Status of Women Committee on April 21st, 2016

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

You mentioned, as sort of an abstract example, the potential to have a call out that reflects a need for programming for girls aged six to 11. Are there in fact programs like that for young women and girls?

[Lori MacDonald]

Yes. I'll give you a real-life example of one. SNAP is for girls aged six to 11 actually. It's a Canada-developed model. Another is called Spirit. It's for girls aged 11 to 15. It's actually in Calgary, in junior high schools. It's really to assist them.

They're young girls who have limited resources. They have many personal issues. Obviously, they've had many different conflicts already in their lives. To Shirley's point, you actually want to have interventions before the police are called. These programs in junior high are really focused on how to prevent them from coming into conflict with the law, and give them some stability, tools, and interventions to become more resilient, in order to avoid that path that we don't want them to go down.

It's actually in four junior high schools, in grades 7 to 9. The school identifies a population that it's worried about, some girls who they think, without quick intervention, will end up going down a different path. The schools help identify who should be in the program, and they work with the program in place. It's called Spirit, which stands for “girls identifying real life solutions” to their problems. It will run for three to five years. At the core it has education, recreation, mentorship, and female role models, which goes to the point that Shirley made earlier. Female role models, regardless of what the profession is, are critical to a number of these programs for young women and girls.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Very quickly, because I'm nearly out of time, is this program oversubscribed? Are you turning away good projects?

[Lori MacDonald]

A lot of project submissions come in. We have a lot of them.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

You mean a lot that you're not able to fund.

[Lori MacDonald]

We could say yes to a lot of them.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I think that's the end of my time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

You're done.

Ms. Sansoucy, you have the floor and you have three minutes.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

In 2015, the RCMP announced the launch of its Cybercrime Strategy plan. It allocated $30 million over five years and would create 40 new police or civilian positions.

Do you think this is enough money to address the huge number of cybercrime-related threats?

[Supt Shirley Cuillierrier]

Well—

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I'll ask a follow-up that may clarify things.

Take, for example, a medium-sized police detachment that must monitor cybercrime in its jurisdiction.

Whether we're talking about training or funding, what resources would it need to feel adequately equipped to combat this type of crime in its jurisdiction?

[Supt Shirley Cuillierrier]

I can briefly talk about the prevention work we're doing, but I can't speak to investigations, since that's outside my purview. If you called another RCMP representative to appear, they could answer your question, but I work in prevention.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Okay.

What are the challenges of preventing cybercrime?

[Supt Shirley Cuillierrier]

I think it's the lack of knowledge. The simple fact that our police officers are talking about it to teachers when they go to schools and that they're also talking to parents is helpful. I also mentioned a texting tool.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I'd like to continue the discussion we started earlier about the fact that a large majority of women and girls do not report when they are victims of assault. What's your action plan on that?

In terms of prevention, do you have ideas on how we could end this pattern?

[Supt Shirley Cuillierrier]

We have a presence in communities, either at schools or community centres. Most RCMP detachments are located in rural or northern areas. In many communities, the RCMP is the only federal presence. Having a presence in a school or community centre, or even being active with seniors, can help develop a relationship based on respect. Women and girls, and people in general, can develop trust with the police officers working in their communities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you, Ms. Sansoucy. Your time has expired.

All right. We're returning now to our regularly scheduled seven-minute rounds and we're going to start with Ms. Dhillon.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Good afternoon. Thank you for being here.

I have several questions. For the online programs, do you go into schools? You mentioned, Ms. Connidis, that it's a little bit hard for you because you have to work with the ministers of education. What is the problem? Why is it not possible to implement these directly as part of the school curriculum? What is the roadblock?

[Angela Connidis]

The roadblock is the constitution, I would guess. Education curriculums are absolutely a provincial jurisdiction. Each province sets its own school curriculum. They may consult with us in terms of what needs to go on, but it really is not something we could ask them to do.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Why couldn't you even ask? Yes, it's a constitutional matter, and there is a separation with provincial jurisdictions, but this is a matter that touches the lives of thousands of people. Are they not even willing to engage in conversation?

