Status of Women Committee on May 2nd, 2019

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Good morning, and welcome to the 140th meeting of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. Today's meeting is public as we continue our study of the challenges faced by senior women, with a focus on the factors contributing to their poverty and vulnerability.

For this, I am pleased to welcome, from the Canadian Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse, Kathy Majowski. She's right there, as you see on your monitor.

From the DisAbled Women's Network of Canada, we have Bonnie Brayton, the National Executive Director. From Egale Canada, we have Helen Kennedy, their Executive Director as well. You'll see her on video conference. From the Native Women's Association of Canada, we have Chaneesa Ryan, Director of Health, as well as Roseann Martin, Elder.

Thank you for joining us today.

I now turn the floor over to Kathy.

Kathy, you have seven minutes for your opening statement.

[Kathy Majowski, Board Chair, Canadian Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse]

Thank you very much. Good morning, Madam Chair, and members of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. My name is Kathy Majowski, and I'm honoured to be here as a representative for and chair of the Canadian Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse.

The CNPEA is a pan-Canadian network supported by leaders in aging, research, health care and elder-abuse prevention and response. We connect people and organizations. We foster the exchange of reliable information, and advance program and policy development on issues related to preventing the abuse of older adults. Our work focuses on gathering and disseminating adaptable resources, best practices and current research in policy developed by Canadian expert stakeholders, to increase our collective capacity to address and prevent abuse of older adults.

Our vision is a Canadian society where older adults are valued and respected, and live free from abuse. We have based the following presentation on some of these organizations' recent work.

In this presentation, we would like to focus on intimate partner violence, as it relates to older women; social isolation; barriers to safety, and recommendations to address these challenges; as well as ways to better support older women, in order to enhance their well-being and safety.

Older women's lives are often impacted by the dual effects of sexism and ageism. These barriers can increase if a woman is indigenous or an immigrant, or belongs to other linguistic, sexual and/or ethnocultural minority groups. These factors compound older women's vulnerability to poverty, homelessness, poor health, social isolation and various forms of abuse. Overlapping issues can only be addressed with policies and approaches that override the usual silos between sectors. They will also require understanding and considering the diversity of backgrounds and life experiences of the most vulnerable older women.

With regard to intimate partner violence, safety and abuse are key concerns for girls and women of all ages, and these issues do not improve or disappear as women enter the later stages of their lives. Some have experienced violence and abuse throughout their lives, whether systemic or within the framework of their family and relationships. Others are victims of abuse late in life, at home or in long-term-care settings. Overall, one in three Canadian women will experience abuse or sexual assault in their lifetime. Older women experience rates of violence higher than their male counterparts. The impacts of violence can accumulate, creating compound effects of violence experienced through the life stages.

It's important to recognize that older women are not a homogenized group. Older women who experience violence come from a variety of communities, with diverse needs, backgrounds and experiences of oppression. The term “seniors” tends to be used to describe several age groups, spanning over 40 years. These different groups could benefit from more specificity. A woman's life experience, socio-economic level, race and personal set of circumstances define her more than her age ever will. One does not suddenly acquire a whole new set of personality traits at the age of 60, 70 or 80. It's just one more layer added to a lifetime of experience.

There are some identified barriers to safety, such as providing and receiving care, where a woman who is older and living with violence may be receiving or providing care for a family member, including her abuser. There's the myth of caregiver stress, where a woman who is older may experience violence from her caregiver, who may be a family member, and the myth of the caregiver who is driven to helplessness, rage and frustration, due to overwhelming work and responsibility. These are often used to rationalize violence and abuse against women who are older.

Some women face financial insecurity. There's the need to navigate pensions, benefits and health insurance, which takes resources and time. Some women have not held paid employment, have limited employability or are past working age. There's a fear of losing one's home or community, in particular for remote and rural women. A lifelong commitment to a community, or the thought of losing her home, can make the decision to leave an abusive situation especially hard.

