aware of the necessary resources that are available if they are suffering from abuse or know someone who is. We have been receiving funding through new horizons for seniors for three years now, and we are renewing our application to extend our reach to informal caregivers and remote French-speaking communities that are cut off from the rest of the country.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Great. Thank you.

I am going to pass the rest of my time to Madam O'Neill.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Thank you.

Welcome. We are happy to have you with us today and we enjoyed your presentation.

As you are aware, our government certainly focuses on the work that is done by caregivers and how we can better help elders—men and women. We know this is something that our government considers very seriously.

I would like both of you to name some of the best shared practices that our government has put in place to make things easier. I can think of the GIS, for one, and I can also think of the new horizons program, which my colleague just mentioned. As well, in my own riding I hear talk about income splitting. These are things our government has put into practice that make things a little easier for our seniors. It's a very important practice, which we are happy to be a part of. I wonder if you could name some of the best shared practices that the Canadian government has put in place.

[Bonnie Brayton]

Thank you.

When I was addressing the committee earlier, I mentioned that we've been working with the Department of Justice and Status of Women Canada. I would certainly say that your colleagues who work in the national office at Status of Women Canada have been paying very close attention to the information we've been sharing with them over the last few months.

We've also had some very fulsome and excellent discussions with the justice department, particularly with Sue O'Sullivan and the victims of crime office. They've been doing an extraordinary job in terms of leadership on access to justice for victims. I think that's a key piece of this government's work, which DAWN Canada is quite happy to acknowledge is an important step forward.

People with disabilities have been victimized, and they're victimized over and over. This is the kind of oppression that might be hard for people to imagine. Many of the women I have talked to have been abused more than 20 times. They are victims of sexual assault, financial abuse—all types of abuse. There is a systemic problem, as I said before, and it's only going to be addressed if we take a big step forward in developing a national strategy. There is no other way to do this. There is no one good program. This is a large country. We have rural and we have urban.... When you talk about disability, you're talking about a huge range of different issues for different women. Women who have episodic and chronic illnesses experience violence as well.

I haven't talked specifically about different disabilities simply because we're a cross-disability organization, but the complexity of this work and the depth of the challenges are great. Having the government step forward to support the work we're doing with the Canadian Association for Community Living and with our other partners in the disability community and the women's community is a key way for us to be able to move this issue forward.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

I'm happy to hear you speak of the great cooperation your office is receiving from our office and from our government as well.

Do you have anything to add, Vanessa?

[Vanessa Bevilacqua]

As you said and as I mentioned, thanks to the increase in the Guaranteed Income Supplement benefit, in other words, the top-up, seniors have been able to reach the low-income cutoff. That is nothing to scoff at. In fact, that is wonderful. Consequently, we are not asking for an increase in the Guaranteed Income Supplement, but rather automatic enrolment for this benefit. It would not cost much to set up; all it would require is some cooperation between the levels of government so that everyone who qualifies can access the benefit.

One of your government's recent achievements that is quite worthy of praise, despite perhaps having less to do with abuse, involves experienced or older workers. It is important, in my view, to have a policy that reflects senior workers. In fact, female informal caregivers often have to divide their time between caring for their own children as well as their parents and going to work, if they do not want to end up living in total poverty.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Do I have more time?

[The Chair, NDP, Irene Mathyssen]

Actually, you're pretty well finished.

We will go to Ms. Fry for seven minutes, please.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you very much.

Excuse me if I can't speak very well; it's my allergies. It's the wrong time of the year for me. I sort of lose my voice and all of that.

You're suggesting, Ms. Brayton, a comprehensive national strategy. Having done a lot of work on senior abuse in my other life as a physician, I think that disabled women obviously carry three specific burdens: being a woman, being a senior, and being disabled. This makes it far more difficult for them than for other seniors. However, I would like to hear you tell me a little bit more about abuse and the fact that it's not only women who are living alone.

Senior women suffer abuse from three sources. The first is family: if they're living with a family who may abuse them financially by taking away their paycheque when they get it, their GIS, etc., and keep it, and who may verbally abuse them. They may benignly neglect them and quite often just basically give them really poor care. That's a form of psychological as well as physical abuse.

Then you have caregivers in seniors homes, where we hear there are many incidents of abuse by caregivers in seniors homes, especially if the senior person is disabled or has some neurological disorder and is unable to think or remember clearly.

Third is societal abuse, which I think I heard you talk about. It is that benign abuse of society that doesn't seem to really care about a particular group and, just by neglect, by lack of good public policy, etc., abuses certain groups of society.

If we looked at those three areas, and if we looked at the obvious housing, etc., what are the elements—just broad-based, you don't have to go into them in detail—of a national comprehensive strategy that would address prevention of seniors abuse?

There is also the issue of notification. Seniors, like most abused people, don't like to tell you they're abused because they're terrified of the abuser--that they might be abused a bit more or they'll get kicked out of wherever they are. How do we do notification? How do we find a way of ensuring that we prevent this kind of thing?

Also, how do we deal with the psychological effects of abuse? Obviously if you have physical abuse you can deal with the bruises, etc., but what about the psychological effects? There aren't very many mental health solutions for seniors. Can those fit into a five-part strategy? What would you see?