Status of Women Committee on Feb. 15th, 2022

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Fantastic.

You talked a lot about having people working in this field to help...having lived experience and learning on the job. I'm curious if you've looked into having men working in this who have restored...have the lived experience or have come out on the other side?

[Dr. Katreena Scott]

Yes, absolutely. I think those voices are important.

The work we did to develop the workforce capacity framework involved survivors of intimate partner violence as core partners. We didn't make as core partners for this work those who have engaged in abusive behaviours. However, many of the conversations were vetted by men who had many years of experience working with men and for whom that kind of feedback is part of a continual improvement of the program.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you so much.

I have another stats question. I'm not sure who wants to answer this one.

Do we have any stats on the difference between rural and urban intimate partner violence?

[Kathy AuCoin]

We do. In the packet, we provided one table. I also have another table in the office that I can send that compares 2019 to 2020.

We know that with intimate partner violence for women, the rates are higher in rural Canada than in urban areas. When we think about rural, we need to be careful and not think of rural as a “one size fits all” across Canada. Every province has a different community. Rural in Quebec will be different from rural in Ontario, Saskatchewan or Manitoba.

The highest rates of intimate partner violence against women are in the territories, as well as rural Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you.

I know we don't have a lot of time left, but—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have 45 seconds.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

What do you think would be effective in educating young males on what a healthy relationship is?

[Kathy AuCoin]

I would defer to the experts on the service providers, who know policy and programs.

[Lana Wells]

I'm happy to jump in on that.

I think Canada has been investing, particularly [Technical difficulty—Editor] trying to scale up, where they're actually targeting grade 7, 8 and 9 boys to do gender-transformative and human rights work so they can be woken up around their own experiences of socialization around male norms, healthy relationships, gender equality and equity and so forth. I think investing in targeted classes and then all-gender classes is critical. The content has to go into curricula. I know the federal government doesn't have a responsibility—provincial governments do—but I think we can encourage governments to take up this kind of curriculum, as well as teacher education programs to ensure it's embedded in the teachers who are being trained. Of course, to support all genders—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much, Ms. Wells. We do have to move on to the next questioner. I'm sorry about that.

We're now going to Sonia Sidhu.

Sonia, you have six minutes.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to all the witnesses for your testimony.

My first question is for the team from Stats Canada.

Your brief notes said you'll be doing another round of data collection in 2024. Can you speak to any gaps you think may exist in your data and research, and how that may be improved moving forward, if you feel there are any kinds of gaps?

[Kathy AuCoin]

Chairwoman, that's a great question.

I think Statistics Canada has done a great job, with funding from our partners, in monitoring intimate partner violence over the years. Where we understand the gaps to be is for new immigrants who don't speak English or French. They would not be captured in our household surveys. In addition, they might be reluctant to report to the police. That would be a qualitative study. I think complementing qualitative studies with our quantitative studies really tells the full picture.

When I think about long-term issues, what we hear from shelter managers is that shelter use for victims of intimate partner violence has not gone down. There's a constant need, and what we hear from managers of shelters is that women often leave to go back to their abusers. It's not because they want to go; it's because there's not enough adequate housing. That structural issue has been there for more than 20 years. If someone doesn't have a place to go, they're stuck in a circle.

So, it's qualitatively and quantitatively exploring victims of intimate partner violence and what they need to leave the abusive situation. There's a gap. Again, from my opinion, that's a qualitative study.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you.

The next question is for Ms. Scott.

What sort of mental health supports are available to women and girls who experience intimate partner violence, and which methods have proven to be the most effective? What do you think about that? Their mental health is more impacted than anything else.