In addition, women who live in remote or rural communities may be faced with geographical isolation, where the nearest neighbour is kilometres away. Isolation in an abusive situation means there isn't a quick way out. This is compounded when a telephone or finances have been made inaccessible. For indigenous or immigrant women, particularly if they speak a language or languages other than English or French, the loss of home or community may be terrifying.

Because of generational beliefs, for a woman who is older and who may have more traditional attitudes regarding marriage, family, gender roles and privacy or loyalty in regard to family matters, discussing personal or family problems with strangers may seem unacceptable. Family dynamics can mean that members of the family may not support their mother or grandmothers if they either do not perceive the abuse to be significant or do not want to take on a caregiving role. A woman who is older may be faced with the shock and disbelief of friends and family who cannot accept her story of abuse.

CNPEA has organized the following recommendations to improve safety.

Support awareness campaigns to help people understand the different forms of elder abuse and the nature of domestic abuse of the aging to dispel the longstanding idea that these are private matters. Support the development of bystander intervention training programs and train-the-trainer programs. Support the development of culturally safe and appropriate, multilingual support services specifically for older women. Support the development of orientation programs to help older women and their loved ones navigate the complexities of the justice, immigration, and health care systems. Encourage the development of support programs that are accessible from home. Improve access to regular and affordable transportation in rural areas. Provide access to benefits for full-time family caregivers and provide greater financial support for senior women who are caring for their children.

The other issue we would like to briefly address is the social isolation of older women. Older women can become more vulnerable due to the narrowing of their social networks over time. Loneliness and disconnection from the community due to mobility or health issues, for instance, can affect service access and utilization and increase their vulnerability to abusive and neglectful situations that negatively impact their mental and physical health and create a vicious circle of poor health, alienation and vulnerability to victimization.

CNPEA would like to put forward the following recommendations to decrease isolation. Support and strengthen community-based groups and programs that play an important role in empowering older women to engage in positive help-seeking behaviours and encourage intergenerational programs and approaches, such as intergenerational housing options that can help curb housing shortages.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Kathy, we have to wrap it up. We're already 40 seconds over.

[Kathy Majowski]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You're welcome. Thank you so much.

I'm now going to turn to floor over to Bonnie Brayton for seven minutes.

[Bonnie Brayton, National Executive Director, DisAbled Women's Network of Canada]

Thank you, Karen.

I have submitted a written brief and hope everybody has had an opportunity to read it. It has been rare for DAWN to do this in advance, but I have done it this time. I hope the members of the committee had a chance to review it.

Today I want to quickly go through its points and to add that there are some new things in my speaking notes, including a reminder about state party obligations; intersectional analysis—albeit I feel that with some of the other witnesses we are going to get some good intersectional analysis, as we already have from the first witness—and an end note that I've added on the vulnerable persons standard as it applies to medical assistance in dying.

Just as a reminder to the committee and the Government of Canada, there are state obligations under both the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women specifically for women and girls with disabilities—and again, it's to remind us to investigate, prosecute and punish acts of violence and to leave no space for potential abuse or exploitation of persons with disabilities.

That is just a very quick highlight of what's in my speaking notes.

Regarding intersectional analysis, among the things I want to note is that I appreciate the first witness's reference to the labelling of “senior” as a problematic way to see women with disabilities. Women with disabilities are not a homogenous group. There's a very broad range of considerations; again, the intersectional analysis is quite critical here.

In the very limited research we were able to find on black women, for example, with disabilities, there was a study in Ontario from April 2011. Again, rather than go into the details—because I'm very aware of this time thing and want to focus on some other issues—I'd like to remind everyone that there are many barriers that an older black woman with a disability would face that would be very specific to that intersection.

Specifically, I also wanted to remind us that we are in a time of truth and reconciliation and that it's very important for us to be especially mindful of ways that we can improve our presence on this land today. It's a time for truth and reconciliation and for letting ourselves also consider the needs of older indigenous sisters, in particular, today and consider how we can make reparations and make their lives better for future generations.

