Evidence of meeting #5 for Status of Women in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was housing.
A recording is available from Parliament.
2:45 p.m.
Research Associate, Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women
I just want to make sure I understood your question. Which type of violence are you referring to?
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
Which steps to control this type of violence are more effective?
2:45 p.m.
Research Associate, Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women
My emphasis has been on transportation. That's what my job was within the national action plan. I would emphasize these things about the importance of transportation systems; the absence of them allows or forces people to stay in violent relationships. For me, it's about trying to look at what systems need to be in place to enable people to leave violent relationships, whether it's the transportation system that lets them get out of town or get to a transition home, or, again, employment and housing.
I appreciate Mrs. Bell's approach as a psychologist—she deals with individuals, and that's extremely important—but I tend to think more in terms of systems. What are the areas and systems the federal government has some influence or control over? Those are the ones I encourage you to focus on.
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
Thank you.
Ms. Campbell, what sorts of programs are offered to the girls that would teach them to recognize the early signs of an abusive relationship and empower them to respond safely and give them the confidence to pursue a healthier one?
Both Mrs. Bell and Ms. Campbell can comment on that.
2:50 p.m.
Director, Community Initiatives and Policy, Canadian Women's Foundation
I'm happy to chime in on this.
There is a range of programs that are available, happening in schools and in community centres across the country, that focus on the empowerment of girls, particularly looking at them in their own cultural settings. We fund many of those programs. We also fund teen healthy relationships programs across the country that really look at supporting young people in identifying and understanding not just what a healthy relationship is, in terms of a sexual relationship or a dating relationship, but also what a healthy peer relationship is or what a healthy relationship is with your parent or your teacher. These are all skills that are really important to emphasize and to build in our young people.
I would just say, broadly speaking, that we need to have a strong and thriving women and gender justice sector in order to make sure these programs can happen. Right now that sector is really struggling and suffering in the context of the pandemic, so we need to really be putting our attention there to shore up resources for those groups.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
Thank you.
We know that social media can be a platform for intimate partner violence. There are horror stories of teenage girls who have been bullied. I'm wondering what role, in your view, the tech and cybersecurity sector have in reducing violence among teens.
The question is for Mrs. Bell.
2:50 p.m.
Psychologist, As an Individual
I'd like to think they do have a social responsibility to try to do something, whether it's identifying violent content or inappropriate content, and somehow taking it down. My limited understanding is that some of these social media platforms do try to do that, but there's just such a vast amount that sometimes it doesn't happen quickly enough. I think that's an area, certainly, to be explored in more detail.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
Any kind of awareness campaign...we heard that, especially because mental health is also impacted. Any witness can see the mental health aspect. How effectively can we put the resources...? Can you share your views about how the government can help with any strategy?
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Actually, Sonia, we're going to use that as more of a comment, and perhaps they can use that, just because we're getting down to the last few minutes of our meeting. We're now going to pass it over to Louise.
Louise, you have two and a half minutes.
2:50 p.m.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Campbell, if the federal government were to enact legislation to try to preempt spousal violence, specifically by criminalizing coercive control, would that be a good thing, a potential solution, in your opinion?
2:50 p.m.
Director, Community Initiatives and Policy, Canadian Women's Foundation
I think understanding the root causes of coercive control is extremely important, and I think those root causes are very similar to the root causes of all the other kinds of gender-based violence and intimate partner violence that we see.
I think that any sort of direction the federal government takes would need to be very specifically grounded in evidence and research. Looking at Clare's Law and other legislative mechanisms that are out there on coercive control, it would be important to see the impacts of those and to conduct a really strong gender-based analysis to understand the differing impacts on different communities.
It's really about addressing the systemic root causes, more than taking a criminalizing approach, in my view.
2:50 p.m.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Let me ask you another question, Ms. Campbell.
I'm very sensitive to the situation of those with disabilities. We can see that they suffer a disproportionate amount of violence.
What would be your approach to including them more in the solutions that we are proposing?
2:55 p.m.
Director, Community Initiatives and Policy, Canadian Women's Foundation
Thank you very much for that question. I'll just flag that the interpretation is very quiet and difficult to hear on my side, but I think I caught the gist of the question around access and support for women with disabilities.
Again, I think that a systems approach is really necessary. Understanding systemic ableism is important. I think that Ms. Brayton, in the previous panel, spoke very well about not downloading the resourcing and responsibilities to individual organizations that are struggling and suffering with burnout and staff turnover, but looking for systemic approaches to dealing with access.
2:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Thank you so much, Karen.
I could see that smile because she saw my green pen starting to rotate. We're going to pass it over to Niki for the last two and a half minutes.
Niki, you have the floor.
2:55 p.m.
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB
I want to go back to Ms. Stinson around the broader state of affairs when it comes to violence against women. There is some very disturbing research out in the recent months around the connection between misogyny, violent misogyny and the rise in hate and extreme—particularly right, fascist—politics. There's often talk of how we need to detect that these signs are very much tied to the explicit misogyny and violent misogyny that we see displayed by men, particularly young men online.
Ms. Stinson, Ms. Campbell, Mrs. Bell, I don't have much time, but is this something that we need to take seriously? Do we need the federal government to take on what is seen online and the potential for it to escalate into something that is violent both against women and against other people as well?
2:55 p.m.
Research Associate, Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women
Yes. I could start.
CRIAW has recently put out a fact sheet on the connection between the far right, the hate movements, and their abuse of women—a sort of anti-feminist approach. I think it's extremely important.
Increasingly, we're seeing these connections. Living in Ottawa, we really see how nasty this new right hate movement is. They're bullies. They're bullies towards everyone, especially women and people of colour. We're hearing stories about how they've been treated on the street and things like that.
I do think it's extremely important. It might be a particularly new angle for this committee to be looking at and exploring that connection. I'll let others speak.
2:55 p.m.
Psychologist, As an Individual
Maybe I'll jump in next.
I completely agree. I think it's really important that as much be done as possible. I like what Ms. Stinson was just saying about what's going on and the division of groups of people. We see this even in teenagers. Unfortunately, they often don't have the critical thinking skills to make good decisions about what is something to be perpetuated or not. They just see something, and if it's something a little bit different, they jump on it and they themselves will do the same thing. Then it's just a disaster in so many cases.
It does tie into what I said about education of the children, but piggy-backed onto Ms. Stinson's comment.
2:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
We are coming to the end of the meeting. This has been an absolutely fantastic discussion. I would really like to thank the three of you for coming and bringing all of this information. If you have additional information that you would like to bring to the committee, just as a reminder, you can submit a brief on this. I'm sure you all have something to add.
I remind all of our committee members that meeting number six will be taking place on Tuesday, February 15, once again from 3:30 to 5:30 in the Wellington Building. We will have Lana Wells, associate professor at the University of Calgary; and Katreena Scott, professor and director of the Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children. We will also have Statistics Canada, as well as the Battered Women's Support Services. I'm sure over the next few days we will be receiving more information from Alexie as well.
I would like to thank everybody for coming today. I'd like to really thank once again the panellists for a great discussion. You guys were amazing.
We will see everybody once again on Tuesday.
Do I have consent from everybody to adjourn?
I see consent. Fantastic. Have a wonderful weekend, everybody, and stay safe.