Evidence of meeting #114 for Status of Women in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was shelters.
A recording is available from Parliament.
October 15th, 2018 / 4:25 p.m.
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Education and Social Development Programs and Partnerships Branch, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Under our program, the funding is for reserves only.
Liberal
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Education and Social Development Programs and Partnerships Branch, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
No, the funding is exclusively for shelters on reserves. On the other hand, the funding for prevention initiatives goes to reserves as well as municipalities.
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Education and Social Development Programs and Partnerships Branch, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
They use the shelters in the cities. As I said, that is a problem in the north. In small communities, there are no places for women and children to go. They go to Iqaluit, but there is just one place there that can accommodate them.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
Do you have any data on the number of indigenous women in transition houses in cities, off reserve?
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Education and Social Development Programs and Partnerships Branch, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
No, that is under provincial jurisdiction. I have figures for places on reserves, but not in the cities.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
Okay.
We heard that Ms. Akman carried out three surveys with Statistics Canada. Many thanks to her for adding to the data. We often hear that there is not enough data.
Ms. Scott, you mentioned not only the lack of data, but also that institutions do not provide the information, either because they are not legally authorized to do so or because of jurisdiction issues in institutions. Do you have any specific recommendations in this regard?
Director General, Community Development and Homelessness Partnerships Directorate, Department of Employment and Social Development
We currently have an information management system that is used in shelters across the country, so we are able to collect information for about 60% of shelters. With the renewal of the program, we will be able to focus more on data. Moreover, a bit more support will be provided to communities to implement this information management system. We hope the new investments will enable us to increase the effectiveness and quantity of the data we collect from across the country. That will not happen until 2019, however.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
There does not seem to be a strategy for indigenous women in cities, off reserve. Are there gaps in this area?
Director General, Community Development and Homelessness Partnerships Directorate, Department of Employment and Social Development
The program to fight homelessness provides funding specifically for homelessness among indigenous persons. They can go to any shelter, anywhere in Canada. We also fund programs and initiatives tailored to the needs of indigenous persons, in 37 municipalities across the country.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
Mr. MacArthur, you said that two funds had become available recently, and that they will be for cities as well as rural areas. Have you set targets or will it be first come, first served?
Senior Vice-President, Assisted Housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
The results are the key. They are available right across the country, from rural and urban regions and from the north, and we have analyzed them. We noted differences in rural regions.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
Do you have resources to work with rural organizations, or are the resources available in urban areas only?
Senior Vice-President, Assisted Housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
No, our work is in urban areas only. We have resources across the country to work with those groups. We also have small programs to help youth and to offer start-up funding to launch their initiatives.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
I just have a minute and a half left, unfortunately.
Ms. Buist, you talked about the imbalance in the field. My question is for you and Ms. Scott.
Do you have any particular mechanisms to include men and boys in the strategy? Clearly, there is tremendous need for funding for the services that transition houses provide to women and girls, but do you have funding earmarked for developing a strategy for men and boys, for indigenous persons and the general public, or do you need additional funding for that?
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Education and Social Development Programs and Partnerships Branch, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Many of our programs involve developing strategies to encourage women, men and families to engage in prevention in their community.
That is the case with our First Nations Child and Family Services program, which focuses specifically on violence prevention. For cities, we have funding for our urban programs for indigenous persons, and many of those initiatives include men in prevention activities.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Excellent. Thank you very much.
We're now moving into our second round of questioning.
Martin Shields, you have the floor for five minutes.
Martin Shields Bow River, CPC
Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the panel being here today to deal with this subject.
It's interesting that a colleague brought up the stress test. In my community, there's a person who qualified. She is a single parent with children. She qualified five years ago. She no longer qualifies for her home. She will lose it. She has to move.
I understand what you mean about the stress test and possibly losing it, but it is a reality that the most vulnerable who did qualify are now at risk of losing their homes. That's happening. I can tell you who it is, if you want to know. But it is a problem.
Ms. Scott, you said that you had information on 60%. For forty percent, you didn't have information in the sense of sharing data. If you know the 60%, who is the 40%? Do you know what they have? You must share data, if you know.
Director General, Community Development and Homelessness Partnerships Directorate, Department of Employment and Social Development
Maybe I can explain this a bit more clearly. There are about 1,200 shelters across the country. Currently, about 60% of those beds, or 60% of the capacity of those shelters, are providing data to us. They use a data system called HIFIS, which is a federally developed information management system that allows shelters to manage their clientele. We also collect anonymous information about that.
I think the challenge has been the capacity of some of those shelters to implement that software system. As I said, as we renew the program, one of the main focuses will be on outcomes and a much more data-driven system. The new program will be providing more support for those communities to implement the HIFIS system and collect better data.
Director General, Community Development and Homelessness Partnerships Directorate, Department of Employment and Social Development
I'm sorry. I'm not sure that I understand.
Director General, Community Development and Homelessness Partnerships Directorate, Department of Employment and Social Development
The data we collect and the analysis we are able to do is on a portion of those.
Bow River, CPC
Okay. You need to get that done and you will, because it's hard to go ahead if you're talking about 60% but you're missing 40% in stats. That gets to be a big hole.