Status of Women Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2021

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

There are lots of socio-economic issues that can be discussed around this, but one thing that is available to me as a legislator is changing legislation. Would you say there's widespread support in rural areas for changes to the Criminal Code that would result in slowing down or ending the revolving door, as we like to call it, or catch and release, depending on your preferred phrase?

These people are repeat offenders, are they not? You're seeing the same people over and over again, coming back to your communities. You can, in some communities, know them by name. You know that when they're in jail you'll have peace for a little while, and when they're back out you know that you have to be on your guard. As strong women in your communities and in your families, would you support stronger sentences for repeat offenders?

[Wendy Rewerts]

Yes, that would help a lot, because it's very true. When you know one has gone into jail for some time, you can breathe a sigh of relief because that one isn't out on the road right now. However, they seem to replace them with someone else who's quite available.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

That's frustrating.

Louise, thank you very much for bringing a wide breadth of issues before the committee today, but I will ask you about rural crime, specifically in central Alberta.

In the time you've been in your role, what have you seen insofar as overall trends are concerned when it comes to rural crime and the need for victim services, particularly for women in the rural community? I know it was mentioned, but I grew up on a farm, and there were many times during harvest or other busy times when dad and I would be out doing something and mom was home alone for lots of time. Are we seeing a disproportionate effect on women in rural areas?

[Louise Rellis]

Yes, definitely, Blaine.

Last year, for rural crime out of our units and files, we saw a 700% increase in the supports we had to give in our community.

Those suspects know exactly when to hit the rural community. They know the farmers. They know when the men are out working. The women are often at home. Women are predominantly the caretakers at home and they're on their own. They have fear when on their own. Guns, as I have mentioned, are increasingly becoming the weapons of choice. We are seeing quite a few machetes, too, but it has been guns that are the increasingly the weapon of choice. The theft of vehicles between one farm to another....

The mental health of our constituents in our rural communities is heartbreaking. When you're speaking, especially to a mom—because she is at home with the kids—she is not just worried about somebody coming, breaking in and taking something. She is worried about her kids' safety. She is worried about her kids being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If they are unfortunately walking out the back door to walk to the garage or the shed or wherever that is, it's an ongoing fear that's building and building, especially with COVID.

Unfortunately, with COVID and with the justice system, too many cases are being.... How can I say this? It's not to say it's run out of court, but because the courthouses are on a reduced capacity, we are seeing so many files not being pursued. It is those repeat offenders who are back. They are repeatedly offending because they know it's—

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm sorry, but that's your time.

[Louise Rellis]

Sorry. Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Now we're going to Ms. Hutchings for six minutes. At the one-minute mark, you'll see the yellow card.

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

To the witnesses, thank you so much for being here today.

I am an MP from rural Newfoundland. I represent the west coast of Newfoundland and my riding is as big as Switzerland, though it's maybe not as big as those of some who are on this call. I hear the same stories that you do.

In my riding I have nine RCMP detachments and one of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. In Newfoundland and Labrador, the RCMP services are contracted by the province, so the province says that they want them to go here and there and do this and that. I hear the same story every day. It's three or four hours between each of the detachments.

In my land mass I have four women's shelters, so it's the same thing.

We are working on a national action plan.

I just want to start with a couple of things first.

Louise, with the incredible work you do in your organization, have you ever applied for federal funding for your society?

[Louise Rellis]

In our society the funding goes through our executive director. She applies for all of our funding, so I can't speak to knowing what funding is applied for exactly, other than that Justice and Solicitor General funds our core organization.

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Funds have been allocated, especially since COVID-19. There were $100 million put in emergency response to go to shelters—to over 1,500 organizations—to help them do this important work during the pandemic.

I am going to look off-line and get back to you, or someone will, to find out if you have or haven't and where you need to apply.

[Louise Rellis]

Thank you very much.

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

It's my pleasure, my friend.

What I am hearing here I am also hearing in rural Newfoundland, although maybe not to that extent. The RCMP and the authorities tell me that a lot of the crime is based on drugs. It's becoming more and more rampant in the rural areas. The thefts are people stealing to get the funds for drugs and all that.

Would you tell me that you have a terrible drug problem as well in the rural part of the country where you live?

That question is for all of you.

[Louise Rellis]

Not to blame it all on COVID, but the drug issue does seem to be increasing. I think it's across the board.

For rural communities it's because it is so easy...in and out. Unfortunately, copper is a high commodity now, too. We're seeing a lot of our industrial areas hit for copper thefts, because once they go to sell it, they don't need to prove it's theirs.

That's another issue that is probably for another day and another conversation, but proof should be requested on selling copper. If there were some kind of legislation implemented for that, it would make it a lot harder for them to get rid of it when they have to prove that it's actually theirs and not stolen.

A lot of it, while it is drugs and gangs.... That's not to say it's all drugs, but it is definitely an ongoing issue, unfortunately.

