Status of Women Committee on Feb. 4th, 2022

[Ian Kenney]

We do that by increasing our investments. The focus over the last little while has been on expanding the number of shelters. As I mentioned in my remarks, we're going from a network of 46 shelters that exist right now to just under 100. We plan to build 96 or 97 shelters across the country by 2026, if I'm not mistaken.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

How do you allocate funds for shelter services, like running the shelter versus the staff? In terms of sustainability, staff burnout and ensuring they are fairly compensated, what are you doing in that avenue?

[Ian Kenney]

We receive proposals from communities that are seeking to build new shelters and that sort of thing. For the proposals for the new shelters we are looking at now, as I mentioned earlier, CMHC is looking at the construction costs. The O and M looks at all of those costs, like the staff requirements and that sort of thing, knowing that there are higher costs in some of the more remote and northern regions.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Yes, of course.

[Ian Kenney]

There is a ballpark figure we look at to see what makes sense, but those are all notional allocations that we try to take into account.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

I'm going to try to squeeze one more question in.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have an awful chair who just won't let you, Michelle.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Darn.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I'm sorry about that.

I'm going to now move the mike over to Sonia.

Sonia, you have six minutes.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the officials for being with us today.

My first question is for Mrs. McKinnon.

I see that in December, PHAC made a funding investment of $100,000 at Western University to develop a free, evidence-based mobile app that will provide information to safely support survivors of intimate partner violence and those at risk.

Can you tell us what outcomes you expect to see from this service? Are you aware of similar programs in other jurisdictions that have been successful in helping women?

[Karen McKinnon]

Yes, we are very pleased to have made that investment. The myPlan Canada app is, in fact, based on an international example of this. We have been able to import that into Canada and put this in place.

It's early days. We just announced the funding, but the objective of this will be to ensure that women have a safe ability to text in their own home via this app, and to seek assistance if and when they need that. Obviously you can't always use a telephone or a voice connection. Having that ability through a safe app that allows for texting support allows people to develop a plan for themselves should they need to get themselves to a safer place than where they presently are.

I hope that helps answer the question.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

PHAC runs numerous programs across the country directed at teens, to help them recognize, avoid and escape dating violence.

Could you provide an overview of the issues and barriers that are unique to this age group?

[Karen McKinnon]

We know that teens who are at risk of dating violence are those who have grown up with a history of maltreatment, or who maybe have been bullied or are being bullied. They have friends who are aggressive. Perhaps they use substances. Some LGBTQ2+ youth also experience teen dating violence, including some who have not disclosed their orientation.

If you look at something like the health behaviour of school-aged children survey, which is a self-reported survey of around 30,000 young people, we see that approximately 30% of Canadian youth in grades 9 and 10 have reported being victimized at some point in their lifetime. About one in five have reported experiencing physical dating violence. About one in ten have experienced sexual dating violence.

Clearly this is an important issue. We know that younger women, in particular those aged 15 to 19, are eight times more likely than women aged 25 years and older to have been sexually assaulted by an intimate partner in the previous 12 months. It's that really critical 15- to 19-year age range. They are just getting into their intimate lives and are finding it very difficult sometimes to manage the amount of violence that they would be confronting.

It absolutely is a significant public health issue, because we know that when unhealthy relationships become entrenched, they can extend across a lifetime and have intergenerational impacts as well.

I'll stop there because I don't want to take all the time. That's just to give you a bit of an overview of the issue.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you for that.

My next question is for Mr. Kenney.

Indigenous women and women experiencing violence have often relied on emergency shelters across Canada. Indigenous communities and other diverse communities in Canada require culturally specific support.

Can you speak to how these culturally driven services lead to better results?

[Ian Kenney]

Yes, as I mentioned, this is the underlying objective of the family violence prevention program. It's to actually put in place supports that allow communities to decide on the best types of prevention activities, on what kinds of culturally appropriate services are available. There's a great deal of flexibility in what we offer. We work with both local and national level partners to try to put a frame around the kinds of things we might want to emphasize in our funding.

