Status of Women Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2018

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the 125th meeting of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. This meeting is being held in public. Today we'll continue our study on the system of shelters and transition homes serving women and children affected by violence against women and intimate partner violence.

For this, I am pleased to welcome Josie Nepinak, executive director of the Awo Taan Healing Lodge Society; you will find her on video conference. Then, from Quebec Native Women Incorporated, we have Viviane Michel, who is the president.

I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Nepinak for the next seven minutes. You'll see me start waving when your time is getting close.

You have the floor.

[Josie Nepinak, Executive Director, Awo Taan Healing Lodge Society]

Thank you for your introduction. I'm Josie Nepinak.

Greetings, first of all, from Calgary. Calgary is situated, as you probably know, in Treaty No. 7 first nations. We have beautiful weather today.

I'm here to talk about Awo Taan Healing Lodge Society. We were established in 1992 to provide holistic support and guidance to women and children who were fleeing violence. Awo Taan in the Blackfoot language means shield, protector. Its name represents the approach for culturally appropriate and safe protection and support against family violence.

Our vision is to provide services to families living in peace and our mission is to provide a continuum of support services to anyone affected by family violence and abuse.

I'd like to tell you, first of all, that in Alberta there are 46 emergency shelters. According to statistics, up to 60% of the women and children coming into shelters in Alberta are indigenous. Therefore, to guide our work, we have developed some guiding principles, and I'd like to tell you a bit about them. We value the traditional knowledge of the elders and the transfer of knowledge as sacred. We acknowledge and value the spirit and integrity of all individuals affected by violence.

We believe that healing requires a multi-faceted response, including intervention, provision of safe shelters, spiritual and cultural services, community-based services, and information to victims and to those who batter, as well as public education and the enforcement of appropriate laws. We also believe that violence is manifested through intergenerational trauma and that healing of that trauma is influenced through community-based education.

We are governed by a volunteer board of directors, who provide collective direction and oversight for our activities. I lead a multidisciplinary team that provides a range of services and programs to indigenous women and their families based upon strength-based trauma care and violence-informed care that foster indigenous healing, pride, self-esteem and cultural identity.

Our aboriginal framework for healing and wellness is our working document and our service delivery model, which provides tools for healing and wellness, and responsive and culturally appropriate strategies. It provides a range of culturally sensitive services to indigenous people and their families.

We have been in service for 25 years, and over those years we have developed our care program and our healing and wellness program with an emphasis on violence-informed care. We also continue to evaluate our framework to test our relevance and the impact of the work that we do around the trauma-informed, culturally responsive services.

For the past 25 years, we have built programming and services and developed strategies for indigenous people, and the people themselves—our mothers and children, people in the community, our partners—have identified indigenous models as most useful in our understanding and knowledge of what constitutes culturally appropriate service delivery.

Therefore, we have expanded from providing crisis services to providing a range of culturally sensitive programs to address the immediate and long-term needs of families affected by violence. We have a number of programs, and I'll just mention a few. We have the emergency shelter program and our family violence prevention program. We have a rural outreach and community program. We have an aboriginal support program, and youth mentorship. All these programs, with the exception of the emergency women's shelter, are inclusive of men and extended to family members impacted by violence so they can be part of the family healing process.

We prefer to call our shelter a lodge primarily because we know, with trauma-informed care, that women coming into the shelter have already had multiple experiences with trauma, whether at residential school or during the sixties scoop, and have suffered loss of language, culture and ceremony. The lodge represents more of the healing process.

We have 32 beds and we offer a full-service emergency shelter. We operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and we provide services to all women fleeing violence. Those services include emergency crisis support, emergency accommodation, cultural supports, mentorship, intensive case management, community healing and education.

We have an innovative child care program and a reconciliation and healing from trauma program, which is fairly new for us. The reconciliation and healing program uses an enhanced approach to counselling and providing supports for women who stay at the lodge. We have an indigenous psychologist who is trauma-informed, so we practise culturally safe trauma- and violence-informed counselling and support healing of all forms of violence and abuse.

