Status of Women Committee on Jan. 29th, 2015

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Good morning and welcome to the 43rd meeting of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. Today we are continuing our study on promising practices to prevent violence against women.

I would like to point out that, as indicated in the notice of meeting and the agenda, this part of the meeting will end 15 minutes early, at 12:45 p.m., to allow the members to discuss committee business.

We have with us today Marie-Christine Plante, who is representing Carrefour pour Elle.

From KW Counselling Services, we welcome Ms. Leslie Josling. From the St. John's Status of Women Council and Women's Centre, we welcome Ms. Jenny Wright and Ms. Sheila Ryan.

Nathalie Duhamel, from the Regroupement québécois des Centres d'aide et de lutte contre les agressions à caractère sexuel, will join us later by videoconference.

Each representative will have 10 minutes for their presentation, after which there will be a period for questions.

Go ahead, Ms. Plante. You have 10 minutes.

[Marie-Christine Plante, Executive Assistant, Carrefour pour Elle]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the committee members for inviting Carrefour pour Elle to take part in this study you have begun.

First, I should tell you that Carrefour pour Elle is the first shelter for women and children victims of spousal violence to open its doors in Quebec. We opened our doors 40 years ago this year. So we are starting to have solid expertise in prevention and in helping women and children.

Of course, like most shelters, we provide a lot of internal services. We have a telephone support service available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We can also provide lodging for 10 women and 10 to 15 children at a time. We do follow-up, intervention and accompaniment. In the last 15 years, we have greatly increased our external and public awareness services.

PACIFIX is one of our external family and conjugal violence prevention services programs, and it is currently funded through a federal grant under the Community Action Program for Children.

The PACIFIX program has won numerous awards for its original approach to prevention and the assistance provided to children victims of family violence. It also aims to improve parenting skills and help parents overcome the various relationship difficulties they have with their children. The unique thing about this intervention is that it can be done by men and women. Close follow-up is also done with families, which means that support workers visit the homes and lodgings to work with children and parents.

Our organization developed an awareness program in 2012 called “when we love, we love equally". We provide this program in partnership with another shelter, the Pavillon Marguerite de Champlain in Saint-Hubert, and with the Greater Longueuil police force.

This program is offered mainly in French classes taken by newcomers to Quebec. These people are generally men and women who have been in Longueuil for less than a year. The goal of the program is prevention and to tell these people about services and resources, but also to build a relationship of trust with them.

The police who work with our support workers can talk about the services they provide and explain the legal process. We talk about the services we provide. Our goal is to defend the rights of the women we meet, and it works. We meet 700 people every year. Many of the women we meet ask for help, which we see as a success.

When it comes to prevention, we count a lot on young people. We have a big presence in the high schools, and we provide various programs to youths. We have created a workshop for younger kids in secondary 2 and 3 called “What relationship do you want?” We talk to them about healthy and equal romantic relationships. Before talking about violence, they need to be shown that there are other healthy, respectful, communication-based models.

As they get older, we provide young people with a new tool called “24 heures texto” that addresses cyberbullying and sexting. We teach them about harassment with a video, followed by an in-class workshop. This helps the young people understand how control, harassment and jealousy work with Facebook, smart phones and so on.

We are organizing an innovative activity that will take place in Quebec in fall 2015 called “les couloirs de la violence amoureuse”. Imagine a huge labyrinth measuring 20 feet by 30 feet. Small groups of three or four students will follow a path and experience a relationship and dynamic of dating violence. The goal is to have them understand the various forms of violence, and the consequences that attacks can have on the victims and the people who commit them.

These are good prevention models that work.

Of course, given Carrefour pour Elle's financial means and human resources, we can't cover our entire area because it is huge. So I would like to recommend that the committee think about increasing funding so that we can provide more projects and connect with more people.

We also realize that there are plenty of small, subtle ways to raise awareness. I have given each of you small pens. They are in the folders. We give training to hair dressers and estheticians to talk to them about violence so that they can give out a small pen when they think they've met a woman who has been a victim. Telephone numbers for shelters in various areas are printed on them.