To go into the details of DAWN's submission on access to transportation, research indicates that women with disabilities are more likely to be the target of sexual assaults in transit environments. In terms of accessible or specialized transit usage among women with disabilities, the risk increases with the severity of disability. A lack of access to information about transportation and travel, coupled with limited financial assistance, prevents women with disabilities from fully participating in social life. Of the women who report either a severe or very severe disability, 46% report difficulty in using public or specialized transportation. For women in the north, of course, this is particularly true.

In terms of access to health care, the emerging issue that I want to point to, because of the very specific focus of DAWN Canada, is the tension between the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Canada's medical assistance in dying act. Many have argued that the act itself is a violation of Canada's obligations concerning disability and the right to life.

Advocates fear that the act fails to account for the reasons many women with disabilities may seek out assisted dying, which include underfunded palliative and disability support programs, social isolation, a lack of access to needed services and supports—suicide prevention, addictions treatment, trauma-informed services—and because disability still remains stigmatized and undervalued.

In the context of housing and institutionalization, let me add a reminder that the reality is that many senior women who have a disability are homeless, and while women in general are more likely than men to experience poverty, aboriginal women with disabilities, older women, women of colour, and immigrant and refugee women are the most affected by housing issues.

Because of a lack of adequate supported housing in the community, women with disabilities are also at risk for various forms of institutionalization—in group homes, hospitals and long-term care facilities. Additionally, incarceration remains a reality for many women with disabilities who are undiagnosed and therefore untreated. For example, it has been estimated that 40% of Ontario's population of incarcerated women have a history of traumatic brain injury sustained before they committed their first crime.

Access to justice and high rates of victimization against women with disabilities indicate that there are significant gaps with respect to their safety and access to justice. In the review of 120 cases, law enforcement was notified in 96% of these cases, yet only 55% of cases resulted in charges, and only 25% resulted in an assailant being found guilty. In another study looking at sexual assault in nursing homes, only 5% of these cases were prosecuted. Again, for context, we're talking about the low rates of prosecution and the high rates of sexual assault in institutions.

I'll turn to my concluding recommendations, and again there were certainly some excellent ones from the first witness that I really appreciate, which I missed, including focusing on the caregiving piece. I really appreciate that, because unpaid caregiving is something that many older women with disabilities are doing. It's been well documented that there's an overburden of caring for others.

This brief presents research that is relevant to women with disabilities and that has policy implications for older women. In order to ensure that senior women with disabilities, inclusive of race, ethnicity, indigeneity, sexual identity, class and geographic location, are fully included in a social policy and programs, DAWN Canada recommends the following.

We recommend that Canada respect its commitments under the CEDAW and CRPD and other treaties with respect to older women in Canada; that the recommendations of the study focus on the most marginalized seniors using a GBA+ intersectional analysis; that monitoring mechanisms be in place in group homes and institutions to ensure that women are safe and can report incidents of abuse and sexual assault and are supported to do so—I can't emphasize enough how problematic it is that in Canada we do not have institutional monitoring and that we have so much resistance to this idea—that senior women be supported at all stages of reporting sexual assault and abuse; that there be funding for improved availability of adapted and public transportation—

Let's be really clear. In rural and northern communities, this simply doesn't happen; the isolation of seniors in rural communities is a huge and deep concern, and should be for all Canadians.

Furthermore, we recommend that service providers in health care, social services and victim services be educated about the needs across the intersections of senior women with disabilities; that research and policy related to senior women include a disability lens and, most critically, an intersectional lens; that implementation of the medical assistance in dying act be monitored under the vulnerable persons standard to ensure that senior women, in particular women with disabilities, are not subject to coercion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much, Bonnie. That was fantastic.

We're now going to turn back to the video conference and speak with Helen Kennedy from Egale. You have seven minutes.

[Helen Kennedy, Executive Director, Egale Canada]

Thank you very much for this opportunity.

