No, I don't.
Evidence of meeting #15 for Status of Women in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was communities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #15 for Status of Women in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was communities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:55 p.m.
Executive Director, British Columbia Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres
No, I don't.
3:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Ending Violence Association of British Columbia
No, I don't.
3:55 p.m.
Clinical Social Worker, Mental Health Services Provider, Yukon Aboriginal Women's Council
No.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Ferreri Conservative Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
Okay, thank you.
If there is an opportunity, I'd really like some recommendations from all of you in terms of mandating corporate social responsibility.
I had the privilege this past week to visit Alberta, Jasper and Banff, and I had the privilege to speak with a chief, a female chief of the Simpcw First Nation. It is very pro-pipeline regarding how much it has injected into the community for jobs and opportunity.
How do we find that balance of bringing economic growth and decreasing poverty with a decrease in violence? I would ask for your key recommendations.
I'll ask Diane, in particular, what does that mandate in corporate social responsibility look like for you?
3:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre Inc.
I would like, first of all, to say that all the answers and the solutions are always at the community, the grassroots, level. We strongly believe that in doing all this work on violence against women a co-development approach is critical, so you have government, industry and communities sitting at a common table to co-develop and co-create what the solutions are to really get ahead of it and be proactive.
Then there are the recommendations. I will be very quick on what we would like to see in terms of some industry standards around corporate social responsibility. There should be mandatory training on violence against women and sexual exploitation. They should have to contribute to a fund that is managed by an indigenous-led organization to address the harms of the social impact. There should be mandatory child abuse and criminal record checks so that there's some management of violent offenders coming into neighbourhoods. And there should be a monitoring body and hefty fines for non-compliance. We should look at strategies that have worked across the country.
I'm only aware of one initiative in Quebec that had some promising results.
Meegwetch.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Ferreri Conservative Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
And the economic injection that happens is beneficial as well to these communities.
3:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre Inc.
Absolutely. Everybody needs to be at the table planning for that in a meaningful way and, again, getting back to co-development and co-management.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Ferreri Conservative Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
Debbra, I'm looking at our Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Under “Business and Reconciliation” 92.ii it says:
Ensure that Aboriginal peoples have equitable access to jobs, training, and education opportunities in the corporate sector, and that Aboriginal communities gain long-term sustainable benefits from economic development projects.
Debbra, do you feel that the government is delivering on this mandate?
3:55 p.m.
Clinical Social Worker, Mental Health Services Provider, Yukon Aboriginal Women's Council
In my opinion, they are starting at the wrong place. They are offering all sorts of technical skills development, but they haven't addressed the emotional trauma that still permeates everywhere from colonization. If you're coming from a place of low power, you can have all the applications of credentials that you want, but you're still not whole from the inside out and that is what needs to be addressed.
I can tell you in the north there's a tremendous amount of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and a tremendous amount of apathy and there's a tremendous amount of dysfunction. All of that is not addressed.
You can keep applying the college diplomas and the certificates, but if you don't address the root issues of security, and self-worth, and personal empowerment, nothing's going to hold because it falls through like sand because the core of the beings, the core of the people, has to be healed. That's where the attention needs—
4 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Ferreri Conservative Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
Thank you, Debbra.
I think I have another round of questioning so I will come back to that and pass it over to my colleague.
4 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Thanks so much.
We're now going to turn it over to Emmanuella Lambropoulos.
Emmanuella, you have six minutes.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to begin by thanking all of the witnesses for your great testimony and for being with us here to answer some more questions on this very important issue.
My first question is going to go to Ms. Varley.
You mentioned that one of the first recommendations you raised was the fact that safety plans need to be put in place for women and girls by these industries. Can you expand a little bit more on that in terms of what specifically we should be taking into account.
I know you also said that indigenous women should be consulted in coming up with these plans, absolutely, but can you also give us a couple of pointers as to what direction that should go in if this were to be mandated.
4 p.m.
Executive Director, British Columbia Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres
In the same way that Debbra Redsky has addressed this as well, we need to be working with local first nations and indigenous urban communities when the resource sector is coming into town to start developing those safety plans.
I would say the same things. We need really in-depth criminal records, and setting some no-tolerance rules for violence that are within an employee's contract so there doesn't have to be a proof of violence at the end of the day through the criminal justice system, because indigenous women don't go through the justice system for the most part. It's not safe for us. We really need to work closely with the sector to develop some really strong safety plans.
