Status of Women Committee on Nov. 6th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 130 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

I would like to remind all members of the following points.

Please wait until I recognize you by name prior to speaking. I remind you that all comments ought to be addressed through the chair.

Thank you all for your co‑operation in that respect.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Wednesday, September 25, 2024, the committee will continue its study on gender-based violence and femicides against women, girls and gender-diverse people.

Before we welcome our witnesses, I would like to provide a trigger warning. We will be discussing experiences related to violence and femicides. This may be triggering to viewers with similar experiences. If indeed at any point you are feeling distressed or need help, please advise the clerk.

For all witnesses and for all members of Parliament, it's very important that we recognize that these are very difficult discussions, and we ought to be compassionate with our conversations.

For today's panel, I'd like to welcome Sunder Singh, who is with the Elspeth Heyworth Centre for Women. She's executive director and is joining us by video conference.

From Fédération des maisons d’hébergement pour femmes, we have Julie St-Pierre Gaudreault, policy issues adviser, joining us by video conference. We're also joined by video conference by Manon Monastesse, executive director with the Fédération des maisons d'hébergement pour femmes.

We also have Dr. Amanda Buffalo, adviser, Liard Aboriginal Women's Society.

There's been a little bit of movement with some of our witnesses who have had some trouble with their technology, so I'm trying to make sure we have the right ones here.

Last, of course, we have Jill Young in the room. She is chief executive officer of the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters.

Welcome to all witnesses and of course to all members.

We will begin with opening statements of five minutes from each organization.

To begin, I'd like to welcome Ms. Singh. The floor is yours for five minutes.

[Sunder Singh, Executive Director, Elspeth Heyworth Centre for Women]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My name is Sunder Singh. I am the executive director of the Elspeth Heyworth Centre for Women, otherwise known as the EHCW, located in Toronto and in the city of Vaughan.

Victims of domestic violence visit these centres, and anywhere from 100 to 300 cases come in every year. We witness the victims' helplessness in fighting the legal system and law enforcement, including child protection agencies that, as we have experienced in many cases, do not understand the terror of the abused victims who are being threatened with having their children being taken away due to their emotional outbursts. Emotional outbursts are recorded as mental instability.

We have seen cases of mothers being accused of having a mental disturbance when it was an emotional outcry at losing their children. They are crying for help, but the children are taken away because the abuser is perceived as polite, calm and convincing—but he is a chronic manipulator.

At the centre, we witnessed a classic story of a woman arriving from another country as a new bride. She married out of love to a man who had been previously married. His first wife ran away from him. Now he was seeking a new wife so that his abuse could continue. When the new bride, whom I will call Cindy, arrived in Canada, full of love for her husband, she faced domestic violence from him and her mother-in-law.

When Cindy was pregnant, he broke her arm, affecting her elbow. She went through surgery to save her elbow. He broke the same arm again, seriously affecting the movement of her elbow. She gave birth to a child, whom she carried precariously in one arm. The other arm was damaged. Her husband continued to beat her.

She came to the centre asking for help. She was placed in housing and landed a good job in her field. She was an accountant. She was on her way to self-sufficiency, away from her husband, but then the luring and apologies started, and false promises were made to her by her husband. She agreed to go back to him. The man started to record her each and every movement. She was not aware.

Her mother-in-law spread oil all over the kitchen for her to slip on and fall at night when she came to fetch milk for her child. She fell and permanently damaged her elbow.

The husband recorded a video in which she was precariously changing the diaper of the child with one hand and the other damaged arm. The child was kicking and she was stopping the child from kicking. He took a portion of that video and gave it to the police. The police handed the video to the child protection agency, which threatened Cindy with the removal of her child. This started a panic. She talked non-stop with the loud cry of a torn mother and repeatedly tried to express to anyone who could hear her that she was alone in this country and violently abused, and now law enforcement and the child protection agency were taking her child away.