Egale was founded in 1986 and is Canada's only national charity that seeks to improve the lives of LGBTQI2S people by informing public policy, inspiring cultural change and promoting equal rights and inclusion through research, education and community engagement.

Our mandate encompasses advancing gender equality for LGBTQI2S women—that's lesbian, bi, trans, queer, intersex and two-spirit women—as we recognize that they often experience greater inequalities due to intersectional identities and therefore encounter compounded discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity.

Because we're short on time—I only have seven minutes—I'm jumping right to my recommendations and I'm going to come back, then, to the main piece of the presentation. These are the recommendations that Egale is making to address our concerns.

We recommend the development of a national research and knowledge hub for gender equality, which will facilitate the mainstreaming of LGBTQI2S women within domestic public policy. We recommend that this include the formation of a national steering committee for LGBTQI2S women's rights.

The steering committee, led and organized by a national LGBTQI2S organization such as our own, will identify research and programmatic needs for LBGTQI2S women that align with Status of Women Canada's three priority areas and provide guidance on the research projects that ensures they employ a GBA+ analysis.

We will offer input on the development and improvement of programs/initiatives based on the research findings. We would foster partnerships with local and grassroots organizations to carry out research programs and initiatives and practise results-based management to assess the effectiveness of the programs and initiatives. We would also discuss current issues and policy developments impacting gender equality for LGBTQI2S women in Canada.

We would also recommend a national gender-affirming health care strategy that models the work and approach of Trans Care BC to ensure that there is comprehensive health care for older and aging women trans and gender-diverse non-binary communities that is physically and economically accessible and addresses their wide-ranging health care needs.

We would recommend that we incorporate within the new health accord measures that help to assess and integrate the health care needs of LGBTQI2S women and the broader community, including funding specifically allocated to services that tend to the mental health needs of diverse members of our community.

We would recommend that we ensure that Bill C-81, the accessible Canada act, incorporate measures to address barriers that disproportionately impact members of our community who are living with disabilities, including ensuring that there are safe spaces in health care settings. These include requiring health care colleges—for example, nurses, social workers, etc.—to have frameworks in place to protect members of our LGBTQI2S service users and mandatory competency training in LGBTQI2S issues.

We would recommend a non-discriminatory intake and sign-up forms as well as processes in all health care services in order for our community clients to feel recognized and welcome. More competency and inclusion training in LGBTQI2S issues should be mandatory for all service providers, especially in the long-term care sector.

Jumping back to the reasons why we're making these recommendations, despite the advances in women's health in Canada, significant disparities of equality continue to affect members of the lesbian, bi, trans, queer, intersex and two-spirit older and aging community of women. It's particularly true in the area of access to social resources and the consequences of this lack of access.

There is also an immediate need for intersectional research that currently involves women to include LGBTQI2S older and aging women. The recognition of intersectionality and varying social locations is crucial to facilitating positive aging experiences and good end-of-life care.

Within Canada's aging population, there is significant heterogeneity not only in age, but also in terms of other social determinants and social locations. Sexual orientation and gender identity are key determinants in health, particularly when it comes to discrimination and social inclusion. The intersection of age, gender identity and sexual orientation is an important consideration, given the potential for the layering of ageism with discrimination. In the Canadian context, a need for targeted research with and on diverse groups has been recognized.

Despite efforts to be inclusive, the traditional focus of Canadian health research on women assumes that all women, regardless of age, cultural background, geographical location, socio-economic status, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity and categories of difference, share exactly the same experiences, views and priorities. We know this is not the case. The significant absence of disaggregated data and existing research on experiential and structural impacts of discrimination is felt by LBTQI2S women, both globally and in Canada.

It's also of particular concern for research involving LBTQI2S women. Women, seniors, sexual orientation and gender identity minorities continue to suffer from a lack of intersectional research in Canada. An intersectional approach is necessary so the full range of vulnerabilities, experiences and issues of diverse women are not obscured. The issues and priorities of many of our vulnerable women, including members of other groups, are usually excluded from mainstream women's health research.

