Status of Women Committee on March 4th, 2022

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

I'm sorry. I'm going to have to turn it over now to Jenna Sudds.

Jenna, you have four minutes.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata—Carleton, ON]

Thank you so much.

Thank you to all of the witnesses who have joined us today. It's such important work.

For my first question I'm going to go to Yasmin. You spoke a bit about the importance of culturally informed programs, and I think we all on this committee recognize and have spoken about the barriers that can be in place for people from different religious or cultural backgrounds as they are facing domestic violence and the fact that reporting could be different and the definition could be different. We've also talked about the fact that sometimes there's this kind of underground network of support that exists for people in different communities.

I'm wondering if you could speak to that specifically and how we can harness those supports in a bigger way to help victims.

[Yasmin Hussain]

Thank you so much for that question. I think that's really important, recognizing the underground or informal supports that exist. A lot of our work is building the capacity for what is considered informal support but is often very crucial support, because it's a first step, maybe, to accessing more formalized supports or making decisions. Survivors can then make choices around the formalized supports they want to access.

I think that begins with working with communities around this issue. That engages community members. It also engages the faith community, faith leaders, recognizing that people have a responsibility and role to play that is proactive, and provides them with the knowledge and tools and equips them with the ability to play that role.

In our work, too, what I see is that a lot of it is challenging norms and building the capacity for community support, because a lot of times that underground or informal support.... It's important and it exists, but they may feel like they're in the minority. How do you shift that so that it becomes the majority within the community and where that voice becomes a dominant voice and is one that informs or creates that space for survivors to know that we have a caring community? These are the values that we uphold and address, so I think that's what a lot of our work.... I think those values are there. It's just amplifying those values, making space for those values and giving them the support they need.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata—Carleton, ON]

I appreciate that.

Just quickly, Erin, as you know, of course, we're currently working on the national action plan for gender-based violence. You made a few recommendations, and I'm wondering if you can elaborate a bit more. You mentioned the distinct needs of sexual violence survivors. Can you articulate for me what it is you'd like to see with respect to sexual violence survivors?

[Dr. Erin Whitmore]

Thank you.

I think part of it is ensuring that community-based sexual assault centres that specialize in providing support to survivors have the flexible core funding they need to provide those services. We also need to continue to address issues within the criminal justice system and its handling of, specifically, sexual assault investigations, as well as support alternative options for justice around transformative justice, which we're starting to see as offering some important work in that area.

I do think, though, that this work should happen within the national action plan, because the national action plan is about addressing the root causes—housing, poverty, economic insecurity, food insecurity and all of those things—that we need to really tackle in order to address gender-based violence in a really meaningful way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

Andréanne, you have two minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Whitmore, for raising the issue of the national action plan. I would like to come back to it in closing.

Ms. Whitmore, do you have anything to add about the national action plan?

What could we do to speed up its implementation? At the moment it is expected to take nearly 10 years.

Finally, what should be in it?

Of course, I also invite the other two witnesses to make a brief conclusion explaining what we want to see in this report and what could be done to speed up the implementation of the plan.

[Dr. Erin Whitmore]

It needs to be a 10-year national action plan, because, again, it is about addressing systemic barriers and making structural change, which takes a long time. We need to see the ongoing momentum of this work over a number of years and potentially over a number of different governments.

I think the national action plan work needs to be guided by the sector, by anti-violence advocates. We also really need to make sure it's harmonized with the work that's being done around the national action plan for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. That work needs to happen simultaneously.

[Yasmin Hussain]

I would agree with everything Erin Whitmore has said. Sometimes we delay starting points until we have a proper plan, and I think there's an opportunity to start in the immediate, knowing that the plan will build and grow over time. I think we know enough now. We know that there is an issue that needs to be addressed. We have momentum. We have enough information to start.

It's about building the opportunities to flow funding in ways that are long term and flexible and that meet existing organizations but also fund new organizations or grassroots initiatives as well. Include people in this ongoing conversation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

We'll now turn it over to Leah Gazan.

