Status of Women Committee on Sept. 21st, 2016

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

Thank you. I am going to share my time with Ms. Ludwig.

Thanks to all the witnesses for coming out today and sharing their information.

Ms. Amiri, you have written about how hypersexualization of young women contributes to violence against women. I wonder if you can share some of that information with us, if you don't mind.

[Rona Amiri]

Absolutely.

We know that objectification of girls and women can cause violence against them. Once someone is turned into an object, it is easier to be violent towards them. When girls are seen as objectified or hypersexualized, it is much easier to be violent towards them. Part of what we talk about in our workshops is unpacking the media literacy that Angela was speaking to earlier and understanding what that looks like, what it means, and how girls can feel empowered to be sexual without being objectified.

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

Is that education just with girls, or with girls and boys?

[Rona Amiri]

Our groups are mixed-gender. There are boys and girls in the room. The peer facilitators are also mixed-gender.

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

Thank you.

To our friend in Halifax, Ms. Dooley, I wonder if you could share what tactics you recommend for moderating or mitigating cyber-violence towards young women and girls. When we as a committee are looking at what tactics we could use, do you have any suggestions for us that you've seen work well?

[Dee Dooley]

As I mentioned before, the number one thing that came directly from youth recommendations is the need for community-based education. At least in Nova Scotia, there is curriculum that addresses cyber-violence, but a community-based approach is something that they identify as really necessary for their learning. I think creating a safe space that's free of shame is really important. So much of the education that they're receiving around cyber-violence is telling them not to engage with social media and that their behaviours are the problem. I think it's really important to address that the problem is systemic and it's not individual.

I think the root causes need to be addressed. I think this government has done an amazing job on that. I had the privilege of attending some of the consultations this summer, and I think there's a real effort to address the systemic causes of violence. I think that would be a really important tactic. I think long-term and sustainable funding is another thing. As someone who is writing a lot of grant applications for our organization and working with a lot of community partners in similar situations, I know that long-term and sustainable funding is a huge issue.

Our Safety NET project is a two-year project through which we're able to address that issue for a limited time, but what happens after that? Unless we're able to find more funding, we're leaving the youth we're supporting without access to community supports after the project is done.

I think those two things are key issues that many not-for-profits struggle with, not just related to cyber-violence but in all forms of their work addressing oppression.

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

Thank you.

I'll turn it over to my colleague.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you all for an excellent presentation including the ones that we had earlier. Altogether, this is certainly very comprehensive.

Ms. Dooley, my first question is to you. You talked about the systemic challenges around cyber-bullying. I identified three areas and maybe you can help me see if I am heading in the right direction. One is school policies. We tend to have school policies that are one size fits all. If a student comes forward to report cyber-bullying or bullying in the classroom, there is generally one way that the school is accountable and responsible for responding.

Two, you had mentioned curriculum and certainly again, that is typically centralized and not individualized curriculum.

The last area is one I would like to discuss with all of you, and that is budgeting. I know it really doesn't seem to fit in. I'm wondering whether you see that often it is easy to get a line put into a budget for technology in a school curriculum, which I know from being in education for almost twenty-five years, whereas there is no money or very little money put in for mental health or for the general health of students.

I'm wondering if Ms. Dooley could respond to that first, followed by her colleagues here.

[Dee Dooley]

Thank you for bringing that up. I think budgeting is actually very closely connected to all of the work we're doing, and I think it has to do with priorities. When policy is being developed and implemented, what are the priorities? Why is allocating funding for technology more important than funding for mental health supports? I think we need to be engaging in a conversation with all the people who are involved, particularly youth. They'll be the first to tell me and you what they need, and I think that, again, that has to do with priorities and with listening to the people who are directly impacted, students in schools and youth who are without the supports they need.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

A recent article in The Globe and Mail called “Where to find school bullies? Not where you might expect” actually focused on the background of students. It said, for example, that a study showed conclusively that “more immigrant-heavy schools have a lot less bullying, as reported by students, teachers and parents—especially if more than 20 per cent of the students are foreign-born.”

I live in the east, so I know that we don't have a lot of diversification, but certainly in a city like Vancouver, have you heard anything about ethnicity, race, or background in relation to cyber-bullying or bullying?

[Angela MacDougall]

There is always a challenge for us in naming this, but the part around the way that we're stratified as people in Canada is a factor in how violence is then perpetuated and also the impact; there is a stratification around race. That article doesn't surprise me in what we're seeing with immigrant communities. There is a perception, of course, that immigrant communities have more violence and more violence against women. It's not a surprise to me to hear that is not what's being identified now through this article. I think we are dealing with a lot of myths about where the violence is, where the problem behaviours are. There are some very racist underpinnings with that, and this goes back to the making of Canada as a nation. Being colonized by England and France gave us some very clear ideas about the stratification of where people are and how they are viewed.

