Status of Women Committee on March 1st, 2022

[Gerri Sharpe]

Nothing happened. She was later returned home to that same place, where he started it over again that night. The RCMP responded to the call from the drug dealer and to his concerns, not the uttered threats that were made to the individual woman. They don't live in the same home. He lives below her.

There are a number of different things.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thanks very much, Gerri. I'm sorry for interrupting you. We were going a little over our time, but you have such important information for us to hear.

I'm just going to let everybody know that we have the brief that was mentioned. The additional brief that was sent is currently being translated, so it will be sent to you.

I'm now going to pass it over to Andréanne for six minutes.

Andréanne, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for their truly enlightening and intriguing testimony on gender-based violence and domestic violence, which are both extremely significant issues.

Ms. Muise and Ms. Sharpe, thank you.

I took a lot of notes during your opening remarks. First, you talked a great deal about the cultural issue, and this is something I'd like to hear more about. Either of you can answer my question.

I'm a big believer in nation-to-nation dialogue. When you talk about new approaches and new relationships, are you referring to being more culturally sensitive to your own communities so that you can address the issue of domestic violence differently?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Was that to somebody specific?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

As I said, either one can answer my question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Gertie, I see your hand is up.

Are you having a problem?

[Gertie Mai Muise]

No. I wanted to say that I think we need to give some time to our Inuit colleague.

I want to quickly say that this is not what I was referring to. The vast majority of first nations Inuit and Métis people live in urban, rural and remote areas, off reserve and off traditional territory. Though it's very important to have those discussions and to dialogue with the treaty holders, nation to nation, there are not a lot of political solutions to this complex social problem.

In fact, because of the jurisdictional wrangling and the politicization of indigenous people in this country, taking a nation-to-nation approach to ending intimate partner violence will never get us there.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

You talked about delays in terms of transferring funds and the importance of making investments, particularly in health care. You both talked about how this is really a public health issue, and you also spoke of the housing problem.

We experienced the housing problem in Quebec. Because of these delays, women sometimes end up in shelters for longer periods of time, and after that they need safe and secure housing. In your opinion, it's important to invest more in both health care, to prevent these issues, and housing, to allow women to break the cycle of domestic violence. That's what I gather from what you have said. Is that right?

Again, my question is for both of you, Ms. Muise and Ms. Sharpe. You both talked about the importance of breaking the cycle of violence and rebuilding women's trust in the system.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Ms. Sharpe, do you want to start on that one?

[Gerri Sharpe]

Yes, please.

Thank you.

I want to say that housing is definitely a factor for Inuit women when it comes to those who are underhoused. There is a lot of overcrowding in Inuit Nunangat.

I want to refer back to the community setting. When I say “culture-based for Inuit”, it's not just Inuit, but here in the north. Today, for instance, here in Yellowknife, the Snowking has opened his snow castle; if you can hear it, those are Dene drummers. This is a free, community-based event that's taking place here. The reason I wanted to show that to you is that anything that involves the community is going to be healthy for the community. It needs to involve the men, the children, the elders and the community as a whole, and it can be something as simple as a drum dance. It can be something as simple as sewing. It doesn't need to be huge, although we need something huge to solve the problem overall.

Right now, one of the other barriers in place is the fact that we do not have any treatment centres in the north. When a woman needs to report an instance of intimate partner violence, she needs to consider if she's going to leave the home or have the individual removed from her home. If she needs to leave the home, she's going to be leaving her community.

It's not just a case of “Where do I go for the night?” It's more, “Do I want to leave the community, not just to go to Yellowknife or to go next door to my sister's house?” It's a community problem. It's not just a house problem; it's a whole community problem, so it takes a community to solve it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move over to Leah Gazan. Leah, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much, Chair.

A really deep thank you to both of you on the panel for the critical work you do.

Both of you mentioned the need for a guaranteed livable basic income. I'm actually the one who put forward Bill C-223 in response to call for justice 4.5 to implement a guaranteed livable basic income as a way to help mitigate the crisis of violence against indigenous women and girls. Senator Kim Pate currently has Bill S-233, which is being debated in the Senate. It's exactly the same bill with exactly the same wording in both houses of Parliament. we're working jointly on this initiative.

Madam Sharpe and Madam Muise, can you briefly explain why you support the need for a guaranteed livable basic income?

[Gertie Mai Muise]

I can start.

I think the importance of a basic livable income really is about understanding intimate partner violence and domestic violence [Technical difficulty—Editor]. The roots of that violence are well-documented by the truth and reconciliation commission. It has to do with colonialism and the layers of intergenerational experiences amongst our people. The basic livable income allows women and other gendered people with their families to be able to find a safe haven. As we're now finding, that's a critical piece to stopping further harms.

