Status of Women Committee on Feb. 11th, 2022

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

I certainly appreciate your shedding light on that, and I think it will be an important part of our committee's work.

I have a second question, and I know that both Ms. Brayton and Ms. Kamateros mentioned it, but if Witness 1 wants to add, please do. It is around accessible shelters, around housing.

I know that in my riding there's a shelter called Nelson House. One of you mentioned.... Originally, it was in an old house where the bedrooms were under the roof, and they were completely inaccessible. We were able to get funding to create a fully accessible, modular, modern shelter, but I know that's not something that is very common. Of course, what happens when the accessibility of rental housing that is affordable, especially for somebody on ODSP.... This is something that I think is a gap.

I was wondering if any of you wanted to comment on that and what potential solutions you may have.

[Bonnie Brayton]

You can go first if you would like.

I'm happy to speak to it later, because I do want to answer the question as well.

[Melpa Kamateros]

In terms of housing, I can take the example of the organization Shield of Athena. We began with external services, and the house was developed in 2004. Obviously, the house was developed for a reason, which is that it's the only confidential and secure area a woman can flee to when there is an imminent danger for herself and for her children. It took us a long time. Generally, building shelters takes a long time.

At the external, we service thousands of women. At the shelter, we're limited to 100, but it's 24-7 and it's a different type of intervention that is used. We speak and we dispense services in up to 20 languages now at the organization. Those are coordinated largely through the external services, but there's a lot of acrobatics in providing them to the women in the shelter as well.

[Bonnie Brayton]

What I would like to say about the accessibility piece in terms of shelters and transition houses is that, obviously from what we've heard from my colleague, we need to put a lot more resources into that, but we can't put the responsibility of finding the resources and making these plans on these organizations, which already have a full range of services to provide. We have to think about this in a much more holistic way.

As I said, to be very clear, the access issue is deeper than just access to a built environment. It's really much more complex than that. Hearing what you've already heard about brain injury and understanding that, for many women, it's about how you do outreach, how you find them and how you connect with them.... That's why disability organizations and frontline services that serve women and disability organizations need to be looked at in terms of the way they do peer support in frontline services, and we need to bring them together.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

We're now going to move over to Louise.

Louise, you have six minutes.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone.

My sincere thanks to the witnesses for being here.

We are familiar with some things, of course, but the realities on the front line and the examples that you are bringing to us are so valuable for the work we will be doing.

I am going to turn to Witness 1.

I will not say that I am really familiar with the work that the Centres d’aide et de lutte contre les agressions à caractère sexuel, the CALACS, are doing in Quebec. But I am somewhat familiar with some of that work and I congratulate you on it. You are playing an indispensable role and providing possible solutions.

I would like to talk to you about girls in particular. We know about all the prevention work that is being done in our school system. Nevertheless, we are told that violence in these forms is increasing among students. Is that correct?

Do you believe that girls are reluctant to think like that? Are they as sensitive to the generation behind them and to the problems that feminism has identified? Do they take some progress for granted? Are you going to have to make extra efforts when it comes to prevention?

[Witness-Témoin 1]

Thank you for the question.

One of our greatest obstacles in terms of prevention is when school principals refuse to offer our prevention programs in the classroom. It happens a lot. So we have encountered structural obstacles to doing prevention in school settings.

Then, another major obstacle is with the myths and the lack of understanding of what violence can be. We see it with spousal violence where, often, the psychological aspect of the violence, the gaslighting, is ignored. It is not perceived as a form of violence.

It's exactly the same with girls and sexual violence. Often, girls don't see procuring as sexual exploitation. They do not realize what it really is. Even their girlfriends often see their work for a pimp as a job without realizing its true nature. So it is even more important to make school staff and those around them more aware, so that they are equipped to identify that form of violence, to understand it and, above all, to establish a relationship of trust with the girls, in which they feel that they can confide in an adult without feeling judged.

This is so important and it's something we do not have at the moment.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

If I understand you correctly, when we hold awareness campaigns with young students, we need a very specific approach when we talk to them about prevention, rather than an approach that is traditional—which may not be the right word.

You mentioned different forms of violence. We know that coercive control is often the precursor to physical violence and even to the murder of women. In Quebec, unfortunately, we can count several. I am sure you know that, in Quebec, a specialized court will be established to handle those matters, especially by using tracking bracelets.

In your opinion, should there be a legal consistency with federal legislation? We talked about Clare's Law just now, but do you feel that it is important that we avoid everyone doing their own thing and instead broaden the access and strengthen the legal process somewhat?

[Witness-Témoin 1]

Certainly. It is really important for the Government of Canada to be sending a consistent message across the country, a message of zero tolerance for all forms of violence.

One of our greatest obstacles is that, while we hear a lot of talk about specialized courts in the media and a lot of time and money has been spent on them, we must not forget that most women who are victims of sexual assault choose not to file complaints. So, while we must clearly enhance the range of services available to the women who do choose to file complaints—which we are doing with the specialized courts—we must not forget all the women who choose to put their lives back together in ways other than filing complaints. We must not forget to provide them with services too. So, all over Quebec and all over Canada, it is important to provide services tailored to the women who choose different paths and different ways of getting back on their feet.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

You mentioned the difficulties that victims have in being believed as one of the obstacles to reporting sexual violence. There are specialized courts, some penalties have been increased, public funds—

[Witness-Témoin 1]

If I may, I would like to add that, when it comes to dealing with victims and handling complaints, many police officers, prosecutors and even judges have their biases. That is why we really have to provide training for everyone involved, because bias is everywhere.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Louise, you have 10 more seconds.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

I have a question for Ms. Brayton but I will wait until my next turn.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Excellent. Thank you, Louise.

