Status of Women Committee on Nov. 14th, 2016

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

We all had touched on the culture of pornography and hypersexualization and it was refreshing to hear from the three of you. Sometimes we're being told that it's a way for women and young girls to show their sexuality and that it's okay, but we recognize that there can be end results that are life-changing for them as well. It's interesting that you're coming on the side that I sit on as well. Thank you very much. When it comes to the....

[Lucille Harper]

Can I just add one point to that though? Part of what's happening now with the trafficking and luring of girls is that it's primarily men who are watching this pornography, and if they don't have a partner who's willing to engage in some of these porn acts that they are seeing, they go out and hire girls to do them. These underage girls are being hired to do some of these quite violent, very degrading sexual acts that these guys have an appetite for because they've been watching pornography. We hear it from university students about what the girls are expected to do, and again, what they're expected to perform is highly influenced by....

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

It's interesting that you said that, because as I was doing my research for my speech last night, I came across Elizabeth Smart's story, where she is talking about pornography being her hell. It's interesting that you're saying that today, because it was exactly the case. The perpetrator was married—he's not normal in the first place—and she was fulfilling those pornographic things he needed for some reason.

It's interesting. Just last week I had a discussion with one of my constituents, Sue. We were talking about yelling at your children and how she said to her daughter one day that she had to stop yelling at her children. She yelled at her children, and that's why her daughter is yelling at her children. Do you think we could almost say it's the same? It's very different, but it's the same thing: what they see is what they do. If you're a parent who yells at your child, your most effective way of parenting is by yelling at your child. It's the same thing when it comes to violence. Do you think we can deal with it almost in the same way as learning how to parent our children? Yes, it can be very challenging, but when it comes to discussions with your children, it's so much easier to yell, and that's what we find.

That's the same idea when people get involved in violence against women and violence against mothers, for instance, and that will see young boys tend to...that will happen as well. Do you think that is a discussion that we can have? They're similar tracks. What are your thoughts on that, anyone?

Katie, go for it.

[Katie Kitschke]

I grew up in a very destructive, very abusive environment, and I chose not to do that with my own children. I think that if children grow up in an unhealthy environment, it could potentially lead to choosing unhealthy partners and being in unhealthy relationships. As parents I think we have to give our kids the best tools we can give, and realize that they will be capable of making their own choices as time goes on.

Going back to what Lucille was saying, we are talking about children as young as 12. We've dealt with children who are 10, who are sending naked pictures of themselves and performing oral sex at 10, which makes me so disgusted and horrified. I think the education has to start younger, with the parents. We have to instill in our children, male or female, as young as possible, respect for themselves and for each other, so when you're 10, 12, 14 or 30, whatever, when somebody asks you to engage in sexual activity you're not comfortable doing, you have the confidence to say no, because you respect yourself and your body, and you expect them to do the same.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

All right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We're going to Ms. Malcolmson for seven minutes.

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

We've been hearing some killer testimony from all the panellists and your work is in the same vein and is greatly appreciated. We are hearing things like domestic violence costing the Canadian economy $12 billion a year, yet we don't seem to be resourcing getting at the solutions to that.

All three of your organizations have been around since the late seventies to early eighties, so you've seen the spread of time from the federal government side, both Liberal and Conservative funding models.

I'm hoping that you can talk more about the impact of the lack of secure, consistent funding for your front-line operations, not just the program funding where as previous witnesses said, you have to invent a new model, or something more innovative, or you have to show you're collaborating. We keep hearing groups say that they collaborate, that it's natural, but they can't manufacture it just for the sake of spending the time on the funding application, instead of spending time with the women on the six-month waiting list. We saw the funding for immigrant support organizations cut under the Conservatives. We saw shelter funding, operation funding, cut under the Chrétien government.

I'm hoping you can humanize for us the impact on your organization of having that bit of a roller-coaster of access to funding, and what it might mean to your clients and your survivors to be able to have the doors open when they need to be open.

[Mélanie Sarroino]

I'd like to speak to the waiting list. As I said, I get a lot of calls at my office. We have a list of all our member centres, and we can dispatch depending on where the women live. I know which of my centres have waiting lists. Most of them are in big centres like Montreal, Quebec City, or Sherbrooke. Most women that call me are from Montreal, and I'll be with them for an hour on the phone. I'm not a counsellor and I'm not trained to be one. I do more of the advocacy work. It's heartbreaking after an hour. The woman had been waiting for months and it took all her courage just to pick up the phone and call. I'm trying to send her to one of my centres, and I know very well that when she calls the centre, she'll get a message on the answering machine saying that they will call her back, but presently they have a six-month waiting list. You can guarantee that woman will never call back and will live with whatever she is going through for a very long time. That's the first impact.

It's been happening more and more because, like I said, in Quebec, it's been in the media a lot lately, so we're getting more and more calls. Right now, our provincial government is in an austerity mode, so they're not financing anything that's community-based. We haven't seen a rise in our funding for 10 years now, which is a huge problem.

Quebec is a huge province. In the whole north of Quebec where there are a lot of first nation communities, there are no services whatsoever. They get little bits and pieces here and there. Our native association would be better versed in telling you exactly what their situation is. I know that even for non-native women, there are no services in the north of Quebec.

In other regions, we have two workers that have about 1,000 kilometres to cover. They don't have the money for transportation to reach the communities that are out there. They don't have the money to be able to go into all the schools, as I mentioned, as much as they would like to.

