Evidence of meeting #74 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was nations.
A video is available from Parliament.
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
No, statements such as, “Aboriginal women don't have rights” are egregious.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
Madame Ashton, I hear debate. I don't hear a point of order. Thank you.
Madame Bateman, it's your turn.
Conservative
Joyce Bateman Conservative Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
That, of course, is a fact. They don't have matrimonial property rights.
Conservative
Joyce Bateman Conservative Winnipeg South Centre, MB
They have them on 22 reserves. There are more than 631 in Canada. There's a home there; they don't get to stay.
Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres
Maybe it's best that I return to your original question about how we do better. That's a really key question.
I think a lot more effort has to be put in by governments, federal and provincial, on the coordination of services and on investing in organizations to provide a human capacity to help human beings. Websites only do so much; referral services only do so much. We need to look at where the majority of people facing the issue—whether of violence or not—of leaving reserves get services.
Conservative
Joyce Bateman Conservative Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Can I just clarify something? Did you, in your testimony, say that you have just invested in a new website?
Conservative
Joyce Bateman Conservative Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Why would you do that, if it's not an effective way to reach people and help people?
Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres
There's not a service like it that exists. It's a way to refer people to programs and services that are out there.
Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres
It's useful to a degree. But you're running a website, and if you are facing issues—you're leaving, you're transitioning, and it's urgent for whatever reason—at the end of the day, having a human service at the end of it.... All the website does is refer you to where the people and services are. The website is only as good as the services that are there. What I'm saying is that there's not enough investment in the services on the ground.
Conservative
Joyce Bateman Conservative Winnipeg South Centre, MB
But the woman who gets thrown out of her home with her children, who goes to Winnipeg, turns to prostitution, tries to get your help and the school division's help to get her children into a proper placement.... Could that not be avoided with this legislation?
Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres
I don't know in that specific case whether it can be avoided or not. There are many reasons that—
Conservative
Joyce Bateman Conservative Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Well, she would still have access to the house, with this legislation. She wouldn't get thrown out. Her children wouldn't become homeless. This is the issue we're trying to address.
Conservative
Joyce Bateman Conservative Winnipeg South Centre, MB
I'm sorry, you were interrupted, sir. There's noise in the background.
Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres
I think changes to the human rights issue that surrounds matrimonial real property are overdue. I said that at the beginning. As to the way they get to be implemented, I'm not a legal expert. I deal with people getting services in cities.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
Thank you, Mr. Cyr. I'm sorry, but I need to interrupt you. The time is over.
Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres
That's okay. That's essentially the point.
NDP
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Thank you for addressing the complexity of this and making the point that without core funding, project-by-project piecemeal ways will never put in place the kinds of programs that you know need to be there.
Would you agree with Wendy Grant-John, who wrote the original paper for the minister, that without these kinds of supports from the federal government, matrimonial real property protections will simply not be accessible to the vast majority of first nation people?
I think what she's saying is that at the beginning, the viability and effectiveness of any legislative framework will also depend on the necessary financial resources being made available for the implementation of non-legislative measures, such as the programs you deliver.
Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres
I agree. I agree that with every piece of legislation, this is the way. That's what I talked about: looking at the complexities, how legislation is brought in. It has far-reaching implications that sometimes are not thought of.
On the human services side—those things that allow people to properly access the changes that are going on—in Bill S-2, which I don't necessarily disagree with, there are still a whole bunch of services that need to happen and there still needs to be a way to access them.
Yes, there needs to be a greater acknowledgment of that.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Madam Chair, seeing that I was unable to ask the AFN... As you know, I do believe that this bill was sent to the wrong committee. Without the expertise, the knowledge about the collectivity of first nations, and seeing this is a bill of the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, as well as what we've seen today even in the way the panels are structured—to not have a full hour for the AFN—this has caused huge problems in terms of the way that we need to proceed.
I would ask the chair if the clerk could ask the AFN to table the research—which would have been my question—about how, without adequate policing, emergency protection orders can actually increase the violence and decrease the security of women, who have to flee to organizations like Mr. Cyr's in town because they cannot be safe in their own home. I would like the clerk, if she would ask, first, for the regional chief to table the full set of remarks as well as provide the research that showed that emergency protection orders, without adequate policing, don't actually save lives and may actually make things worse.
Secondly, because I didn't get to ask Chief Robert Louie, I'd like the financial impact on first nation band-owned homes, if a provincial court decides that the band needs to pay the spouse who will not remain in the home; how that could impact on the financial stability and responsibility of first nations; and whether that burden would meet a test in court if indeed it is enacted. I’d like to know what that could mean to first nations in terms of band-owned homes.
I guess we have an ongoing conversation, Mr. Cyr, about how we fulfill the concern. We on this side, I believe, think that it's irresponsible to proceed with the bill until the other things are in place. Because what we're hearing from first nation women across the country is that it does not do the trick of increasing their safety, unless you have the resources to meet those needs and first nations on reserve have the ability to meet those needs.
Are you comfortable going ahead with this bill, without the things in place that Wendy Grant-John suggested were necessary?
Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres
I don't think my comfort is really at issue.
I appreciate the question, but I don't think it's about the friendship centres and our level of comfort. I leave it to my first nation brothers and sisters on reserve—those chiefs, those councils, those bands, and the AFN—that have to deal with the ramifications at home where they are.