Leah, you have the final two minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much, Chair.

I really appreciate the commentary about recognizing and honouring housing as a human right. Ensuring food sustainability and proper income is the best way to mitigate the crisis of violence against women, girls and diverse genders.

Madam Haileyesus, your organization, in terms of policy recommendations, spoke about resources, about the funding that is needed for shelters, specifically shelters for newcomers and religious centres, to provide accessible information on economic abuse. Can you identify the gap and what it should actually look like if we're providing proper resources?

[Meseret Haileyesus]

Thank you so much. One of the gaps right now is that there is no educational material that speaks about economic and financial abuse. That's a huge gap not only for survivors and frontline workers. As I mentioned, there are also experts out there for whom an understanding of the nature of economic abuse is a little bit challenging because of this issue.

In terms of the resources, yes, we need to look at resources to develop trauma-informed and sensitive education materials, screening tools and any kind of conversation tool kit as well on how to talk to survivors of economic abuse, because their issue is very complex. The other thing we need is a national toll-free line, just a phone line so that women can access any financial counselling from a trauma perspective. We have seen this in many other countries. We know that we have a national toll-free line for survivors and victims of elder financial abuse, but we need to adopt this for gender-based violence and domestic violence abuse. These are very critical.

We are also developing right now a mobile app for women to flag and identify economic and financial abuse. That's another resource. This is small scale, but nationwide those resources are definitely very essential. It's a huge gap in Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much. This has been a fantastic panel.

Thank you to Erin, Meseret and Yasmin for offering your expertise. On behalf of FEWO, we'd like to thank all of you for coming.

We're going to suspend for a few minutes to welcome our next panel.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I would like to reconvene this afternoon's meeting. Thank you so much to the panellists for joining us to discuss intimate partner and domestic violence.

I'd like to welcome our witnesses.

From the Boys and Girls Club of Peel, we have Michael Jason Gyovai, executive director. From the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, Kimberley Greenwood, co-chair of the victims of crime committee; and Francis Lanouette, co-chair of the crime prevention, community safety and well-being committee. From Changing Ways Inc., Tim Kelly, executive director.

You will all be provided five minutes for opening statements, so we're going to begin with the Boys and Girls Club.

Michael, you have five minutes.

[Michael Jason Gyovai, Executive Director, BGC Peel]

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, Chair, vice-chairs and members. Thank you for inviting me on behalf of my organization, BGC Peel, formerly the Boys and Girls Club, and a federation partner with BGC Canada, to present a local, grassroots look at intimate partner and domestic violence across, in our case, the city of Brampton and region of Peel, especially for those in the marginalized and vulnerable communities that we serve.

As mentioned at the beginning, my name is Michael Gyovai. I'm the executive director of the club.

BGC Peel believes that, through our 40 years of service and on-the-ground experience with families, our mission to provide a safe, supportive place where children, youth and families can experience new opportunities, overcome barriers and build positive relationships, can be used as a foundation for solutions towards changing how communities, children, youth and families deal with and aim to resolve domestic issues that potentially become violent.

BGC Peel's mandate is centred on prevention. The common trend that our staff and volunteers are hearing is that we need more useful, credible and impactful education, information and awareness around how to identify domestic violence, how to report it and who to report it to; how to protect each other, especially our children from it; and ultimately a long-term plan to prevent it from happening in the first place.

Facilitating the development and enhancement of community programs that aim at prevention and support while providing services for children and youth to support their development as individuals within the context of the family environment is a recommendation that BGC Peel urges the federal government to consider.

We know that we all can and should be doing better. Through the work we do, we know that it's communication with each other, with our children and with our families in our communities that will make those strides.

The teaching of prevention must be done at an early age. We look towards the future and our next generation and helping them with the perspective that they have on what it means to be kind. Working with those in authority can and should be seen as positive, not as interference. Most importantly, we want to raise our children to value and understand the world that we live in and what it demands of us in order to survive and thrive with equality, inclusion and acceptance of diversity.

