Status of Women Committee on March 21st, 2024

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I have only 12 seconds, so I just want to thank the committee again. This means so very much.

Also, to the witnesses I hold in such high regard, thank you. It feels so good to my spirit to have other strong indigenous women with me in committee today. It's a real treat.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thanks, Leah.

We're now going on to our second round. It's five minutes, five minutes, two and a half minutes and two and a half minutes.

I'll pass the floor over to Anna.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all you brave ladies. I know how important this study is. Thank you to Leah for bringing it forward.

I'm going to share something with you. I can relate to this somehow because I was part of the foster system. I've seen a lot of stuff I'd rather not speak about.

I read this book recently called If I Go Missing. It was written by Brianna Jonnie, who at the time in 2016 was a 14-year-old young lady. She wrote a letter to the Winnipeg Police Service imploring them to do better when investigating cases of missing indigenous people.

I'm not going to read all of the book, but there was a quote in there that really affected me because of what I had experienced in my past. Two years later, when she was older, Brianna questioned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a town hall at the University of Winnipeg about the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry. She asked, “When so many no longer trust the process, how will you measure—in quantifiable terms—whether the inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls is successful?”

It is 2024, so if I do the math, I think that's about eight years. Coming from the private sector, I am so sick and tired of things taking so bloody long. I'd like to hear your comments on that, Hilda, because this is important. What do you say to that?

[Hilda Anderson-Pyrz]

I'm looking at this through the lens of an indigenous woman. Often it feels like our lives are not valued and that we don't matter. It sends a message to society that it's okay to kill us, it's okay to kidnap us and it's okay to exploit us when governments do not take the necessary transformative action where there is an impact on the ground.

I want to feel safe and secure as an indigenous woman in this country and that my granddaughters and generations to come will know that our lives are valued. If we go missing, I want to know that people are going to look for us and take transformative action, that we're going to be safely located and that, more importantly, we're not going to continue to go missing at alarming rates. I want to know that our lives matter, we're valued, we have equity and equality in this country and our rights are upheld.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

I want to tell you that if anybody hasn't read this book, it is a great read. I was in tears reading it; I'm not going to lie. I'm almost in tears talking about it.

My next question is for Charlene.

You stated that when victims are found, they are traumatized. Are there any penalties for the perpetrators, and if so, what are those penalties? What can we learn in order to stop this type of victimization?

[Charlene Lavallee]

There have been penalties, but if you go back to previous cases, I would say the penalties have not been meaningful at all. If anything, they've actually said that our lives are worth less because the penalties that have been—

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

I'm sorry to interrupt. The penalties don't meet the crime, then.

[Charlene Lavallee]

No, not at all.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Would you agree with me that we should give these perpetrators 25 years to life in jail?

[Charlene Lavallee]

Each individual case is different. However, definitely it should be more than 18 months or two years for hitting somebody in the back of the head with a hitch and changing their life.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

The reason I say that is I met a nine-year-old recently who went through this traumatization. It's a life-changing event. It's so difficult to get over. Also, when they know the perpetrators are out on the road again, it retraumatizes them.

If we are going to do something to avoid this, we need to make the penalty fit the crime, because victims deserve to walk the streets without fear. Would you agree?

[Charlene Lavallee]

I agree a hundred per cent, but I would go even further and state that our mental health in Saskatchewan and across Canada is in crisis. There are people out there who are suffering with those same experiences right now, and in Saskatchewan, it takes two years to see a psychiatrist.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Charlene, I have to cut you off again. I'm so sorry about that.

I'm now going to move over to Anita Vandenbeld for the next five minutes.

You have the floor.

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

Thank you very much.

I want to thank all of our witnesses, not just for being here today but for all the work you're doing.

My first question, as some of you have mentioned, is about the north, Nunavut and issues and challenges around access to communication systems. Others have talked about the urban indigenous aspect and completely different challenges.

How do we create a single system for the entire country when the challenges and needs are so incredibly different in different parts of the country?

If I could, I'll start with Mrs. Anderson-Pyrz.

