Status of Women Committee on May 20th, 2022

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

That's the evolution of the consultation and the impact benefit agreements that have evolved. It's not there yet, but it's starting to look like something where communities are actually involved in the process, involved in free, prior and informed consent, and avoiding what's often been used, which is the instrumentalization of indigenous peoples. When you start doing that, the first people who pay for it are obviously indigenous peoples, but those who are most vulnerable within indigenous communities are indigenous women and girls. We've seen that in the past.

It's also making sure that this is the condition to getting proper societal approval for a particular project. What companies are now realizing is that, when that work is done properly, the actual outcomes are better for the surrounding communities, better for their companies and not a cost of doing business, which was the thinking before this way.

Again, we're not there yet, and we're not in a utopian world either. That's what companies are starting to see and starting to do in Canada, and we need to keep pushing them to do that.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

I think it's very important to hear from you the recognition that we're not there yet and that we're working with communities to make sure that we go forward in a good way. I appreciate that you understand that.

I think I have just less than a minute.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have 45 seconds.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Maybe Minister Ien would want to respond to that question as well in 30 seconds.

[Marci Ien, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Thank you so much, Anita.

I just want to point to the fact that our government is not working in silos here with regard to this. It is very much being informed by organizations on the ground, deeply informed.

I will quickly point out that Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada, which addresses Inuit women's economic security and prosperity, is doing a project right now. It's a three-year project, and it is being addressed and led by Inuit women. It deals with economic security and prosperity in the resource extraction industry. This is how we stay informed.

Thank you so much, Anita and Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

Thanks for watching my signal, Minister. I really do appreciate it.

I'm now going to pass six minutes over to Andréanne Larouche.

Andréanne, you have six minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank both ministers for being with us today. I will address Mr. Miller first.

We know that there are still unacceptable human rights violations in the context of resource development. We hear this when our colleagues ask questions, and you yourself have confirmed this. As you said, this is certainly not in keeping with the very goals of reconciliation that the federal government is promoting and that it must achieve.

We have before us an important report that, as early as 2019, highlighted this and other issues. I would say that the focus of this committee's current study is directly related to calls for justice 13.4 and 13.5 of the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. It contains important recommendations that the federal government must respond to.

Why does the problem of violence in the context of resource development persist, even though it was reported as early as 2015 as part of the national inquiry? Why has your government been slow to act? It has been known since 2015. What have been the obstacles to implementing the recommendations?

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

To be very specific, the national inquiry began in 2015, and the report was published in 2019.

I would also like to clarify that the federal government is indeed the main player in this debate, but not the only one. This is a societal project and, as the final report pointed out, it involves the provinces and territories. Forced sterilization and birth alerts still exist, particularly in my beautiful province of Quebec, and that is unacceptable. That said, we are talking about a societal project.

The reality is that these problems have persisted for too long and are still present today. I don't want to make excuses, but there was a pandemic that lasted for two years and made women and children more vulnerable.

Given all of our investments in different budgets, it can hardly be said that nothing has been done, quite the contrary. I can tell you about our investments in shelters and other forms of housing in Pauktuutit, in the Far North, or even our investments in my province of Quebec.

This is something that needs to happen, and it's very frustrating to hear that it's going to take time. However, what the report told us is that we must not take a cookie‑cutter approach, but rather a systemic approach, and the results will follow.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

On the implementation of calls for justice 13.4 and 13.5 on resource extraction and violence against women, you're talking about investments that have been made for shelters. So what progress do you think has been made?

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

What is well known is that this report has forced awareness and deepened the issue in society. Governments, let alone companies, must be held accountable for some of the situations that persist. There are also a number of programs to fight violence, of which Ms. Ien is obviously responsible. The fact remains that this is an awareness‑raising process that must take place over several years.

I hope to be able to report more fully in two weeks, as I was saying to one of your colleagues. It's not going to be a glowing report, obviously, given the state of the situation in Canada and the tragedies that continue, but we're not going to give up. We have invested $2.2 billion in 46 programs that are starting to roll out. That said, once again, I want to be clear: the results are slow.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Miller, you touched on the issue of companies. Often when it comes to resource development projects in Canada, companies and industries have a duty to put in place internal and external measures to prevent acts of violence.

Do you think the adoption of a federal policy regulating and regulating these companies in terms of ethics and harassment could curb this violence?

I invite Ms. Ien or Mr. Miller to answer the question.

[Marci Ien, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Thank you very much for the question, Ms. Larouche.

If I may, I would like to respond to a couple of things.

The first, as we know, and as Minister Miller has said, is that violence against and the disappearance and murder of indigenous women, girls and 2-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual people—2SLGBTQIA+ people—in Canada is an ongoing national tragedy, but I want to point to a couple of things here.

In our department, since 2015, 31% of all WAGE funding has been specifically for indigenous people. In budget 2021, $55 million was provided to bolster the capacity of indigenous women and 2SLGBTQIA+ organizations to provide gender-based violence prevention and real programming to try to prevent this kind of violence. In January 2022, just a couple of months ago—six months, to be exact—WAGE launched a call for proposals and those applications are currently being assessed.

