Status of Women Committee on Feb. 4th, 2022

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'm very pleased to be with you this afternoon. Sitting on a federal Parliamentary committee is a first for me. I'm a newbie, but I have had some very interesting experiences similar to the opening remarks we heard just now. Thank you very much, Ms. Butt. I thank you all as well for coming out today.

Substantial funding has been announced and, as I understand it, people are now starting to spend a lot of money. Other funding has been announced as well. You mentioned $601 million that needs to be distributed.

What should we remember about what has been accomplished with this money? What measurable results can you share with us after implementing the strategy and spending the rather large funding envelopes that have been provided?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I'm sorry, Ms. Vien. Are you directing that at one person?

Ms. Butt, are you going to take the answer, perhaps?

You can direct it to whomever you want, Ms. Vien, or would you like Ms. Butt to answer that question?

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

Since she is the group leader this afternoon, perhaps Ms. Butt could answer my questions or redirect them to someone else.

[Alia Butt]

I can take the question, if that's all right.

There are two different things here that we might want to talk about. One is the strategy that was launched in 2017, “It's Time”. That was the federal strategy that was launched to prevent and address GBV. In terms of that federal strategy, the government invested over $219 million over six years and $42 million ongoing. That was to make sure the federal family was coming together to move forward on that particular approach.

There were seven departments involved at the time: Public Safety; the Public Health Agency of Canada, from whom you will be hearing as part of panel two; the Department of National Defence; Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada; the RCMP; Justice; and us.

One of the key things that came out of that strategy in particular is the GBV knowledge centre, which is housed within WAGE. It is the focal point of the GBV strategy and is responsible for governance and coordination, reporting and evaluation, data and research and knowledge mobilization, so I can give you a bit more information in terms of the results you're asking for.

Since its inception, over 170 resources were added to this online platform, which was visited more than 64,000 times in 2020-21. During the same period, the knowledge centre hosted 11 webinars featuring researchers, GBV and knowledge mobilization experts, public servants and funding recipients. More than 1,400 participants attended from federal organizations, provincial and territorial governments, academic institutions, and national and international non-government organizations.

In addition, approximately $50 million is being invested in roughly 60 projects to support the development and implementation of promising practices to address gaps in supports for victims and survivors and their families—

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

Ms. Butt, I wish I had a more specific answer.

I understand that funding has been announced, but I am talking about concrete action that has produced tangible results. Some 44% of women experience violence.

Now that we've had these expenditures, announcements and strategies, when will we get that staggering number down? Are we getting there with all the money being spent?

[Alia Butt]

Thank you very much for that clarification.

I'm just going to ask my colleague, who's the DG responsible for research, results and delivery, to jump in and provide a response in terms of outcomes.

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

As we all know, reducing rates of gender-based violence is going to take some time. On the road to that, we've achieved some concrete results. For example, with the funding from the federal gender-based violence strategy given to our department, WAGE, alone, we've provided funding to more than 1,600 organizations. Because of that, almost 2.6 million women gained access to programs and supports related to gender-based violence, such as counselling, court services and trauma-informed victim services.

In addition to that, nearly one million people gained skills and knowledge to help prevent gender-based violence and to support those who are impacted by gender-based violence.

Just during the pandemic, we've invested $100 million in more than 1,200 organizations—shelters, sexual-assault centres and other organizations providing critical gender-based violence supports, and more than 1.3—

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

Thank you very much.

That brings me to something of particular interest to me, the funding of organizations. It goes without saying that across the country and in Quebec, we have organizations dedicated to supporting and taking in women—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Excuse me, Mrs. Vien.

I'm sorry about this, but I have to look at the time. This is where we all learn, in the first round, that the time can be taken up very, very quickly.

To both sides, your time has run out, I'm afraid.

I will move over to Sonia for her six minutes, and then we'll go from there.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Madam Chair, I think we have another person.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Emmanuella, I'm sorry.