Welcome to our committee today, Niki.

We're going to pass the floor over to you for six minutes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Thank you so much.

It's a pleasure to be part of this committee, a committee that I was on for many years.

It's such a thrill to see such incredible leaders. It's great to see you, Bonnie. It's been a while. Even on Zoom, it's really great.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for presenting today.

Obviously, I know all of you have reflected on the barriers that women face, including economic insecurity. I am here replacing my colleague, Leah Gazan, who has been a champion for a guaranteed livable income and has put forward legislation in the House now twice. I'm wondering if you could speak to how important it would be to move forward with a basic guaranteed livable income in support of women, including many women who have been severely set back during this crisis and also are rendered more vulnerable when they don't have income or some sort of economic security.

I'd love to hear from all of the witnesses. Perhaps I'll go to you first, Bonnie, and then perhaps to Ms. Witness 1 and Ms. Kamateros.

[Bonnie Brayton]

Thank you, Niki.

Of course it's important to tie economic policies to social policies. That's the only way we're really going to be able to address these issues. Certainly, bringing up the issue of a national disability benefit and/or a national guaranteed income is something that's been on the table and has really become urgent during the pandemic.

It was quite clear—of course many people on this parliamentary committee will be familiar with the fact—that there is no national disability benefit now, and that, in fact, women and girls with disabilities were and continue to be the poorest. The lowest incomes in this country belong to women and girls with disabilities. Single mothers with disabilities and older women with disabilities are the poorest people in our country. Again, these are also the same people who are experiencing the highest rates of gender-based violence and all forms of violence. The majority of human rights complaints in this country have been disability-related for more than a decade. There's absolutely nothing left except to start to do the work at this point.

I'm so glad you brought forward, Niki, the issue of financial resources. We've heard already from the other witnesses about how important it is for women who are fleeing violence to have basic income security. In cases of women with disabilities, often part of the reason they can't flee is that they don't have the means to flee; they're dependent on the other person or the other person is controlling their finances. This is a really important thing to build into the national action plan and into anything we're going to do going forward.

I want to leave time, of course, for the other witnesses. Thank you.

[Witness-Témoin 1]

If I may, I am going to add some specifics to Ms. Brayton's comments.

Violence, whether sexual or domestic, often results in serious psychological consequences for women. In some cases, they need a moment of respite in order to fully understand what they have just gone through. The state therefore must not minimize the impact of violence on the professional lives of these women, because, in many cases, they find themselves unable to work, at least for some time.

In Quebec, we have a crime victims compensation plan, which we know as IVAC, and the Crime Victims Compensation Act. There are still some shortcomings in Quebec, but also across the entire country. Those benefits should be increased to ensure that they cover all forms of violence of which women can be victims, because violence often has psychological consequences. So the fight must be against all forms of violence, even those that leave no physical traces, no bruises. The fight must be against all the forms of violence we can think of, not simply traditional forms of violence. All violence must be stopped.

[Melpa Kamateros]

There's a lot of fear for women surrounding the issue of conjugal violence, a lot of fear and a lot of shame. Only 30% of the cases of violence are reported. This is a Stats Canada fact. We're just wondering where the other 70% are. Why didn't they come forward? Why didn't they try to get any assistance?

That's because of all the taboos that are still surrounding the issue of conjugal violence, the normalization of the situation and the minimization for the women. We feel very strongly—and I said that in my presentation—that a woman victim of conjugal violence should have a specific status of vulnerability that allows her to get a stipend, a financial allowance, that will help her move towards autonomy and help break the cycle.

Women are sometimes single moms. Sometimes they're single women. When they come as a package with their children, they also have responsibility to their children to break free of the cycle. This is all very, very difficult to do if you don't have the funds.

I think that's what I want to say.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Absolutely. Thank you very much.

I should say that, as a Greek Canadian, I also want to applaud the work that you do, Ms. Kamateros, at the Shield of Athena.

Thank you for your testimony.

I want to thank everybody for what you've shared about the need for economic security as support in our struggle to end violence against women.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

We are getting close to the end of this panel. What I'll do is provide two minutes to the CPC, two minutes to the Liberals, one minute to the Bloc and one minute to the NDP. I know sometimes your questions can be longer or shorter.

I'm going to pass the floor over to Dominique.

Dominique, you have two minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My thanks to all the witnesses. I could ask them thousands of questions, but my time is limited.

My first question is for Ms. Brayton.

Ms. Brayton, are the women with disabilities who report the violence done to them taken seriously?

[Bonnie Brayton]

You are hitting a nerve, because one of the big problems is that it is a reality that society denies. Most cases of violence against women are to women and girls with disabilities. The term used is “systemic ableism”, and it is very widespread. Women with disabilities are neither believed nor listened to. The perception is often that there must be another explanation for those women's problems or even that they are not telling the truth.

So the answer to your question is no. Unfortunately, women with disabilities who report the violence done to them are not taken seriously.

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

Witness 1, you have hit a nerve too. You were talking about your prevention program in high schools. Unless I misunderstood, you said that you have difficulty in convincing principals to provide your program. How is that possible?

That is unacceptable!

[Witness-Témoin 1]

Yes, it is unacceptable, but it really happens. Principals have a lot of freedom. Because the program does not come from the Department of Education, principals have all kinds of freedom and can do what they like. Sometimes, given that our program needs at least six sessions, they say that it would take too long. They prefer the program to be one hour, but we can't change mindsets in one hour.