Older LBTQI2S women are more likely impacted by social exclusion. Social exclusion has been linked to a wide range of issues, including poverty, poor mental and physical health, a lack of education and lack of political participation. There are no—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Helen, we are a little over your time. Thank you very much. You've shown great work with the recommendations.

We're now going to turn the floor over to the Native Women's Association of Canada.

You have seven minutes.

[Chaneesa Ryan, Director of Health, Native Women's Association of Canada]

Ullaakkut. Good morning. Thank you for inviting us here today to speak about the challenges faced by older indigenous women in this country.

Before I continue, I'd like to take a moment to recognize that we are on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin people.

Since 1974, NWAC has represented the collective voices of indigenous women, girls and gender-diverse people of first nations, both on and off reserve, and disenfranchised Métis and Inuit.

We're gathered here today to discuss the challenges experienced by older indigenous women and factors that are contributing to their vulnerability. However, it is important to note that vulnerability is cumulative over someone's life course. The welfare of the aging population depends greatly on the trajectories of their various experiences and challenges endured throughout their life course. Adverse childhood experiences—think the residential school system and the resulting intergenerational trauma—combined and compounded by later adversities contribute to poor health outcomes and increased mortality.

It is important to acknowledge that while indigenous seniors are not a homogeneous group, colonial oppression and exploitation have created a commonality of experiences that have impacted a significant number of indigenous seniors' health and well-being. Given the continued effects of colonization, the legacy of residential schools, the sixties scoop, discriminatory policies and ongoing inequities in the health care system, it is clear that indigenous seniors are vulnerable. Indigenous populations have significant differences in their life expectancy compared with their non-indigenous counterparts. In 2017, the projected life expectancy of first nations females was 78. For Métis females, it was 80, and for Inuit females, it was 73, as compared with 84 for non-indigenous women. The drastic gap in life expectancy between indigenous women—which is most pronounced between Inuit women and their non-indigenous counterparts, at 11 years—is reflective of their overall vulnerability.

In general, across all populations senior women are more likely to be vulnerable than men, as they have different, often interrupted, patterns of wage earnings. As a result, they may have fewer opportunities to contribute to their savings and/or pension plan. Women typically earn significantly less then men. Indigenous women fall even further behind in the wage gap.

The current generation of senior women are more likely to have worked within the home as homemakers rather than paid members of the workforce. These factors, all of which may be compounded for indigenous women, contribute to lower income status and increased vulnerability of women. Therefore, it's important to address both income and equality and establish reforms that abolish the gender wage gap in this country.

Due to increased life expectancy and relatively high fertility rates, the Canadian indigenous population is growing nearly twice as fast as their non-indigenous counterparts. As a result, the indigenous aging population is increasing as well. According to population projections, within the next two decades, the fraction of indigenous people aged 65 years and older will more than double in size. Therefore, complacency about their vulnerability and challenges will not only affect the current generation but also an increasing number of people going forward.

First nations, Métis and Inuit seniors suffer from poorer overall health outcomes than their non-indigenous counterparts. Indigenous populations are more likely to have higher rates of numerous chronic conditions like hypertension, heart disease, stroke and diabetes, including at a younger age compared with the general Canadian population. The increased prevalence of chronic conditions, combined with elevated smoking and obesity rates in some indigenous populations, increase the risk of dementia. This complex multi-morbidity at younger ages can substantially impact quality of life and the ability to age well in communities.

Gaps in information exist, making it difficult to understand the full extent of the problematic prevalence of disabilities in indigenous communities. However, due to complex social, cultural and historical factors and the increased prevalence of chronic conditions, mental health issues, depression, substance abuse and rates of violence, it's safe to conclude that indigenous peoples are more likely to experience disability compared with their non-indigenous counterparts.

Due to the intersectionality of indigenous status and disability status, indigenous people with disabilities in Canada represent a marginalized community within a marginalized population. The biggest challenge for seniors with disabilities is economic insecurity, particularly for those whose disabilities affected their employment and in turn their ability to accumulate savings for retirement.

