Status of Women Committee on March 25th, 2022

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Ms. Cross, I understand what you're saying. You spoke not only about the importance of criminalizing these acts, but you also pointed out that other measures could be considered.

For example, the justice minister in Quebec City this morning made an announcement about the specialized court for sexual and spousal abuse, which would help provide more support for victims. You also referred to electronic monitoring. As we know, the electronic bracelet is being discussed. It's part of the Quebec report entitled “Rebuilding trust.” All parties looked at the issue for this non‑partisan report.

You referred to cautious approaches. Can you share the pros and cons of electronic monitoring?

Can you also talk about the specialized court and the importance of Ottawa following Quebec's lead in this area?

[Pamela Cross]

Electronic monitoring is really interesting. It certainly offers some obvious benefits. We don't want jails filled to the brim with people who haven't yet been found guilty, and that bail period is often when women are at the greatest risk of a sudden escalation in violence by a former partner.

On the other hand, electronic monitoring isn't going to work everywhere in this country until we have a proper telephone system, a proper Internet system. I work in communities in northern Ontario where an electronic bracelet on the abuser would be of absolutely no protection to the woman, because there isn't the technological infrastructure in place to let it work. These things that offer some hope are part of what needs to be a mosiac response. We really need to look at the whole country.

Too often I think we look at urban areas and areas in the south of the country, and we don't look adequately at whether those particular measures would work in remote and rural parts of Canada.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Cross.

My colleague will be speaking in the next round, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Wonderful. Thank you so much.

We're now going to pass it over to Leah.

Leah, you have six minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you to both witnesses for being here today.

My first questions are for Keri Lewis.

You spoke about the importance of housing. I would agree with you. I think we've seen some investment in housing that is grossly inadequate, certainly in places like my riding of Winnipeg Centre, where we've gone through decades of no funding and are experiencing a very serious housing crisis. One of the other areas where there have been huge gaps is not just in housing but in access to low-barrier housing where women and diverse-gendered people can go, where they're at. We still lack those kinds of shelters and even temporary housing in our city.

Can you speak to the importance of having low-barrier shelters and low-barrier housing?

[Keri Lewis]

Yes, thank you.

I think it's important, when we approach housing policy, that we consider the housing needs of all, so it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. We definitely see a need for low-barrier, supportive housing. We see the need in our cities. I can speak mostly to Ottawa. There are some folks who come to a shelter and they really just need the temporary protection of being in a shelter where there's 24-hour support and security, and then they're ready to move into independent housing.

We also see other families who come to us, and their needs are so complex and so challenging. There may be mental health concerns, substance use, or just really complex legal situations and safety concerns that require years of support. It's important when we think about the types of housing we're building that we consider the needs of all.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

The other thing you mentioned was the correlation between poverty and violence in terms of being able to leave violence.

In fact, I introduced a bill, Bill C-223, in response to this, in addition to current and future government supports and services, including affordable housing with rent geared to income and other kinds of supports.

Do you think a guaranteed livable basic income, based on regional differences and not requiring citizenship, would be a game-changer for helping women and diverse-gendered individuals to leave violence or have a choice to leave violence?

[Keri Lewis]

Absolutely. There are many barriers, but as I mentioned in my first comments, lack of deeply affordable housing and lack of a livable income are two of the main barriers that we see. Anyone can experience violence, but for folks who have access to resources and who have high-paying jobs, there are more options available to them and maybe an easier pathway to leaving abuse in some regard.

The folks we serve in shelter are varied, but the majority have low incomes, which reduces the choices they make. Anything we can do to provide people with a livable income and deeply affordable housing, truly affordable housing, will allow them an easier path to heal from the abuse they've experienced.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Building on what you're talking about, deeply affordable housing, I know there have been a lot of housing investments into so-called “affordable housing”. I would argue that it is not affordable housing, which is one of the reasons I think it's important to push for housing with rent geared to income. That is “affordable”, if it's geared to your income.

I'm sure you've seen some of the housing programs coming out. Do you think there is enough focus and funding happening right now to fund deeply affordable housing with the new housing strategies coming out, including the rapid housing strategy?

