Status of Women Committee on Nov. 30th, 2016

[Jocelyne Mills]

As I mentioned, it's a new initiative, and it's a pilot. In the province we currently have 14 outreach workers, none of whom are really specific for aboriginal communities. Through the work that we've been doing with our advisory committee of aboriginal women, that was one of the areas of need that was identified. One of the comments that often came up was that the services we had weren't necessarily accessible to aboriginal women in their communities.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

How did you make them more accessible?

[Jocelyne Mills]

For this pilot, we have found a location that is surrounded immediately by four first nations communities, so that's a way of making it accessible.

I'm going to ask Martine, our director of violence prevention, who's more intimate with the pilot, to add a bit more information.

[Martine Stewart]

As Jocelyn mentioned, we have one particular main site in one first nation community, but we've also secured satellite sites in the other three. The outreach worker would be able to travel to those communities as required, whereas in some of the outreach programs in the other parts of the province, the women would potentially go to the outreach worker in a particular city, and that outreach worker may or may not travel as far. In Miramichi—

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I understand that location is important. I'm sorry to cut you off. I only have about a minute left.

I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more on what other aspects of the program were culturally appropriate and what strategies you used to ensure that they were most successful.

[Martine Stewart]

I will try to be as quick as possible.

This is work in progress. Right now, we are going to test the existing outreach model that is being used across the province. However, we do know, based on some of the consultation, that some of the meetings that will take place with women will likely have to be done in a different way and in a different format.

Again, this is a learning process for us, so I'm not comfortable giving you some of the actions just yet. We'd be pleased to share results with you in the next six months to nine months.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Thanks very much.

Thanks, Madam Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

Thank you.

I understand we're probably going to have bells soon, but in the meantime we'll go to our Conservative colleagues, who I understand are sharing time, for five minutes.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you very much.

My question goes to Tessa.

First off, thank you so much for making time to come back and chat with us this evening. We certainly appreciate it.

I'm wondering if you can chat a little bit about what you believe to be the main factors involved in how men and boys view women in today's society. What has your experience been?

[Tessa Hill]

I think there are a number of factors, and a few of them are hard to pin down.

In my experience, it's that there is an attitude from a very young age that women's bodies are inherently sexual and that women's bodies are objectified. There's just a general lack of respect for women. In my experience, I've seen this since a very young age. I know that it's in grade 4, grade 5—around puberty—that boys start to make comments about women's bodies and also start to view pornography.

I think that generally there's an attitude that is perpetuated in the media and I think also sometimes through adults. There are often, especially in school communities, adults and teachers who often don't call out this behaviour that happens. I've had experiences of a comment being made about my body—and this was a while ago, so not at my current school—and often teachers would not actually call out that child and explain why their comment is offensive or wrong. They won't explain the roots of it or actually take the time to talk about that.

I think those are two factors. A big thing is the media, obviously, and how they perpetuate this image of women and young girls.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

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

Thank you again.

Further to Ms. Adamson and Ms. Priest, you spoke about having a stand-alone policy on sexual assault for university campuses. One of the things we have discussed at the committee is the impact of university administration and student unions.

Here in Ontario we had a recent story from the University of Ottawa about.... I think it was opening week activities, and essentially there was a sort of “sex acts for points” activity that was being organized. I'm not sure exactly by whom, but it was happening at the university, in any event.

From the government's perspective, what approach would you recommend in terms of what these policies contain? How can something like that happen today, in a university here in Ontario, and what response can you take to that sort of thing?

[Maureen Adamson]

As I mentioned in my remarks, the policies are being developed by those who are on the ground, with students having input and so on, which I think is really important for peer accountability. The government is certainly reviewing these policies, and then, for compliance and accountability, it goes back to the universities.

Lisa, I know you wanted to add a couple of comments.

[Lisa Priest]

The rules or laws come into place in January. There is going to be a campus climate survey piloted in 2017, with data in 2018. Students are being involved in the governance structure through helping to devise these policies. I think there is a lot of data to show that the first couple of weeks of school are the high-risk period, which you pointed out quite well.

Just as an aside, we do run ads and public awareness campaigns targeted at exactly that time, to make people aware that they are coming into new environments, what they call “frosh week”, and to make them aware of how to protect themselves.

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

It sounds like you're saying that this is a process that you are ramping up now, and hopefully it will have results and prevent the kinds of things that I mentioned.

Would these policies apply to student union activities or activities organized by student groups that are not officially organized by or through the administration?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

That's actually....

[Lisa Priest]

That's a very good question. When are you not a student? Are you a student just on campus? When you leave campus, is it somewhere else? I think they define it largely by campus activities in private colleges, but that's something we've seen defined by the universities.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Pam Damoff]

I'm sorry to cut you off, but that's your time. Unfortunately, we have to end there.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for their testimony, and also for coming back to answer our questions. It has been most helpful in our study.

With that, the meeting is adjourned.