Status of Women Committee on Oct. 19th, 2016

[Nicolette Little]

I do think that bears more thinking. I can say that we need to put a very personal face on the fight against violence against women, but whether that's done through letters to schools or doled out to different community organizations is something that has to be discussed further.

I know there are some very successful community organizations that perhaps you could leverage right now and get on board. One, for example, is Live Different. It's an organization with whom I'm just taking on some program evaluation in Hamilton, Ontario. They work to send speakers into schools to promote service-oriented, positive, equal-minded attitudes. One thing I'm thinking of doing with that organization is expanding their arm of work into more gender-oriented conversations in the schools.

There are a number of great organizations like Live Different that are already sending speakers out to schools, and we could develop a new arm of their pre-existing function.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Professor MacKay, you talked about the spectrum of sexual violence, whether it's social media, jokes like Ms. Chambers referred to, or sexual assault in the full sense. Again, looking at this from how to implement policy to bring about change, how can the federal government assist universities in developing either stand-alone policies or encourage them to develop an approach that looks at the entire spectrum of violence?

[Alexander Wayne MacKay]

There are a number of ways. As your chair indicated, there are some constitutional challenges because this is, first of all, education, and even the criminal aspect is kind of more prevention, which is kind of section 92.14 as opposed to section 91.27 of the Constitution, but I don't think it's insurmountable. One of the things is just to focus on your constitutional platform. There is quite a lot in international guarantees about violence against women and protecting women against violence as a kind of basic human right, as it should be seen, and there is certainly a federal role in promoting our international obligations. That's one vehicle to use.

The other is maybe a little shakier territory. As a former university president and somebody who's been involved in this for a long time, universities mostly want to try to do a better job of this, and often it's money that is the problem. There could be targeted money to deal with the very significant problem, and there is lots of evidence of how significant it is, of sexual assault on university campuses. If this is seen as a significant problem, and it clearly is, then maybe there should be some targeted money available to universities. I know there is debate about that too, money with strings attached, but money is money, so that is still another vehicle you could use.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

If I could jump in along those lines, you've triggered a thought on which both you and Ms. Chambers may have some insight. If we're trying to target investments, is the best mechanism to do it to support university or community programs that are doing this already, or is it to funnel money into say SSHRC or the Canadian Institutes of Health Research that might be doing this kind of research or community programming? Is there a balance between those two items?

I'm curious to get your thoughts on what would be most effective if we were going to target limited resources to a huge societal problem like this.

[Dr. Lori Chambers]

You need to do both. It needs to be balanced because the on-the-ground community solutions are there now. The purpose of the research is to say what works, what doesn't work, and what our best paths forward are, and that does have to happen because there has not been adequate research on what works in preventing sexual violence. If there had been, we would have stopped it by now.

We need targeted money. There's a really key problem in the SSHRC and CIHR thing because SSHRC is, first, really underfunded, but also it's disciplinary based, and projects that really address sexual violence have to be interdisciplinary. You can't do it from just one perspective or the project doesn't work, but the project is evaluated from one discipline.

If you go to CIHR, which is the health funding budget, it's a very recent thing that anything to do with health in the social sciences goes to CIHR, and most of their committees still don't really value the social sciences. We've seen overwhelming evidence that projects in the social sciences area don't get funded by CIHR, so there needs to be more training in CIHR that these issues are important.

The health sector doesn't really consider sexual violence to be a key problem, and that is a key problem right there, that they don't see it as one, so the federal government can step in there. We can make change at the federal level with regard to funding for research. You can have targeted calls for research.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We will go to Mr. Genuis for seven minutes.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you to the witnesses.

In this seven minutes, I'll try to get through a few different aspects of this fairly quickly.

Professor MacKay, your comments about the Trump effect interested me. One of the things that strikes me about this discussion is to wonder if we would ever have even known about these actions of Mr. Trump if he hadn't chosen to go into politics. He was a major figure in the entertainment world for a long time, and these were things that happened in the past. The tape that has received so much attention was, of course, out there beforehand, yet it took him going into politics for people to notice.

Can you comment, perhaps, on what this says about the accountability that exists in the entertainment industry specifically, and what impact that has on public perceptions?

