Status of Women Committee on March 29th, 2022

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Good afternoon, everyone. I call this meeting to order.

I'd like to welcome you to meeting number 11 of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on Tuesday, February 4, the committee will resume its study of intimate partner and domestic violence in Canada.

Given the ongoing pandemic situation and in accordance with the recommendations from public health authorities and the directive of the Board of Internal Economy on October 19, 2021, to remain healthy and safe, anyone attending the meeting in person must not have symptoms, must maintain two metres of physical distancing, and must wear a non-medical mask when circulating in the room. It is recommended in the strongest possible terms that you wear your mask at all times, including when seated. Everyone must also maintain proper hand hygiene by using the hand sanitizer at the room entrance.

For those participating virtually, I would like to outline a few rules to follow.

You may speak in the official language of your choice. Interpretation is available for this meeting. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of either the floor, English or French. If interpretation is lost, please inform me immediately and we'll ensure that interpretation is properly restored before resuming the proceedings.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are on the video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. For those in the room, your mike will be controlled as normal by the proceedings and verification officer. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you're not speaking, your mike should be on mute.

Before we welcome our witnesses, I would like to provide this trigger warning. We will be discussing experiences related to violence and assault. This may be triggering to viewers with similar experiences. If you feel distressed or if you need help, please advise the clerk.

I now want to welcome our witnesses for our first panel.

As an individual today, we have Simon Lapierre. From Sakeenah Homes, we have Mashooda-Lubna Syed, government and community relations. From the Women's Centre for Social Justice, we have Nneka MacGregor, the executive director.

Each of you will be provided five minutes for your opening statements. When you see me start to rotate my pen, that means let's start wrapping it up; we're getting past five minutes.

I'm now going to pass the floor to our first presenter.

Simon, you have the floor for the next five minutes.

[Prof. Simon Lapierre, Full Professor, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for the invitation.

To begin, I would like to say that we have seen a lot of progress in recent years when it comes to violence against women and spousal violence. In the circumstances of the pandemic, in particular, some of our work has shown that feminist organizations, especially, have been very innovative in making sure that the needs of women and children experiencing spousal violence are met.

We have also seen that in Quebec, following publication of the report entitled "Rebâtir la confiance", a bundle of measures was put in place to provide better support for victims of spousal violence and sexual assault.

Nonetheless, our work shows that there are still gaps in how spousal violence is being addressed. Some of those gaps can be seen in the inconsistent treatment of spousal violence in various fields—that is, criminal law, family law and youth protection. This situation creates numerous difficulties and barriers for families, who must often navigate these various fields simultaneously.

I would like to draw your attention to one particular persistent gap in how spousal violence is handled, that becomes apparent especially when spouses or parents are separated: the confusion that often arises between spousal violence and separation-related disputes. Our various studies have shown that in the various fields I referred to, situations involving spousal violence are unfortunately often interpreted as severe separation-related disputes. That presents a problem in that when a spousal violence situation is interpreted as a separation-related dispute, an appropriate assessment of the violence and the consequences of the violence is not done. There is also a risk that the dangerousness of violent individuals and the risks of homicide will not be properly assessed.

As well, a report recently published by the committee examining deaths related to spousal violence in Quebec shows that some situations in which children were killed in a spousal violence situation were unfortunately misinterpreted as being severe separation-related disputes, with the result that the various actors underestimated the risks associated with the homicides. In situations of that nature, the individuals who had committed spousal violence were not dealt with properly and were not referred to the right resources that would have enabled them to acknowledge their responsibility for their violent behaviour. What is also extremely problematic in situations of this nature is that when women victims of spousal violence do everything they can to try to keep their children safe, they are often perceived as hostile individuals who are fuelling the conflict or even causing parental alienation.

I really want to stress the fact that in recent years, through our work, we have observed growing use of the concept of parental alienation against women victims of spousal violence. This use of pseudoscience poses a serious problem in that it punishes women and children and often puts them in a situation where they are unable to report violent behaviour on the part of the spouse or father.