Part of the poor health outcomes and disability rates of this population can be attributed to the increased likelihood of low educational attainment, low employment rates, low incomes and disproportionate and chronic poverty that impact indigenous people across their life course. Research has indicated that indigenous seniors experience substantially higher poverty rates than the national average, with approximately 25% of indigenous seniors living in poverty compared with 13% of non-indigenous seniors.

Despite the growing demand for culturally safe community-based supports and services for older indigenous populations in Canada, the current infrastructure and services are lacking and inadequate. For example, 44% of first nations people aged 55 and older require one or more continuing care services. However, fewer then 1% have access to long-term care facilities on reserve. As a result, some health challenges may go unnoticed until they are exacerbated and complicated, requiring an emergency room visit or hospital admission.

When members of the indigenous community inevitably require more supports and services, they are forced to leave their communities to access long-term care that is often hundreds if not thousands of kilometres away. These individuals are not only forced to leave their homes but are also moved away from their families, their language, their cultures and their traditional country foods. The impact of being forced to move away from their community to access services can be very traumatizing and trigger traumatic experiences from childhood, such as forced relocation, the residential school system and the sixties scoop.

The challenges surrounding continuing care within indigenous communities are partially due to the convoluted and overlapping nature of the responsibilities, policies and jurisdictions of different levels of government. The responsibility for and provision of health care are currently shared by federal, provincial and territorial governments. As the framework is complicated and ambiguous, many older indigenous people experience difficulty navigating the system and accessing adequate support services and care.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Excellent. Thank you so much.

Now we'll go to our questions in seven-minute rounds, starting with Eva Nassif.

Eva, you have the floor for seven minutes.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank the four witnesses for their presentations.

I think that Ms. Majowski was in the process of sharing her recommendations.

Ms. Majowski, how should we help seniors reduce their social isolation?

[Kathy Majowski]

I will go back and say that we need to support and strengthen community-based groups and programs, which play an important role in empowering older women to engage in positive help-seeking behaviours, and to encourage intergenerational programs. Intergenerational housing options can help curb housing shortage concerns, safety concerns, and loneliness.

I believe that both of those recommendations are already occurring. There are a few different models across Canada that are working on research and seeing how this works. The National Initiative for the Care of the Elderly is working with the City of Toronto on an intergenerational housing program, and I'm excited to see the results.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Brayton, hello again. We met in 2017 when I made an announcement to your organization.

Have you been informed that you'll be receiving $830,959 for the year 2019-20?

[Bonnie Brayton]

Yes. We're very happy about that.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

You also know that we've already started to provide funding to the new horizons for seniors program, and that we'll continue to do so. We've even increased our investments. We created the national housing strategy in 2017. This national strategy will help many women living in poverty.

You said that you submitted a brief, but I didn't have access to that document. I want to know your recommendations. Despite everything that has been invested, there's still a great deal of work to do. However, the national housing strategy and our investments are a good way to start reducing the isolation of our seniors.

What are your recommendations for senior women with disabilities?

[Bonnie Brayton]

I'll check with the clerk.

She said she didn't receive the brief.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

I didn't receive it.

Did we?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Kenza Gamassi]

Yes. It was a while ago.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Okay, a while ago, because yesterday it wasn't there.

There's also Bill C-81 on accessibility.

Can you talk about what more you want us to do?

[Bonnie Brayton]

I can reiterate our concerns regarding older women with disabilities. If you'll allow me, I'll continue in English, because my recommendations are in English.

Again, we'd just ask the committee to remember that Canada has obligations under its UN commitments to CEDAW, the CRPD, UNDRIP and other UN treaties. Monitoring is one of the things that we think is quite important for dealing with and trying to address the high levels of abuse that we see in senior care in residences and institutional settings.