[Alexander Wayne MacKay]

I guess my somewhat flippant answer is more for Billy Bush than Donald Trump at the moment, because he was fired, but that's a recent thing and not very good accountability. It's not just the Trump effect, although that's such an obvious one, but it's the importance of role models in society, and that is true not just in matters of sexualized violence but also in the area of cyber-bullying.

Who are these kind of larger-than-life figures who have a significant following and how are they accountable? They're not terribly accountable. They're not terribly accountable, in part, because not only is it not sanctioned, it's supported in many ways, and sort of valued as part of entertainment. I think that's really a theme from some of your earlier witnesses and all three of us here that what is needed is a culture change on the whole issue around sexual violence, that it's not a joke; it is a very serious matter.

There is some form, whether people like the terminology or not, of rape culture out there, and until we address that at all levels, you're not going to be able to do it only at universities. I agree with Ms. Chambers' point that universities should be leaders and should be models in leading this kind of thing, but they are one segment, a very important one but not the only one.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you.

I want to move to a different area.

Mr. MacKay, in preparing for this I read an opinion piece you wrote for the CBC where you talked about pornography. I want to read a quote from that piece into the record, because I think it's quite striking. You wrote:

Most young men learn about sex and appropriate sexual relations not from parents, schools, peers or the church, but from hard core pornography, now readily available online. All of us are surrounded by a pervasive sexist culture, which is sometimes more subtle, but still present. Violent video games celebrate the degradation and exploitation of women as do—to a lesser extent—many music videos and advertisements.

We don't talk about these issues of violence against women nearly enough, but we talk about pornography and violent imagery even less. For whatever reason, it's an uncomfortable discussion, but just hearing witnesses talk about this pervasive culture that starts with influences at a very young age, I'd like to hear you talk a little more about that issue specifically, and if there are things that we as legislators can do and need to be doing to respond to this particular issue.

[Alexander Wayne MacKay]

That's a very interesting and important area, I think. Again, everybody says it's not only focusing on the problem, but where it is coming from. Part of the problem, clearly, is men—young men, old men, and so on—mostly men, not exclusively, but mostly men, so what do we do about that? I think things like pornography are part of that.

I'm not suggesting censorship here, but one thing, when we come back to jurisdiction, when you start talking about programming and communications between provinces, we are in a federal jurisdiction, so one of the things that is outside the realm of education is whether there should be some more ways to respond to that. It's not a simple question, balancing all of these kinds of competing values, but it's important. It was, I think, part of both the cyber-bullying task force and the Saint Mary's council where I came across these incredible statistics about how much of sex education is now pornography. It's not these other institutions.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I'll make a quick comment, then I'd like to hear the other witnesses' thoughts on this same issue.

We often raise the potential problems of censorship. I think most people would agree there would be problems with censorship certainly around preventing adults from accessing this material, but I know that the British government has tried to explore ways of at least preventing young children from accessing hard-core, violent sexual images. It seems to me you'd have to be a pretty hard-core free-speech libertarian to think that young children should be able to access these kinds of images without some kind of regulation, but I'd be curious to canvass the other witnesses on this as well.

[Dr. Lori Chambers]

I certainly agree that we could make efforts to try to keep hard-core violent images.... I'm not concerned about the sex part. I'm concerned about the violent part. Consensual images aren't a problem for our children. That's what they should be learning from. It's the violent non-consensual images that they should not be exposed to.

How do we do that? As you say, it's going to be difficult because of the competing interest with free speech and free expression. It is a conversation we have to have, and even talking about it makes people think about the issue. We should be talking about the issue. Part of the problem isn't necessarily the images that, say, a teenager can look at. It's that they're looking at them alone without anybody talking about how this is not how real people live. It's the silence that pervades the issue.

How do we get conversations going about what meaningful consent looks like? What does non-violent healthy sexuality look like? That has to start with really young children. Our reticence about speaking about sex is part of the problem.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I think I have 30 seconds left.

My understanding of the British model is that you have to opt in to see certain kinds of images. People can still access them, but they have to opt in. That would require that whoever owns the computer participate in that opt in. Do you have any awareness or thoughts on that specific model for some of these kinds of images?