Despite all of that, sometimes it's not enough. Families are telling my staff and our volunteers that they're ashamed and afraid at times to bring matters forward and, despite wanting to, they fight the urge to share the information of all forms of violence that impact their lives. Be it a lack of confidence in the system that manages these situations or not, when Canadians fear those who can protect them from those who can threaten them, we have a major issue that needs to be resolved.

In the region of Peel, over 85% of those who report violence are women. Stats that my staff found show that 43% of these women are 15- to 19-year-olds who have experienced intimate partner violence in their lifetime. That number drops to 24% for 20- to 24-year-olds, and 10% for 25 and up. That means that 67% of these young 15- to 24-year-olds, the bulk of girls and young women that BGC Peel and BGC Canada support, have experienced domestic or intimate violence at some level.

From Peel Regional Police, we found that they had seen an increase of 74% in their domestic calls over the last five years. One of the main impacts that we hear from our staff is the fallout regarding parental alienation and a parent's willingness to fight for their children's rights and access to them.

In conversation with Sheffanessea Brown, founder of Against Parental Alienation Canada, she brought to my attention that at the current time there are no federal or provincial laws that truly regulate parental alienation and the domestic violence that comes from it. We obviously understand that courts recognize it. We do believe that, through reviews and revision of the Criminal Code, there could be opportunities to change the wording to protect those who are victims and survivors of parental alienation.

When we reviewed the final reports for the ad hoc federal-provincial-territorial working group reviewing spousal abuse policies and legislation, we didn't notice that there was strong enough wording to see those kinds of protections. We would definitely love it if the federal government could go back, have a review and see how the impacts, directly and indirectly, are hurting our children, not only at the time of the situation but as they grow and become adults, and hopefully parents themselves.

In conclusion, BGC Peel is requesting that the Standing Committee on the Status of Women do a review to see what kinds of positive impacts organizations like BGC Peel, through BGC Canada, can offer intimate partners and their families dealing with domestic violence. Local partnerships with medical professionals, law enforcement and psychologists assist with helping to treat the core symptoms before the situation gets out of hand. We truly believe that education, awareness and community engagement would play a critical role in the de-escalation of domestic violence and repeat offences.

Let's work together to show that we're providing safe places and safe opportunities for our children, youth and families as we progress forward and, hopefully, bring an end to domestic violence at the local levels and throughout Canada. It's building on that foundation for positive actions and solutions to change to help these children at an early age break the trends that we're seeing so many times in families.

At BGC Peel, we believe that opportunity changes everything, and that “No. More. Barriers.” is a starting point, not an end goal.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

I'm now going to turn it over to the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

Kimberley or Francis, I'm not sure who's taking up the five minutes, but I'm going to turn the floor over to you.

[Chief Kimberley Greenwood, Co-Chair, Victims of Crime Committee, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police]

Good afternoon. Thank you very much for the opportunity to address this committee on behalf of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

As you're aware, I'm Chief Kimberley Greenwood. I'm the co-chair of the victims of crime committee.

As police officers, we see first-hand the tragic and, sometimes, deadly effects that intimate partner violence brings to victims, their families and our communities. We know that the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated concerns and stressed the need for consistent, national approaches to address intimate partner violence.

Women's shelters are reporting not only an increase in cases but an increase in the intensity of the violence and in the levels of fear experienced by victims. Shelters are also noting a spike in substance abuse as feelings of helplessness rise.

The many complexities of intimate partner violence and the need for a coordinated understanding of and response to it in Canada is paramount. In 2016, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, in partnership with the University of New Brunswick, released an evidence-based and research-driven “National Framework on Collaborative Police Action on Intimate Partner Violence”. The framework is intended to provide police services across the nation with a shared language and understanding of intimate partner violence.

The key themes include: consistent police response and investigation practices that are victim focused and trauma informed in nature; the adoption of common tools and techniques for police intervention, including standardized risk assessments; sharing responsibilities across agencies, including public health, police, social agencies and other community organizations; effective court processes and case management to address risk and prevent further harm; more research and adapted, proven, evidence-based practices when monitoring and supporting offenders, like the research being conducted in Barrie on recidivism rates of intimate partner violence offenders; and finally the creation of a Canadian centre for policing intimate partner violence to bring the framework online and make it operational for our frontline officers and investigators.

