Status of Women Committee on Dec. 9th, 2014

[Fay Faraday]

They are much more likely than not to have paid fees. The fees that they have paid are typically the equivalent of two years' full-time earnings in their home country, so they are in serious debt to moneylenders in order to come here. As for the tie to their employer, everything depends on maintaining that good relationship with the employer. Whether it's a live-in caregiver program or one of the other temporary foreign worker programs, there is a complete and utter dependence on the employer, who has ultimate control. Their right to be in the country, their right to earn a living, is entirely connected to that relationship. They cannot change employers without having to go through the entire process of getting a new labour market opinion and a new work permit.

When workers do raise complaints, what typically happens is that they are fired and become homeless. If you are fired and homeless and you owe recruitment fees, that is a huge risk to take. For workers who do try to get new work permits, there is a significant lag. It can be five to six months, during which time they are not allowed to work. What you see is women being forced in and out of status, having to work with undocumented status in order to feed themselves and pay back the recruitment fees. Employers take advantage of that.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Is there—

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Your time is up, Peggy, sorry. Just finish your train of thought, Ms. Faraday.

[Fay Faraday]

What I was going to say was that you see employers taking advantage in that situation by knowing that those workers are even more vulnerable when they are undocumented, subject to even more violence, but also forced to pay the fees for the processing of the labour market opinions, pay the lawyer's fees to get a new work permit, and pay the price of a new work permit. It is just another opportunity to grind more vulnerability.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you.

Mrs. O'Neill Gordon, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I want to thank our witnesses here today.

As we all know, this is a very important study for us, and we appreciate the information you have all contributed today in your presentations. It gives us a lot of food for thought and we appreciate all of it.

My first question is for Tracy O'Hearn. You mentioned in your presentation $20 million that was received from the federal government. What did that $20 million go towards? Do you have an idea? You said $80,000 went to the women's study.

[Tracy O'Hearn]

I'm sorry, I don't know. I learned from a colleague last week at the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami that all of that funding has now been allocated, but I have no idea....

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

When it comes to your community, is it assigned to some projects, or does your association have a means of deciding where to put it?

[Tracy O'Hearn]

That was a proposal-based process, so AANDC announced this funding, and there were six themes that it would accept proposals under. There were some that we simply were not eligible for. They were either on-reserve or first nations-specific. Because we have a very small staff, we were able to complete only two proposals in the timeline between the announcement and the deadline. They were both successful; however, they were both funded at less than a quarter of what we had submitted for a one-year national project. As I said, of that $7 million.... It's less than clear to me, the $7 million for family violence prevention and protection, and the $20 million for aboriginal representative organizations, because the $20 million also had a family violence prevention theme. I don't know.... It's less than clear, but, yes, they were proposal-based activities based on needs and priorities that we are already aware of.

I hope I've answered your question.

Of the $27 million in total, we've been funded for two projects, for a total of $155,000.

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

You mentioned that you received $80,000. What theme did that come under?

[Tracy O'Hearn]

That was economic development for Inuit women.

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

That would be a good program.

You also mentioned—and my colleague mentioned it as well—about putting forth the new program or idea called Toolkit. Do you want to explain more, since your time was running out? Would you like to elaborate a bit more as to how successful this is? It's a program for men and boys, I understand.

[Tracy O'Hearn]

We did a bit of a literature review looking at better or promising practices in indigenous populations and communities, broadly with the objective of working with men to reduce violence. We narrowed it down to about 10 practices we thought were promising. One was the I Am A Kind Man program that's run by the Ontario friendship centre association.

We always work with an advisory committee that's regionally representative. We're working specifically with two Inuit men's groups: one in Nunavik, northern Quebec; and one in Nunavut. There aren't a lot of organized Inuit men's groups. We discussed with our advisory committee some of the elements of each of the programs that they thought would work, what needed to be changed to be Inuit-specific, and then we started drafting materials for dealing with past abuse. There's a great need for healing for men. As I mentioned earlier, men have also been victims of violence and abuse as children. We won't go into residential schools and all of that, but we know. Literally, we're writing drafts. For example, if a men's group in a community wanted to have a program over six weeks, what might the modules of that program be? How could it be broken up?

A lot of people find activities on the the land very effective: being out of town, going hunting, and returning to more traditional practices that are being lost somewhat with the wage economy and very rapid cultural shifts. Those are the things we have tried to develop, based on our other work.

We keep taking it back to our advisory committee, the men's groups, and as I say, my colleague is in Rankin Inlet today, going through what we hope will become a final draft, so there'll be tools, resources, exercises, and techniques for men to work with men, primarily on their own healing but with the broader objective of reducing violence.

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

It's very important that we include the men and keep them involved as well, as we all know.

[Tracy O'Hearn]

It is.

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

Do you know how much money has gone into that program?

[Tracy O'Hearn]

I believe it is approximately $300,000 over two years.

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

Okay. Thank you.

My next question is for Marion Little.

What is the one aspect of your presentation that you would like our committee to pay particular attention to?

[Marion Little]

I know there has been new funding recently announced for various initiatives across Canada addressing violence against women issues. I think it's important for us to remember that's happening in the context of over 10 years of cuts that have really decimated our previous capacity to respond. Historically, over 69 really important agencies have been cut across Canada, including agencies like the National Association of Women and the Law, health resources, first nations resources, settlement resources, and resources for newcomers—women like that.

The peer-to-peer agencies that I spoke about are historically very underfunded. Because my most recent background is as executive director of a peer-to-peer agency serving sex workers, I happen to be aware that PEERS Victoria and its sister agencies across the country are literally hanging on by a thread to do work that is very specialized because the people doing the work have overcome their own whatever it is that they have lived with, gained education and experience, and are now providing supports in the community. You can't buy that experience. Without funding, these agencies are disappearing and it costs us all more.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much. That's all the time we have for now, but maybe there will be other questions where you can complete your answer.

Ms. Duncan, you have seven minutes.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank all of you for coming today, and for your time and effort and the work you do each and every day.

I do have questions for everybody, but I'll start with Ms. O'Hearn.

With respect to the government's action plan to address family violence and violent crimes against aboriginal women and girls, was your organization consulted?

[Tracy O'Hearn]

No.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you.

You talked about crisis levels of violence. With the numbers you presented, we should all be outraged; it's horrific. And that Nunavut is the most dangerous region for women and children....

If there are three recommendations—your top three—that you want to see in this report, what are they, please?

[Tracy O'Hearn]

That's a big question.

There must be more equitable access to support services in the communities, and that would include victims services. Most communities are served only by a health centre. You know, we appeared recently before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. I would say that would be one of the biggest ones, access to supports and specialized services. There are no psychiatric services, very few psychological.... We need psychology support in the communities, perhaps on a rotating basis.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

How many psychiatrists and psychologists are there for the north? Do you know?