I'd like to pass it to my colleague Sean for a minute so that he can describe the housing, and how basic income and housing are connected.

Sean, would you mind talking a bit about what we're learning with our new initiatives?

[Sean Longboat]

Absolutely. It's well-documented that indigenous people experience poverty disproportionately in communities. We support basic income, but we also want to ensure that as part of that legislation, services will not be impacted. We know that economic self-sufficiency and having economic resources and housing options provide a protective factor and creates an alternative to remaining in an abusive home. It also creates an environment where women have the resources that they need to improve their lives, to access education, to access training and to become more economically self-sufficient.

We are doing a lot of work in this area right now in a program called urban indigenous homeward bound. That program shows that when you provide indigenous women with things like housing, income supports and culture and healing supports, they're far more likely to succeed, and they are succeeding.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much.

I only have a limited amount of time.

I agree with you. One of the things that is critical to Bill C-223 is the fact that it's in addition to current and future government programs and support, including accessible affordable housing with rents geared to income.

I'd like Madam Sharpe to respond briefly. I have a couple other critical questions I want to ask both of your organizations.

[Gerri Sharpe]

When it comes to women having a guaranteed income, this is something that we definitely would support for the pure fact that it would end reliance on a male companion. It would also help any children who are within the home, because often it is a woman who takes care of the children. She's not necessarily the only one, but in the case where there is intimate partner violence, it would normally be the woman who takes care of the child, and women will always look after their children first.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much.

Moving back to the Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres, you spoke a little bit about your indigenous diversion program. We know that for men who are violent, it's often rooted in deep trauma, and your diversion program is rooted in community. You've witnessed a very low recidivism rate by keeping people in the community, nurtured by community. I've been very clear about my position that you can't assist people with violent behaviours by incarcerating them because it's an anti-social violent environment. Could you tell us about why you think your indigenous diversion program is working?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have 15 seconds left.

[Gertie Mai Muise]

Yes. Sean definitely can tell you, and we can, and we'll send you more detail. I think if you look at our brief, you will find some detail in that also.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Leah, we will get back to you, for sure.

We're going to be starting our second round. We'll be starting off with five minutes and passing it over to Michelle.

Michelle Ferreri, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, and thank you so much to our witnesses and everybody here.

I'm going to start with Gertie Mai.

You talked about new relationships, indigenous-led initiatives, in particular lived experience. I was wondering if you could expand with more specific examples of what you would like to see and what that would look like.

[Gertie Mai Muise]

We know that when indigenous communities that have a relationship and a deep knowledge of the needs of that community are provided with resources to do a job, they get the job done.

These new pathways I'm talking about and these new relationships are basically to eliminate some of the jurisdictional discord and wrangling that happens when we are trying to address very serious harm against indigenous women in our communities.

We're talking about direct funding relationships between the federal government and provincial service organizations that have a mandate to do this work, who are already doing this work and have been doing it for decades. We're talking about getting rid of the white tape and eliminating a lot of the barriers and having a lot of flexibility.

We're talking about low barrier, about high flexibility. We're talking about an inside community of resources directed to those individuals and communities that need the resources, those families, so that they can even find their solutions and we can support them in finding their own solutions.

Those are some of the things. We have lots of ideas about this, because we've been testing a lot of things. The homeward bound program that Sean just talked about is a new initiative. It's underfunded—actually not even funded. That's an innovative thing, with wraparound services. That's a totally brand new approach that's working and that we'd love to talk more about with you.

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

That's fantastic.

Homeward bound is in my riding of Peterborough-Kawartha. I'm a big ambassador for it. It is an absolutely outstanding program, which should be getting national attention, so I was really glad to hear you bring it up.

If you can send to the committee the specifics on what's working, I think that would be really valuable. We could get into the nuts and bolts of it.

I'd like to turn it over to Gerri.

Gerri, you brought a lot of passion to this committee, and we're really grateful for it. I think we definitely need to add a hashtag for “white tape”. That was fantastic from Gertie Mai.

[Gertie Mai Muise]

That's not really mine, though; it's Sylvia Maracle's phrase.

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

It's very good.

Gerri, you talk about what I believe in, and it's that the power of one is the power of many, and very much the community basis of.... You touched on how challenging it is, because you're not just leaving the partner, but you're leaving the community.

You said you need to build trust, that there's a lot of distrust with the police. What's the best way to do that?