Status of Women Committee on April 9th, 2019

[Anita Pokiak]

Everything begins at home with our culture. We try hard with our language, keeping our culture, learning to sew and stuff. Also, as I said, in the school.... We have to teach our children, because the teaching begins at home and then it spreads out into the community.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

You were asked by Eva, my colleague, to give recommendations to the government. I think maybe you ran out of time. Are there other recommendations that you would like to offer to the committee today?

[Anita Pokiak]

The main one that I have is that we really need to keep our elders at home. It is so hard when our people are down south. It is financially costly for people to come down here. When elders are down here, elders deteriorate very fast.

I'll give you an example. Let's say that somebody was at Embassy West here, and somebody was from Resolute Bay or even Rankin Inlet. Say your family member is going to pass away. We need you down here. We need a next of kin here. It's going to take days to get down here. Not only that, but weather is a factor up north. It is so sad that somebody should pass away. That's what's going to happen when people are placed down here. People cannot afford to come and be with family. The government pays for two family members to come down here to visit once a year. That, to me, is a real priority.

The other one is shelters in the community for women. There are no shelters in our communities, in the smaller communities. Those are real priorities: shelters for safety, facilities for elders—even independent living homes for elders are really important—and financial support.

Thank you.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you very much for your time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I now pass the floor over to Marjolaine.

You have seven minutes.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

As I did earlier, I'll ask my questions in French.

Ms. Weeks, you also have access to the interpretation, don't you?

[Dr. Lori Weeks, Associate Professor, School of Nursing, Dalhousie University]

Yes, I do.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you.

I was the NDP housing critic for a number of years. I toured across Canada in that capacity. I went to Nunavik with my colleague, Romeo Saganash. What you described earlier, a situation where 14 people live in a two-bedroom house with mouldy bathrooms, I saw with my own eyes. I know that this is happening across Canada.

I also heard last week from chiefs in southern Ontario, one of the richest regions in Canada, that there was no drinking water in their communities because the water purification system was too old. I was stunned to hear that.

As a result, the living conditions in the north and in other places are difficult for indigenous peoples, including Inuit.

The government recently introduced a housing strategy. I think that it's the beginning of a strategy. It's still missing some things, such as an indigenous housing strategy.

Ms. Pokiak, I want to know what you and your group could recommend to the government. The government tells us that an indigenous housing strategy is forthcoming. This includes Inuit housing, of course. What could the government include in an indigenous housing strategy to lift Inuit women out of poverty?

[Anita Pokiak]

Thank you.

I don't really have much experience in housing, but I'll just talk from my experience, which is that, for one, what we are really lacking in the communities for overcrowding—and for our elders to get away from an abusive situation—is a way to lessen that overcrowding. That puts a lot of stress on them. Also, we need to have homes in the communities where there's independent living, and where an elderly couple can have an apartment with their own access to the building. We also need to have another facility where there's 24-hour care for people in need. It's different from a dementia centre; they just need 24-hour care.

Some of the communities have independent living, but there is not enough. I know that a lot of the elders don't like to go into centres. They like their dignity and to be on their own. If they had an apartment for independent living with their own access and their families could have access to them without disturbing other people, I think that would work better. That would decrease the overcrowding of homes, with less stress and less abuse for the elders.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

There's a serious lack of housing, first of all, and social housing. The places where I went, at least, had 95% social housing. It's clearly not enough to build one or two houses per village each year.

You said something else that struck me. When seniors are sent to live in residential facilities thousands of kilometres from home, it reminds them a great deal of residential schools. It brings back trauma.

You're asking the government to build shelters for senior women. I suppose the shelters are also for young women. In addition, you're asking the government to build facilities where seniors who want help can receive it. You're talking about 24-hour care.

In terms of women's shelters, I was thinking more along the lines of shelters for young women. We often hear that young women don't want to move to shelters far from home because they risk losing their children. However, you reminded me that senior women also need shelters adapted to their situation.

Do you have any comments on this?

[Anita Pokiak]

I'll speak for my region. I have six communities within my region. There are two shelters. The main shelter is in Inuvik. Sometimes we have access to that when we need it. There is also one in our community, but that's for battered women. Also, that is used sometimes for the elderly when they're being abused. They can stay there, but they can only stay there for three days.

We need a shelter for the elderly in our communities. I know it's hard that we can't put something into each community, but it would be nice to have even a regional one and not to be sending them south, so that they're up in the north, up where they have access to their language and their traditional foods and culture.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

We're now going to you, Salma. You have seven minutes.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

My first question is for Ms. Watts and Ms. Weeks. You have both done a lot of work in your careers on the issue of elder abuse. You talked about that in your testimony. Have you gathered any insight during your work on the intersectional issues at play and whether or not minority senior women are more vulnerable due to language and cultural issues and the more social isolation they face?