Furthermore, we will hand out reusable bags to raise awareness with the general population as part of the 12-day campaign to end violence against women, which we carry out with the Fédération des maisons d'hébergement pour femmes. We can give them out in grocery stores, pharmacies and so on.

Of course, we have also had white ribbon and white rose campaigns, and they work very well. Obviously, we work with our available resources.

To conclude, I would like to say that some things relating to our social and family policies need to be improved in order to truly help prevent violence and break that circle. In Longueuil, our organizations are seeing more and more female immigrants and newcomers arrive at our door. They are being oppressed in various ways and aren't just victims of spousal violence. Sometimes they are victims of discrimination because they are visible minorities. They are often in vulnerable or poverty-stricken situations. So we need a global approach to help them so that they can report these actions and escape from violence. It is important to consider the socio-economic conditions of women and the multiple oppressions they may experience on a day-to-day basis. Beyond the existing resources, it is important to help them financially so that they can improve their socio-economic living conditions.

There are some very good connections to be made with your other study on the economic prosperity of women. I think the two overlap.

With respect to immigration, we have also noted that it is very difficult for women who are being sponsored—meaning women who have conditional permanent resident status—to report the fact that they are victims of violence because the burden of proof is on them. They must show that they are victims. A lot of mixed messages are being given. People say they have to wait one year or two before reporting the situation, otherwise they risk being deported from Canada. This keeps them in vulnerable situations.

I think that the current government needs to send a message of protection to these women so that they can get out of a dynamic of spousal violence and turn to the right resources. We are sending messages to that effect. We also note that there are very few lawyers in Montreal and Longueuil who specialize in immigration and can help these victims.

If I had a little more time, I would mention other good initiatives.

In Quebec, there is the Association québécoise Plaidoyer-Victimes. This association has created a very good outreach guide to explain the process for victims through the justice system. It's available on their website in French and English. It's worth taking a look at. These are some very good tools that we can use when we intervene to help, explain, reach out and provide all this information to victims.

I'll stop there. I imagine I've used almost my entire 10 minutes.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Just about.

[Marie-Christine Plante]

I will answer questions later if the committee members have any specific questions about our services or our prevention activities.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much, Ms. Plante.

We would like to have the link to the document you just mentioned, especially since it's in French.

[Marie-Christine Plante]

Both tools are from the same association. We will be happy to send them to you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Could you please send them to the clerk? It would be most appreciated. Thank you very much.

[Marie-Christine Plante]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Ms. Josling, you have the floor for 10 minutes.

[Leslie Josling, Executive Director, Co-Chair VAW Forum, KW Counselling Services]

Good day.

Thank you for your commitment to addressing violence against women in Canada and including me in this conversation.

Sometimes I get discouraged with the lack of progress that we make in the area of violence against women and then I consider the fact that really we've only been formally addressing this issue since 1960 in Canada and suddenly it doesn't surprise me. We're only in the second generation of attempting to address intimate partner violence in relationships. I applaud you for continuing in this conversation and recognizing that we need to continue the iterative process of improving our services.

It's an honour to be here today and to have the opportunity to share some of my thoughts and insights into the best and promising practices in this area. Coming here today I'm going to be wearing two hats. My first hat is as the co-chair of the Violence Against Women Forum for central Ontario, and the second is as the executive director of KW Counselling. We're a family counselling agency in Kitchener-Waterloo.

The first best practice I want to highlight is a process that our Violence Against Women Forum in central Ontario has engaged in that resulted in greater collective impact. The forum is a group comprising nearly 30 violence against women shelters and counselling agencies. We were established in 2007 in partnership with the Ministry of Community and Social Services in Ontario. The work of the forum was strengthened with the added support of universities, and that demonstrated the power of trisector collaboration. We believe this type of collaboration could be generalized to the federal government's activities and efforts and might result in the types of successes that we've witnessed in central Ontario

The forum was established in 2007 and our intent was to exchange knowledge, increase collaboration, and improve service system design. In 2009, the same forum completed a strategic plan. It reflected the voices of women, staff, and key stakeholders, as well policy direction at the time. The plan identified critical issues, priorities, gaps, trends, and it also identified three strategic objectives. Work plans were developed in relation to those strategic objectives and as committees began identifying activities that would support the work plans, we realized that we'd benefit from the input of universities, that we needed research, academic, and educational input as well.