When the EHCW inquired, it was revealed that the child protection agency was not at all aware that the husband had been violently abusing Cindy.

The child protection agency provided evidence to the court projecting Cindy to be a mother who was mentally unstable. The child was given to the father.

Cindy's doctor, her teacher and the police had reported the abuse and wrote letters clearly stating that the child should remain with the mother. Because she was unable to control her emotions, this went against her with some of the organizations she was supposed to trust.

Disgusted by the legal system, she left the country and went to the United States to live with her family. She's now using a fake account to remain secretly connected to her son. Mother and son are patiently waiting until he is of an adult age so that he can be reunited with his mother.

Are bodies that provide protection effectively safeguarding mothers and children? Law enforcement is doing good work. However, it needs to be aware of how mothers become traumatized when threatened with being ripped apart from their children.

Shelters are running at full capacity, and housing for women facing violence is not easily available either. Why is this issue not a serious societal problem for the government?

Why are the abusers placed in jail for two days, two weeks or two years when the life of a woman is completely destroyed emotionally? She is as good as dead. Children are affected permanently. Why are the abusers not in jail for a lifetime? If they were, violence would be reduced instantly.

Please make domestic violence training for all judges in the court system a mandatory requirement. This would help safeguard women.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you very much for your opening statement.

I would now like to invite Ms. Monastesse and Ms. St‑Pierre Gaudreault to take the floor for five minutes.

[Manon Monastesse, Executive Director, Fédération des maisons d’hébergement pour femmes]

Good morning. My name is Manon Monastesse and I'm executive director of the Fédération des maisons d'hébergement pour femmes. With me today is our policy issues advisor Julie St‑Pierre Gaudreault.

The Fédération des maisons d'hébergement pour femmes represents 60 shelters in Quebec, both first-line or emergency shelters and second-stage shelters. We're the only association in Quebec that welcomes any woman who is a victim of violence against women, not just women who are victims of domestic violence. So we take in women who are victims of multiple forms of violence, including sexual assault, domestic violence, sexual exploitation or honour-based violence, for example.

In terms of our capacity to accommodate, our occupancy rate is currently 106%. When women call us, we unfortunately have to turn them away because we don't have enough room. That translates into 11,000 women who are refused our services.

As you know, there have been about 20 femicides in Quebec. Of the women we take in, 26% tell us they have been victims of death threats or attempted murder. In addition, 25% want to file a complaint, as opposed to 38% who don't. In Quebec, we now have specialized courts for sexual and domestic violence, but they haven't yet been established in all judicial districts. We will see what impact they have on how much women who are victims of violence trust in our justice system.

You may recall the landmark report published in Quebec entitled “Rebâtir la confiance”, which was about rebuilding that trust among female victims. The report contained 190 recommendations. Some recommendations have been implemented, but only fairly recently. So in the next few years, we will be able to better gauge the impact of this report and the various measures taken.

We have concerns about the federal government's national action plan to end gender-based violence, more specifically about meeting the objectives and implementing the plan's foundation. We're also part of the Women's Shelters Canada network, and we can see that women unfortunately still don't have access to the same services or the same quality of service across the country.

The implementation of the national action plan is built on a solid foundation made up of three components.

As we know, the first component is leadership, coordination and engagement.

The second component is data. In this regard, it must be said that Statistics Canada reports pose a major problem for us, because they don't take into account power relationships, domination relationships and, among other things, coercive control. We're dealing with data that's based on a symmetric distribution of the genders, and that's not at all consistent with the data from our provincial reports. I think it's the same thing across Canada. We've been speaking out against Statistics Canada's methodology for years. Therefore, we need data across Canada that truly reflects the state of affairs when it comes to violence against women.

There's also the third component, reporting and monitoring.

In our view, the way progress on the three components is measured poses a problem. Accountability-wise, the measures implemented under the federal action plan should undergo a comprehensive assessment and should be aligned with provincial ones.

