Evidence of meeting #122 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 data.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Eva Kratochvil  Survivor and Frontline Worker, Hiatus House, As an Individual
Anita Olsen Harper  Research Consultant, National Aboriginal Circle Against Family Violence, As an Individual
Dawn Clark  Acting Executive Director, Haven Society
Bob Bratina  Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, Lib.
Yvan Clermont  Director, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
Kathy AuCoin  Assistant Director, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
Sonia Sidhu  Brampton South, Lib.

3:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio

I call the meeting to order.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the 122nd Meeting of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. The meeting is in public today.

Today we will be continuing our study of the system of shelters and transition houses serving women and children affected by violence against women and intimate partner violence.

For this, I am pleased to welcome the panellists for our first section.

We have Eva Kratochvil, Survivor and Front-Line Worker, Hiatus House; Dr. Anita Olsen Harper, Research Consultant, National Aboriginal Circle Against Family Violence; and Dawn Clark, whom you will also see on the screen, by video conference. Welcome all.

Just as a reminder, you each get seven minutes for your opening statements.

I'm passing the floor to Eva.

3:30 p.m.

Eva Kratochvil Survivor and Frontline Worker, Hiatus House, As an Individual

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today from a front-line worker and survivor's perspective.

Each day when VAW shelters across the country are forced to turn away women and children due to capacity issues, those women and children fall into the homelessness stream and shelter systems. Unfortunately, the severe underfunding of the homelessness shelter systems and their functioning from a Housing First model not adapted to working with victims of violence means these women and children never receive the counselling and services they are entitled to and would benefit from.

I would contend that this inability to obtain assistance specific to domestic violence perpetuates the cycle of violence, as there is a lack of intervention and counselling to address the abuse that has taken place. We fool ourselves into believing that women we turn away to the homeless shelters are receiving services when this is often not the case.

For example, they may not meet the eligibility requirements for admission to a homeless shelter. These differ greatly from community to community. Even if they do secure a space within the homeless shelter systems, these were not constructed to be secure facilities meant to protect women from danger.

When systems fail, often women are the ones who end up owning the blame. I have watched first-hand as women who try to access services are denied due to capacity then spend several weeks bouncing around from place to place, utilizing friends and family as an interim measure. Attempts to access services at a later date may find a woman being told that her situation is no longer an immediate issue of domestic violence but a housing issue.

The other reality is that VAW shelters providing limited stays push women out of the VAW system and into the homelessness stream if they cannot achieve their goal of securing safe, affordable housing in the allotted time. Homeless women have often advised that their homelessness is cause for them to be in abusive relationships, making the decision to select one abuser to live with rather than the many abusers they will face if forced into a position of absolute homelessness and into the streets.

We can no longer pretend there is not a correlation, a definitive overlap between the VAW and homelessness sectors. To do so is to be irresponsible and deny all women the right to adequate services. The funding provisions to the homelessness sector help to create this unnatural divide for fear that the funding could be affected. There should not be a distinction in women so as to treat homeless women as second-class citizens within the shelter systems.

If you need to have a visual of the difference in the level of service, the community of Windsor, Ontario, invites you to witness the distinction between VAW and homelessness for women. Last fiscal year, 146 women and 188 children were turned away from Hiatus House, and this number only continues to rise.

I think it is important for you to know the impacts on workers each day when we pick up the crisis line and do not have a bed to offer women. I want you to know the pain in our throats each time there is a news story of a woman who has been assaulted or lost her life as we wait to find out her name and check our systems to see if it happens to be the one we turned away.

I want you to know the hardship on women and their children when they are unable to find affordable, safe housing within our community through no fault of their own, simply due to the lack of its existence, and they are pressed with the decision to transition to the homeless shelter, return home to the abuse, or settle for substandard housing options.

I want you to know the impacts on the shelter when we bleed our biggest resource, the people we train and have as co-workers that we lose to other employment opportunities due to the non-competitive rate at which shelter workers on the front lines are paid.

When shelter workers are forced into the position of constantly assessing for risk using the high-risk category as the determinant for shelter services by asking questions such as “Have you been physically assaulted? Do you have injuries? Has he choked you, threatened to kill you, abused the children or pets? Does he have weapons, prior charges? Were police involved?” to assign the limited available bed space, we continue to perpetuate society's understanding that abuse is only really abuse if it's physical.