We were really fortunate to be able to engage the efforts of the social innovation research group out of Wilfrid Laurier University; they're with the department of social work. They proceeded to conduct numerous literature reviews, research studies, training sessions, and we together held an annual symposium. I have brought along a bibliography. It's about 24 different articles that we've developed together with the university. You may find those references helpful.

Overall, the partnership has added value for everyone involved. More has been achieved than could have been achieved by one sector alone. The agencies provided their much-needed expertise into services with violence against women; the government has provided much-needed funding, coordination, facilitation of leadership; and the university provided their academic expertise, which we wouldn't have had available and wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise.

The collaboration has mobilized each agency and partner to work together towards common objectives and it represents a unique, exciting way of doing business. We believe that the model is worth examining and emulating, and it may hold clues for how to better engage stakeholders to maximize their potential to effect change in violence against women.

I've brought along a brief, which I believe you have, that describes it in a little more detail than what I've been able to share today.

The second best practice I want to highlight comes from our experience at Kitchener-Waterloo Counselling Services.

In 2007 KW Counselling Services launched a walk-in counselling clinic. It was one of the first of its kind in Canada. Since opening, the clinic has served over 10,000 individuals, couples, and families who were both absolutely surprised and relieved to see a therapist for an hour-and-a-half- to a two-hour counselling session on the same day.

Individuals and couples who are seen at the clinic are screened individually for intimate partner violence. We've found, through the screening, that approximately a quarter of our visitors to the walk-in clinic present with intimate partner violence. They're women who have been abused.

The Ministry of Community and Social Services recently expanded funding to this service in response to the five years of research we conducted in partnership with Wilfrid Laurier and the University of Waterloo that looked into both the cost and the clinical effectiveness of our walk-in.

The research shows that clients who visit the walk-in for the first time present with incredibly high levels of psychological distress. At follow-up, their distress is greatly relieved. Further, those who do best are the clients who have complex trauma, and that includes woman abuse. We also found that clients who present with depression and anxiety, which of course is a common presentation with women experiencing abuse, also fare better at walk-in than in traditional counselling.

Quoting one woman who visited the clinic and saw a counsellor named Stephanie:

Stephanie listened to everything I said. The comments she made gave me awareness and confidence. This experience proves that not only did I have to run from an abusive relationship, I had to get counselling. I will try hard to make it back next week as the relationship left me facing financial ruin… Once again, Stephanie is just amazing.

We believe walk-in counselling presents an effective alternative service to women and should be considered, among others, in service system design. I have also brought a short brief about that for your information.

I couldn't conclude a conversation about best practices in violence against women without speaking about trauma and its effects on healthy relationships. We need to ensure this informs all our services.

Increasingly, we have come to appreciate that many women and men, women who have experienced abuse and men who use abuse in intimate relationships, have a history of trauma, often stemming from abuse in their family of origin. We know that this trauma affected them as children. It affected their brain development, including their emotion regulation. Trauma also affected their parents' ability to form healthy connections and attachment with them.

Children who experience trauma and attachment disruptions often develop what the literature calls “negative working models” of the world. They grow into adults who struggle both with intimate relationships and with caregiving. Caregivers who have a history of trauma themselves often traumatize their own children in turn, because they simply have no experience of healthy connections and relationships to draw on.

We believe violence against women services must include therapeutically potent interventions for a range of traumatic events. At KW Counselling Services, our group, individual, family, and play therapies target and treat intergenerational trauma. Our treatment for men and women must include this if we ever hope to make inroads in the area.

Additionally, our services to children who witness woman abuse must treat the children's trauma simultaneously with the caregiver's unresolved trauma. This provides a powerful, corrective healing experience for both the caregiver and the child. The caregiver must be present throughout the duration of treatment with the child, and in effect become the co-therapist to the child. Trauma and attachment services treat two generations and future generations by increasing mental health, and the social and emotional functioning of both child and parent—

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Ms. Josling, could you conclude briefly. Thank you.

[Leslie Josling]

Okay.

