Status of Women Committee on May 20th, 2022

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

You talked about the cultural centres you want to put in place. You mentioned something about—

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I talked about women's shelters, whether it's on the reserves in the Far North or in urban centres. This is one of our major initiatives announced in previous budgets. This investment of several hundred million dollars includes the four shelters in the Far North under the Pauktuutit initiative, where there is a great need for off‑reserve shelters and housing for women. With respect to on‑reserve shelters, I have announced a handful. It is important to note that these announcements are made at the will of the communities. We only announce the construction of these centres if the communities agree, because there is a need for anonymity, for reasons that you are very familiar with.

The announcement I was referring to was made about a year ago and involved the construction of several dozen shelters across the country, at an estimated cost of $700 million, in direct response to the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I have less than a minute left to finish asking my questions.

Resource development projects are often located in remote and isolated communities. As a result, our study focuses primarily on remote communities. In order for us to further consider the isolation factor in our study, could you give us some concrete examples of what your government could do to address this very real concern?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

These communities aren't necessarily remote, but they are remote in that they aren't very close to major urban centres.

The answer and the thought I have on this is that solutions need to be tailored and developed in concert with the communities in question, especially the indigenous communities. That is obvious. Companies are starting to realize that. If we ask for shelters and housing, for example, it's difficult to enter a community and say that the government's initiative was announced 200 kilometres away. So we need answers that are directed at the communities themselves. As we know, the more remote a community is, the greater the socio‑economic gap.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much, Minister Miller.

We're now going to turn it over to Niki Ashton, online, for two and a half minutes.

[Niki Ashton]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My question is to both ministers.

Here we are talking about violence against indigenous women and indigenous communities. We know that climate change is currently having a disproportionate and devastating impact on a number of indigenous communities, and that impact is felt most strongly by women as well across the board.

With that reality in mind, I have put forward a private member's Bill C-245, seconded by my colleague, Leah Gazan, that shifts the foundations of the Canada Infrastructure Bank to focus on the desperate need for mitigation and adaptation infrastructure with a particular focus on indigenous and northern communities to deal with everything from devastating flooding and forest fires to melting ice roads. The reality of the climate emergency is already with us, and we need solution-based ways of dealing with this crisis.

My question to both of you is this. Given your responsibilities as ministers and your interest, both in terms of gender equality and putting an end to violence against women and lifting up indigenous communities, will you be supporting my Bill C-245?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

It isn't sufficient, in my mind, to say that climate change, forest fires and flooding have an impact on indigenous communities.

I think it's important to say that the reason that is the case is that, in a lot of situations, we actually move those communities into areas where they're more vulnerable. The responsibility is on Canada to be sensitive to that fact, to pay compensation where appropriate and to move to the heart of the issue that you're addressing, MP Ashton, in being proactive in ensuring those communities have the support where they can. There's a responsibility that goes over and beyond the statistical reality that X-community is x-times more vulnerable than non-indigenous communities. We are, in part, the cause of it. That's important to realize.

I haven't looked at your bill in full yet and in order to give it a proper response, I would have to review it, but I look forward to doing so.

[Niki Ashton]

I appreciate that, and I was going to say that I'm sure Peguis First Nation very much appreciates the point around the forced relocation that they experienced.

Minister Ien, go ahead please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have 10 seconds.

[Marci Ien, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Thank you so much, Niki. Thank you for the question.

I will say, I have not reviewed the bill. I very much look forward to reviewing the bill, as we see who has been disproportionately impacted, especially in a pandemic lens.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Minister Ien.

We're going to finally wrap it up. We have the last the few questions.

Dominique Vien, I'll pass the floor over to you for five minutes, and then we'll be going over to Francis for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Mr. Miller, I would like to talk to you.

According to the testimony we have heard and the discussions we have had with groups that came to testify, there appears to be a lack of quantitative data on the situation experienced or observed mostly by women. Women note a correlation between mining projects or resource extraction or development projects and violence against women. They also note that much is left unsaid. You will agree with me that women don't always report the violence they experience. That is another part of the problem. It affects economically vulnerable women, who are stuck in violent environments or in violent situations. So it is a vicious cycle.

There are discussions on projects in remote regions, regions that are not close to urban centres, as you said earlier. But there is currently a labour shortage, so men from out of town often move there to work for those companies and make a lot of money. One of my concerns is that those circumstances do not encourage companies to act quickly for things to change, to denounce situations, even implement a business policy to fire people whose behaviour is inappropriate or who have been violent toward indigenous women.

Is your interpretation the same as mine? Are you concerned that the current labour shortage may make some companies reluctant to let employees go even if their behaviour is downright inappropriate?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

That is indeed a risk. It's something that bothers me, but it may be based on reality. If I was a CEO, keeping people who behave like that would be a major risk for me. Nevertheless, the risk is there.

You mentioned at the outset how important it is to be able to gauge the extent of the situation. I wanted to highlight that because much has been done about it. Previous budgets dedicated $24.5 million to a project on indigenous data. That initiative will continue, so that we could measure the problem in its entirety. I wanted to specify this because I was not clear when I spoke earlier.

Marci, I don't know if you wanted to add to that.

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

If I may, Mr. Miller, before I yield the floor to the minister, I would like to put another question to you.

Earlier, you said a few times that you would be receiving data, a study or a report on the situation around June 3 or 4. Could you remind me what exactly you are expecting as a report?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I am not expecting to receive a report; it will come from my team and me. It will be an overview to determine what has been happening since the first anniversary of the federal report's publishing.

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

Will you make that public, Mr. Miller?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

We will hold a press conference, so yes, it will be public.

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

Okay.

Madam Chair, I think it would be a good idea to plan to hear from the minister again, so that he could share with us the result of the data and information he will have.

Minister, I apologize for not letting you answer right away, but I just didn't want to forget my idea.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have a minute left. Do you want me to pass it over to Minister Ien for a response?

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

Perhaps the minister had something to add.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Yes.

Go ahead, Minister Ien.

[Marci Ien, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mrs. Vien.

I just wanted to say that under the federal GBV strategy—this is something we've reiterated many times—the key priority is to increase support for our most vulnerable populations. That, of course, includes indigenous peoples at the top of the list.

Madam Chair, I want Lisa to expand on this for a couple of seconds, if she can.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Lisa, we'll give you 13 seconds.

[Marci Ien, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Thank you so much. We can do something with 13 seconds.

Go ahead, Lisa.

[Dr. Lisa Smylie]

Thank you.

To go back to the issue of research, while we don't have nationally representative statistics, there is a growing body of research on the impacts of the resource extraction industry on indigenous women and girls. The member has pointed to some of those. We need to look at—