You have the floor.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you to the witnesses who are here today to help inform this committee on something as extremely important as gender-based violence.

I agree that gender-based violence, violence against women, is not something that will end in just a couple of years. Of course, this is a long-term national strategy. I can see that there are three pillars: prevention, support for survivors, and legal—helping people navigate the justice system.

With regard to the funding of $600 million that you mentioned, Ms. Butt, you said that about $415 million recently went to support shelters, to enhance gender-based violence programs, and you mentioned programs including men and boys as well. I was wondering if you could maybe point us in the direction of what specifically is being done to help men and boys get involved in finding a solution to ending gender-based violence.

Could you let us know to what extent we're including education at a very young age as well? I think in order to stop this from being an issue in the future, we need to nip it in the bud when kids are still in school. Could you maybe let us know if there's anything being done at that level?

[Alia Butt]

You're right. The $105 million that I mentioned that was provided in budget 2021 can be used specifically to do work with men and boys. However, I just want to mention that it is building upon work that was started back in 2018, when we held a series of round table discussions on how to engage men and boys in advancing gender equality. That led to a “what we heard” report that was published later on and is publicly available.

The report highlighted some main themes that were raised during those discussions, including identifying persisting behaviours that contribute to inequality; challenging and changing negative norms, attitudes and behaviours through accountability and healing; sustaining efforts to engage men and boys in equality, if you're building networks or sharing knowledge and taking action; and then sharing accountability and being aware of resource scarcity, meaning that engaging men and boys should not hinder funding to women and girls.

We did invest previously. Prior to this $105 million that was announced in budget 2021, we provided funding to a key group of organizations. I'll give you a couple of examples and I'll just see if my colleagues can find any that are specific to education. If we can't, we can get back to you on that.

We did fund Next Gen Men, to build a network of pro-feminist leaders, the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters to promote sports figures as role models to increase awareness of GBV, and Catalyst Canada to support men as disruptors of sexism in the workplace. We are currently funding the University of Calgary to identify strategies, practical approaches and supporting evidence on how to engage men and boys in advancing gender equality and preventing GBV. That work is expected to wrap up this fall.

Another important initiative is the funding of White Ribbon to support the development, implementation and evaluation of a social marketing campaign to inspire men and young men across Canada to change their attitudes and behaviours.

Those are just some key examples that I have with me today, but as I mentioned, you had a question specifically around education, and I will just check to see if we have anything handy.

We do. I'm going to turn to Lisa. She's been able to pull it up.

[Dr. Lisa Smylie]

WAGE recently provided nearly $700,000 to the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada, which is taking action to ensure that sexual health education programs—comprehensive sexual health education in schools, for example—are more effective at addressing the harmful gender norms at a very young age, so influencing norms and attitudes that hopefully over the longer term will reduce gender-based violence, and intimate partner violence in particular.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

I'm very happy to hear that. Thank you very much.

I have another question regarding the pandemic. Obviously more women have required shelters in the last few years because of the pandemic and being stuck at home with perpetrators of violence.

Has there been an influx in support from WAGE towards these shelters in the last two years, specifically since the pandemic started? I know that shelters are really at their wits' end, and they're not able to service the women who are currently needing their support.

[Dr. Lisa Smylie]

The short answer is absolutely.

Since the pandemic started, WAGE has invested nearly $100 million in more than 1,200 shelters, sexual assault centres and other organizations providing supports to people experiencing gender-based violence. Because of that, more than 1.3 million women and children have had somewhere to turn during the pandemic.

With that funding, almost 450 organizations were able to hire new staff; 500 organizations were able to extend staff shifts to respond to increased demand; over 530 organizations were able to expand their programs and services; over 200 organizations were able to acquire new shelter beds, and nearly 100 organizations were able to implement child care services.

Our funding is having an impact.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you very much. I see that my time is up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much. You guys are right on time.

We're now going to turn it over for six minutes to Andréanne Larouche.

