Status of Women Committee on Sept. 29th, 2022

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Leah, that's awesome, but you've used your time.

Actually, what I'm going to do is just take a little prerogative after all of that. I'm going to pass it over to John. John has sat here graciously, and we've not allowed him to speak.

I'll give you the floor for three minutes—good questions only.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Thank you so much. It's a real pleasure to be here.

I normally sit in the natural resources committee, so this has been quite a lovely change in tone and topic. Thank you for letting me be here this afternoon.

I actually have six thoughts, somewhat random thoughts, and some of these are fuelled by the fact that I have a wife who works as a doctor in a hospital in B.C. and who also deals with some of the issues discussed here today. We have three kids—two daughters and a son, between 16 and 21 years old—so we have a lot of discussions. When they asked what I was doing today, I said I was coming here. I was fascinated today.

So this is sort of an assemblage of thoughts that I'll put out there, and in the time that's left over, anything that you could offer on it would be great. You're also allowed to do up written briefs on anything, so maybe this will give some fuel for thought.

First is simply that in B.C. we've recently rolled out a model called the Foundry. It may not mean anything if you're not in B.C., but it's for youth community-driven programs. My community was the 13th one in B.C., and it's about having a place for youth in crisis to go to. It provides wraparound services. The doors have been open for only a month, but we're seeing great success. It's for kids who are in crisis, who are looking at identity issues, family issues and a lot of things related to instability and mental health issues, so they have a place to go and land. It's great, and I would love to know what else we have in Canada, in other provinces and territories, other jurisdictions. There could be a best practice that could be shared, and perhaps the federal government could help facilitate some of those best lessons.

Second is eating disorders. My daughter says that it seems as though half of the female population right now has an eating disorder and issues of body dysmorphia. This has been a societal problem, but do we understand it? Is it getting worse? What are the root causes and treatments? I think this is something that is really important, and we can't pretend that it's not happening in society.

Third, you spoke, Mr. Charters, about the right to be forgotten. In B.C. we have a couple of names that always come to mind, Reena Virk and Amanda Todd. Both of their lives were ended tragically through bullying and cyber-bullying. I'm really interested in what the federal government can do to help and whether we've gone far enough in working with other jurisdictions on bullying and cyber-bullying.

Fourth is this whole sense of helplessness and climate change. How do we give hope to our youth again? There is a sense of despair that I hear from youth in our community, and I think we need to do better as the adults in the room to get a sense of hope and a sense that they can help.

Fifth is toxic masculinity. My 16-year-old daughter texted me. Her question would be, why do men all have this thousand-times-overinflated ego and why do they think they are experts on everything? That doesn't help with self-esteem. The question is about toxic masculinity in society.

Finally, there is this whole question of causation, prevention and trajectory and where the best point to intervene is. How do we get ahead of mental health issues? Is it through advertising? Is it through stable communities and family situations?

There's a bunch of random thoughts. I'd love to get solutions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I'm just going to bring up that John is usually a chair, so he never gets to ask questions, and that's why he took three and a half minutes just for questioning.

John, I will provide two and a half minutes, or whatever we can do, because we have to get to business.

I'm going to throw it to you. When you see me start throwing my arms, that's when we have to stop. John had some very good questions, and I have to let those go through.

We'll start with the Royal.

[Michelle Jackson-Brown]

In terms of youth, I actually used to work at a youth drop-in, Operation Come Home, in Ottawa. Having federal funding available that organizations on the ground can apply for is so important. When I was working at that centre, it was a drop-in centre, but we received funding through the employment programming. However, in order to get the youth into the employment programming, we had to have the drop-in centre, which we supported through donations.

From there, we were able to get them into employment, back into education. We were able to provide case management supports and housing-based case management supports. Having that wraparound care is so important for early intervention, reconnecting youth with services and providing the supports that are going to support them in the long term to be successful and to reintegrate back with their families, into education and into employment.

The Youth Services Bureau in Ottawa is another great example of that. Beyond providing those wraparound services, they provide shelters and supported housing options. Investing in affordable housing for youth, specifically, is important, as well as the mental health services. It creates, again, a wraparound continuum of services that starts from supporting families with early intervention and continues to youth who have found themselves in shelters. It's that continuum of services, as well as providing those peer supports. Again, the Youth Services Bureau is able to go out into schools and into other organizations to provide training for youth ambassadors to create the peer support that keeps those youth involved and supports their shared mental health.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I hate to do this, but I do not have time for the rest of the questions.

[A voice]

Way to go, John.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I'll leave now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

If there's any information on those questions that were just asked that Take a Hike and the Boys and Girls Club can assist us with, this is exactly the type of stuff we're looking for.

On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank all of the witnesses for joining us today. We have about a minute and a half of committee business that I need to bring forward, so I will excuse you. You don't have to leave the room, because we are doing it in public. Everybody, make sure your microphones are off.

I'm going to turn now to an email we received earlier to do more with scheduling, and it has to do with both of the ministers. They have once again requested that they be on the panel for one hour together. That would mean that both Minister Bennett and Minister Ien would be appearing for one hour. It is against what our motion has actually indicated. We have requested one hour from each minister.

I just want to make sure that I'm coming back to the committee and that we're all still online. I just want to reconfirm our motion to ensure that, when we go back again, this is the request of the committee.

Is everyone in favour of staying with the current motion asking for two hours, one hour per minister?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you, guys. That's how we do committee business.

John, take that home. That's how we do committee business.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

To the clerk, if you could go back, we are requesting the two full hours, and it looks as though we are unanimous on that. I saw everybody's smiling face. That was great.

Seeing that there's no other business and we're all happy, I would like to adjourn today's meeting.

I'll see you on Monday.