Status of Women Committee on Sept. 21st, 2016

[Angela MacDougall]

Just to echo Ms. Dooley's comments, in Vancouver and in the province of British Columbia, we have a vibrant network of women's organizations as well as community-based organizations that are doing victims service work, and we are also often working across provinces. The web is there. I think we need a national strategy, or work towards a national strategy, in order to continue leveraging these vibrant networks that exist already, and to create opportunities for us to share our promising practices and to share our approaches. The organizations we network with are doing all kinds of incredible change-making work, in training, service provision, and systemic and legal advocacy, and amazing things are happening.

We have the solutions, actually, operating right now. We just need to find ways to scale those up, which, at the end of the day, means trusting the women's organizations that have been doing the work for over 40 years, and using all of us as a resource in such a way that we will both work individually and network and build those networks to be very strong.

We have the solutions. We are doing them in amazing ways already. We need the support to scale those.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thanks.

Can you tell me a little bit more about your experience again? We have this great east and west coast and we know how strongly you work among the provinces. Can you tell us a little bit about the experience that victims of violence might have in different regions with regard to police responses or school responses? I'm just trying to get a sense of whether you are going to get equal access to protection and justice no matter where you were born in the country.

[Angela MacDougall]

I could talk about the police piece right now. We still have a lot to do in terms of working with members of police services across the country. I think municipal police are, in many ways, doing some very interesting work around issues of violence against women and cyber-violence, and that they're hearing from community groups. A challenge of course, is our national police force. I think the RCMP has some challenges, in part because it is a national force, so I would like to separate out the two entities and to recognize that there are some differences there.

I don't know if you want to talk about that school piece.

[Rona Amiri]

You can go ahead.

[Angela MacDougall]

The other part, I think, is with respect to those girls and young women who are experiencing harm online and also in dating relationships that can then become online aspects of cyber-violence. We want to continue sending that message. I think someone earlier talked about the policies and the challenge with the policy. It is a tough one. We certainly experienced that. Teachers get on a path with the duty-to-report kind of aspects. Of course, nobody's saying those aren't important. I'm always very conscious about those, because if we're going to be relational and if we're focusing strictly on getting to the end game, which is duty to report, then we miss a whole bunch of stuff in-between. What about that girl and what about her community in terms of the youth community at the school, and what about really taking away so much of her power?

That's the part we are dealing with, certainly with dating violence, because we are working with young women who are experiencing dating violence, and then also there are the ways in which the violence has now moved into the online environment. It continues to be a real challenge. Even in our workshops, we really are challenged by teachers who are struggling themselves with trying to understand this issue. Sometimes they insert themselves into the conversation in a way that isn't helpful, but we work with that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We go now to Mr. Fraser for our final seven minutes.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thanks very much. I will be yielding a few minutes to my colleague here.

Thank you to our witnesses. It's excellent that you're here. I very much enjoyed your testimony.

Ms. Dooley, it's good to see you again. I met you briefly at the Governor General's residence when you were here.

I grew up not that long ago but nevertheless in a generation that really made it difficult for young men and boys to show support for feminism, for women's rights. It was not a masculine thing to do, and it was not the cool thing to do.

I was very fascinated, Rona, by your description of the men ending violence program. Is there a way that we could boost public buy-in or tools the federal government has to perhaps make this a more accessible thing for young men and boys?

[Angela MacDougall]

I've been doing a lot of the work with the men piece, and it's been actually really encouraging. Yes, we want that. We want to have that conversation in a particular way. We've been able to work with community organizations who have sent all of their male staff to do training. It's been quite fabulous in that way, because we have between two and four days, depending on what's available, and we're able to get into some very important things around male culture, male socialization, and gender socialization, as well as some really important stuff around media literacy and looking at the role of men.