My work has changed over the years. There was a time that I would say to a woman that she did not have to wait until the abuse became physical. Now I try to strategize as to which woman's situation is the most severe to entitle her to one of the last beds available.

We can talk all we want about preventive measures and education initiatives that teach women the red flags of abusive relationships so that they are aware early on if they are at risk. However, if they are not able to get the help, then it feels rather pointless.

The solutions are not simple, and there is no one fix that will solve this issue. Women need to see a way out. They need to have support, financial resources, access to child care, counselling, and ultimately safe, affordable housing in which to re-establish effectively. A woman needs to have a sense of optimism that things will get better if she leaves, that she need not fear that by leaving she will lose everything—her children, her job, credibility, and any semblance of normalcy.

Shelters are able to provide a lot of what is needed, but they cannot provide everything. There need to be adequate shelter beds available to meet the demand. The issue is that shelters need to have operational dollars to function. It's not so simple as just building the structure; it's how you keep it staffed and running.

Shelters are being placed in the position of having to make decisions that compromise the services they are able to deliver. For example, Hiatus House had to cut the number of child and youth workers from five to one and a half so that midnights would no longer be single-staffed, as it was becoming a safety issue with the shelter constantly running at over 100% capacity.

Making these kinds of sacrifices has consequences. I watch as the one full-time worker and one part-time worker stretch themselves thin to meet the needs of an average of 20 to 25 children daily, and to help moms as they try to help their children adjust, find new ways of parenting, regain the parental role in chaotic times, or just provide them with a few moments of alone time or time to complete the tasks they desperately need to attend to. It's really an impossible feat.

I wonder how we teach women about healthy expectations when we ourselves function in an unhealthy environment based on the sheer levels of stress, overwork, and endlessly tapped-out resources, yet I feel guilty complaining about the circumstances of workers, as I know we are not the most important people in this: it is the women and children who are most important. However, I am reminded that they are impacted by everything we do. We are capable of so much better, if we were only equipped to be able to do so.

There is no set standard of services provided by shelters. We all struggle along to do the best we can, based on the circumstances of whatever location we happen to be in across this vast country, but there is no consistency, and women and their children should no be at the mercy of the government of the day. Shouldn't all women across the country be entitled to the same number of days of leave if they suffer from domestic violence or sexual assault? I should think so. We all know that the only way to make this happen would be for the federal government to take the leadership on this issue. Please consider implementing a national action plan that would address these gaps.

You need to strengthen what is offered by shelters. One of the greatest ways to create a connection of shelters is to put support in place for the provincial shelter associations, so that all shelters can be members and use these as hubs of expertise, training, and best practices. However, as long as shelter associations depend on membership fees for their existence, they will not be a strong collective, because the smallest and most remote shelters cannot possibly afford to belong. Please consider new funding formulas for provincial associations to do the work they do as leaders.

Most importantly, meaningful survivor inclusion is essential—putting survivors back in the forefront of the movement—so that credibility is restored, stigma is reduced, and nothing is created for us without us. Create, support and fund survivor work involvement and initiatives.

3:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio

Eva, you've gone a little over seven minutes. I know you still have your summary.

3:40 p.m.

Survivor and Frontline Worker, Hiatus House, As an Individual

Eva Kratochvil

I have the summary, and that's it.

3:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio

Yes, but your summary is going to be about a minute and a bit.

I'll make sure that during the rounds of questions we focus on that as well. We have more to go through.

3:40 p.m.

Survivor and Frontline Worker, Hiatus House, As an Individual

Eva Kratochvil

I totally understand. Thank you.

3:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio

Thank you so much, Eva. I really appreciate it.

Anita, the floor is yours for seven minutes.

3:40 p.m.

Dr. Anita Olsen Harper Research Consultant, National Aboriginal Circle Against Family Violence, As an Individual

Thank you. Meegwetch.

My name is Anita Olsen Harper. I'm an Anishinabe from Namekoosipiing, or Trout Lake, in northwestern Ontario. My Ph.D. is in education. My dissertation was on domestic violence and resilience in first nations communities.