[Angela Connidis]

I'm sure they'd be willing, and I shouldn't say we can't ask, because we can ask. It can go about that far. It's such a local responsibility that the provinces exercise on their own. To the extent that they ask for research on issues and want advice on it, we are pleased to give it to them. It's also one of those tricky things with our provincial and federal relations in terms of who we are connecting with. Right now you're talking about the education.

In terms of our provincial relationships, we have a working group on crime prevention. We have the provinces at the table, and we're trying to integrate our crime prevention initiatives. What are the provinces doing, what are we doing, and where are some of the issues? At that table, discussions would come up. Well, it's really important that this be part of the education curriculum. If it does come into the education curriculum, what do each of the provinces do? Our partners around the table will then go back to their provincial colleagues, because remember our partners are also public safety partners. They might gather the information, come back, and report to the table. They may share that information with their education partners in their provinces, and say, “Here, this is an issue, and there are some really good crime prevention tools.” SNAP actually works within the education system as well, so they would maybe introduce SNAP to them.

It is about sharing information, sharing best practices, encouraging provinces to take that back. But we don't actually have a one-on-one relationship with the ministries of education in the provinces.

Some of the provinces are actually doing some very interesting work that we are not quite collaborating on, but we're very interested in. Alberta, for instance, has a hub, and at their hubs they have all their provincial ministries around the same table. When a school will notice they have someone in their community who's away from school a lot, social services might say, “That person's family is on our list as a problem family,” or the police might say at that meeting, “Actually, that person's older brother is engaged with the law.” They identify a problem, they talk among themselves, and at that point they say, “Which is the best ministry, which is the best organization to intervene and help?” It could be, then, reporting to the schools that they need to do something.

Federally, we would work collaboratively, but we're not going to call up the people doing the curriculums and say, “You need to do that.” We work through our provincial colleagues who then will pass on the information and influence.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

But is it not important to start at a young age? As Mrs. Cuillierrier said before, by the time the victims or the complainants come to the police, it's such an ugly situation you can't do anything. Why not start at elementary school to teach that if somebody touches you there that's not okay? Or if somebody's doing this to you, it's cyber-bullying. Identify it. If you start when they're five, six, or seven, when they get older they're going to say, “Hey, that is not okay. What's happening is not okay.” Their minds can be moulded if they're watching violence as they're growing up. Daddy cannot hit Mommy. These are the types of things we should be teaching. It should be in the curriculum. If we don't start at that age, then when is it possible for them to learn? By then it's a vicious pattern, and we need to break that pattern.

You have online programs, and I'm very happy to see that, but how do you bring that into the schools? How do you tell the parents? Do you send pamphlets?

[Lori MacDonald]

Thank you for the question.

I have a couple of comments on your point.

We do have a lot of conversations about at what levels we influence and how we actually bring these in at the grassroots level and at a very young age. A number of schools are now introducing civility with respect to use of computers, as an example, because most schools have computers available and the kids are using technology. They are now building into their curriculum things like how to be appropriate with respect to technology as part of that. Many schools now have pathway types of programs that address issues of children who have aggressive behaviours or who are having difficulty integrating into the classroom. It's really important to recognize that many school systems across the country are now starting to introduce a number of those initiatives you're speaking about.

One of the things that we do on the crime prevention side is, when we're looking for programs and we're looking for people to submit programs, we want them to be working with the school. I'll just give you an example of one that we have now.

It's a program in Vancouver. It's called the SACY program, and it's really about violence against young women and girls. It's from the ages of 12 to 17. Now I know it's not the younger piece that you're talking about, but it's just an example of how people are just so much more aware that there's a need to intervene, not just in the community or with a social program but that it has to be connected to the education system. The reality is that we want our youth in the education system. They spend a lot of their time, hopefully, in that system, and there has to be a connection. There is the role-modelling piece, the sense of competence and self-worth, the issues of reduction in terms of negative behaviours of cyber-bullying, and so on.

It's just an example of a program that engages youth, and it also has recreational components to it. It also builds in a consequence piece so that kids of that age can really recognize the consequences of their actions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Excellent.

Sorry, that's your time.

We're over to Ms. Vecchio for seven minutes.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Thank you very much.

I just want to refer back to BullyText. That sounds like an excellent tool that you are using. Is that something that's going to be available? You mentioned that you go into the schools and you use it there. Is it something that's available to parents and communities as well, or is this something specific through policing?