When it comes to the possible solutions I would like to propose, I think, first, that it is important to have a comprehensive strategy or action plan that would ensure greater consistency between the various systems or fields I referred to earlier.

It is also important to strengthen the concept of coercive control. It has already been adopted in the Divorce Act, but it should be incorporated into the Criminal Code too. This would mean criminalizing coercive control, as other countries have done. In addition, there should be a consistent understanding of spousal violence, in particular when it comes to youth protection services, across Canada.

On the question of coercive control, it is also important to understand clearly that this form of violence generally continues after separation and that special risks arise in that situation. It is also important to clearly recognize children as co-victims of spousal violence and coercive control.

Obviously, it is important that legislation and policy recognize this form of violence, but that is not sufficient. The concept of coercive control absolutely must be accompanied by training programs for all actors in the various fields, including social workers, lawyers, and all judges involved in these situations. In my opinion, the training should deal with spousal violence and coercive control, but it would also be beneficial to provide better training for all of the actors on the subject of children's rights, including their right to protection, but also their right to participate in decision-making processes.

I also think it is important to have mechanisms available for cooperation or specialization. Quebec has recently instituted specialized courts for spousal violence and sexual assault cases. That is a promising avenue, and we really need to have mechanisms like that.

As a final point, there should also be high quality, accredited programs for violent spouses, but, and most importantly, we must absolutely support the feminist movement and feminist organizations, because research has shown that they are the ones who bring about change when it comes to violence against women and spousal violence.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

For the next five minutes, I will pass it over to Sakeenah Homes and Mashooda-Lubna Syed.

Mashooda-Lubna, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Mashooda-Lubna Syed, Government and Community Relations, Sakeenah Homes]

Thank you so much, Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone.

First of all, thank you so much for inviting Sakeenah Homes to come and participate in the status of women committee.

My name is Mashooda-Lubna Syed, and I am here today representing Sakeenah Homes.

Just to give you a bit of background, Sakeenah Homes was established in 2018. We are a registered charity in accordance with the CRA regulations. Sakeenah Homes provides essential support and services to those facing violence, homelessness or poverty. We empower them to become healthy, independent and thriving members of our society. All our work is based on cultural, racial and religious sensitivity. Our primary clientele is mainly Muslim women and children, but we do take in non-Muslims as well if we have the space.

Since our inception in 2018, we have served 30 cities across Canada and we have helped 9,230 clients. Since the pandemic, the need for our services has tripled. We actually have five locations currently and three more opening this summer. Last year alone, we served 1,326 clients in house and 469 remotely—that's close to 2,000 people. Since 2018, we have helped 723 clients who were facing domestic violence cases, and the number has risen in the last year. We provide shelter, food and essentials, legal aid, mental health, education and life skills, employment and reconciliation.

We found that women coming into Sakeenah Homes have unique needs as compared to other communities since a lot of them live in extended family style and therefore they feel that they are controlled not only by their spouses, but also by their in-laws. They face different types of abuse. Due to social and religious constraints, they are scared to report any type of abuse. They are scared of being isolated by the families or the community. They also think they will be deported if they report these cases.

They face spousal dependency, as most of them have either low or no literacy at all. Most of them have low or no life skills at all, no knowledge of budgeting, and so on. We found that a lot of them were forced into marriages where their parents hoped their child would have a better life and that's why they were married off. Language barriers are another problem they face, as well as fear of deportation. They usually have access to no funds at all when they arrive at Sakeenah Homes, so we help them with that as well.

I would like to tell you a real story to help you better understand how we help women. I will be using a different name in order to protect our client.