This results in improved, positive, healthy relationships.

Thank you for your time. I hope these insights were helpful and provide some additional food for thought in your recommendations.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much, Ms. Josling.

Now we'll hear from Ms. Wright, for 10 minutes. Ms. Ryan will be available for questions.

[Jenny Wright, Executive Director, St. John's Status of Women's Council Women's Centre]

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, and members of this committee. We thank you, and we are grateful for the invitation to address the committee.

In the development of any best practice, policy, legislation, or charter, we must never forget that violence against women is preventable. That fact must be the very foundation that any real change is built upon. Violence against women is yet to be considered preventable; instead, it is simply considered one of the many social ills that we must endure and manage. We need not look very far back in our own history to find a time when it was indeed acceptable.

Through the hard work of feminism in our country we are moving towards a culture in which these forms of interpersonal violence are now widely considered unacceptable. Great women doing great work have spoken before this committee. Best practices, new and emerging programs, research, and critical analysis have been brought forward with intelligence and with experience.

We suggest that women's organizations are all well versed in best practice and that we have been creating it and utilizing it for many decades. Evidence of this body of work can be found in the submissions to this committee, in scholarly research, in the endless reports we write, in university gender and social work classes, and around women's kitchen tables, yet women continue to die.

We have made great advancements in education and awareness both nationally and internationally. Policies and programs are implemented at all levels of government and within our communities and within our schools, yet the statistics that we are all intimately aware of are staggering.

Violence against women has been called the global epidemic of our times. It can lead one to think that there is nothing left to add to this discourse, but if we hold steadfast to the truth that violence against women is preventable, then there is much for us to discuss.

Best practice, education, and all of our combined work in the field will not be enough if we do not directly eliminate the root causes: gender inequality, long-standing neglect in upholding women's human rights, and decades of closures and funding cuts to front-line and advocacy women-led organizations.

Imagine if the programs and policies we created together were aimed at these root causes, at breaking down the systems that create gender inequality. Imagine if they were built on our existing human rights framework, and imagine if they were resourced sustainably so that women-led organizations could do what they have done well for many decades regardless of fluctuations in the economy, politics, and our laws.

If we re-envision how we conceive and develop best practice so that it eradicates gender inequality, then a national child care strategy, a national housing strategy, pay equity, access to women-centred health care, education, and a fair justice system is best practice. Further, the lack of these strategies in Canada is not only a causal factor, they are simultaneously the very barriers that prevent women leaving violence and living to their full potential.

This work, we cannot do alone. Women are protected in principle by the charter of human rights as individuals of this nation. These rights must apply to all women equally, including trans women, seniors, indigenous women, sex workers, disabled women, young women, and women new to our country. Women's organizations struggle daily to keep women safe in communities where there are no lawyers, no social workers, no courthouses or doctors, where women are left dangerously vulnerable and without access to basic supports. This must be viewed as a denial of their basic human rights.

Still, Canada has signed on to numerous conventions protecting and advancing the rights of women, including CEDAW, where article 3 states that the convention gives positive affirmation to the principle of equality by requiring state parties to take “all appropriate measures, including legislation, to ensure the full development and advancement of women, for the purpose of guaranteeing them the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality with men.”

Yet women continue to die. Why? We have not applied these basic human rights to our work in ending violence against women. If anti-violence work were built on our existing human rights frameworks, then access to this that fosters safety and quality of life should not and could not be denied women, no matter their geographical or social location.

Years of funding cuts and closures, and silencing of women's organizations are in themselves a pervasive form of violence against women. Federal policy must act to strengthen women's organizations and to secure sustainable funding, so they do not continue to be casualties of the fluctuations in our economy, political agendas, and our laws.

Our Province of Newfoundland and Labrador is a great example of this double bind. Dropping oil prices leads to dramatic job loss, job losses lead to a dramatic rise in domestic violence. Already overburdened we scramble to cope with the increased need for services, while simultaneously being told that because of falling oil prices there will be no increase in funding, and there are silent whispers of impending cuts that will affect our work.

