Mr. Speaker, every year in Canada, violence drives 100,000 women and children out of their homes and into shelters, where those options actually exist.
In northern Canada, the problem is extreme. More women are facing abuse and there are fewer safe houses and shelters. Despite quantifiably greater rates of violence, 70% of northern and remote communities do not have safe houses or emergency shelters. Despite this skewed statistic, the government is not doing more to protect vulnerable women in the north. As the numbers show, it is clearly doing less.
The Conservatives claim to take the problem seriously, but their words do not match their actions. Women are forced to remain in the homes of their attackers as a result. What we are seeing from the current government is the same kind of hand-dragging and inaction that it has used to hinder an inquiry into murdered and missing aboriginal women.
In spite of the government's claims that it is doing a lot for victims of crime, statistics show that just 53% of homicides involving aboriginal women are solved, compared to a solve rate of 84% for all murders in this country.
These statistics seem quite acceptable to this government, even though they show that the government does not treat all victims of crime equally. Abuse crime rates are similarly skewed for women in the north, who are primarily aboriginal women.
Statistics Canada shows that aboriginal women are vastly overrepresented among homicide victims. Statistics show that the rate of abuse against aboriginal women is also higher. If we consider the lack of housing in northern communities, the statistics point to a perfect storm, where women cannot get away from their abusers, which is the most basic step in escaping from a domestic violence situation.
We cannot accept a frontier mentality that excuses abuse and violence as part of a rugged northern lifestyle. The current government is happy to ask immigrants to check their so-called barbaric practices at the door and adopt Canadian values—that is the government's language, not mine—however, we are not going to challenge ourselves to deal with our own patterns of violence perpetrated on women.
The government likes to tout its so-called action plan to prevent violence against indigenous women. What it has failed to say is that this is merely a restating of old money that has already been promised. It is doing nothing new or further to help more women get out of harm's way. The irony is that action plan actually promises less money for funding of shelters than was given in past years. In addition, it will only flow to the 40 on-reserve shelters that already exist. There is nothing new and no real intention to do anything above and beyond. Also, because there is only funding for on-reserve shelters, none of that goes to address Inuit communities, which are arguably dealing with the worst rates of domestic violence in the country.
There are multiple underlying causes of violence against aboriginal women. It is impossible to address the violence that aboriginal women experience without addressing wider gender inequalities and systemic discrimination that aboriginal people continue to face generation after generation. At the same time, the reality is that there are still far too few shelters and resources for women in the north, and that will not change until we move beyond the government's failed initiatives.
Will the government stop reannouncing old money and find the money to create more options for women facing domestic abuse in northern Canada?