Our client is Maha. She was a very young 26-year-old who was married off in Afghanistan to a young man who went from Canada to marry her, so she came here. She was in a very devastated state when we first received a call from a distant relative of hers who desperately wanted to help her. She came to Sakeenah Homes in tears and was very emotional. We hugged her and tried to comfort her as much as we could. After a few days, once she felt comfortable in Sakeenah Homes, she started to open up about how she was tortured by her husband, and because of her culture, she could not say a single word to anyone, not even to her parents.

Maha was a graduate of an Afghani university. Her parents had her married in hopes that she would have a better life in Canada. Little did they know that she would become a prisoner in her own home. She was not allowed to go anywhere at all or talk to anyone. Her husband kept all her IDs—her passport, SIN number and health card. Everything was with him. He would take her out once a week just to pick up groceries. If she asked for anything, she would be physically abused. She spoke to her parents always in front of her husband. She had no access to any telephone.

One day, a relative decided to visit the new couple and noticed that Maha looked quite weak and distraught. This relative sensed that something was not right, so he started visiting them regularly. Soon, her husband was quite comfortable with this couple visiting them.

Maha opened up. She was very scared. They made a plan and, finally, her friend came with the police one day and helped her leave. That's how she ended up. Now, today, she's going to school. She's working full time in a restaurant. We're very happy for her. We're very proud of her.

I would like to recommend that shelters like Sakeenah Homes are needed to help women. We need more funding for these types of centres.

I would like to end with a quote from Malala Yousafzai:

I raise up my voice—not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard. We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back.

Thank you.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Alexie Labelle]

Thank you.

Ms. Vecchio appears to be gone.

Would a vice-chair like to step in?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Thank you.

Ms. MacGregor, you can go next.

[Nneka MacGregor, Executive Director, Women's Centre for Social Justice]

Thank you so very much. Thank you for inviting me today.

I want to start by acknowledging that I'm coming to you from Tkaronto, from stolen lands belonging to the indigenous peoples of this nation including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinabe, the Chippewa and the Wendat peoples, and which have been home for many first nations.

My call here, as I stand in solidarity with indigenous women and with the Native Women's Association of Canada, is to call on the governments to implement the 231 calls for justice from the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls national inquiry and to end the ongoing genocide against first peoples.

My name is Nneka MacGregor. I'm the co-founder and executive director of the Women's Centre for Social Justice. We're better known as WomenattheCentrE.

In preparing for my submission today, I consulted with several members of my organization, which, as you may know, is a very unique non-profit developed by and for women, trans and gender diverse survivors of all forms of gender-based violence. We have over 6,000 members globally, the majority of whom are in Canada.

Most of us in the membership have experienced violence in the context of an intimate partner relationship. We all engage in social justice, advocacy and activism as a way to create meaning from our trauma. We use our lived experience to conduct research, raise awareness, facilitate training, and develop strategies, policies and programs that are all aimed at preventing future violence against others and at creating better outcomes for those who are currently navigating it.

I also relied on the feedback reports that we provided to the Department for Women and Gender Equality last year as part of our input on the national action plan to end gender-based violence in Canada. From all my consultations, one clear message was echoed over and over, and that's the message that I'm bringing to the standing committee today.

That message is simple. It is that tinkering with the current system thinking that it will lead to the kinds of transformative outcomes we all seek is a futile exercise. The time for tinkering is over. Now is the time for the kinds of bold and courageous actions we, as an organization, have been taking on this issue for almost two decades. Our members have, therefore, tasked me to invite you in to join us on this courageous journey.

I am a survivor of attempted intimate partner femicide. I cannot stress enough the urgency to get this right and to get it right, right now. As we sit here today, I can guarantee you that somewhere in this country in a neighbourhood near you, a woman is in real danger of having her life, her joy and her future taken away from her, leaving behind grieving children, siblings, parents, friends, colleagues and a community to mourn and ask why. How could this happen? What did we not do? What can we do to make sure it doesn't happen again?

In my role as a member of the Ontario Domestic Violence Death Review Committee as well as an expert panel member of the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability, I get to see that end of the spectrum where intimate partner violence has not been disrupted and has led to tragic and preventable outcomes.

