Status of Women Committee on Feb. 15th, 2022

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

I see that Ms. Scott has opened her mic. I am going to ask her a question to continue along this line.

Ms. Scott, you say that one of the problems is that people often have to wait for there to be an arrest before being able to use other intervention methods.

Do you have options that would enable you to start the process ahead of an arrest?

[Dr. Katreena Scott]

I'm sorry that I can't answer your question in French.

I agree. When we think about restorative justice, we often think about some sort of intake through a justice process. What I want to do is think much more broadly about opening as many doors and as many pathways as possible.

We need to intervene as early as possible with these models. We need to do repair way upstream as soon as somebody is engaging in abusive behaviour. We know that only 12% of abusive behaviour gets reported to police. We know that people experience a lot of violence before they call the police.

For me, the location to do this work is as early and as upstream as possible. I don't want the restorative justice models to be linked at the end of the process. They need to be at the beginning.

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

Do you think it would be worth creating programs under which victims would know that their complaint would not lead to an arrest? Sometimes, the victim knowing that her husband is going to be arrested is a barrier to filing a complaint. Would it be useful to be able to make a complaint precisely with restorative justice in mind?

[Dr. Katreena Scott]

I think we can do this. I think we can create a system and we can create responses that are flexible, that meet people's needs and that create a web of accountability for people who have caused harm, but that keep people in view while we work and we centre the needs and the safety of survivors.

That kind of system would close loopholes and the kinds of gaps that end up implicitly condoning the actions of perpetrators by letting them feel victimized or vindicated by the system, or that end up putting the burden on family members, victims, neighbours and communities for the risk and for the harm that's being caused.

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

Thank you.

I would now like to direct a question to Ms. Léonard and Ms. AuCoin.

In your statistical studies, apart from the violence aspect, did you address the issue of coercive behaviour? In the part on self-reporting, were questions asked about that kind of behaviour?

[Kathy AuCoin]

Thank you for the question.

In the survey of safety in public and private spaces, we did ask respondents whether they had experienced any emotional abuse and if some of it was controlling: “Did your partner blame you for the violence? Did you feel trapped?” Some of these key indicators get at that sense of coercive control. We never asked respondents specifically, “Did your partner coercively control you?”, but we've asked a series of other questions to get at those behaviours.

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

So it was always in connection with an element of physical violence, is that right?

[Kathy AuCoin]

We did more than that. We had physical violence and several behaviours just for physical, several behaviours for sexual and then several behaviours for emotional and psychological abuse. It did not have to include physical violence.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

That's awesome. Thank you so much.

We're now going to pass it over to Leah Gazan.

You have six minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for your excellent presentations today.

My first question is for Lana Wells.

You mentioned something that was very interesting to me. You mentioned white supremacy, colonization and capitalism. You mentioned those three things specifically and associated them with increased rates of violence. I'm wondering if you could expand on that.

[Lana Wells]

Sure, and thank you for the question.

If we think about the systems of oppression and how we organize ourselves, we organize ourselves around these grand narratives. You can see it play out in systems and processes. One example I can give is that as the federal government is moving to give child welfare authority back to indigenous communities, that's the way you're dismantling colonialism.

In thinking about not only these grand gestures, but the supports enacting UNDRIP to support the implementation of indigenous rights, I think those are the conversations that Canada is having, and it's critical that we really reflect on our positions and positionality. Even in thinking about the universities, about all of our systems and structures, we have these processes and policies that are embedded and that actually hurt marginalized people and continue to hurt women as well.

As we think about advancing gender equity, and as we think about breaking down systemic racism, I think these are the conversations that Canadians want to have. I think we need to change our systems and the way we organize our policies and laws, because they're not supporting ending domestic or intimate partner violence.

Just to loop back to the reports of control, there's a lot of advocacy going on to get this into our Criminal Code. As we think about coercive control, it's a really important definition. It helps us to understand—

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I'm sorry. Just because it's my time for questions, I want to use it. It's not that I'm not interested.

[Lana Wells]

Okay, sorry.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I believe you mentioned a bit about incarceration. I've done some work with jails when I taught at the university. One of the observations I made was that it's very difficult to teach pro-social behaviour, to teach behaviours of non-violence in anti-social, very violent institutions. I wonder if you agree with that, speaking to alternative justice approaches—although I agree that prevention is a better way of eradicating violence.

Thank you.

[Lana Wells]

Yes, I definitely agree. I also think certain populations get over-policed in Canada. We are working closely with the Calgary Police Service, and have been for two years, trying to change the discrimination and bias that happen within policing, so that they can better support the Calgary community.

Policing has to be modernized. Police acts have to be modernized. I think a lot of people in Canada are up for the challenge to start dismantling these systems that are hurting particular populations.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much.

Dr. Scott, I agree with you that getting help for individuals who display abusive behaviour is difficult and often unavailable. I wonder if you could share how the barrier to getting help is limiting our ability to really address this crisis of violence.

[Dr. Katreena Scott]

The best response might be an example. One of the really positive things that happened over the pandemic is that Nova Scotia managed to put in place, with some collaborative agreements, something called the Men's Helpline. It was a broad, general line aimed at men. The messaging was around “Life can be tough; you can get help.” They ran it through 211. They ran it through a general service and saw a massive uptake in the number of men who were calling. We did some analysis of the reasons men were calling. There were a number of reasons, but one of the main ones had to do with anger and abusive behaviour in relationships. Men might not have been calling to say, “Listen, I'm being abusive”, but what they were calling to say was “I'm really angry. I'm having these problems. I'm worried about what might be happening in my relationship. My partner asked me to call.” They were reaching out for help.

When we create these opportunities, people will reach out and ask for help.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you very much for that.

Just expanding on that, you spoke about the need to include it in the national action plan. I agree with you. We often look at one side of the issue and we don't look at the cause. You also looked at prevention so that we don't have to use alternative justice strategies, so that it's dealt with before there's an issue. Can you please expand on that very quickly?

How much time do we have?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have 30 seconds.

[Dr. Katreena Scott]

I just want to draw a connection with the kind of model that Lana and I have both talked about, which brings people together to do some reparative work, and I would point out that we need to do that right before. We need to do that so that when men call, we can start to respond in that way. When neighbours say there's a concern, when workplaces identify that there is somebody in their workplace whose behaviour they're concerned about, we can put that model in place right then.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

That's awesome. Thank you so much.

We're now going to move on to our second round. You'll have five minutes each. We'll start with Laila Goodridge.

Laila, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thanks so much, Madam Chair.

I just want to briefly touch on a question that was asked by my colleague Ms. Ferreri earlier regarding rural versus urban. We have StatsCan's data tables, so I'm not looking for more answers from the department on this, but do any of the service providers other than StatsCan have any answers in regard to the why behind rural versus urban and the difference in abuse?

[Dr. Katreena Scott]

I can start, if that's okay.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Katreena Scott]

One of the reasons is that there's a surveillance effect of having neighbours, friends and family, and workplace and colleagues. In rural areas, there are fewer people around to watch.

There are also more barriers to getting help. There are more barriers around everybody knowing everyone. Somebody gave me an example earlier: If I park my car outside the shelter, everybody knows that I'm in the shelter and that has a lot of judgment associated with it in that community.

Those are two reasons—