[Nicolette Little]

I had heard about that, and I think it's a great start. It's very difficult in this world of mobile technology to restrict what kids are seeing completely, but I think that was some thinking in the right direction.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Very good.

Now we're going to Ms. Malcolmson for seven minutes.

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

Professor Chambers, I want to thank you for your work chairing the task force at Lakehead. I want to brag about my own university, which is Vancouver Island University. It was ahead of the wave. You recommended that universities establish an office of human rights, and I'm really proud that my hometown university established one in the mid-1990s. That fits into a best practices conversation that I'd like to have with any of the witnesses to the extent that we do have these emerging bright lights in innovations, and then also there is the imperative to have consistent access across the country.

Can any of you talk briefly about the leadership role you can see the federal government playing around highlighting best practices and encouraging collaboration?

[Alexander Wayne MacKay]

I could start off on that.

Page 4 of the short document on the university policies does list eight best practices for policies. I think that it's picking up on what Professor Chambers said, as well. Funding for this is important and there needs to be a lot more.

It so happens that I'm part of a seven-year project funded by SSHRC looking at issues of sexual assault on university campuses. I think a previous witness, Shaheen Shariff, is the head one. I think, if I read it correctly, that she presented to this committee before. There are some things happening, although not enough, in that kind of area. I think that's a way to help universities, which are struggling for money, to help identify on a Canada-wide basis what are some of the best practices, what's working and what's not. That's an important way to do it.

The other thing I would say on that is that there does need to be as well an ongoing dialogue with universities about this. The federal government can play a role in bringing that together. The universities and colleges association would be a prime organization in providing some education and maybe some funding, so that a body like that could deal with that. One of the characteristics of universities is they don't like being told what to do. They have this independent streak, separate from government and all those kinds of things, rightly and importantly. How you handle that is quite important. That kind of thing might be far more effective than a top-down directive. There might be ways to do that either through funding or other ways to support that kind of thing.

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

That's helpful. Thank you.

I'll invite Professor Chambers to follow up on that. I'd also like to hear your reflections on what has been lost by the funding cuts over the last two decades, that you identified at the federal level, and whether that has had a particular impact on front-line support organizations, NGOs, universities.

[Dr. Lori Chambers]

Absolutely. It's much more difficult to ensure that students get the kinds of supports that they want when numerous shelters and services, rape crisis centres, have to close their doors. There's a huge federal role for that. Target money to fund community organizations that can assist universities. We can't have every service available on campus that a student could possibly need.

The community can provide some of that, and it's perfectly okay for us to have a back and forth relationship with the community in providing some services. When the community services are gutted, we are, too.

The federal government needs to get back into the business of supporting community organizations that are working for social justice.

The funding to assist with research is also definitely more controversial. The way that SSHRC works.... Universities are still male-dominated institutions and still quite conservative. More risky funding projects are often the last ones to get funded, and sexual violence is still considered controversial and risky in terms of funding.

When you reduce funding for research and leave it up to committees that are still more conservative in terms of determining what will get funded, issues like domestic violence and sexual violence get less opportunity for research. So, it's increasing the pool of money so that you have higher than a 17% rate of success. SSHRC is at 17% right now. Out of 100 applications, 17 get funding. You need to increase that bottom line.

[Nicolette Little]

In terms of funding rape crisis centres and different organizations in the community and at universities to support victims of domestic violence and sexual violence, the reality is that we need a bit of a focus shift, because for the costs that we pour into those programs, we have to remember that we are saving ourselves the cost of going to mental health programming later.

The number of costs in the system because of violence and its fallout from legal costs to ongoing psychological care that can extend for the victim's life really are incredible. We need to recognize what we're saving ourselves by putting those resources into those helping organizations now.

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

It sounds like you would agree with me that the operating costs are the important pieces to cover. It's not just the construction capital costs.

[Dr. Lori Chambers]

Absolutely.

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

Thanks.

Thanks very much, Chair. Those are my questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We'll go to our final seven minutes.

We're going to start with my colleague Ms. Nassif.