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Lorie and Wendy, I forget now which one of you sent that moving document for us to read. I live in rural Newfoundland. I live pretty well 15 minutes from anywhere, and you made me lock my door last night because I was...wow, that can happen anywhere.

When we speak about women in rural areas, how different is it for women in geographic isolation? I'm looking for your answer now. How does that affect the ability of women living in rural areas to access emergency and support services? You mentioned how the RCMP and the police services are so far away, but are there other things as well?

When we talk about connectivity, one thing we've heard in some of the other testimony.... I love to tell this story, and my colleagues have heard it from me before. My mother always put a quarter in my backpack, long before the days of cellphones, so that if needed, I would have a quarter to make a phone call. Well, we don't have phone booths anymore, so in our work on connecting the country, do we need to have, in communities, areas where women in need, looking for protection, have a community Internet connection that's safe and secure, be it in a town library, a town hall, a women's shelter? Is that important for women in your area?

I'll go to all of you on that.

[Lorie Johanson]

I would say yes. The point I'd like to get across, or one of them—and I've had this discussion with Blaine as well—is everybody seems to think that if you're a long way away from a police detachment, you have problems with that. Well, I'm not far away. I'm only four kilometres from my police detachment and quite often we don't get a response out of them.

There needs to be better communication all around for everything, because we really have nowhere to go, nowhere to turn, other than our MPs or our MLAs.

[Wendy Rewerts]

I could add to that.

Our cell service in rural Saskatchewan is absolutely horrible. At our farm it's not uncommon to go an hour or more with absolutely no cell service whatsoever. If you're actually at the house, you probably will have a bit of cell service that you can rely on, but it's not reliable at all. If you go five kilometres from our yard, there's no cell service at all.

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

As you may or may not have heard, we're working on a national—

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Sorry, Gudie, but that's your time.

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

I didn't even get the one-minute warning. Oh, my Lord.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

No, it came and went.

Ms. Larouche, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Time really does go by very quickly when we have good witnesses with us.

Ms. Rellis, Ms. Rewerts, Ms. Johanson, thank you very much for the testimony you have given us today.

In the constituency of Shefford, which I represent, we can see that the reality is not the same in a larger town located in the centre, as in smaller communities that surround it.

You really caught my attention. Ms. Rellis, you believe that funding for shelters or assistance groups in rural areas is not the same as for those in urban areas. Could you tell us more about those funding disparities?

[Louise Rellis]

Our unit is capped at $150,000 per annum. That is regardless of how extensively our files have grown over the last number of years.

We are very limited in how we can offer direct support under our mandate until victims' own support systems kick in, so we rely a lot on Alberta Works for our victims when it comes to accessing shelters.

Shelters available to our victims when they ring is where they have to go. We don't even have the capacity to take them. We can get them a taxi, transportation, again through Alberta Works.

That aspect of the funding is.... We have women in rural communities with their kids. Their lives are in the rural communities. The kids go to school there. If they're trying to leave a domestic violence situation, they might go to Calgary, if they live in Lacombe County. That's uprooting everything. That's revictimizing them when they're already going through something that's so traumatic. They're already at a heightened level of anxiety and stress and everything.

To try to streamline the funding, make it equitable, what can we build within communities so that we can help those victims when they need it most and not revictimize them by pulling them away? Yes, their home life is not a safe place because of the domestic violence, but where can we take them that it is not tearing them away from absolutely everything they know?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

You said that you have also noticed an increase in demand. Can we really say that the pandemic has caused much more distress in households? In some cases, there has been a marked increase in cases of domestic violence and referrals to children's aid. In other cases, the opposite is true. In some places, the calls have stopped, perhaps because being locked down with one's aggressor around the clock makes it difficult to report them. I imagine you have noticed some things along those lines.

Am I correct in saying that there has been an increase in cases of domestic violence and that the crisis has also been the trigger in situations where that was not normally the case?

[Louise Rellis]

To be honest, from our perspective, we actually feel a lot of the victims are not contacting us. With the restrictions in place, with so many people out of work, the victims are stuck at home. As you said, they're in isolation or quarantine with their aggressors. They can't contact us. They can't reach out. They can't get that message out there.

We are definitely seeing an increase in calls looking for support, but not wanting charges laid. We're seeing an increase in mental health issues. We are trying our best in our capacity to support them with our recommendations on next steps.

We're seeing that across the board with regard to the rural crime issue and an increase in those files. In our conversations with community members, they're not reporting because they don't see the point. They're not getting the supports they need in their rural communities.

I'm recommending to everyone everywhere to report it. We need to know what's happening. We need to know where it's happening. We need to know how frequently. We are increasingly getting the message that there's no point because there's nothing being done about it.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Loneliness and distress are causing those women to be even more isolated. So, when they are caught in a rural setting, I imagine it takes them longer to seek out assistance.