In my everyday role as executive director, I see the other stages on the violence continuum from survivors' experiences in physical violence, coercive control and harassment—not just from an abusive partner, but from abusive systems. These are systems that we are led to believe are there as mechanisms for accountability and justice, but which in reality are as skilled and abusive as the abusive partners that we have left behind.

The question that I have taken to asking participants in all my public speaking, training and presentations is a simple one and I'm asking all of you here today: If you had the power to create a system of prevention, intervention, support, healing, accountability and safety, would you replicate the current systems that we have or would you do things differently? What does different look like? What is the cost of doing it differently, both financially and personally?

This is something I call disrupting and reconstructing the status quo.

The systems we are currently working under are thoroughly ill-equipped to address intimate partner violence. We know this based on staggering examples that we have gathered from coast to coast to coast across this country of everyday experiences from everyday women who have experienced diverse experiences of gender-based violence and intimate partner violence. These systems are not sites of healing, justice, change or safety, but instead are there to suppress and oppress.

We are calling for alternative models of justice and engagement that are based on transformative accountability. They are based not on white supremacy, misogyny and misogynoir, but disrupt this and find ways that are transformative to counter the culture of violence against women and against children. They rely on the types of work that we have done, including our court watch and our work on strangulation and traumatic brain injury.

I'm asking all of you today to support us and to support survivors as we work to end gender-based violence and intimate partner violence.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

I would like to apologize to the committee for my absense.

Thank you Sonia, for stepping in as chair.

We're now going to go on to our first round of questions. We will be providing six minutes to each party.

To begin, we will start with Dominique Vien. You have six minutes.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for sharing their thoughts with us this afternoon.

Hello, Mr. Lapierre. Welcome to our committee.

After I heard your testimony, several questions came to mind.

First, I would like to talk about an article that appeared yesterday in La Presse, which I sent to my colleagues. It talks precisely about the confusion there may be between spousal violence and separation-related disputes. According to that article, this concept is becoming increasingly well defined. More and more, judges are becoming better able to recognize this concept. Tell me if I am mistaken, Mr. Lapierre, but the article suggests that we are seeing more interest being taken in this subject and greater recognition that spousal violence can be part of the resolution in divorce cases.

The committee's current study addresses the barriers that prevent women from leaving violent situations. It says here that judges are considering the facts that have happened, recognizing situations where there is violence, believing women's testimony, and awarding them additional financial support, which may be a determining factor in a woman's decision to leave a violent situation. This all seems to be a new development. I would like you to offer some further explanation of this aspect, which is extremely interesting.

First, am I right in this? Did I read it correctly? Have I understood you correctly? Are judges being trained properly? I would like to know where the situation stands.

[Prof. Simon Lapierre]

Thank you for the question.

In fact, I have been working on the subject of spousal violence for several years, and, in my opinion, if there is one important issue at this time in how spousal violence is addressed, it is the confusion that exists between spousal violence and separation-related disputes, when the couple or parents are separated.

Have we seen progress? There may have been some progress, but it has been very timid, in my opinion. Certainly, the recent amendments to the Divorce Act do offer some interesting avenues to explore. Under the Divorce Act, the judges who apply it should ordinarily give greater consideration to spousal violence, but that remains to be seen. We don't have a very good idea of how it is actually being applied on the ground. Nonetheless, the Divorce Act does now contain a duty to do this.

However, we are very well aware that there is still a lot of confusion in various fields. Within the criminal justice system, for example, there is still data that shows a degree of confusion when police are involved in spousal violence situations, particularly if there has been no crime or assault. Often, they will interpret situations like these as arguments between a couple, and they close the file and that is where their involvement ends. This may be attributable to the fact that the police do not have the statutory tools at present to go any further. But still, there is confusion and poor comprehension of spousal violence. We have to make sure that the various actors in the criminal justice system have a better understanding and that we give them the tools to be able to do their job better.