It's a personal experience. There's an exploration of their own social development and their own relationships. We talk about pornography and get a sense of different aspects around media. It's powerful. It's been very effective. We really like that way of working. It's not a quick fix. It's not hashtag. It's not one man coming out and speaking. It is a longer and deeper engagement. We've seen great results so far.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Excellent.

Ms. Dooley, on the role that victim blaming has in our society, is this a problem that may not be particular to young women and girls but that might perhaps be more prevalent when you're dealing with young women and girls?

Anecdotally, I know there was a terrible development in my own community of people sharing private images, without consent, with a map to the communities that women lived in. The public response has been that this is a terrible thing and that the perpetrator is really blameworthy, whereas when something similar happens in a junior high school, there are excuses made for young men, such as, “Oh boys will be boys. They don't know what they're doing, and you shouldn't have put that picture up in the first place.”

Do you find that victim blaming is more prevalent when it comes to young women and girls?

[Dee Dooley]

In terms of cyber-violence, that might be the case. Victim blaming is such a prevalent issue for women and girls who are experiencing any form of violence. I do know of older women and seniors who have been victim blamed for their experiences of cyber-violence and non-consensual sharing of images. It really has to do with controlling the sexuality of women and girls. For young women and girls, that might be more highlighted because of their age.

Victim blaming is a common experience for women and girls no matter their age, but it's definitely highlighted and accentuated for young women and girls. That's definitely something I've seen in my work. My work is primarily with young women, those 18 and under. Everyone who comes to me for support around issues of cyber-violence has experienced victim blaming in some way, shape, or form, and very closely tied to the controlling of their sexuality and notions of age, impurity, and shame.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

How much time is left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

You have two and half a minutes.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I will yield my time to Mr. Serré.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Fraser.

Thank you for the presentations. I have two questions and I'm not sure if you have time to answer but perhaps you could later.

In a study involving about 36 countries, Canada had the ninth-highest rate of bullying among 13-year-olds. Why do you think that is? Is it an issue of reporting or not reporting of incidents?

The other question is from an aboriginal perspective, with regard to aboriginals living in urban settings and the support that is needed for them there versus in a first nations community. What are some of the strategies around that?

[Rona Amiri]

That's a good question. Why is there bullying?

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Canada had the ninth-highest level.

[Rona Amiri]

I don't know. It's hard to say. I can't speak to general bullying, but I can speak to gendered violence, in terms of dating violence and violence against girls and women.

Again, as Angela mentioned earlier, Canada is a country that's built on these things. It has an impact on youth. When we're seeing gender stereotypes and things in the media or when youth watching pornography see violence in pornography, these things become normalized.

When youth are in classrooms, they think this is okay and this is normal behaviour. Young men may they feel they're entitled to girls' or women's bodies, that they have a right to have access to girls and women anytime, whether in school or online. I think that has a big impact. Again, it's about changing our larger ideas around gender and what's okay.

[Angela MacDougall]

With respect to indigenous people, and the relationship to urban versus to rural and reserve, I think it would be worth the committee having a specific conversation around violence against young women and girls and hearing witnesses from indigenous communities speak specifically to that, and the relationship to cyber-violence as well. A couple of our board members have been quite vocal, doing lots of work in B.C. around this issue, and thinking a lot about how exploitation and different issues for indigenous girls and women are at play. I think it's very important that we continue to create that space where indigenous people can speak about those experiences, and look for solutions in that way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

This has come to an end much too quickly. This has been a terrific session, and I want to thank all of you for your participation.

I want to repeat what I said to our previous witnesses. If things have come to mind as a result of the questions you've heard, or information you want to provide to the committee, please refer it to the clerk, and we would love to hear from you.

Thank you again for coming, and thank you to the committee members.

On Monday, we will be having the Rehtaeh Parsons Society. Leah Parsons will be with us. We will also hear from the RCMP Centre for Youth Crime Prevention along with a couple of other witnesses, so it's going to be an interesting session, and I look forward to seeing you at that time.

The meeting is adjourned.