Status of Women Committee on Oct. 31st, 2022

[Tamara Angeline Medford-Williams]

I'll just start by saying this: culturally responsive practices and also educating health and social services professionals on the intersectionality of mental health. As I mentioned, 35% of Black and indigenous young women and girls have disabilities. That's notwithstanding everything else Gabrielle and Amber mentioned.

You can imagine that, with all of these overlapping forms of oppression, it creates instances where individuals aren't able to navigate these systems on their own. Remove those barriers and educate not just the communities around us but also health officials and governments. Use anti-oppressive frameworks, and really have it implicated in policy, programming and legislation. That would automatically trickle down to everyday people as well, changing their perspectives and enlightening them to the realities that the population faces.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have 20 seconds.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

I just want to say thank you for all of the work you have done on the ground.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Awesome. Thank you so much.

For our last round of questions, we will have Anita for two minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

I only have two minutes, so I'll direct my question to Ms. Fayant because she is in Ottawa.

As an Ottawa MP, let me say thank you for the work that you're doing. I have an indigenous youth council in my constituency. I would very much welcome your voice—not that you have a lot of time for that—or others who you might recommend I hear from because it is very important for us to hear what's really happening on the ground. I am very alarmed to hear that, despite the billions of dollars, the work you're doing is completely unfunded and that you're volunteering seven days a week. It's not enough for us to say thank you. We need to do something.

One of the things that we've done with women's programming is create funds for people to hire people to write proposals so that they can get funding. A lot of the frontline organizations have the same issue. They don't have the bandwidth or the time to be able to even write a proposal for funding. Do you think that this is something that might be useful in terms of indigenous youth funding?

[​Gabrielle Fayant]

Yes, 100%.

There is even a struggle there, too, because we're literally in the trenches. Finding someone that we could hire to write a proposal is even a hard thing to do with folks when we're right in it. However, it's definitely a step in the right direction.

I strongly encourage the women's department to look at different ways to fund, as well. For example, a lot of the youth groups that we work with stop applying for funds because of how challenging the funding process is. There's a lot to break down. It's not accessible. Then, you're kind of holding your breath, waiting for this funding to come in, and a lot of times it's a no because you don't know the right people or how the systems work. You're literally in the trenches trying to support people in survival mode.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Perfect. Thank you so much.

Actually, Anita, your time is up. I know that it's not a lot of time for such incredible questions as we've had today, with amazing answers.

On behalf of the status of women committee, I would really like to thank all of you for coming here today and providing that. If there are briefs that you have not yet sent in, please feel free to do so. I love it when these ladies have more work to do. Thank you so much for today.

We are only going to be suspending until 12:25 so that we can start our next meeting. I'll remind everybody to be back in their seats by 12:25. We're all good, and we'll discuss more then, so—

Okay, we'll adjourn today's meeting, and restart at 12:25.