The economic boom that arrived at our doorstep 10 years ago created a dramatic rise in women who are exploited by the sex trade, and the new prostitution bill, Bill C-36, has left us scrambling to provide supports and safety for a population left vulnerable and moving deeper and deeper underground.

This scenario plays out time and time again in our work, leaving us with band-aid solutions, patchwork support, and never the time nor the resources to tackle the fundamental issues of gender inequality and justice, human rights, and advocacy. It is time that we recognize and redress the fact that diminished or no access to basic services because of chronic underfunding places women's lives at risk and by extension their children and by extension our communities.

This is a very real cause of continued violence against women, and it is preventable. We need the indelible human rights of all women to be upheld in law and in policy in their entirety. We need long-promised and undelivered national strategies to target and eradicate structures and social norms that perpetuate gender inequality. We need sustainable resources to do what we do well—advocate and provide services, supports and resources to women, freely and without threat.

There must be a shift in how we view gender inequality and how we eradicate it together as a nation. Gender inequality is simultaneously inherent to and produced by our institutions. We must shift our focus to improving our nation's ability to respond to the needs of all Canadian women. Until our Canadian institutions and our social systems prioritize and nurture the unimaginable and untapped potential of women in this country, we fear we will be living in a state of never-ending, managed violence.

In closing, we need to recognize that the situation is dire, but that the future need not be bleak. The real solutions to the issues already exist. Symbolically, it is there in the human rights framework that we uphold in this country. Practically, it is in the work of those on the ground, our women's centres, our female-serving organizations. The missing ingredients are the social and political will and sustainable resources necessary to create a coordinated national strategy. If we as a country can commit to these things, then we have not only created best practice, we have built the very foundation to prevent violence against women.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much, Ms. Wright.

Ms. Duhamel, I just want to let you know that we sometimes lose the video feed, but the sound should work. Don't worry; we're listening.

You have the floor for 10 minutes.

[Nathalie Duhamel, Coordinator, Regroupement québécois des Centres d'aide et de lutte contre les agressions à caractère sexuel]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good morning, everyone. I would like to thank the committee for this invitation.

I will make a brief presentation about the Regroupement québécois des Centres d'aide et de lutte contre les agressions à caractère sexuel—or RQCALACS—and then focus on best practices. I would like to mention that I can answer your questions in French and English.

The Regroupement québécois des CALACS was established in 1979 and has 27 members in 16 different regions of Quebec.

We are involved in providing assistance and prevention among young people and the public through outreach activities. We provide information to the media, do research and are involved as representatives with governments. Our main concerns are the cross-sectional approach of discrimination, hypersexualization of the public space, the trivialization of sexual violence, prostitution and sexual violence on the Internet.

I will now address the issue of best practices. I would like to underscore the fact that the 27 CALACS members in our organization are themselves preventative measures for sexual violence and are examples of best practices. We provide an alternative to the legal system because we know that 75% of women do not file complaints. So it is essential to provide them with services that are rooted in their community that can provide them and their families with assistance.

The CALACS provide individual and group assistance services. They also provide accompanying services and can even accompany a woman through the legal system, if that is what she decides.

These centres came out of the women's movement in the 1970s. They developed a feminist approach to intervention that aims to give the power back to women. These centres view sexual violence as an act rooted in the inequality between men and women. They helped to broaden the definition of sexual violence. Now, this definition doesn't include just rape, but also sexual harassment, incest, online luring, sexual exploitation for the purpose of prostitution, pornography and sex trafficking.

However, I must point out to the committee that the CALACS are still in dire need of funding and that a few additional human resources would help us better respond to the demand, to prevent long wait times before women can get assistance and to eventually develop services in northern Quebec.

I would like to mention our second best practice. The CALACS work with young people in schools through sexual assault prevention programs. We talk about sexuality, power relationships, consent and hypersexualization.

We also work with the general public in local communities through lectures and public activities. We organize a day of action against sexual violence against women that is held every year on the third Friday in September.

In terms of other best practices, we have also developed training on preventing sexual violence against seniors. We have also created a guide for responding to hypersexualization. At the moment, we are working on developing best practices for cybercrime.