When we are able to deploy our prevention program, our centres will be scared of being the victims of our success because it's going to be a stellar program; I can guarantee you that. They're terrified because they don't have the resources, and they're afraid that there's going to be too much demand and that they won't be able to go into all the schools. That means all those young people won't have access to those workshops. As we said, it works on their self-esteem. It works on being critical about the images and the messages they receive. It goes with all of that. If they don't have access to that kind of information....

Regarding the question that was asked before about the role of the parents, yes, parents should be role models, but unfortunately, not all parents are the same. Some have a lot of baggage. It's a lot of pressure to put on them and it's a lot to expect from all parents. We don't have the same backgrounds. Some of us had it harder than others. Ideally, parents would be role models. They would be in an equal relationship, where both parents have the same roles and the same respect, but unfortunately, that's not reality. Schools have a big role to play, and that's why we need more funding. It's so we don't have to tell those women that they have to be on a waiting list. It's also to help our youth to question the images and hypersexuality which they are bombarded with and which is in their faces every day.

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

I just have a minute and a half left.

[Lucille Harper]

I'd like to speak to the rural issue around funding.

Sexual violence trauma therapy is a specialization. It requires particular skills, a particular knowledge set. It's a field in which there is more and more new learning all the time. In rural areas, mental health workers, by virtue of the fact that they need to respond to everybody, are generalists. They're not trained in doing that specialized sexual violence trauma work. When someone goes to mental health in our area, they're immediately referred to us if they identify sexual violence as part of the issue.

Nova Scotia is in hard economic times, but there's this idea that this is being done by others such as mental health, and it's not, at least not in Nova Scotia. The specialization that is concentrated in sexual assault centres across the country is invaluable. It's the difference between coping and healing. When someone is actually able to do healing work, they're able to move on with their lives and they're not in and out of centres, or in-patients, etc.

When all they can do is get the supports to be able to cope, that is a good thing. People need to be able to cope, but it means that they're cycling through the health system again and again. It's that specialized work that needs to be funded.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you very much.

Unfortunately, we are at the end of the time. I want to thank all of our witnesses for their tremendous work and their great testimony to us today.

We mentioned the recommendations, but if there are other comments you're thinking of, I'd invite you to send those to the clerk.

We are going to continue with 10 minutes of committee business, but I need the unanimous consent of the committee to stay in the public realm. Do I have unanimous consent? Very good.

Ladies, if you don't want to stay, you don't have to stay for this part.

Members, basically, you got the subcommittee report where we discussed what we're going to study next, and I need a mover for that report.

It is moved by Ms. Damoff.

Is there any discussion about the report?

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

I have a question on this.

I like the study and I want to do it, but I want to do the domestic violence shelter funding study first.

I want to vote yes to this study, but I would like to take the clerk's suggestion that was floated during the subcommittee meeting that we might be able to do a short study in between the two studies, because the economic one is going to be long and extensive.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Then the motion that was moved is to do the economic study first.

My suggestion would be that you vote against that and then bring the motion for the study that you would like to do.

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

That is within the motion. Does it say “first” in the wording of the motion?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Yes, the next study.

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

Okay, then I'm voting against it, although I love the subject area, and I kind of co-wrote the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That motion is passed.

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Ms. Malcolmson, did you have another motion that you wanted to make?

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

Yes. I would like to resurrect my motion from April. It was brought up again at the last meeting, Motion No. 10 on the list, which is:

That the Committee study the shelter and transition house system in Canada; that the study include an examination of the current gap between need and available beds in shelters and transition houses; that the study include an examination of current federal programs and funding in support of shelters and transition houses; that the study consider possible solutions to address the gap between need and supply; that the Committee report its findings to the House; that the Committee request a government response to its report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Is there a timing associated with your motion?

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

This study would be conducted between the current study and the economic study.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

The motion is on the table. Is there any discussion of the motion?

Ms. Vecchio.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Although I respect where you're coming from with this motion, I think it's such an important thing that it needs to actually be studied properly. Doing two or three sessions on it would not do it the justice it needs. At the same time, I know it's a little bit different because I thought this was more on housing, but it's more on shelters. It is something that Minister Duclos is currently reviewing under his housing strategy. There will be a housing report coming out on November 22, and even during my own consultations, those are things we also made sure we were looking at, because we need to look at more than just affordable housing. We need to look at the transitional housing and the shelters as well.

I think that we should also wait for that report. There may be more information in there as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Ms. Harder.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I would share my colleague's sentiment, and I would suggest that perhaps it would be helpful to define the number of meetings that you would want this study to have to give us an idea with regard to what exactly we're voting for.

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

The proposal that I had in mind was five meetings with the same kind of model that we've had on this past study, which is usually seeing four different groups within the course of a single meeting, so two and two.

I definitely recognize that this committee has a lot of other work that it wants to do, but also my understanding is that the study that HUMA is doing is not focused on domestic violence shelters. We could invite some of the several national shelter organizations. There are two ministries that are deeply involved: Infrastructure and Communities and Families, Children and Social Development. The YWCA Canada would be an example of an across-the-country body.

The witnesses that I scoped out with my staff were two ministries, four across-Canada network organizations, and then potentially, because it has been a focus around federal funding, maybe some of the indigenous organizations, Native Women's Association, Pauktuutit, or Women of the Métis Nation. I'm confident we would be able to do it within five meetings.

It might be able to inform the next budget cycle, and certainly, as some of my colleagues have suggested, if we weren't able to go into it in depth, or we found out after the next budget cycle that we needed to do more work, it's certainly an area that the committee could revisit.