The lodge is core-funded by the Province of Alberta, under the homeless supports division.

We recently completed the “Comprehensive Report: Building a Case to Explore the Impact of Indigenous Trauma-Informed Care and Other Promising Practices at the Awo Taan Healing Lodge Society”. The scope of the work included the development of a program logic model and a review of internal documentation for relevance, achievement and outcomes, as well as our design, delivery and efficiency. We also did an external literature review of culturally relevant frameworks, models, principles and strategies for family violence prevention at women's emergency crisis shelters, primarily serving indigenous women.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

What we're going to do, since we're past our seven minutes now—

[Josie Nepinak]

Oh, I'm—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

It's all good.

There will be an opportunity to add more when we have questions.

[Josie Nepinak]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

We're now going to pass the floor over to Viviane Michel.

You have seven minutes.

[Viviane Michel, President, Quebec Native Women Inc.]

[Witness speaks in an indigenous language]

Good afternoon. I would like to thank the Creator for bringing me here safe and sound, as well as the Anishinabek nation for hosting us on its vast territory.

My name is Viviane Michel, and I am the president of Québec Native Women.

Québec Native Women represents 10 nations in Quebec, including the urban population. Our organization has Réseau des maisons d'hébergement pour femmes autochtones, a network of 13 shelters for indigenous women. Two more are coming soon for the Naskapi and Eeyou populations, which will bring their total to three shelters.

I would also like to thank the Standing Committee on the Status of Women for including Québec Native Women in this process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Viviane, could you slow it down just a tad, so that the interpreters can do it?

[Viviane Michel]

All right. As I'm sure you can appreciate, seven minutes isn't much, but I'm used to talking fast.

I'm going to comment on the two issues the committee asked us to address, beginning with current federal programs and funding in support of shelters and transition houses.

In 1990, we set up a shelter funded by the Department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs. The department gave us $143,000 to establish the regional shelter, serving nine Innu communities. That isn't a lot of money. It had to cover not just the cost of running the shelter, but also the salaries of four workers, a coordinator and a director. It covered the bare minimum. In comparison, the city had its own shelter for women who were victims of violence, and it received $450,000 from the province. The gap between federal and provincial funding was very wide, indeed.

Current shelter funding isn't consistent. Shelters in communities are funded by the federal government. In urban areas, however, shelters are funded by the province because they are outside a community. In some cases, band councils administer the funding for indigenous shelters, and that can be problematic. Consider one case where a woman reported being sexually assaulted by a band chief, and the band council would not let the indigenous shelter assist her. Politics can sometimes cause problems, affecting how shelters are managed. For that reason, funding should be standardized and administered by indigenous shelters directly.

Staff working at shelters for indigenous women need ongoing training. They put their heart and soul into their work, having to deal with numerous and varied cases. These include victims reporting sexual assault or contemplating suicide. These workers need access to training opportunities so that they have the skills and tools they need to provide the best possible support in all circumstances.

Funding has to include workers' salaries. In communities, the salaries vary significantly from one indigenous shelter to another and are not commensurate with the work being done. These factors contribute to the high turnover among indigenous shelter workers, many of whom quit or go on sick leave. Better-trained employees with access to better tools are desperately needed. In order to provide culturally sensitive support, they must be trained by, for and with indigenous people.

The second issue was the number of available beds. The bed shortage is especially problematic in Montreal and Quebec City, which serve a larger clientele. Conversely, communities can have the opposite problem. In places like Schefferville, beds sit empty because everyone knows everyone in the small community, so it's incredibly difficult to protect a person's confidentiality.

That brings me to my recommendations.

My seven minutes are already up?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have two minutes.

[Viviane Michel]

Could you repeat that more slowly, please?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have two minutes left.

[Viviane Michel]

Our first recommendation is to provide core funding to Réseau des maisons d'hébergement pour femmes autochtones, our network of shelters for indigenous women. This would allow for training and information sharing among indigenous shelters, on a par with the Regroupement des maisons pour femmes victimes de violence conjugale and the Fédération des maisons d'hébergement pour femmes au Québec.