Our work did not stop when the framework was launched. We are taking steps to produce additional resources on trauma-informed and victim-focused approaches, as well as educational material on coercive control.

I now turn over the presentation to Director Francis Lanouette. He is the co-chair of the crime prevention, community safety and well-being committee.

[Chief Francis Lanouette, Co-Chair of the Crime Prevention, Community Safety and Well-being Committee, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police]

Good afternoon.

As police officers, we know that by the time a domestic violence charge goes to court, it’s likely that the victim has been experiencing some form of violence or controlling behaviours at the hands of their partner for a significant amount of time.

Recently, our association expanded its focus on domestic violence to address the issue of coercive control. Our committee is collaborating on research to better understand this phenomenon from a police perspective and to develop the tools necessary to detect it. To improve the understanding of this concept by the policing community, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police offered a webinar on this topic.

Our association also proposes other avenues of intervention to achieve continued progress to help protect victims sooner, before physical or visible harm comes to them. First, we must address current limitations in the Criminal Code when it comes to intervening in cases of domestic violence. As a result, we support legislative changes including the addition of coercive control as a new offence under the Criminal Code, as suggested in our submission on Bill C‑247, which is now known as Bill C‑202.

We also support adopting Intimate Partner Violence Disclosure Acts, Clare's Law, throughout all provinces and territories in Canada.

In addition to legislative changes, we are also calling for the development of a Canadian Intimate Partner Violence Policing Centre, as previously mentioned by Chief Greenwood; the implementation of courts specialized in these matters that would be better equipped to support victims throughout the judicial process; continued education and awareness initiatives with the general population, and especially with youth; the development of multi-sectoral teams whose mandate is to assess the risk of homicide in cases of intimate partner violence.

On this last point, it should be noted that, in Quebec, such rapid response teams are already being deployed and a new law on electronic bracelet systems has been adopted. The Quebec experience could perhaps be expanded across the country.

In conclusion, we must provide officers with tools to help them recognize and address intimate partner violence, including coercive control, because when victims remain silent in the belief that there is nothing police can do, they also lose out on the opportunity to access support agencies, resources, and opportunities to change their situation.

Thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

Finally, we're going to turn it over to Tim Kelly, who is from Changing Ways.

Tim, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Tim Kelly, Executive Director, Changing Ways Inc.]

Thanks. It is really an honour to be here speaking to this committee. I'm coming to you from St. Thomas, Ontario, and I'm here to represent my agency, which is Changing Ways, and the work that we do in Ontario, both locally and provincially.

Changing Ways is a social service agency that specifically focuses on people who cause harm in their intimate relationships. While we do focus and do some work with women who have been caught up in the criminal justice system because of offences, the primary focus that we work on is with men causing harm in their relationships as well as men who are exposing their children to abuse and causing harm. Our head office is in London but we have offices in St. Thomas and Chatham so we are a southwestern Ontario service provider. I just saw Ms. Vecchio's face when I said that. Yes, this is where we are.

I'm happy to be here. In addition to that job, which is an awful lot to do, I'm also a service manager at the Children's Aid Society of Oxford County, and I manage a specialized embedded service that works with people who have experienced harm in their intimate relationships, both survivors and children and men who cause harm, in addition to supports for women who are using violence as well. That's me. That's what I'm coming here to talk to you about.

I'm not going to repeat everything that everyone said and I couldn't do it anyway. When I looked at who was on the list of speakers here, I was excited to be here and also I have to say my heart sunk a bit because the association of working with men who cause harm or people who cause harm and the criminal justice system is one of the issues and one of the problems that we're dealing with in trying to address this issue earlier on.