I'm a researcher for the National Aboriginal Circle Against Family Violence, or NACAFV. We are a non-profit. We work with most on-reserve women's shelters, but there are several off reserve as well. We provide as many necessary supports as we possibly can so that shelter directors can help their clientele. These are the women and children who need a place to stay because of violence in the home.

For the purposes of my talk, just to be clear, I'll be using the word “shelter”. By this I mean a housing or residential complex. It has rooms, such as kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms, for the women and children. It is a place of temporary protection and support for those having to flee from domestic violence. Some use such terms as “transition house”, but I will use the word “shelter”.

Through the family violence initiative, or FVI, Indigenous Services Canada, or ISC, funds and oversees on-reserve women's shelters. Other family violence programs, such as outreach programs to indigenous families, are also funded by ISC through its family violence prevention program, or FVPP. Currently there are 40 shelters funded and controlled by ISC that also belong to NACAFV's membership.

The most pressing issue that on-reserve women's shelters face is insufficient financial funding from ISC. The funding that on-reserve shelters receive ranges anywhere from about half to three-quarters of what provincially funded or mainstream women's shelters receive from the province in which they are located. This is unequal funding for on-reserve shelters. This is despite their higher needs.

As well, when first nations women—women who have Indian status and normally live on reserve—access women's shelters off reserve, ISC reimburses that provincially funded shelter at the provincial rate, a rate that is higher than what it pays the first nation to provide these services on the reserve, when these services are available. This is actually discriminatory.

There is also inequitable funding. In particular, ISC's funding structure is based on population and the presumption that the indigenous clientele is identical to the mainstream clientele rather than its actual needs. ISC fails to take into account the historical circumstances and the increased needs of a population that has lived through Indian residential schools, ongoing colonialism, and intergenerational trauma. It also fails to consider the heightened cost to deliver services in rural and remote communities, including on reserve.

Reserves are known for their limited health, housing, educational, and social services. These are essential to provide support and to complement shelters' programs and services. This unequal and inequitable funding of on-reserve women's shelters results in at least the following four consequences.

The first is regular burnout, high staff turnover rates, feelings of isolation by staff who are underpaid, and difficulty in recruiting and retaining professionals for women's and children's actual needs.

The second is lack of indigenous-appropriate resources and programs for shelter clients.

The third is poor infrastructure, with limited and inefficient spaces for both children and adults. Often there is a dire need for renovations and also expansions. Therefore, there is little by way of complying with health and safety standards.

The fourth consequence is that shelters cannot provide second-stage housing, by which I mean longer-term residence complete with programming.

Indigenous women fleeing or at risk of experiencing domestic violence do not have access to the same quality of shelters as other women in Canada. Some cannot access these services at all. Currently, Canada does not provide indigenous women access to equal, equitable and culturally appropriate protection from domestic violence.

Finally, as a remedy and as a very specific recommendation, Canada must fund and provide equal, equitable and culturally appropriate shelter services and programming. This would be for the indigenous women and their children who are fleeing or at risk of experiencing domestic violence. This means that services and programs must be tailored to the unique geographical, cultural and historical circumstances of women who are accessing the 40 ISC-funded shelters in Canada.

Meegwetch. Thank you.

3:45 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio

Thank you very much, Dr. Olsen Harper. I really appreciate that.

Now we have Dawn Clark from the Haven Society.

Dawn, you have seven minutes.

3:45 p.m.

Dawn Clark Acting Executive Director, Haven Society

Good afternoon. Thank you for inviting me to appear before this committee. My name is Dawn Clark. I'm the programs director at Haven Society in Nanaimo.

The Haven Society was incorporated as a non-profit society and registered charity on December 22, 1978. This year marks our 40th year of providing shelter services to women and children fleeing violence and abuse. In Nanaimo, we operate a 17-bed transition house and, in 2013, in partnership with the Society of Organized Services, we expanded our shelter services to include an eight-bed safe house in the Oceanside area.

Our mission is to promote the integrity and safety of women, children, youth and families and the development of a respectful and healthy community. Haven has a strong reputation in our community and in B.C. as a leading anti-violence organization and a respected leader, trainer and collaborator. We endeavour to provide a continuum of services, public education and advocacy.

I'm sure most of us have heard these statistics before, but I believe they're worth repeating, as these are the women we see daily.