We are therefore very supportive of the findings in the report released by the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund, which calls on the federal government to create a gender-based violence commissioner. The commissioner's office would be an independent mechanism responsible for ensuring accountability, assessing the situation across the country and determining how the many provincial action plans align with the federal government's. The idea would be, first, to better identify best practices and, second, to see how federal leadership can—

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

I'm sorry to interrupt. If you could kindly wrap up your thoughts, that would be excellent. Thank you.

[Manon Monastesse]

All right.

With that in mind, other issues have to be taken into account. They include more funding for shelters, a focus on danger assessment, as well as better coordination and consistency when it comes to statistical data and the implementation of the national action plan to end gender-based violence.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you very much.

Prior to moving to our next witness, could I please remind all witnesses who are online to adjust their mic boom? It should be just above the mouth and just below the nose. That will ensure that we have the best sound for our translation.

Next I would like to welcome Madame Jeanson.

You have five minutes.

[Madam Martine Jeanson, President, Founder and Front-Line Worker, La Maison des Guerrières]

Good afternoon. I am the founder of La Maison des Guerrières, but I am also a victim who was left for dead.

The system is full of holes, and we are still trying to understand why. In my case, I was left for dead 30 years ago, and nothing has changed since. I would even say that things have gotten worse.

Court delays are appallingly long. We tell women to go to shelters that they have to leave two or three months later. Where are their violent spouses then? They are still there when the women leave the shelter. There should be no court delays. The courts should act right away.

We tell women to leave their homes, their furniture, their possessions, their jobs, everything they have, even though they are the victims and their spouses are the violent ones. In Quebec, no therapy is available for these violent men; there is no place where they can go for help. I think we need to build homes for violent men and put those men there. Instead of basic therapy once a week, they should have to undergo full-time therapy with experts who could appear in court and explain the danger these men pose. As other witnesses have pointed out, it's the victim's word against the perpetrator's in court. The women are often very emotional. I was when I went to court. I was a victim who had been left for dead, so naturally, I was crying, I was very emotional, I was scared.

We also have a lot of issues with our youth protection branch in Quebec. I deal with those cases in my job. All women who are victims of domestic violence have their children taken away from them, either because they are accused of being alienating or because their situations are considered separation disputes. Domestic violence is not a separation dispute. Women suffer the violence, and the children see it happen. The children are just as much victims as their mothers.

The child protection workers we deal with are not well trained. They do not understand the situation. To them, the man is a nice guy, a good guy, but he is a manipulator who is manipulating all of society. When people see these stories in the news, they always say how nice and polite so-and-so was and how they never would have suspected he would do something like that. The same thing happens in the child protection system. The people working in the system aren't at all able to assess the situation correctly. When I get involved in cases, I see that the caseworkers are totally incapable of recognizing domestic violence. They see the situation as a separation dispute. The mother has left everything. She has lost everything, and on top of it all, her children are taken away and handed back over to a violent father. That is serious.

As I said, the justice system is the same. I testify in court in all the cases I work on, and judges have absolutely no understanding of domestic violence. It's the mother's word against the father's. However, the mother is not always able to record, or provide evidence of, her bruises, the blows she suffered or everything that happened in the home.

The most important thing I want to talk to about today pertains to the court delays. I have clients who wait two, even three, years before they get to testify against their attacker in a criminal proceeding. That whole time, the women are living in constant fear. They cannot stay in women's shelters forever. These violent men have access to them at all times. It's no trouble; they can use Facebook or some other way to find their victims. They go to their workplace, or they follow the kids after school or some other family member.

Cases involving domestic violence should be dealt with by a judge right away, on a priority basis. That's how it works in cases involving the youth protection branch. The branch can intervene in an emergency. Victims of domestic violence should have the same rights. Women should be the ones able to roam free, while the men are put someplace. They are the guilty ones. They are the ones who should go to a centre or home for follow-up.

