Status of Women Committee on May 20th, 2022

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

I happen to agree with you.

Despite multiple requests to the government to join the national action plan, the coalition on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in B.C., the Ontario Native Women's Association and the Quebec Native Women, unfortunately, were all excluded.

Would you also agree with me that investments in truth and reconciliation should be tailored to the specific requests from indigenous communities and also detailed extensively in order to achieve transparency in that particular process?

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

I'd say yes. I don't think these organizations were excluded. They certainly weren't. They weren't supportive of the federal pathway ultimately. It would be wrong for us to expect unanimity, but it would be equally wrong for us to exclude them.

They weren't excluded, but there certainly wasn't unanimity, despite the input that we had from hundreds of survivors, families and organizations to the federal pathway. It is important for the record to show that.

I obviously don't tell you how to ask your questions, so please, I hope you don't object to the form in which I answer them. Sometimes a yes-or-no answer isn't applicable.

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

That's fair enough. I respect that.

In the budget, there were only a few short lines on tackling gender-based violence, putting forward a national action plan and the pledge of over $500 million over five years. There was no mention of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.

How will the government take it upon itself to readily define its investments in truth and reconciliation and make a genuine effort to include all indigenous voices at the table?

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

I'd like Minister Ien to answer part of that question, but the federal pathway gives a clear way forward for the federal government's leadership role in answering those calls. There are short-term targets the first, second and third years. I'll be giving an update in about two weeks on that specifically. It will be a continued ongoing process, especially the issue of accountability, which is still a matter that we need to resolve because it can't be up to the Government of Canada to give itself grades on this particular issue.

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

Thank you.

Minister Ien, would you like to add to that?

[Marci Ien, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I certainly would.

Shelby, thank you so much for the question.

As I stated before, this is an all-of-government approach. I work very closely, as our department and ministry do, with Minister Miller, Minister Hajdu and others. The national action plan aligns with and complements the national action plan for missing and murdered indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people and the federal pathway to address missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. As you rightly pointed out, budget 2022 supports this with $539 million.

I just want to reiterate that this is an all-of-government approach. We are working together on this, and $539 million is what we were supported with in budget 2022. We will continue to work towards all that indigenous women and girls and others across this country need.

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

Excellent. Thank you.

Do I have about a minute left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have a minute and 20 seconds.

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

Terrific.

With regard to quantitative data, Melissa Aalhus from the Northern Health authority was regularly cited in the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls report with regard to sexual health impacts. She is cited in the report as suggesting that there is an “abundance of anecdotal evidence”. However, it was noted that there is a need for additional quantitative data to be collected.

Have there been efforts with Statistics Canada to ensure that the government is working to obtain additional quantitative data to properly address the topic of resource development and the violence against indigenous women and girls?

[Marci Ien, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Shelby—

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

The issue—

[Marci Ien, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I'm sorry. Go ahead, Minister Miller.

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

The issue of data comes up often and it's the basic premise that you can't mend what you can't measure.

The anecdotal evidence is so overwhelming for us not to draw the conclusions that we're drawing. They're not great conclusions, but the government in the past budgetary cycles has put millions of dollars into supporting grassroots organizations and coordinating data. Again, it is work that's ongoing but needs to continue, especially led by indigenous voices.

Marci had some elements to add as well.

[Marci Ien, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I did. Thank you—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Actually, Minister Ien, I'm going to ask you to save those comments for next time because I'm going to switch over to the next questioner.

I'll pass it over now to Ken Hardie.

Ken, you have five minutes.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It's delightful to be with the group and to see you in the chair today.

Minister Miller, you may remember this. A couple of years ago, somebody—and I believe it was the Prime Minister, actually—made some comments about the issue of resource projects and the negative impact on indigenous communities, particularly on first nations women and girls. At the time, there was a suggestion that this was somehow an attack on the resource sector, and I think oil and gas was pointed out. That's really not the case, especially with the fact that the committee is undertaking this study.

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

No, absolutely not, but we can't be blind to the fact that the extraction industry is where a good chunk of this is occurring. It has been pointed out time and time again during the pandemic, when we were negotiating a very difficult situation, that communities were shutting down and not allowing workers to get through and work at Keeyask.

A number of witnesses stood forward on a number of our calls with the MKO grand chief and testified to the fact that they were worried about their safety. The uninitiated would ask, “What does that have to do with physical safety?” One of the witnesses spoke about being raped not once but twice by workers, and this was obviously fuelling the need not only to shut down communities and enforce security with respect to a worldwide pandemic, but also to ensure the safety of women.

These are real events. There are too many of them to discount them at all. We should be listening to people and that should inform our thinking in this. It happens consistently, time and time again, so this isn't an attack on any particular industry. It's the reality of how a number of industries have been operated. A large number of them are realizing this and realizing that, in order to move forward, they need to shape up, and I think that's the value of this study in all its nuance.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I would also submit that in fact this issue has been around, regrettably, for a very long time. Everything from cattle drives in the Old West to wartime have all featured these abuses of indigenous women and girls. In fact, it's even in the broader community.

I'm not sure if you or Minister Ien would take this question. We've heard the need for more resources—namely, money—from the federal government to support communities. Is there a sense as to what good this money would do and what it would be used for that would improve the situation?

Minister Ien, would you care to comment on that?

[Marci Ien, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Thank you so much, Ken, for the question.

It is very important to understand the numbers and understand the disaggregated data. Budget 2021 put in $11 million specifically for research, knowledge and mobilization.

At this point, I'd like to just bring in Lisa Smylie, if I might. I call her our “research guru”, because she is the keeper of the numbers and facts so that we can break this down for you, Ken.

[Dr. Lisa Smylie, Director General, Research, Results and Delivery Branch, Department for Women and Gender Equality]

Thanks, Minister.

As the minister pointed out, there is $11 million in research and knowledge mobilization. We acknowledge that there isn't national data with respect to the impacts of resource extraction on indigenous women and girls and violence, and we need to fix that. Part of our funding is going to projects and research, community-based projects, so that we can better understand the impacts of this issue on indigenous women and girls, and with that knowledge, we can work to address it.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you for that.

Perhaps I'll go back to Minister Miller. I would assume that resource companies in mining, forestry, oil and gas, etc., are also sensitive to the impact of their activities on indigenous communities. Have you had any sense that there's a coming together of these companies in the standards they want to apply to their workforce in terms of support for communities as they move in to do their work in a certain location?

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

I wouldn't say that it is consistent and unanimous. There's a sharing of best practices. Certainly, some of the work that Trans Mountain is doing, although far from perfect, is indicative of some of the change that we've seen over the last few years.

There are other companies that are really leading the way, but there are others that are not there yet, and those are the ones that are falling behind. I think you either get on this or there will be an impact on the particular company in question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much, Minister Miller.

We're now going to turn it over for two and a half minutes to Andréanne Larouche.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

In your remarks, Mr. Miller, you talked about cultural centres. As part of our study on resource development and violence against indigenous women and girls, where might these centres fit in?

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

Could you repeat the question?