According to the most recently published Canadian Women's Foundation fact sheet of August 2016, women are four times more likely than men to be victims of intimate partner homicide; indigenous women are 2.5 times more likely to be victims of violence than non-indigenous women; approximately every six days a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner; aboriginal women are killed at six times the rate of non-aboriginal women; and, 70% of spousal violence is never reported to the police.

Also, on any given night in Canada, close to 6,000 women and children sleep in shelters because their safety at home is at risk and nearly 300 women and children are turned away because the shelters are full. Women who identify as lesbian or transgender and experience spousal violence are less likely to access shelter services; women are at greater risk of experiencing elder abuse from a family member; and leaving an abusive relationship may involve a choice between remaining with an abuser or falling into poverty and risking homelessness.

As well, cyber-violence, which includes online threats, harassment, physical threats and stalking, is quickly emerging as an extension of violence against women; women with mental health and behavioural disabilities and chronic or debilitating medical conditions experience personal victimization at a rate four times that of women who have none; and substance use and mental health problems often co-occur among women, as many women identify substance use as a way to cope with gender-based abuse and trauma.

Many of the women who come to our transition house or safe home are dealing with complex traumas, various mandated services, health concerns, poverty-related issues and an unknown future. Their children may show a range of behaviours directly related to the violence these kids are exposed to, and many have difficulty living in a communal living environment with strangers and new rules and may isolate and become overly protective or exhibit aggression. Also, women with poor health, mental health concerns or alcohol or substance use may not disclose these concerns at intake for fear they may be turned away.

These intersecting barriers have made it necessary for our staff at our transition house and the safe home to be Jills of all trades, able to manage a crisis at any given moment and provide women with emotional support and safety while addressing immediate and future needs.

The heart of our work at Haven is to offer a safe place where victims of violence are heard, believed and supported. Foundational to the relationships we build with each woman is the belief that she is her own expert. Our intention is to provide a constellation of equitable services, and we presume that each woman and child is entitled to supports that address individual needs and are culturally sensitive and uphold their dignity.

To ensure a complete service to the women and children we serve, we believe the following recommendations are necessary to implement.

First, ensure that women's shelters and transition houses are fully funded and have professional capacity and the staffing numbers to provide appropriate emotional support and manage crises while safeguarding the well-being of all in the shelter or transition house;

As well, continue to advocate for increased second-stage housing that allows women the time to transition from a violent relationship to a safer place; provide housing options that enable women to preserve or re-establish their relationships with their children, with subsidized child care and family services; increase funding to trauma-informed programs, such as Stopping the Violence and children's programming, to address wait-lists and allow more women and children access to expanded counselling and clinical services; and expand education and agency development around women-centred approaches, trauma-informed practice and mental health and addictions.

In addition, increase community-based follow-up for individual and innovative support services, such as opportunities for women to provide feedback and input regarding program designs and influence service delivery; develop voluntary and mandatory programming for perpetrators of violence; and provide funding to develop and strengthen partnerships across sectors that support women.

Work with government agencies and community partners to promote a better understanding of the systemic barriers that many women face when fleeing violence, and implement ways to reduce barriers, including economic stability, and increase access to safe and affordable housing, support services, increased assistance rates, and culturally sensitive services, to name a few.

Provide mandatory school curriculum that includes Violence is Preventable programming for children at all levels in our school systems.

Research best practices and develop and implement innovative approaches of service delivery for women fleeing violence that have been successful elsewhere; examine current capacity in some key areas of women's services in order to gain a better understanding of the service shortages among agencies; and provide funding to address these gaps.

In closing, I would like to add that domestic violence will not be eradicated by interventions solely focused on women or survivors of domestic violence. We need to promote systemic interventions that circumvent domestic violence, and include measures directed not only at perpetrators of domestic violence but at the wider society as well.

Thank you.

3:50 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio

Thank you very much, Dawn.

We're now going to start with our first round of questioning, and each round is seven minutes.

We're going to start with Eva Nassif. You have seven minutes.

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

Eva Nassif Liberal Vimy, QC

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank all three witnesses for their extremely compelling presentations.

I will start with Ms. Kratochvil.

Ms. Kratochvil, I was quite moved by your remarks. Could you tell us more about your story?