[Dr. Katreena Scott]

Survivors of intimate partner and domestic violence turn first to friends and family, primarily, and then they turn to and can access supports through shelters and through women's advocates. One of the things that are so important about the work that shelters and women's advocates in sexual assault centres do is that they centre the identity, the strengths and the needs of the survivors. In that way, they recognize that the impact of violence is not an individual mental health problem. They recognize the impact of violence on that person and are able to work around mental health issues through that trauma- and violence-informed lens. Having that lens is very important. It's a very important start point for dealing with mental health problems, if you want to call them that, that are a result of experiencing violence and abuse.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Wells, marginalized women experiencing intimate partner violence can face specific barriers in accessing services and justice. Could you tell us how stigmas and biases affect women and individuals from diverse backgrounds when they're trying to seek support following an experience of intimate partner violence, because there are language barriers? You also talk about prevention efforts, new technology, artificial intelligence. What do you think? How can it be more effective for them?

[Lana Wells]

That's a great question. I think equity-deserving groups have been left out of the mainstream services for quite some time. Lots of grassroots community organizations and associations do a great job in servicing, but I don't think the mainstream services have taken up enough, I would say, capacities to actually transform their own services to better serve the unique populations that you're talking about.

It's not only the forms of violence that are experienced. They're also experiencing discrimination in the workplace, systemic discrimination and racism, as you mentioned, so I think those are the issues.... If the committee really wants to go upstream and think about the root causes, we have to start unpacking those systems and how they're showing up in our culture and our structures, and then rethinking them to better serve all populations in Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have one minute.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Ms. Scott, do you want to add anything to that?

[Dr. Katreena Scott]

I would love to if I could, because one thing that I think is really important is creating services within—adding to what Lana said—culturally specific and culturally led organizations that can work in an integrated way with and alongside other services. There have been some really well-developed services in that way that address and recognize migration and premigration, traumas and experiences and, as Lana said, the ongoing impacts of racism and discrimination. All of those do need to be taken into account. When we can bring that strength within the cultural organizations and culturally based services and work alongside the mainstream, I think we get the best of both worlds.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you.

Do you want to talk about the Caring Dads program briefly? What is that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have about 10 seconds.

[Dr. Katreena Scott]

Caring Dads is one of those programs about what other needs we have. Can we do something other than just one program? Caring Dads is a program we developed to meet the needs of fathers who have perpetrated violence and abuse in their families either towards their children or towards their children's mother.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to the next six-minute round.

Christine Normandin, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank all the witnesses who are here today. We are grateful to them, even though we hope for the day when they will no longer need to come because we no longer need to study this kind of issue.

My first question is for Ms. Wells.

You talked about restorative justice programs. In my riding, there is an organization that carries out restorative justice activities with adolescents, under the Young Offenders Act. We sometimes get the impression that a restorative approach is more effective with a young person.

I would like to hear what you have to say about the possibility of applying this kind of measure with older aggressors. Can we hope that it will work, in spite of everything?

In any event, can that be a good thing for the victim as well?

[Lana Wells]

Thank you for raising that, because I truly believe the answer to resolving and preventing domestic intimate partner violence and sexual violence is in a reparative, transformative way that is outside the criminal legal system. The federal government can play a significant role in supporting this stream of funding and services, and the adaptation and adoption by multiple stakeholders across Canada that are trying to do this kind of work in communities. They're working with the victim, the survivor, and it's driven by the survivor. It's in support of what they're calling the “aggressor”, not “perpetrator”. It's about supporting not only both of them, but their families, communities and support systems, in healing and repairing and then advancing social justice and change.

We've been doing a big research project, and there are groups like Women at the Centre out of Toronto and some other groups.... I know of Dr. Jo-Anne Wemmers, who's a specialist in this out of Montreal, so there is great stuff happening in Quebec as well. We've been linking people, and a lot of first nations and indigenous communities that are doing this work together right now, to see how we can start to create a series of principles, practices and training, and to start thinking about how we can move to the best ways of working.

I think we all want repair. I've been working for 11 years engaging men, and often a lot of them have been hurt in their past or have been complicit in violence. However, they are healing, growing and changing and want to work with other men to heal, grow and change. We need to support people on this journey.