The assumption of the program is very much that what is culturally appropriate is also very regional, very local, and should be determined by local communities themselves. As I said, that's very much something that is built into the program. Over time, as we expand the number of shelters that are operating as a result of the program, I think we'll have a much better sense of just how that is translated into results.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Ms. McKinnon, mental health is another big component here. How is the government working to ensure that all women have access to mental health services, especially given the effects of this pandemic? What kind of awareness are you doing?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Could we have just a quick response, please?

[Karen McKinnon]

Essentially, I could just point to something that happens through our Health Canada colleagues as a really important piece, which is Wellness Together Canada, that phone-in chat line and email and online portal that allows people to seek a range of the kind of help known as stepped care. You can seek all kinds of different levels.

I see that I'm getting the wrap-up signal, so I will pause there. We're doing a number of things in the area of support.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thanks very much.

Andréanne, you have your six minutes. Go for it.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being with us today to talk about this very important issue. When we talk about indigenous and first nations issues, we see how important it is to engage in a nation-to-nation dialogue to tailor solutions to cultural realities.

My first questions will be for Mr. Kenney or Ms. Marin‑Comeau.

The national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls report really denounces the lack of affordable housing, but especially the lack of social and community housing and shelters having insufficient capacity. You talked a lot about shelters. However, some indigenous communities don't have any shelters.

Investments have been made and we're in the process of increasing the number of shelters. We know that shelters are one thing, they are a first step, but for women to regain some form of autonomy and break free of the vicious cycle of poverty and violence, social and community housing must be made available moving forward.

Are the measures introduced by your respective departments to address domestic violence in indigenous communities sufficient? How much more work should be done in the first and second stages?

[Ian Kenney]

Perhaps I can start with that.

You raise an excellent point, in that in the things that are leading to the need for women's shelters on reserve or anywhere, the causes are the things that also need to be part of the solution. I know that the Department of Indigenous Services Canada is looking at housing and looking more and more at infrastructure investments and things that can be done even in urban communities—that's something our branch is involved in—in trying to create truly a continuum of things that prevent family violence.

Just with respect to shelters, again, we've mentioned that we're moving more and more into the territory of transitional housing, which allows women and children and families to move from the shelter environment into something that allows them to reintegrate into a safer environment.

This is all part of a more holistic solution that we're trying to build into all of our programming at the department in looking at things out of the siloed type of perspective. Actually, it's one thing in the work that CIRNAC is leading through the MMIWG response, in that we can look interdepartmentally at some of these things more holistically.

[Chantal Marin-Comeau]

Thank you very much for your question.

I'd like to add a few things.

You raise an excellent point about housing. As you know, there has been a tremendous amount of investment in Inuit housing as well as housing for the Métis nation and for self-governing communities. Since 2018, better practices have emerged for managing these units. Initially, priorities are being set by indigenous peoples and partners.

We are making a 10-year investment in Inuit housing, and to date, as we move into the fourth year, 400 new housing units have been built in Inuit communities and many more are under construction. We are now at just under 50% of the target of 925 units.

So, to answer your question, a lot of work has been done on housing, but a lot more needs to be done. As an alternative to housing construction, we have also made investments in general costs and management. With respect to the Métis nation, we're using an interesting model because it's not just housing, but also subsidies to give communities access to adequate housing.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

To sum up your answer, things have been done. The government has positively responded to part of the national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls report, but more could be done. We could carry out an even more in-depth study of the report, for example, because I imagine that some recommendations have still not been addressed.

In terms of infrastructure, I saw again recently in the news that in Manawan, they do not have electricity or clean drinking water. The cycle of poverty is being perpetuated too.

I'd like to hear what you have to say about the importance of taking concrete action, getting a bird's-eye view of the problem and bringing women out of the cycle of poverty.

[Chantal Marin-Comeau]

Thank you for raising the issue of the underlying causes of violence against indigenous women, girls and people of all gender identities.

With respect to the response to the national inquiry, many things have been implemented. I mentioned investments and programs. Over 23 departments participated. In fact, you have two representatives of Indigenous Services Canada here, and the previous panel included representatives from some of the departments as well. So people are hard at work on this right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much. We're going to have to wrap that up.

I'm going to move it over to Leah. I'm sure she wants to hear more about this too.

Leah, you have six minutes.