Andréanne, you have the floor.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I thank the officials from Women and Gender Equality Canada and the Department of Justice here with us today for the work they do every day to fight this scourge.

I'm from Quebec and, first, I would like to offer my condolences to the families and loved ones affected by the 18 femicides that occurred in Quebec last year alone 2021. Eighteen women were killed by their partner.

To prevent this from happening again, the Quebec government is closely monitoring this issue. An all-party committee has been set up and it has produced an impressive document with many recommendations. All parties are working together on this critical issue.

Based on these recommendations, the Ministère de la Sécurité publique and obviously Quebec's Secrétariat à la condition féminine have invested a great deal in organizations that help women experiencing violence, including shelters. We know that money is transferred between Ottawa, Quebec and the provinces and territories to help these centres.

Where are we at on the transfers? Have all of the funds we were promised actually been transferred to the Quebec government?

I'd like to hear from somebody from Women and Gender Equality.

[Alia Butt]

I can confirm that since the onset of the pandemic, in terms of the emergency funding that we've been talking about, we've been working with three key partners to roll out the funding at record speeds. They are the Canadian Women's Foundation, Women's Shelters Canada and the Government of Quebec.

I can confirm that a portion of funding from the original $100 million went directly to the Government of Quebec to roll out to shelters, sexual assault centres and organizations supporting women experiencing violence in Quebec. An additional $44.4 million out of the new money, the $200 million coming out of budget 2021, went directly to the Government of Quebec to roll out and to continue to provide emergency funding and support. The original money, the $100 million, was for those organizations to simply be able to keep their doors open, to buy hand sanitizer and personal protective equipment, to be able to distance, and for hotels for women who needed to isolate.

Things are evolving. We're working very closely with our partners. The new money is flexible. It's being used for evolving needs. We had originally thought that we'd be moving to a postpandemic environment before we all heard about omicron. Unfortunately, the funding is still being used for some very, very basic needs. We're trying to be as flexible as possible to meet those needs.

But yes, I can confirm that the money is with the Government of Quebec.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Before anyone else responds, I'm going to ask you a secondary question.

We know that it took longer to transfer these funds to Quebec. There have been delays. I had the opportunity to speak with people from the department in Quebec City last year. Despite these additional delays for the transfer, have the anticipated results been achieved? Have investments or other public policy been considered by your department? Has your department really checked with Quebec, the provinces and territories to determine their real needs and avoid duplicate funding?

[Alia Butt]

Yes, absolutely. We're lucky enough at Women and Gender Equality to have a very great relationship through our federal-provincial-territorial forum of ministers responsible for the status of women. That FPT group was absolutely critical for us in even being able to identify shelters, sexual assault centres and organizations across the country at the onset of the pandemic.

Typically, WAGE is not the key funder of shelters across the country in terms of operating costs. It was identified as a need, so even just to be able to pull together lists of organizations across the country, we had to work with our provincial and territorial counterparts to make that happen. We have a great relationship. That work happened as quickly as possible to get the money out.

I have to say that in terms of the emergency funding, in terms of feedback from our stakeholder organizations, we probably received the most positive testimonials with respect to this pot of funding than any other. That was because of the speed at which it was disbursed through our third party organizations, because of the flexibility that was provided and because we reduced the reporting burden on the application process.

On the budget 2021 funding that was announced, I can confirm that the agreement was put in place with Quebec last summer, I believe in August. We're always working to put those agreements in place as quickly as possible. From our perspective, we have a great working relationship with the Government of Quebec and with all of the other PTs through the ministerial forum.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

We have only eight seconds left there, Andréanne, so I will add eight seconds to the next round for you to go longer.

Leah, I'm going to pass the floor over to you. You have six minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Welcome to our committee today, guests.

My first question is for you, Madam Butt. You spoke about spaces for refuge for women and diverse-gendered individuals fleeing violence. How many of those spaces were low barrier?

[Alia Butt]

I'm sorry. I'm not sure I understood the question. How many of the spaces that we funded...? Do you mean the shelters—