That is my message for you today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you very much for sharing that.

Next I would like to welcome Dr. Buffalo.

You have the floor for up to five minutes. Thank you.

[Dr. Amanda Buffalo, Advisor, Liard Aboriginal Women's Society]

Thank you.

The Liard Aboriginal Women's Society has made our submission to the standing committee, and we have a bunch of reference documents that we've sent along.

What I want to impart to the committee is that indigenous women and girls are reluctant to report violence to police, especially in the territory. There's significant violence that goes on with respect to the extractive resource industries in the Yukon. The National Inquiry into MMIWG and the May 2022 report from the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action provided evidence of RCMP misogyny, racism and sexualized violence against indigenous women, and we feel the effects, certainly, of that in the territory.

For as long as resource extraction industries have claimed unceded territories of our peoples, indigenous nations have resisted the unsustainable colonial state and the extractive industry practices enforced by the RCMP of land theft, dispossession and violence against women.

We thank the committee for undertaking a study on the national crisis of gender-based violence and femicide and present recommendations for action and consideration.

Kaska Dena, our matriarchal society composed of Tsíyōnéʼ Dena and Mésgâ Dena, which are wolf clan and crow clan respectively, and LAWS, as we're known, uphold the Kaska Dena traditional law of Dene Ā’Nezen, which is to care for our lands and waters as our relations.

We reject the unjust free entry mining regime that allows anyone to put up stakes to act over indigenous lands without the free, prior and informed consent of Kaska rights holders. This regime has resulted in significant harms to women and caused environmental, social, cultural, economic and spiritual damage in Dene Kēyeh, which are our Kaska Dena unceded territories. The 25-square-kilometre abandoned Faro lead-zinc mine site is one such example of this destruction. Contamination reaches far beyond the mine site.

LAWS opposes the violence against indigenous women and girls and the environmental damage that accompany colonial resource development practices. We want to heal the scars on our women and our lands.

We have a number of reports that we have tabled, which you will see in the notes. What I do want to say is that we've done studies, we've been on the ground and we know the damage that is done by these industries. So that you understand, in numbers, between 2014 and 2021, there were seven femicides in the Yukon, six of which were indigenous women.

Indigenous women represent 86% of the victims of femicide in the Yukon during that time period. That is also the highest rate of femicide against indigenous women in Canada. In Kaska country, this is particularly important, because Kaska Dena women represent more than 50% of all missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in the Yukon.

Our work has been around demonstrating how the mining industry's colonial ethic of exploitation degrades ways that indigenous and racialized women mine workers are treated in male-dominated workplaces, in camp living conditions and in our communities. We talk a lot in the studies that we've submitted to you about workplace health and sexualized assault safety regulations within the camps, but also within our communities. Reporting is particularly problematic, because our women are afraid to go to the RCMP or to the authorities, and we want to do more to keep our women safe in our communities.

I'll ask that you refer to the document provided to review the submissions, but I have some recommendations for action as well.

We want to ask the standing committee to recognize that the use of euphemistic terms like “development” and “resource development” that imply growth, progress and positive change fail to account for the reality of the colonial projects in Canada. Indigenous peoples are displaced in order to steal lands and resources for the economic, political and social benefit of private corporations, settlers and the state: provincial, territorial and federal governments. The historic settler colonial practices of extracting furs, forests, fish, minerals and other resources have enacted violence on indigenous peoples; devalued our social, cultural and political roles, particularly of indigenous women in our communities; and harmed the physical environment, plant and animal habitat, and human existence. These practices continue. This violence must stop.

LAWS respectfully asks the Standing Committee on the Status of Women to take the following recommended actions.

First, with regard to financial resources, advocate all-party support to provide adequate government funding for long-term sustainable core funding for indigenous women's organizations; funding for the creation of industry-wide and enforceable policies informed by women with lived experience, particularly in the extractive resource industry, and for women's advocacy NGOs to respect indigenous sovereignty and the safety of indigenous women and girls; and funding for more research studies, per the “Reclaiming Power and Place” report.