As well, there are still a lot of gaps in the fields of family law and youth protection. That confusion is still an extremely important problem, in applying the Civil Code, in Quebec, or when youth protection services are involved.

This problem is still important, and I would say there are several reasons for it, in particular because we still have an understanding of spousal violence that is largely based on incidents. Spousal violence is often seen as associated only with physical violence.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

With violence that is visible.

[Prof. Simon Lapierre]

Exactly.

The subject of coercive control, or controlling and coercive conduct, is an interesting avenue for gaining a better understanding of all the complexity and diversity of the dynamics of spousal violence. However, that concept has to go beyond the Divorce Act and be applied uniformly in all the various fields. It must go hand in hand with more training, because, at present, the various actors are unfortunately not sufficiently well trained.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Mr. Lapierre, I'm sure I don't have much time left, but I would have liked to hear your comments on the entire subject of violence between young partners, as well. I'm talking about adolescents. I don't know whether you have looked into that subject, but it is one that is of concern to our committee. Violence starts somewhere. Young persons and children see violence around them, often they experience it, and that will have repercussions on their relationships. These behaviours are repeated and lead to more violence.

Have you looked into that subject, involving young people?

[Prof. Simon Lapierre]

I have looked into it a little. What we know is that yes, violence is present in couple relationships and intimate relationships in adolescence, so it is important to work at earlier points. We have to work on prevention, even with the youngest ones.

However, what we know about violence in romantic relationships among young people is that often, that violence does not correspond to the traditional model of spousal violence where we see a man or a boy who is physically violent against a female partner who is relatively passive and will have physical marks. The violence takes different forms. There may be younger victims who react more and resist. Again, that may adversely affect the way some people understand these situations, because the aggressor and the victim will not necessarily correspond to the picture they have of spousal violence.

We have to ensure better understanding and offer training so that people understand the dynamics of spousal violence when it is expressed more by control and deprivation of freedom than by assault or physical violence. That could provide better tools for the actors who are called on to intervene with this population.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Mr. Lapierre, you spoke about feminist groups who are doing useful work, and that is sure and certain...

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much. I'm afraid I have to cut you off. I'm sorry about that, but maybe we'll get another chance.

I'm going to now pass it over for the next six minutes to Jenna Sudds.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata—Carleton, ON]

Thank you so much to all of the witnesses for being with us today and the great testimony you have provided so far.

I will start with Ms. MacGregor.

It's great to see you again. We were at the Invest Ottawa power event yesterday, and you did a fabulous job in your presentation there, as well.

One of your comments struck me, and that was with respect to taking bold and courageous action and disrupting the status quo if we'd like to see transformative change. I know you have some very impactful programs under way through your organization, and one of them in particular, Fresh Breath, has caught my attention.

I would love for you to share some of the discoveries you've made through that program and that work.

[Nneka MacGregor]

The Fresh Breath research that we conducted in 2012 and 2013 is still the only Canadian-context work examining the experiences of women-identified survivors of non-fatal strangulation in the context of an intimate partner relationship. That work focuses on how dangerous the physical violence associated with being strangled is, and the short, medium, and long-term health impacts of such violence. From that work, we partnered with researchers from the University of Toronto, Angela Colantonio and Lin Haag. Lin was also at yesterday's panels.

We are now looking at traumatic brain injury in the context of intimate partner violence. Again, something we know is that the numbers of women who have experienced hits to the head, face, and neck that lead to possible traumatic brain injuries are equivalent to the numbers of women, in the Canadian context, who have breast cancer.

The amount of research and the amount of public awareness and education provided on that type of strangulation and head trauma are inconsequential, whereas the impacts on the women who have experienced it are life altering. It impacts their ability to work and function, and it also adversely impacts their ability to navigate the system we're talking about, especially in the context of family court and trying to fight for custody of their children. The way they are seen is that they are somehow unfit, not recognizing the fact that the health impacts are caused by the physical assault from the partner.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata—Carleton, ON]

That's incredible.