How were you able to help yourself as a victim of violence, and other women seeking help in your shelter? How does your courage and experience help other women come forward and seek help in the shelter where you're working?

3:50 p.m.

Survivor and Frontline Worker, Hiatus House, As an Individual

Eva Kratochvil

I think my story personally—

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

Eva Nassif Liberal Vimy, QC

The translation is not working.

3:50 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio

Eva understands some, but we are going to extend it a little more, so if there are any questions—

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

Eva Nassif Liberal Vimy, QC

No problem. I can go on in English.

3:55 p.m.

Survivor and Frontline Worker, Hiatus House, As an Individual

Eva Kratochvil

I understood the question.

In light of what I went through, what I try to do in my work is find a way to make the system work better. It helps because I provide services to women, and I'm a survivor, as you know.

I think being a survivor providing services allows women to see that there's potential to escape the violence. They can see for themselves that there's hope.

The truth of the story is that it was not the shelter system that allowed me to escape the situation I was in. In fact, it was friends whom I had to turn to. I was employed by a shelter at the time I went through the situation I was in, so that compromised a lot of possibilities.

I think that speaks to the stigma that women face when they're in a situation of domestic violence and where it is that they turn. The reality is that I think it's less than 11% of abused women who turn to shelters specifically to flee violence.

It's a much greater question than just shelter services. The biggest question is on how these women can be assisted to get back on their feet and ensure that by leaving violence, they're not looking at a future in poverty, especially when they're with children. It's so much more complex than the shelters alone.

However, being there as a survivor on the front lines, at least for the women I meet with and have the opportunity to touch base with, has been impactful for them. I truly come from a place of understanding and caring, and they appreciate that.

To have survivors on the front lines.... As we professionalize the shelter systems, we've kind of removed the survivors. We need to reinfuse that.

That's why I think it was so important to be here at this table. When I looked at your list—it was one of the comments that I forwarded to the clerk—I realized how many upper-level individuals you were hearing from. You weren't hearing from the front lines and the women who are impacted. I really appreciate being here for that.

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

Eva Nassif Liberal Vimy, QC

You said that being a mother was a barrier for women that prevented them from seeking help.

Other than that, what are the main barriers that prevent women from leaving abusive relationships?

3:55 p.m.

Survivor and Frontline Worker, Hiatus House, As an Individual

Eva Kratochvil

Are you asking what the options are for women?

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

Eva Nassif Liberal Vimy, QC

I don't mean options. I'm talking about the obstacles, other than being a mother.

3:55 p.m.

Survivor and Frontline Worker, Hiatus House, As an Individual

Eva Kratochvil

The biggest is throwing a person into poverty, not being able to see a way out, and a lack of safe, affordable housing. There's housing, but it's substandard. There is no child care to be able to take care of children if they are trying to continue in their employment. People can find themselves in financial ruin.

There are so many different layers. There are a million reasons a woman will stay and not enough reasons to leave, often because there just isn't a place to go. That's probably the biggest obstacle. When I look at women in my community, there is no place to go. That's what keeps them there.

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

Eva Nassif Liberal Vimy, QC

What motivated you to do something? What gave you the courage to get out of your relationship and ask for help, other than the encouragement of your friends?

3:55 p.m.

Survivor and Frontline Worker, Hiatus House, As an Individual

Eva Kratochvil

Do you mean what kept me going to get me out of my situation?

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

Eva Nassif Liberal Vimy, QC

How many years did you stay in the relationship?

3:55 p.m.

Survivor and Frontline Worker, Hiatus House, As an Individual

Eva Kratochvil

In my university years, there were so many reasons as to why it happened in the first place. What got me out was the ability to create space apart, distance, and I was able to re-establish in another community entirely, based on the ability to have a friend's parent's house to stay at. I had co-workers who noticed that I was one of the “hidden homeless” who had my wardrobe on the back of my office door. They crossed boundaries or professional criteria that they were supposed to have followed, and they gave me an out and allowed me to.... A manager of a non-profit building said, “I'm going to take this common area, and this is your space, and I'm going to give you a key to it, because you're going to get on your feet, and I'm going to help you to get there.”

It's people who broke the rules that I can most appreciate, because if it weren't for them, where would I be?