With regard to the second area, accountability, ensure that Canada complies with its obligations to respect, protect and fulfill women's equality rights and the human rights of indigenous peoples under domestic and international law through its UN universal periodic review and sustainable development goals reports as well as law and policy reform, and use GBA+ policy analysis to fund indigenous women's participation and include indigenous women in decision-making roles for environmental and socio-economic assessment reviews of extractive industry proposals.

The third area is implementation. For the TRC, the “Reclaiming Power and Place” report, the calls for justice, the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry and the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the government needs to ensure that this work is adequately funded in order for our communities to work towards implementing recommendations, calls to justice and calls to action.

Finally, with regard to reconciliation and restoration, the cost for implementing recommendations for justice and reconciliation and for the restoration of lands alienated from indigenous peoples should be covered by government and industry, which have reaped and continued to reap the profits from extractive resource industry projects.

The Liard Aboriginal Women’s Society is a non-governmental organization. We've been around for 25 years. We know the lay of the land, and we're really here today to encourage you to take action to help us end violence in our own communities and to help us ensure that future generations aren't fighting the same fight in another 25 years from now.

Sógá sénlá'.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you for your expertise, Dr. Buffalo.

At this point, Ms. Young, you have the floor for up to five minutes.

[Jill Young, Chief Executive Officer, YWCA Lethbridge and District]

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

I am Jill Young, the CEO of YWCA Lethbridge and District. I'm representing just some of the voices of my community in Lethbridge, Alberta.

The national scope of this crisis is staggering. At least one woman or girl is killed every two and a half days in Canada, most often by a male. Indigenous women and girls are 12 times more likely to be murdered or go missing than other women in Canada. In 2022 alone, 868 children were left without their mothers due to femicide.

Over four in 10 women have endured some form of intimate partner violence in their lifetimes, and nearly one-third of women over the age of 15 report experiencing sexual assault. That means if I look around at the women sitting here today on this committee, at least four of you have experienced some form of intimate partner violence.

These figures are haunting, and we are witnessing their impacts on the ground every day in Lethbridge.

Lethbridge has some of the highest rates of intimate partner violence—which is a form of gender-based violence—in Alberta, with Statistics Canada reporting a rate well above the national average in 2022. Harbour House, the emergency shelter for women and children fleeing violence and the only one in Lethbridge, experienced a 15% increase in crisis calls over the last year alone. We were able to shelter 400 individuals throughout the year, yet due to capacity constraints, 827 individuals were unable to be sheltered. At the current rate, we anticipate that number could be close to 1,000 individuals this year.

Our shelter is also seeing a 31% increase in children needing refuge. These children are escaping traumatic situations only to find limited resources for their recovery and stability.

Lethbridge faces a unique set of challenges that contributes to these elevated rates of intimate partner violence. As a regional hub for southern Alberta, Lethbridge serves a large, diverse and often underserved population, including many rural and indigenous communities with limited access to resources. This influx increases the demand on local services, often stretching our resources to the breaking point. Additionally, socio-economic issues like higher-than-average rates of poverty and addiction in Lethbridge add to the complexity.

Financial instability and substance misuse are well-documented risk factors for intimate partner violence, making it even more challenging to break the cycle of abuse in our community. The economic pressures exacerbated by inflation, lack of affordable housing and limited mental health services further strain the capacity of organizations like ours to address and prevent intimate partner violence effectively.

These local factors echo what we know nationally: Gender-based violence is complex, systemic issue deeply rooted in long-standing gender inequality. Femicide and gender-based violence are not inevitable and they are preventable. As a society, we have the power to prevent these tragedies if we commit to addressing their root causes through a multipronged, coordinated approach.