[Laura Tamblyn Watts]

Elder abuse is an issue of gender. There's no question about it. When we look at the proportion of people who are subject to elder abuse, it's approximately two-thirds women. Similarly, the portrait of an abuser about three-quarters of the time tends to be a man, with the exception of financial abuse, which actually has a lower rate. I'm taking frauds and scams out of that conversation. I'm talking about relational elder abuse, where there is usually an expectation of trust within a relationship. Frauds and scams are to the side. We don't necessarily have demographic data on that.

I would draw your attention to the 2015 elder mistreatment study that was run chiefly by Dr. Lynn McDonald at the University of Toronto. I was part of that study as well. It looked at the experiences across the country of elder abuse on a gendered basis. That information is also available on a province and territorial basis. I would be happy to share that information with the committee, if you'd like. Overwhelmingly, when we hear qualitative research on the experiences of older women, we see the intersectional piece being so critically important in terms of their social vulnerability.

I want to speak a little bit to the piece on newcomers and sponsored immigrants, who are perhaps some of the most vulnerable in terms of the requirements for family members to take, quote, “full responsibility financially” for the older adults who may have been brought in. That sets up a dynamic of deep concern about abuse and neglect that has a gendered element to it, particularly when we see financial resources being taken away, or, alternatively, simply not being made available to them. In some cases, women will come with their jewellery and some of their portable assets, which get taken into the family and the women then won't have. There is a significant concern around dependence and social vulnerability for older women who are experiencing intersectional marginalization due to sponsorship or immigration.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

[Inaudible—Editor] Scarborough chapter.

[Laura Tamblyn Watts]

Yes, we do.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I represent a very diverse community, so we hear about these issues there also.

Ms. Weeks, would you like to add to that?

[Dr. Lori Weeks]

In answer to that question, I am involved right now, having to do with the diverse needs of older women who experience intimate partner violence. This is a study that's funded by Justice Canada. We're looking at a lot of the.... We certainly have a growing body of knowledge about the needs of older women who experience intimate partner violence, but we haven't had very much information on the needs of specific groups of women. We've been able to find out some very interesting things by looking at the needs of women who are immigrants to our country. For example, a doctoral student who is working with me is [Technical difficulty—Editor] country, and she [Technical difficulty—Editor] women who are immigrants to Canada from that background and also people who support these women.

As you mentioned, intersectionality issues of culture and gender and immigrant status can have a big effect on the comfort level, I think, of these women in terms of [Technical difficulty—Editor] once they come to Canada—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Lori, we'll have to cut it there for a moment. We're having some issues with the audio. Just hold on for one moment.

Lori, we are so apologetic. We are having some technical difficulties with the audio that's coming in. It's cracking and causing great problems for the people who are working in the translation booth, so we will have to cut your testimony off. I am so sorry. I will have Kenza, who is our clerk, reach out to you to see if there are any additional options. I'm sorry about this, but we cannot take the audio in right now. We'll have to cut this part. I feel so bad.

To all the committee members, we'll be able to speak with Anita and Laura only, and not with Lori.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Can we get her written submission or something?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

A written submission has already come in from Lori, but we'll see what other options are available for us as well.

Go ahead.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

My next question is for Ms. Watts.

One area we have not gone into during this study on seniors is seniors and nutrition. A Statistics Canada study quoted by the CCPA warned that one in three Canadian seniors is at risk of being malnourished, and we know that nutritional risks increase the likelihood of hospital stays.

Is there enough focus on prevention programs such as nutrition and meal planning to help prevent hospital visits?

[Laura Tamblyn Watts]

Hunger and nutrition and how that intersects with health is one area that CARP has been looking at. We know that users of food banks are often seen as young families. Not to take away from that real and pressing need, we know that the sharp increase in food bank users tends to be due to older women, often older women who have very few financial resources or social connections.

We know that for women who may have good supports in the community, adequate nutrition is often not part of their daily regime, whether they can't get food, whether Meals on Wheels and other types of services aren't necessarily available to them. Whether women in rural communities have increased access is a real question. We're starting some research into this area but I can tell you it's a pressing concern. What we know is that nutrition plays a huge role, not just in terms of health, but also in making sure that we're able to stabilize quite prevalent conditions such as diabetes.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Diabetes and some kidney diseases are very common among senior women.

[Laura Tamblyn Watts]

Indeed. Urinary tract infections, bladder infections and kidney diseases are some of the biggest challenges associated with cognitive impairment in older adults. Very often what we see is that people are being diagnosed with dementia when actually they lack proper nutrition and are having challenges with those types of diseases. So, we have an outflow event as well. We need to make sure that we're doing proper discharges after acute incidents, whether the older adult has had the flu or shingles or been in hospital for a fall. Discharge is usually very short and consultations are rarely at-home consultations. Nutrition visits are one of the key areas that could really make a huge difference for people.