[Keri Lewis]

I haven't seen the results of the programs that are available right now. These things take time. I do know that some of the projects I am aware of that are labelled “affordable housing” are definitely not affordable for the people we are serving.

I do think that there's a lot of promise in the relatively new pot of funding that's been announced to support shelter spaces and second-stage housing. I think that's a really great idea. I think there are some ways to improve that pot of funding to allow, as I said earlier, services like Interval House of Ottawa and other shelters to become part of that solution. We have the experience. We know the barriers people are facing. We know the types of programs and services that people need that can be attached to housing.

I think there's been some good progress made, but when we're thinking about funding for rapid housing or for getting these projects done quickly, just think about who should be delivering those services and gear that funding to the right folks. Some of those folks are smaller organizations that can't manage the same level of risk that larger developers can.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

We're now going to move it over to our second round: five minutes to the Conservatives and the Liberals, and two and a half minutes to the NDP and the Bloc.

We're going to start our first five minutes off with Michelle Ferreri.

Michelle, you have the floor.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you to two phenomenal witnesses.

Every time I do this committee, I say that six minutes are definitely not enough to deeply dive into a lot of what we are talking about.

I'm going to start with you, Ms. Lewis. It's great work that you do. Thank you. What a heartbreaking stat you've shared, that 500 women were turned away. That made me sick, to be honest with you. I think that's one of the big things we have to look at in terms of policy. If we're telling people that, when they finally have the courage to ask for help or to flee, there's nowhere for them to go, what is the incentive to leave? I think that's a really big issue we need to investigate.

To your point, I really want to hone in on housing, because I think you're absolutely right; it's the baseline for how we help.

Ironically, I had a meeting this morning with some local builders in my riding about supply and demand, definitely not on the affordable housing end of things. They wouldn't be your clients per se, but they touched on a point I found extremely interesting in that, if they can open up supply and demand and get more housing up, they're opening up the opportunity for these more affordable units for your transitional homes, especially for women fleeing.

I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on that and if you would be supportive of a policy that would remove red tape from the federal level that leads down to the municipal level on speeding up planning applications so that we can get more houses built and focus on this so that we can open up supply and, in consequence, lower rent prices.

[Keri Lewis]

I think housing policies are a really important thing. In some cases, I think it is important to speed up planning processes.

I will just speak about Interval House of Ottawa. We are currently exploring the possibility of building a 10-unit second-stage housing development. To be competitive enough in the application process, we need to be far enough along in the actual pre-development phase to have boots on the ground or shovel in the ground and be ready to go. It's tricky because the municipal processes are complex and take months.

From a policy perspective, what would be helpful for agencies like ours would be some kind of priority or expedited pathway for social services that are trying to build that deeply affordable housing that is the true need in our community. I don't know that it would be helpful to have that on a broader scale for projects that are not for that deeply affordable housing, because they're definitely not meeting the need we're seeing in our community.

I'm not talking about just the clients we serve and shelter, but most people in the city of Ottawa, generally speaking. Even if you're middle-income and earning $70,000, $80,000 or $90,000 a year, you cannot afford the rents in the city and most certainly cannot afford to buy a house.

I think we need to be prioritizing and creating smoother, quicker pathways solely for those deeply affordable housing projects and less so for the market rent or even what's deemed below-market rent, because those are not feasible options for most people in our community.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Yes. The average house price right now is $868,000. I can't even fathom it if I were a young person. Yes, there's a lot to unpack there in terms of helping.

Really quickly, have you ever thought about a business model that would be open to your agency? I know the YWCA out in Vancouver actually has a business model where they're profiting. They've built it to try to help subsidize themselves, to be a little more self-sufficient.

Have you ever looked into a model like that, or would you be open to something like that?

[Keri Lewis]

Yes, I think it's like a mixed model of housing, where you have some market rent units, some below-market rent and some deeply affordable rent all in the same building. I think those are great models, but probably beyond the scale of what we could manage as a smaller organization. I think those models are really creative and can do a lot of good to create self-sustaining housing for a variety of folks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have 30 seconds.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Okay. I'll be super quick.

Pamela, I just want to touch on the fact that I love your comment about the mosaic. It's critical.