The national action plan to end gender-based violence can be an invaluable road map, but its success depends on action, collaboration and accountability from leaders at every level of government. The national action plan launched in 2022, yet we still see forms of gender-based violence on the rise, and specifically sexual assault.

This requires the entire system working together, meaning federal, provincial and municipal levels working alongside organizations like ours to ensure these services are comprehensive and accessible. We need sustained investment in emergency shelter capacity, mental health support, trauma-informed services, affordable housing and culturally responsive programs. We cannot address gender-based violence without addressing the economic and social vulnerabilities that put women and children at risk.

We know what the statistics tell us and we know the root causes. We have thousands of hours of research and hundreds of reports on this issue at our fingertips. What we need now is decisive, multi-faceted action that brings together all of us to implement these solutions with urgency, commitment and accountability.

We need to know that the road map we are using leads to a reality where safety, equity and dignity are the standard for all women in Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you very much, Ms. Young.

Thank you to all witnesses. That concludes our opening remarks.

At this point, we will begin our rounds of questions. I will be noting the time and informing members and witnesses in the room and online when there is one minute left and then when there are 30 seconds left.

In addition to that, before we begin our questioning, I would like to acknowledge that Dr. Buffalo needs to excuse herself at 6:15 p.m. If you would like to pose any questions to her, you want to do that before 6:15 p.m.

At this point, I welcome MP Dancho. You have six minutes.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for your excellent testimony.

I'm not a permanent member of this committee, and when I do come, there are some very heavy topics discussed here. Certainly this committee and the witnesses who come here deserve a lot of credit for their courage in bringing these issues forward, which, in my opinion, should be much more in the forefront of our political discussion than they are currently.

I have a number of questions for a number of you.

Madam Singh, thank you for your testimony. You asked at the end why abusers are only in jail for two days, two weeks or two years. I believe you said that they should be in jail for a lifetime, and that if they were, violence would be ended permanently. You also made the point, which I thought was quite a good point, that the violence lives for a lifetime with the woman who has been abused and her children. That was the sort of argument you made.

If you could design the justice system with women, victims and their children in mind, what specifically would you change about it? I know you have said that you would keep the abusers in jail forever. That's not necessarily an option—perhaps it is—but are there other things that you would do? Are there other things that you would do to fix the justice system?

[Sunder Singh]

The reason I mentioned that abusers need to be in jail for their lifetime is that they destroy the lives of family members, their wives. They beat them. They break their bodies, and when someone commits a crime, when they commit a murder, we put them in jail for life, but when women are hurt and their bodies are broken and the children are taken away or are permanently mentally damaged, we don't do anything about the abusers.

When the laws are strict, when we put the abusers away for life or for a very long time in jail, affecting their lives, the violence will be instantly reduced. That was the point I tried to make. Why are abusers put in jail for one day or two days, and then they're out? They are in jail for two weeks, and then they are out on bail again.

There should be no bail for the criminals, absolutely no bail for abusers who are hurting women and children.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you, madam.

I have a similar question for Ms. Martine Jeanson.

Martine, you were here, I believe, in November 2023. I'll read your quote back to you. I apologize; you likely said it in French, but I'll read you the English translation, if that's all right.

You said:

Everyone knows that abusers are arrested and then released. You can see it on television and hear it on radio. So women are afraid to report their abusers and don't want to do so because once he is released, he will automatically return home.

I feel that this is a very powerful point, because women have to get the courage and do all the work to finally report and go through the whole rigamarole and then have him perhaps spend a few days in jail, as the lady right before you said. They go through all of that and then have him come home. I would imagine that they would be very upset with what just took place and that a lot of women and others would be concerned about that.

Can you elaborate on your point and on how you would design the justice system to solve that issue?

[Madam Martine Jeanson]

Women are scared precisely because they know that, when a man is arrested after being reported and then asked to sign a recognizance under section 810 of the Criminal Code, he will be immediately released. He is not put in jail. Women know that. What happens then? The stories are all over the TV news: femicide, the youth protection branch steps in and takes the children away from their family, and so it goes.