[Hilda Anderson-Pyrz]

When we're looking at it, we look at the need to provide funding for adequate resources so that each area can develop the tools and infrastructure it needs to be a participant and to access these systems. Especially when we're looking at the north, we know there's inequity and inequality in accessing any type of service or support. There needs to be a lot of work done there.

We also see that indigenous women, girls and two-spirit and gender-diverse people are leaving remote, isolated areas to access education, health or a new way of life. We have to look at it as a circular model and build infrastructure so everybody feels that they're part of it and that the system is accessible.

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

If I may, I'll just follow up before I go to the others.

When you talk about that infrastructure, maybe you could be specific. What exactly does that mean in terms of staff, funding and how it would work?

[Hilda Anderson-Pyrz]

We need to look at what infrastructure is required.

I'm not a technician by any means, but there's the technical aspect of having the tools and the technology to participate in this red dress alert. There are also the supports and resources to take care of the mental and emotional well-being of individuals who have been impacted by violence and who have gone missing.

We also need to look at it through a prevention lens. We need to ensure that supports and resources are there to prevent indigenous women, girls and two-spirit and gender-diverse people from going missing.

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

Ms. DeLaronde, you mentioned the urban indigenous aspect. I wonder if you could elaborate a little about the different challenges, the different structures and the different needs there may be for urban indigenous people.

[Sandra DeLaronde]

This morning I got up and thought, “Jeez, what would it be like to get up and not have to worry about one of our loved ones going missing or one of our loved ones being murdered?” That's the reality of indigenous moms and grandmothers in this country. No one else has to experience that.

Winnipeg is known as ground zero. If I could wake up in the morning and know that this is a safe country and a safe city for my daughter and granddaughter, I would be the happiest woman alive. We know there are disparities between representative political organizations, that there is limited funding and that the ones doing the work on the ground are families and survivors, so they need to have adequate resources.

We also have to support them going beyond the trauma. We can be stationary in this place and it doesn't serve the individual or the community in any way. When someone is murdered in our community, the perpetrator is not asking them if they're first nations or Métis or Inuit. They just know it is a vulnerable indigenous woman whose life they're taking.

I think we need to consider this, understand that the urban environment is different, take into account the communities that are already doing the work and support those communities in developing greater support and accessibility for our families.

[Charlene Lavallee]

I would just add that there is room for the distinctions-based approach in the area of prevention.

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

I want to thank you, because it's easy to forget how real this is—the grief and trauma that you are all living—when we're putting a system together. I want to thank you for reminding us of that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thanks very much.

We're now moving over to Andréanne Larouche for two minutes and 30 seconds.

Andréanne, you have the floor.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses once again for being with us today. Their testimony has been extremely informative.

Mrs. DeLaronde, I'd like to come back to your opening remarks. You mentioned the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and other international conventions. Could you tell us more about that? We know that the way Canada is trying to achieve reconciliation and establish a nation‑to‑nation relationship is sullying Canada's image on the international stage.

So I'd like you to tell us more about why compliance with the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and this red dress alert are important in the context of international conventions.

Have you heard of similar experiences in other countries that could be useful to us?

[Sandra DeLaronde]

What I do know is that there is a movement in the global south that is looking to Canada. However, in other ways, they are more advanced than Canada in providing protection on the basis of rights to indigenous women and girls.

I don't think we have had an inclusionary process in this country that recognizes indigenous women as rights holders. That was affirmed in the final report of the national inquiry, and we need to continue to support this. What do those rights look like for indigenous women and their families? It is certainly not necessarily what's presented, because there hasn't been an opportunity to speak with us because our voices have been silenced.

Creating opportunities to hear from indigenous women, girls and gender-diverse relatives is really important in the red dress movement, but more importantly in how we live in civil society.

One of the things we have often forgotten or misplaced is that as result of the genocidal policies of government, indigenous women are misplaced, are internally displaced persons under the meaning of the UN convention on refugees. What does that look like? How do we deal with that in the long term?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I have to cut you off for the next round, but thank you very much.

I will now pass it over to Leah for the final round.