Status of Women Committee on April 12th, 2016

[Yvan Clermont]

Of the perpetrators?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Yes, of the perpetrators.

[Yvan Clermont]

For some types of violence we can have age and sex of the perpetrator, and for spousal we can have ethnic origin.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Would it be all right if we ask for you to provide that information to the committee?

[Yvan Clermont]

Yes, definitely.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thank you very much.

During my last few questions you mentioned there were increased rates of violence in certain areas like the violent crimes on the Prairies and up north. Do you have a rural and urban breakdown?

[Yvan Clermont]

We did a report we published I think last June. It's on crime in the provincial north. Geographically speaking, we broke down each province between north and south. We've observed that northern Saskatchewan and northern Manitoba have higher crime rates, comparable to those of the territories. Here we're looking at crime rates as reported to the police, not victimization from self-reported into a survey.

There is a movement of crime rate increasing from east to west and south to north. That has always been, as far as I can remember, looking at those crime statistics.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That is the end of our time with you. I want to say thank you to Samuel and Yvan and Rebecca. You are extremely knowledgeable and you answered our questions very well.

We will suspend for a moment for you to collect your things.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We're back to committee business.

We have a little committee business that we have to do and then we have some time.

One of the things we need to do to be able to continue hearing witnesses and conducting business is approve a budget. You know a budget was sent out by the clerk today. I just want to give you some information. It's based on more than we expect we will need to continue to the end of the June session. That said, if we decide we need more funds, we can request a supplement. If we don't use the funds, we can return them. If we don't disburse them in the exact way that they're described, we have that flexibility to change our minds. The real importance today is to come out with an approved budget, and then we can adjust it as needed.

I'm looking for a motion to approve the budget as presented.

So moved by Ms. Vandenbeld.

Is there any discussion on the budget?

Ms. Harder.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I'm just looking for a point of clarification. When I look at the budget, I see that it has allowed for three persons for Montreal and two persons for Calgary, etc.. This leads me to believe that the witness list has already been decided upon. Is that in fact the case?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

No. This is imaginary, because the work plan has not been decided yet. We were unable to have the steering team committee meeting on the 11th and 12th, so we're actually having it on Thursday to decide what we will recommend. That will be brought back to the committee on Thursday to really decide. That's why I said that if any of these things aren't true, we can adjust them as needed. Also, if we decide that we need more money, we can ask for a supplement as well.

Is there any further discussion on the motion?

The motion is to adopt the budget as presented.

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

One of the documents that was sent out to you was prepared by our analyst, who, I must say, is doing a fabulous job. It's called “Conducting a Subject-Matter Study”, which is sort of like committee for dummies. It's very helpful to say what the elements are that go into putting together a study in order to come out with a report, so we can understand the timeline and the tasks that are involved. I encourage you to read that, especially before Thursday's meeting, because when we start talking about the work plan and the timing of things, that will be important.

Ms. Vandenbeld.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I wonder if the library would be able to give this to the other committees as well, because I think this would be useful for all standing committees and special committees.

[Laura Munn-Rivard, Committee Researcher]

I could definitely talk to my higher-ups and check with them. It may depend on each committee's clerk and analyst combined, but I'll check.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I think it's a great idea.

The other thing I want to remind you of is that Ms. Ludwig and Ms. Damoff are your representatives on the Liberal side. We have Ms. Malcolmson. We have me on the Conservative side. These are the people you need to give your input to for the Thursday meeting, because one of the things we'll be considering on Thursday is looking at the huge scope of violence against women.

Do we want to narrow and try to focus on something that we could come with an interim report for? If we are going to be picking witnesses and we don't have enough time to have them all, how will we prioritize the witnesses? How many meetings do we want to have for each study? Do we want the library to do the work plan and bring it to us, or do we want to work the work plan at the meeting? What about the deadline to receive written briefs from members of the public?

There's a number of things that we'll be talking about in the steering team meeting. Everything we talk about on the steering team has to come back to committee of the whole for your approval. It's just so much better if you have your input in to your representatives so that we can talk about it and not come with a plan that you won't like and that we'll have to revisit again at the meeting.

Ms. Malcolmson.

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

I have a suggestion or a request that I think might make this scoping a little bit easier. We have these six bullet points through the presentation that the Status of Women made and, helpfully, they gave us the written text. They referenced a number of areas that they have done work on or that they have projects for currently, for example, campus violence.

Stepping back to quite a few meetings ago when we had our huge wish list of multiple topics that we were referencing, it was really helpful to have the analyst's one-line description of a study that had already been done and in what year.

I would like to propose that we'd all be well served by having the same sort of advice from the analyst with these six bullet points, in conversation with the Status of Women team, because they did list a number of projects that are ongoing. It's not clear whether there's a report and not clear whether there's been a committee study. For example, they referenced hyper-sexualization as one area that hasn't been well studied, but I didn't get a chance to ask them about the other six bullet points. I'm hoping that work would be possible to commission.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I believe our analyst can do that. My only question is timing.

How quickly do you think you can do it? Can you do it before Thursday?

[Laura Munn-Rivard]

I will try to have it for Thursday.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

All right. She is a superhero, for sure.

Ms. Vecchio.

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

It was mentioned during question period with our witnesses that there was going to be a report done on post-secondary violence and they're going to start that conversation tomorrow.

Can we request that the report be provided to the committee as soon as it is available and analyzed?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Yes, for sure.

I also made notes as we were going along with the members of StatsCan. They mentioned a lot of different reports that were coming up or that were currently available, or data that they were going to send to the committee. We will do that follow-up as well through the analyst.

Are there other comments or committee business that we need to discuss?

Ms. Ludwig.

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

I have a comment and it is more of an observation from the presentations today.

To me, it clearly identified the gaps in the research. If the normalization of violence is as significant as they're suggesting, is the data reliable to compare it from five to 10 years ago?

The other question I would have loved to have heard, even the hypothesis, is with regard to the many elementary schools today that have cyberbullying programs. According to the data collectors, children under the age of 15 are not being studied.

How do we know that we're going to offer them the best services for cyberbullying if they're not included in any type of research?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's absolutely valid. Are there other comments?

Seeing none, the meeting is adjourned.