The trouble for me in this process is that the onus falls on indigenous women and organizations to create safety plans for ourselves. We really need to balance that with creating strong safety plans through the resource sector itself. Government needs to work with us to hold that resource sector accountable for these safety plans, because if indigenous women are not going to the police and reporting violent crimes—and there are plenty of stats to say that we don't—then we need to find other ways to address this. That is putting some really strong human resource policy around safety for local women, for those workers who are working in those work camps.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Thank you very much.
My next question is for Ms. Debbra Greig. You've mentioned that you've worked over 40 years as a therapist and helping indigenous people in the north.
Can tell us whether there have been programs to address the mental health issues and, in general, whether there's been funding towards mental health? I'm not aware of specific funding in indigenous communities.
4 p.m.
Clinical Social Worker, Mental Health Services Provider, Yukon Aboriginal Women's Council
There has always been funding, but's it's always short-term funding. Nothing's perpetual and the problems are perpetual. The agencies that get the funding are always in a state of anxiety as to whether or not they're going to get the funding again.
All of that has to be changed. The damage is deeply rooted in generations of people who have lost their power and can't give power to their children and can't motivate themselves to empower themselves. There's a tremendous amount of damage that has been done and the tremendous amount of damage needs to be addressed; otherwise, you can put all the blanket things on top of everything and the root is still going to be there. You have to heal the people; you have to heal the spirit of the people. That funding must be perpetual and it must be enough that it can actually be done professionally, instead of by people who come in with the best of intentions, but they may not have the best of skills, and so things just stay the same.
We want to mitigate damage and we want to see positive change. In order to do that, you have to have assessments; you have to have resources; and you have to have people who can apply the resources in order to heal the people. That's absolutely huge. The government has been hugely in deficit on that for 500 years.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
I hear you.
My next question for you is more related to resource development. You mentioned that a lot of the reason behind much of the gender-based violence is colonization and resource development and the fact that the police and the colonizers continue to.... It's a cycle of violence that continues because of this power relationship.
I understand that a lot of that impacts mental health. Could you maybe talk a little bit about what you think would help change that? Let's pretend that we were able to completely address mental health. What would be the next step to help empower indigenous women and other people in these communities by way of job availability out there and in these projects once they're available?
4:05 p.m.
Clinical Social Worker, Mental Health Services Provider, Yukon Aboriginal Women's Council
If you could fix all the mental health problems first, that would be fine. Then you need to have educational opportunities, because people have to take the steps to empower themselves to be self-actualized. The root problems have to be solved; all the addictions have to be solved; all the resources need to be applied so that there are treatments for the addictions. Then there needs to be funding for perpetual, accessible education. Some of the remote areas don't even have colleges accessible and they would have to go on Zoom, and the people don't even have computers, so they can't go on Zoom. It's outrageous some of the deprivation in some of the rural areas. The people are in states of apathy; they feel like they're not going to get there, so they do nothing, and that's really, really sad.
Education would need to be second after first fixing all of the mental health problems. Then opportunities for economic development would have to be there.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Thank you so much.
We're now going to move it over for six minutes to Andréanne Larouche.
Andréanne, you have the floor.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I thank the witnesses for being with us today.
I would like to address Ms. Redsky first.
Ms. Redsky, you talked about the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and how important it is that Canada recognize it, especially since it opens the door to better protection for women and better dialogue between peoples.
Can you tell us a bit more about the importance of this declaration?
4:05 p.m.
Executive Director, Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre Inc.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People is a really important human rights instrument to recognize the inherent rights of indigenous people. This goes also to what I was speaking of in my opening: We have our own laws and we have also our own solutions to very complex issues.
The challenge and the reality for many of the communities is that those answers are never listened to, supported, funded or properly evaluated so that there could be a business case. They are often ignored and then nothing gets done. Then we always end up in this perpetual cycle of having all the answers, but yet we don't get the resources to implement those solutions to make significant change.
The will and the spirit and the vibrancy and the inherent values of our culture are strong and always have been. We're here for a reason. I really think that's important. UNDRIP is an important recognition of that strength of indigenous people in Canada and it needs to be supported in all aspects.
Again, I want to refer to how you get there, which is really by that co-development approach and by engaging with industry, government and communities all sitting at the same table.
That, to me, is the answer and the opportunity.
Meegwetch.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Ms. Redsky, there has been a long-standing request to sign the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but this has not been done. My understanding is that this is harmful and may have contributed to the violence perpetrated by some companies against women in indigenous communities.
Am I correct in saying that refusing to sign the declaration has had an impact?
I see you nodding; I interpret that as a yes.
4:05 p.m.
Executive Director, Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre Inc.
Yes, I agree with that. It's just another way that our nationhood is not validated.