In addition to direct services and prevention activities, the CALACS have developed what we call a cross-sectional approach to better include aboriginal women, disabled women, immigrant women and women refugees to better take into account their unique circumstances and their vulnerability to sexual assaults. This project includes providing training to our members, but it is also open to other people. We can tell you today that four CALACS have developed expertise for working with aboriginal women.

This year, a contribution from Status of Women Canada has enabled us to create a francophone community of practice dealing with sexual violence that brings together organizations working in Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick.

The purpose of the project is to create a virtual library of programs, projects and activities to ensure better sharing. The project also aims to provide a forum for discussing various concerns. We think this community of practices will have an impact on the ability of participant resources to intervene better.

In terms of promising practices for prevention, I would like to mention that Regroupement québécois des CALACS has made it possible to create the Concertation des luttes contre l'exploitation sexuelle, or CLES, which has done a significant amount of work on making legislative progress on prostitution in Canada.

The Regroupement québécois des CALACS is also involved in various research projects at the university level. We mention this as a best practice because it is essential. We are currently working with academics to focus on trafficking and sexual exploitation, which enables us to train 45 trainers who, in turn, provide this training to others.

We also have a research project that deals with the cross-sectional approach. We are also doing research that aims to document sexual violence in universities. We have seen this issue of sexual violence in universities on the rise recently in Canada. We are looking at the need to adjust institutional approaches to this problem.

We are also doing research on equipping the CALACS with a shared program on working with youth. Lastly, we are doing research on improving our data collection system to create a better profile of the women who use our services.

In recent months, during the “been raped, never reported” campaign, we have seen that many women need to talk about what has happened to them. It's an important step forward, but the current media treatment of sexual assaults must be better so that the effort the women are making to talk about what has happened to them does not fall on deaf ears.

We would like the government to invest in a sexual assault awareness campaign. We find that there is a gap in this respect. The government raises awareness about smoking and drunk driving, but there isn't enough discussion about violence against women. The government could explain what exactly sexual assault is and what constitutes consent. Our goal is to fight against the myths and bias to change people's thinking in the long term.

NGOs alone cannot invest in campaigns like this, which are very expensive. We would like to have men speak out during these campaigns, which should be rolled out on television, radio and on social media, as well as in print.

We can't just rely on social media or traditional media to boost awareness about sexual violence against women. We have to be able to reach out to a large audience. We absolutely must respond to the needs of women who spoke out during the “been raped, never reported” campaign. We must do so in a way that makes it possible to reach women in the regions who are not necessarily on Twitter. We must increase our support of prevention and public awareness activities.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much, Ms. Duhamel. We heard your audio message clearly, even though the video wasn't the best.

We will start the first round of questions with you, Mrs. Truppe. You have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to welcome and thank everyone for being here and sharing your practices and everything that your organizations are doing. It sounds like there are a lot of great things going on out there to help women and girls.

I have questions for everyone, and seven minutes goes quick. I'm going to start with Nathalie.

[Nathalie Duhamel]

Yes?

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

You said that Status of Women had funded, I think it was, a francophone program. When was that funded and how much did you receive?

[Nathalie Duhamel]

It's funded for three years and it started in July 2014. It's really about establishing a practice community. I don't know how you say that in English really, communauté de pratiques, but it's between resources that are in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick and who cater to the needs of French-speaking women.

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

Thank you.

What's the total amount, then, over your three-year period? I know it's divided over three years, but what—

[Nathalie Duhamel]

I can't remember, I'm sorry.

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

That's okay. I'm sure you deal with a lot of funding.

It sounds like you were doing a lot of great things about violence prevention programs in schools. I was just curious, how do you get the word out that you're there to help the young girls? Do you contact the schools and then you would maybe set up some type of a forum there at the school, or do they actually ask you to go? How do you get into the schools?

[Nathalie Duhamel]

It's a bit of both. In some areas we do have to solicit schools and offer our program. We do the program with secondary 2, 3, and 4 students. But we need to understand also that what's developing now is all the preoccupation about sexual violence against women in universities and in colleges. In Quebec we have what we call CEGEP. It's kind of a pre-university. These two institutions also need to be addressed in terms of preventing sexual violence against women.

But we do solicit the schools. We do knock on their doors, yes.