Status of Women Committee on April 9th, 2024

[Chief Lorraine Augustine]

From my perspective, I see it coming from a national perspective. They would be the main, but I think that, if we're going to do all the provinces and it's going to be national, you're going to have subs. You're going to have offices in every province and the national body as the main: That's the one person. I put that as the one person, the national office, and then each one would have an office in the provinces because you can't do all the work from a national perspective. I think the provinces have to be part of that, and be aware of what's happening in each of the provinces as well. That one person you're talking about would have to be a national body, which would be whatever you want to call it—if it's a command centre or whatever. However, that national body has to be that so-called individual person to make this work and to make it run.

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

Yes, the power of one often is the mover and the shaker, and I guess we should also say provinces and territories. We don't want to offend any of the territories watching.

We know about the territories. Obviously, they have a high indigenous population as well.

[Chief Lorraine Augustine]

Yes.

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

The biggest missing piece that I would love to see in the recommendations coming out of this study is what this concretely looks like. I really like what you've offered here today because I think you eloquently articulated that.

We had this one woman, and I keep coming back to her—I cannot remember her name, from Nova Scotia, was it Sandra—and she got it done. With boots on the ground, it got done.

[Chief Lorraine Augustine]

Yes, she was a champion.

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

We all know what needs to be done. I think what we need is a champion to say, “This is what we're doing and this is how we're doing it.”

[Chief Lorraine Augustine]

Absolutely, and that's the only way it's going to work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

I now pass the floor over to Sonia. Sonia, you have the final round. Go ahead.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

To all the witnesses, thank you for the work you are doing and your insightful testimony.

My first question goes to Mitch. Mitch, you talked about the heavy and emotional work, but you also talked about running two programs to heal men. Can you explain a bit about that?

[Mitch Bourbonniere]

Yes, so in 2016, as I stated, it was the women of the North Point Douglas Women's Centre who invited us into their sacred space. They prepared a meal for us, and it was not lost on the men the sacred gesture of, in some ways, forgiveness that the women were doing for us, giving us this safe space to heal. Through word of mouth indigenous and non-indigenous local men from the community, and now men from across the city, started to attend. We smudge, sing, share, laugh and cry. Men are taught not to say, “I love you,” not to ask for help and not to feel their feelings. We do all of that. We work on ourselves to be better men, and then we take that out into the community to be helpers and warriors and support people, and we take our instruction from the women.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you for the work you are doing.

For the red dress alert system, what role do you believe these types of organizations play in its implementation?

[Mitch Bourbonniere]

We're already doing the work, especially through the Bear Clan. We get alerts all the time. We also get families that just reach out to us because they know to do that, and then we mobilize and we search. To have a red dress alert—a command centre and people to help coordinate all of this for us and with us—indigenous women leading this is what we need.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

The next question goes to Chief Lorraine Augustine. You talked about lots of education and awareness and the need to give it to the general public. What about girls and women? How you can empower them to fight the system? Also, can you talk about what guidance you would like to share in terms of ensuring some data protection and privacy within the red dress alert system? You also said it should be led by indigenous organizations.

[Chief Lorraine Augustine]

I'll try to answer this quickly. There are three questions in there.

The first one I'll answer is the prevention. I think we have to look at what happens when a young girl, for example, leaves the community. She goes into a city. She has nowhere to go. There has to be that preventative...a safe place for them to go to educate them on what's out there, especially if they're young, coming in for going to school. There have to be safe places for them to go, whether that's advertised on buses or whatever.

When it comes to the general public, the awareness, again that is really tough because not every person wants to know or hear about it. It's like any one of us. Sometimes things just aren't of any interest, so it's going to be really tough to try to get awareness out there that this is happening.

I'm sorry, but I missed your third question.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

The other one is on data protection and privacy within the system. How can that be culturally appropriate? Can you give guidance on that?

[Chief Lorraine Augustine]

That's a tough question because it is going to be really difficult to do that. Do you know what? I don't think I even have an answer for that, to be quite honest. It's something that is just going to be really difficult to do, from my perspective. It's going to take some time. It's going to take some trust. I think trust is the biggest issue and education is the second biggest issue. Do they want to learn that? Do they want to build that trust?

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Mitch, do you have any thoughts or anything to add on that?

[Mitch Bourbonniere]

No. I 100% support what Chief Lorraine Augustine submitted.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

What do you think, for the red dress alert, when we are...?

Is my time over?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

It went over. Thanks so much.

I would really like to thank.... We had just an excellent panel. In coming back after our constituency weeks, we have been able to get some really excellent testimony, so I thank all four witnesses for coming and helping us get right back on track, onto this study.

Today we're going to have subcommittees, so we'll have to do a turnaround. However, I also remind everybody that, by April 12, we need your names for witnesses for the coercive control study, which will be our next study. April 12 is the deadline. We like to usually get them in by noon, but we'll give you an extension up to about four o'clock, because this is a lady who's really concerned about it. Get those in, and as a reminder, with addresses, phone numbers, whatever data you have.

Are we okay to adjourn?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

The meeting is adjourned.