We remind everyone that there is a really important issue with and concerns about sexual assault and sexual abuse of older women, particularly older women with disabilities. Again, a lot of information was provided on that by the other witness.

A really important point, one that was very well made by all of the panellists, is that it's very important to see all of these recommendations from an intersectional perspective to understand that we need important policy reforms that look at those things.

DAWN Canada would remind the committee of a project we launched that developed a social media platform called “More Than a Footnote”. The reason we developed that message is that we understand that, far too often, many of the things we are talking about today are footnoted rather than understood to be important in fully developing policy recommendations.

I would say again that the vulnerable person standard is something that DAWN Canada and many other national disability organizations feel is critical to understanding the risks that the new legislation—well it's not so new now—on medical assistance in dying poses, particularly to older women with disabilities. While we understand that this is the law, it's important for lawmakers to understand that there is a vulnerabilization of certain communities through medical assistance in dying and that we need to develop standards and that the disability community needs to be involved in this monitoring process.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you.

My next question is for Ms. Ryan and her association. You had to rush earlier to give your presentation.

Since our government took office, you know that we've worked hard to accomplish what could be accomplished. We're continuing to focus on improving the relationship with indigenous people and the situation with respect to reconciliation with indigenous people. My question is very specific. I want to know more about the residential school system that targeted our young indigenous women. These women have now become seniors, indigenous senior women.

What are your recommendations with regard to them? We know that the poverty rate among indigenous senior women is twice as high as the rate among non-indigenous Canadian women. How have the residential schools, where the young indigenous women once lived, affected the isolation and poverty of the indigenous senior women they've become?

[Roseann Martin, Elder, Native Women's Association of Canada]

My name is Roseann Martin, and I'm from Listuguj, Quebec. I'm a residential school survivor. I'm also a sixties scoop survivor. In my community, we had 35 members way back when, from 1929, who attended these schools. The majority of our families that eventually came back to the community were affected so deeply by what was done to them. Over the years, it generated a lot of addictions, a lot of mental health issues and a lot of serious problems.

I went through almost 26 years of hell, living a lifestyle that was very unhealthy. It affected my community. It affected my family. It affected my children, mostly. Today, I have grandchildren, and I see the impacts of what happened to me affecting them.

We have 39 families in the community. You can bet that a lot of them are affected, and there's a high rate of suicide. There are high rates of addiction, homelessness and poverty—you name it. There are no jobs. There is nothing available for them. What do they turn to? They turn to things to medicate themselves, and all that.

I see a lot of problems with opiates. Our people are dying left and right, because there is no help for them. Where are they going to go? The detox centres are full. The healing lodges are full. Our people are sent away. When they are sick and dying, they are sent far away. There is no place for them. I went to see my mother when she was in the hospital dying of cancer. I was lucky at that time, when I went to see her, because she was in the bathroom in a wheelchair. She had been knocked over. She had been there for a couple of hours, and nobody had checked on her. We had to take our mother out of there, and put her closer to our area.

These are some of the ongoing factors right now in our communities. There's a lot of homelessness and a lot of.... Addictions are number one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Roseann, thank you so much.

We went a little over time, but your passion was awesome. You really got your point across.

Thank you very much for your time.

We have to take a slight break here. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to table, on behalf of the committee, the committee's 15th report, “Surviving Abuse and Building Resilience—A Study of Canada’s Systems of Shelters and Transition Houses Serving Women and Children Affected by Violence”.

Because of that, I would like to draw the attention of all members to the presence of some of the founders of the first women's shelters in Canada, and the author who shone a light on their story.

The founders of the first women's shelters in Canada I'd like to introduce are Ardis Beaudry, Janet Currie, Therese d'Allaire-Laplante, Nicole Thauvette, Lorraine Penashuk, Natalie McBride and Lynn Zimmer. Also with us today is Margo Goodhand, author of Runaway Wives and Rogue Feminists: The Origins of the Women's Shelter Movement in Canada.

We would like to thank you all for coming.

[Voices]

Hear, hear!