In my view, what it always comes down to is the basic design of the system. A violent man never has just one victim. Even if he goes to jail, he'll get out and inflict violence on other victims. I firmly believe that violent men need specialized therapy for violent men. That is our only hope of changing things.

We have to address the behaviours of violent men and try to understand what they are rooted in. I'm not talking about narcissistic perverts because, as I've always said, you can never change someone with narcissistic perversion. However, men who grow up seeing impulsive behaviours can become impulsive. Most children who grow up in families that experience domestic violence become violent people. That cycle has to stop. All of these people need help. Women need to rebuild their lives. Men need help to deal with their violent behaviour. Children need help too.

As soon as the police are called in, the violent man should be put into a facility.

I want to thank centres for women. I always say how lucky we are to have them. What do we do about the men, though? If they are left to their own devices, if no one works with them, they are never going to change. Throughout the course of their lives, they will leave more and more victims in their wake. They will become more and more violent.

When you look at the history of every man who ends up killing a woman, you see that there were many victims along the way.

In my case, after I was left for dead, my attacker victimized seven other people.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you very much for your testimony.

Maybe I'll be able to ask the rest of my questions in another round, because I had some follow-ups. Thank you both.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

MP Sidhu, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses for sharing your insights with us.

My first question goes to Ms. Singh.

Ms. Singh, you shared Cindy's story. It was very touching. I just want to ask you a question.

There are various forms of gender-based violence, including emotional violence, physical violence and financial violence. What types of programs or initiatives are needed to support those individuals who are going through a tough time?

[Sunder Singh]

Ms. Sidhu, sometimes the emotional violence can be extremely severe, to the point that the abuser will mentally hurt women.

All kinds of abuse of women are criminal activities. There is no one criminal activity that can weigh heavier than the others. When the abuser is abusing his partner, they use all sorts of abuse. They use emotional, financial and physical abuse.

What we experience is that most of the women who come to the centre talk about the abusers being very charismatic, very polite. They are very social in the community. They have a good standing in the community. However, at home, they are abusing their partners. The partners are in a very precarious situation when they are in a social environment. They don't know how to explain to the community, because the community will not believe them when they say that they're being abused. Emotional abuse can be very dangerous. It can have a huge impact on a woman.

It's not just the physical, but the emotional and the financial. The financial issue is heavy because a woman cannot leave her home, if she has little children, if she is not financially stable. Most women who are financially stable because they have a good job can leave that relationship instantly, but otherwise financial abuse, the financial control by the abuser, keeps the woman at home for abuse.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you.

My next question goes to Ms. Young.

Ms. Young, you talked about a road map of a national action plan. We also heard a few times in the committee about the importance of providing full wraparound care for victims. Could you tell us more about wraparound services, whereby women can get everything at one stop? What do you think about that?

[Jill Young]

Absolutely, I can. I'm a huge proponent of wraparound services and a system of care.

Each individual we see at Harbour House brings in their own unique individual story and is at a different part in their journey. We need to identify what those services are and how we can help support them, because it's not a linear problem. We often see individuals who have experienced various forms of abuse, whether physical, financial or emotional. We need to be able to provide services that include mental health supports, financial literacy services and opportunities for them to get their ID cards and bank cards, or a bank account if they've never had one before. These are critical pieces to provide an individual with independence, which they may not have had before.

Quite often what we see in shelters is a siloed approach, and we need to expand that and have that collaborative wraparound approach so that we are able to address all of these different intricacies that are affecting these individuals.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you.

Many witnesses suggested to the committee that the offence of femicide should be added to the Criminal Code. Do you agree that the offence of femicide should be added to the Criminal Code?

[Jill Young]

Yes, I do agree, 100%, that it needs to be added to the Criminal Code to actually identify what these crimes are and how they're happening. Without naming it, we can't address it.