These are ways in which we are working with the organizations and people on the ground who serve indigenous communities, working together, as we should and as Minister Miller pointed out, to come to solutions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

We're now going to turn it over for the next six minutes to Niki Ashton.

Niki, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Niki Ashton, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, NDP]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My first question would be for Minister Miller.

How have your ministry and the Government of Canada gone about implementing the calls for justice in the inquiry and specifically how much money is being invested in terms of addressing violence against women in the context of implementing the calls for justice?

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

Thanks for the question.

Crown-Indigenous Relations has a leadership role in coordinating all whole-of-government federal approaches as well as convening our provincial and territorial partners. The ones that Crown-Indigenous Relations is specifically responsible for are only a snapshot of the role we play in coordinating that across government.

As I've noted—and this is not an exclusive number—there was in a prior budget $2.2 billion specifically addressed to 46 organizations to deal with the response to the final report. That's only part of the puzzle, including the housing and infrastructure initiatives that we've put forward in budget 2021 and 2022, as well as all the work that Minister Ien is doing and also Minister Lametti on the calls for justice that deal with justice specifically, and Minister Mendicino and others across the government.

That's the best answer I have for that particular question, because it's something we can develop on at length in terms of the response and how it's coordinated and sometimes uncoordinated. I think the report that I'll have in two weeks will highlight where we see some success, but also where we see some challenges and failures.

[Niki Ashton]

Okay.

Speaking of challenges and failures, the AFN commented on budget 2022 that many of the priorities identified in their pre-budget submissions, including implementation of calls for justice, saw no new investments in this budget. Why were these priorities, as expressed by the AFN, for example, not included in the budget?

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

With great respect, the work that the AFN has done has actually influenced and really changed the course of history in terms of the budgeting cycles and the investments that we've put in the last two budgets in particular, and ever since we've been in government.

I do take exception to characterizing the investments in budget 2022 as not dealing with MMIWG. You can't talk about housing insecurity without talking about houses and building houses. The work that Minister Ien is doing in the gender-based violence initiatives speaks directly to MMIWG. I do think the language that we use in the budget is important, and I find it lacking in how it addresses specifically the calls for justice, but that's something that is on us. It doesn't mean that the investments don't deal with it. In fact, it's quite the contrary.

[Niki Ashton]

Let's talk about housing for a moment. As you know, I represent one of the most marginalized parts of the country, and the housing crisis is extreme in many of the first nations I represent, and it is not by accident. It is an absolute result of Liberal and Conservative governments underfunding housing on first nations.

I know this committee has heard from MKO and Grand Chief Settee around the lack of housing on reserve as well as off reserve, and we know that, as you point out, Minister, this contributes to the vulnerability of indigenous women and two-spirit people in our communities.

This budget is nowhere near where it needs to be to address the housing crisis in terms of indigenous communities. How is your government not realizing the urgency with which massive investments in housing need to be made on and off reserve?

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

As you properly characterized, MP Ashton, the housing crisis will not be resolved through any one particular budgetary cycle. It has to be addressed in a systemic fashion with sustained investments over the course of many budgets.

The amounts we put in budget 2022 are historic in nature in their sums. The challenge now is to get them out and to get the houses built. They will change lives. They will make a difference as well as the amounts we put in prior budgets for shelter specifically on the points that we are dealing with today. They will be game-changers in many ways, but are they enough? Absolutely not. I don't think anyone credible could stand up and say that. It will require sustained effort by every single government that purports to represent Canada for a number of years, well up to 2030, on closing the actual gap.

We have to continue measuring it as well, and that's a challenge that my colleague Minister Hajdu has the responsibility for and that we're working on to get a sense of where that infrastructure gap is and how much it is. We have, unfortunately, the bad habit of throwing numbers at each other of various levels of sophistication, and that doesn't help to do the financing profiling work that we need to do to make sure communities are properly served and are getting the housing and supports they are entitled to.

[Niki Ashton]

Agreed. However, of course, we also know that Indigenous Services Canada has been clear around the basic gap around housing that exists in communities.

Just quickly, Madam Chair, how long do I have?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have 40 seconds.

[Niki Ashton]

I'll finish off by saying that what's critical here is for there to be a sustained commitment on MMIW, particularly the calls for justice. It is not acceptable that in this budget there isn't a clear commitment on this front or on the housing crisis. We need bold action now and we've yet to see that, as many indigenous leaders and people here in our region are stating clearly.

I'll end off with that. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

We're now going to our second round. We will be doing five minutes for the CPC and the Liberals, and two and a half minutes for the NDP and Bloc.

We'll be turning the floor over now to Shelby Kramp-Neuman.

Shelby, you have five minutes.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to both ministers for being available on a Friday afternoon.

I'll start my initial line of questioning for Minister Miller, the first question being a simple yes-or-no answer.

Do you agree with me that, in order to achieve our truth and reconciliation goals, we should be involving all indigenous voices at the table?

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

I believe so, yes.