You talked about the pros and the cons. I know it's a bigger conversation, so could you put into writing for the committee what doesn't work versus what does work? I always find it's easier to find a direction to go when we know what couldn't work.

Would you be interested in doing that?

[Pamela Cross]

I'd be happy to do that.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

We're now going to move it over to Pam Damoff.

Pam, you have five minutes.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

It's absolutely wonderful to be here at the status of women committee today, especially when I saw who the witnesses were. Thank you to both of you for your work.

Pamela Cross, your reputation and the work you've done with people I know is very much appreciated.

You mentioned judicial education in your opening remarks, so I would like to talk about Keira's law. Even though her mother Jennifer had been subjected to domestic violence, which the courts acknowledged, as well as acknowledging that her ex-husband had lied to the court, the courts still allowed little Keira to spend time with him. As a result, a little four-year-old girl who had her life in front of her died in a murder-suicide.

In my area, there was the case of Darian Henderson-Bellman, which I know you're also familiar with. The man who killed her had breached conditions four times. The last time a judge released him to house arrest, he was caught with possession of a loaded firearm and drugs.

There is a private member's bill coming up, Bill C-233, which includes Keira's law and speaks to judicial education for domestic violence and coercive control. Could you speak a little bit about the importance of that and where the gaps are?

[Pamela Cross]

To be perfectly frank with you, the gaps are huge and they are everywhere.

We have an important constitutional principle in Canada about judicial autonomy and independence. I think that's part of the reason we haven't progressed in terms of judicial education when it comes to social policy issues such as intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and so on, but it's time to find a way to get around that barrier.

When we go to see the dentist, we don't expect them to not have up-to-the-minute training, education and access to information to perform a checkup on our mouth. It's the same thing when we go to the hospital. We expect the professionals we're turning to to know what they need to know to do the job, yet when it comes to cases that involve intimate partner violence, women who turn to family court or criminal court are not getting that level of expertise. Sometimes they're not getting that level of expertise from their lawyer, because there is almost no education about intimate partner violence in law schools.

Therefore, yes, we need to educate judges, not to make them biased but to make them understand that this is a phenomenon that happens in a significant number of families in Canada. We need lawyers to have access to ongoing professional development opportunities that are mandatory, frankly. We need to include it in law school curriculum so it's something that anyone who says they're going to be a lawyer has at least a base level of education and awareness about.

Then, as I said in my comments, we need to take that a step further. I've done a lot of training and education, and I will be frank with you. I have no idea whether the people sitting in the room are listening to me, or making a grocery list, or thinking about what they're going to do when they get home or, nowadays, playing Wordle. There is no way for me to know whether anything I've said has sunk in. In addition to education and training, we have to build accountability systems so that when that individual goes back to their workplace, their regular performance reviews include an examination of whether they've been applying what they should have learned in the training session they were at.

Until every actor in both the criminal and family legal systems has a fulsome understanding of the reality of violence in families, the prevalence of it, the fact that it doesn't end at separation, the fact that there are many fathers like Keira's father who use the child, weaponize the child, to get back at their partner, we are going to continue to see shelters that are turning away 500 women and children a year and we are going to continue to see women and children being killed in this country.

It seems obvious, I think, probably to all of us in this meeting this afternoon, so let's go out of here and say we have to find a way to make sure that the professionals understand what they're talking about.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

That's almost perfect timing, because I have only 15 seconds left.

That bill will be coming to this committee, so I look forward to the debate and hopefully the support for it when it comes here.

Thank you very much, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much, Pam, for those really important questions.

Maxime, congratulations and welcome to our committee today. You have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to start by acknowledging my colleagues here today. It's a privilege to replace my colleague on the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. It's also a privilege to address the very sensitive and important issues being discussed today.

Ms. Cross, you spoke eloquently about the important concept of coercive control in domestic violence. I want to address the criminalization of coercive control, which we consider a very important tool. It should be combined with a range of tools, including training for justice officials and prevention efforts aimed at the general public.

Do you believe that these measures would help provide support and that we could possibly criminalize coercive control?

Could they also mitigate the potential negative impact of criminalization?