Building on this research and the program on the survivors being able to conceptualize or contextualize what they've been through and the impact on their lives moving forward, I imagine is quite impactful.

Can you speak to what you're seeing there?

[Nneka MacGregor]

It is devastatingly impactful, because survivors oftentimes don't even recognize they are suffering from a traumatic brain injury, so they blame themselves, number one. They can't connect why they used to function in a usual manner and, all of a sudden, they are not.

One of the most significant risks is that strangulation and traumatic brain injury are cumulative. We found that the women are not strangled once, but multiple times. We know that the more you are strangled, the more harmful the resulting impact.

Women are living in a sort of a daze, not recognizing the dangers they face at the hands of their partners—oftentimes these injuries are literally inflicted by the hands—these men who are abusing them, who literally have the women's lives in their hands when they're being strangled.

The women are unaware of the consequences, so not having an opportunity to train and to raise awareness, not having funding to continue to do the research and again, to raise awareness, is one of the reasons we believe so strongly that there needs to be a lot more light shone on the impacts of traumatic brain injury from strangulation, not just to educate women survivors themselves, but to educate frontline service providers, judges, lawyers, politicians and everybody about the short, mid and long-term impacts of this form of violence.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata—Carleton, ON]

Tell me, how do you do that? Through your research, obviously, you're gathering data. How is that being leveraged or how can it be leveraged to amplify this issue?

[Nneka MacGregor]

First of all, we are sort of constrained by lack of funding for the research, but what we have been able to do is to capitalize—I hate the word—on our community networks and share the findings amongst our networks so that they can then go and share those amongst their own particular networks, so it's sort of a report effect.

I think, when you ask how it can be done, it's through education, it's through funding and raising awareness and providing research and education that then informs the whole community.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

We're now going to pass it over to Andréanne Larouche.

Andréanne, you have six minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank Mr. Lapierre, Ms. Syed and Ms. MacGregor for testifying before the committee today on the important subject of intimate partner violence.

My first question is for Mr. Lapierre.

Several times during your presentation, you stressed the importance of considering children living in these situations and recognizing the harm caused to them by coercive and controlling conduct, even when they are not direct victims. This is a point that you also emphasize in your work.

Can you tell us more about the repercussions of controlling and coercive conduct on children, even when they are not direct victims?

[Prof. Simon Lapierre]

Thank you for the question.

In the last few years, research concerning children who live in a spousal violence situation has evolved considerably, whereas not so long ago, we thought that this violence only affected the adults. Then we talked about child witnesses.

At present, the research and work on coercive control tend to show that spousal violence is not an act that lasts an instant, or a series of acts that last an instant; rather, it is a dynamic of control and deprivation of freedom that is used on an everyday basis applying varying violent and non-violent strategies. Once we have that understanding of spousal violence, it is easy to understand that in a situation where varying non-violent and violent strategies are used on an everyday basis to control their mother or deprive her of freedom, children live in an atmosphere of tension, fear and terror every day.

There is a phenomenon that we are increasingly seeing on the part of violent men who use varying control and domination strategies against women and impose rules that the others must obey, on an everyday basis: often, these men will demand the same things of the children and take the same attitude toward them. As a result, children who are living in a spousal violence situation are very often targets or direct victims of the husband's controlling and violent behaviours.

As well, we are increasingly recognizing that a child living in a spousal violence situation, whether or not the child is present during violent incidents, and whether or not the child is a direct victim of the violence, is living in an atmosphere of tension in which meeting the child's needs is not a priority. Generally, the father's violence and control strategies, and the repercussions of those behaviours for the mother and for the functioning of the whole family, cause a decline in meeting the child's needs.

We really need a better understanding of these children's lives and we have to take that into account in our laws and our policies.