Our second recommendation is to expand shelter services to better reflect the needs, realities, culture and traditions of indigenous women experiencing domestic violence and spousal abuse.

Our third recommendation is to establish services for men who are violent or experiencing violence themselves. They need to be part of the healing process for indigenous nations.

Our fourth recommendation is to give communities additional human resources to address domestic violence and spousal abuse.

Our fifth recommendation is to develop interorganizational memoranda of understanding between indigenous and non-indigenous shelters and such partners as police, social service agencies, the youth protection branch and other relevant authorities.

Our sixth recommendation is to educate indigenous women on the legal system as it relates to domestic violence and spousal abuse, including legal guidance and assistance with complaints.

Our seventh recommendation is to make a range of tailored services available to indigenous women experiencing domestic violence and spousal abuse and thus ensure they have a safety net.

Our eighth recommendation is to allocate more financial resources to indigenous police forces for the purposes of training and female officer recruitment.

Our ninth recommendation is to allocate resources to specifically support the families of missing and murdered indigenous women.

Our 10th and final recommendation is to launch an awareness campaign to educate and support female seniors who experience violence in all forms.

There you have it. I don't think I've gone over my allotted time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You are fantastic.

[Viviane Michel]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

It's 7:02, right on the dot, and that's with asking about those two minutes.

[Viviane Michel]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

We are now going to a round of questioning.

We'll be starting a seven-minute round with Pam Damoff.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thanks to both of our witnesses for being here today.

Ms. Nepinak, I notice that in addition to the work you've done with the shelter, you've also worked with the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, as well as on the expert advisory panel on the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability.

My question has to do with the prevalence of firearms in domestic violence. In speaking with shelters, I've heard quite often about the use of firearms, not only in assaults on women, but being used to threaten women, their children and companion pets to force women to stay in a relationship. I'm wondering if you could comment on that.

[Josie Nepinak]

That certainly is the case.

Last week, the Canadian domestic observatory released a document stating that indigenous women are killed primarily by stabbings, and that guns are used primarily for killing women in more rural communities, such as farming communities, etc.

I would agree that using guns to threaten families to stay in a situation is very probable.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I wonder if you both could comment on.... You're working in urban settings, and a number of indigenous women are coming into urban settings. You both touched on this. The challenges they're facing are different on reserve versus in the city.

How can the federal government assist women in urban settings in particular to be able to find shelters? Is there anything we should be doing differently?

Maybe I'll start with Viviane, and then we'll go over to you, Josie.

[Viviane Michel]

Having been a shelter worker, I can tell you that, in communities, where everyone knows everyone, one of the biggest issues is confidentiality. An abused women who wants to report her attacker has to have the wherewithal to face family, friends and members of the community. In fact, it's not uncommon for the person with whom the victim has to file a complaint to be the abuser's brother. This is a big concern in communities, so it's no wonder that women who are victims of violence tend not to report their abusers. In urban areas, however, ensuring confidentiality isn't as difficult because the area is larger and the location of the shelter isn't a matter of public knowledge. That difference has to be taken into account.

Within communities, a lot of effort is necessary to ensure shelters are secure. The Tipinuaikan shelter, in Sept-Îles, for instance, is located in the community, so some of the men know it's a shelter for women who are victims of violence. The whole dimension of shelter safety and security, including police involvement, has to be addressed by multi-stakeholder groups. The financial aspect is another challenge. Who is going to assume the lion's share of shelter security costs? As everyone knows, shelters are barely able to get by.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Do you want to add anything to that, Josie?

[Josie Nepinak]

Yes. Quite often the needs are very different. For women coming into the Awo Taan shelter from northern and remote communities, there is often the loss of culture, identity, isolation and cultural supports.

Quite often, the funding does not provide adequate resources to be able to continue to provide those much-needed healing supports in the city shelters. For example, if the use of elders and the use of language, culture and ceremony are not available in the shelter, that can impede her holistic wellness and whether or not she goes back to that violent situation. We often don't have the funds and the supports to be able to develop that strategy.