The reason I want to bring that forward is this. I've been the director of Changing Ways for 23 years. I've worked there for over 30 years, and trying to actually look at moving the intervention to prevention further upstream has been a constant problem for us. Right now, for most places in Ontario and across the province, the threshold to actually access services for men who are causing harm is a criminal offence, so the implication for that is that there's nothing happening prior to police involvement. From my perspective, police are an amazing service. They are a last resort that we need to be doing, so what I want to throw out to this group is to start considering what prevention would look like and what a national strategy on prevention would look like.

Without taking up a whole lot of time, I've just sat in awe over the last two years on what a national strategy to prevent a virus could look like. When I think about the intentionality of that work and the intentionality of a federal government engaging in working with provincial governments to actually take on an incredibly invasive issue, I don't see intimate partner violence as any different from that. What I would implore the federal government to think about doing, in terms of a strategy, is that, looking at criminal justice as a response, it can't be the only response that we have here. We need to look at ways in which we can engage broadly across the country, provincially, in municipalities, locally, all of those things, and have a focused look at what we're doing here.

The health care system does an amazing job of thinking about prevention. Again, the way it attacked this COVID pandemic we had is a really good example of how, if we actually pull ourselves together and think about this and then look for local efforts to end violence against women and intimate partner violence, I think we can get there.

I'll surrender the floor.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

Tim, I'm just Karen. Everybody will find out I'm just Karen here because that's the way I like to do it at FEWO. Thank you so much.

We will be going around for our first round of questions. It will be six minutes per party and then we'll come around to the second round. We're going to begin today's questions with Michelle Ferreri.

Michelle, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair. I need about six hours. What a group of witnesses.

I can't stress enough how interesting what you just said is, Tim.

Michael, you're the prevention end of it. The police chiefs here are the intervention, when something has happened.

Then we have you, Tim, who has to come in and try to do the restorative piece.

It's a very interesting group of witnesses we have here. My real passion is to speak to what Tim was saying. It's really on the prevention and early intervention end of things. We know that we have an opioid crisis, and for a lot of people, I think there's a real tie-in here. All women who are victims of domestic violence don't always end up in a shelter. They have to treat that pain and abuse in different ways, in maladaptive coping mechanisms. I think we would be remiss if we didn't acknowledge that the opioid crisis and a lot of things that are happening on the street are connected to this committee. I think that is something to take into consideration.

I want to start with you, Michael. I think for children who are in an environment that is being programmed, for lack of a better term, you can do all of the things you want to do at Boys and Girls Club, which is phenomenal work, telling kids what a healthy relationship is, but if they're just going home and seeing something different from the core people in their lives, that's a very big uphill battle.

I want to ask a couple of questions around the tools that you could be using or that you are using. Number one, I'm curious about what you do in terms of social media training with the kids you have coming to your Boys and Girls Club.

[Michael Jason Gyovai]

Thank you for that question. I agree that it is all about communicating with them at an early stage. I will get to your question on social media, but first, it's very important that we acknowledge them and that we identify to them that they have support here for everything they're looking for. The situations they find themselves in, they didn't put themselves in those situations. It's important for them to know their value and to have that understanding.

Regarding social media, we make it of very high value to anyone who is trained with us, from staff to volunteers, to receive social media training on the safeguards, on what we're allowed to do and what we're not allowed to do. More importantly, we sit down with each individual child—in the last two years, through virtual—and explain to them the safeguards. We've been able to partner with a couple of organizations. Actua has done some fantastic training for us regarding cyber-bullying and cyber-interference.

To get back to the overall messaging, it's about how we communicate to the children and youth on the level at which they can understand it. We can go in, we can throw a bunch of terms at them, we can talk to them like we're talking now, but you have to understand that you have to get down to their level of what it means to them for the situation. What does it mean when they're...?

Well, a child under 13 shouldn't be on social media in the first place, in my opinion.

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

Hear, hear.

[Michael Jason Gyovai]

In my opinion, they shouldn't be on it under 16.

To be honest, we need more federal safeguards protecting them. At the end of the day, to Tim's point, I love the work that our field police do, but if it's getting to that point, then we've already lost control of the situation.