I like this analysis—

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm sorry, that's more than your time.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We're going over to Ms. Harder.

You can continue the answer if you choose to.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

My questions have to do more with the legal and the legislative side of things. My background is sociology but at the end of the day we're here as legislators, so that's what I'm going to focus on, if you don't mind.

When I read through the report by your organization on cyber-violence, one of the things you outlined was the need for legal reforms. There is a quote here, “There isn't even a criminal definition of cyber-stalking, the way there is in other countries”. The report goes on to say “this lack of inclusion in the laws has inhibited women's ability to appeal to law enforcement for protection from cyber-violence”.

These statements got me thinking. In your estimation, what legal changes need to take place to empower women to come forward with their stories and to find the legal help they need to have their situations taken care of, to have justice?

[Angela MacDougall]

There is value in naming the problem and putting things into the law, and then the challenge is always that it's one thing to write things down and it's another thing to have them implemented and to see them meted out in justice for the woman or girl who makes that report. I know the piece that's so important around the law. We are really challenged in addressing issues of violence against women, and the legal system is still not, in a general sense, able to respond to most instances of violence against women. We see that certainly with sexual violence.

Yes, we absolutely have to have it in law. The challenge then is receiving the reports and investigating and then having a measure of justice through that process. We have to think about it in all aspects. We've had recent cases around sexual violence. We know it is highly under-reported. At our organization young women are experiencing sexual violence in their dating relationships. They're not reporting that to the police, and so even though there is legislation that covers that, it's not being reported.

It's one thing to have things written down in law. It's another thing to have reports taken and to see a meaningful investigation and to have some measure of justice through that process.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Am I understanding you correctly then that we would be better off to be very specific in our terminology rather than using general terminology in the laws that preside over these things?

[Angela MacDougall]

I think it would be good to actually name cyber-violence as having legal implications.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Again in the report a recommendation was given, and I'll just read the quote:

After examining the potential in cybercrime laws, privacy laws and child pornography laws, they conclude that including cyber-violence within violence against women laws would be the most effective direction for legal reform to take.

This is exactly what you're saying right now. I am wondering if you could expand on this a little, just because it was, I believe, an essential part of the report and what came out.

[Angela MacDougall]

Certainly. That really came from the participants in the research.

It's about wanting to have your story heard and validated, and to have a measure of justice carried out by an authority figure. When we're dealing with this type of violence, it's an issue of a power imbalance and silencing. It is very validating to have the sense that an authority figure, such as the law or police, believe you and follow through. That recommendation came directly from the participants. Their desire was to have a recognition in law of their experiences, or at least to have an opportunity to access the legal system and for some measure of justice to be served.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

Dee, I'd be interested in bringing you in on this conversation with regard to legal wording or terminology. Could you comment on that at all? What is your perspective?

[Dee Dooley]

Yes, absolutely. I agree with everything my colleague said. You may be aware that Nova Scotia did try passing legislation to address cyber-violence within the last few years but it was overturned. I think validating women's experiences of online harassment as violence is important.

What happened with that law is that women's experiences of violence were placed lower on a hierarchy than men's right to free speech. I think we really should be clear in the law about what cyber-violence is, the specific manifestations it takes, and how it impacts different communities, so that we can avoid that conflict in the future.

While free speech is important for many reasons, there is a line. At some point it becomes hate speech, which is already in the Criminal Code. It might be great to highlight the ways that cyber-violence and hate speech work together and impact women and girls.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We go to Ms. Malcolmson for seven minutes.

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

Thanks, Chair.

Thanks to both of your organizations on the coasts. You're doing amazing work on the ground that we're really going to benefit from. I applaud, too, your participation in the “Blueprint for Canada’s National Action Plan on Violence Against Women and Girls”.There''s a strong New Democratic Party commitment to push for a national approach.

I'll ask either of you about the underlying causes of violence, which in this case is expressed as cyber-misogyny. I'm interested in your perspective on the network of supports across the whole country, those that get at the root causes of violence—poverty, affordable housing, and so on—as well as the responses, which tend to be provincial. How can we tie those together in the absence of a national approach?

[Dee Dooley]

Something I learned this summer through my presence at the consultations on gender-based violence is that there are eight to ten ministries, whether federal or provincial, that include addressing violence against women in their mandate, but there's never an opportunity for them to come together. I think that is a key action that needs to happen. I think that working together and making sure that individuals, communities, and organizations aren't falling through the cracks in terms of the services that they're offering is really important.

I also think, as I've mentioned, that addressing the root causes of violence is vital to our strategies for moving forward. I think that the women's movement and women's organizations have been at the forefront of this work for decades. At least in Halifax and Nova Scotia, there's a strong network of women's organizations working together with limited funding and limited resources, but we're still making sure the work is happening, and we're pushing the agenda to be able to address the root causes of systemic violence within both our provincial and our federal work. I think those two things are going to move that forward.