Debates of March 25th, 2021

Gender-Based Violence

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Madam Chair, I would first like to correct the record. I did not say it was the sole reason. It is one of the root causes, but there are many reasons why we have this happening. We live in a world where girls are told that their value is in their WAP and how well they can straddle a stripper pole. We live in a world where Willie Pickton was able to pick up a prostitute, rape her, kill her and throw her in a meat grinder and nobody noticed. I am ashamed that instead of this being about violence against women, it seems that we are instead making this a political ploy. Please, let us make a difference for women. Let us really take this issue in hand and make a difference.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Chair, we know that under the Conservative government of Stephen Harper, women's organizations saw cuts to critical funding that would have been really important to prevent violence against women and provide safety for women who were the most vulnerable. They did not get the stable funding that they needed. I believe that it is going to take all parties in the House coming together and supporting long-term stable funding for women's organizations, to give them the support they need to deliver the important services they provide.

Does my colleague agree that we need to invest more, and it needs to be something we all support if we are going to support these important women's organizations across our country and the important work they do?

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Madam Chair, it is very important that we do not try to just throw money at this issue. This issue is much bigger than that. This is a very core issue and we, as a Canadian society, really need to look at what we teach our young people. Absolutely, we need to continue to support our women. There has been tremendous work done during the pandemic to give assistance where needed. There has been a large increase in violence against women and we need to continue addressing that, but we need to look at the core issue and where we are really going off the rails.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Madam Chair, I thank our member who provided such a passionate speech because she does have a great passion for her constituents and for all Canadians.

As we are looking at this issue, I want to talk about what we do when we speak to our young boys. I feel sorry for my son every single day when he brings his girlfriend in and I remind her to just tell me if she ever has a problem because I am right there. I think sometimes it is about showing that we are strong and I want to be that role model for the young women and girls in our community, and for the boys as well.

We have Changing Ways in the City of London, which helps young men who have gone through difficult circumstances with domestic violence and violence against women and young girls. What are some of the things she sees in her community, and how can we expand those resources to help our young boys become good men?

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Madam Chair, honestly, the big thing is this definitely starts at home. For myself, I know I tried very hard to ensure my kids were not accessing anything that was unacceptable, yet we still struggled with the problem. We, as parents, need to be very aware that this is getting more and more accessible.

I have an 11-year-old granddaughter and I fear for her when I see the kind of material that is available and how these young girls are being lured through things like Snapchat and Instagram. It is terrifying. As a grandmother, I want to make sure that I support my own daughters in helping them in any way we can to make sure we are keeping them safe from these kinds of—

[The Deputy Chair, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Resuming debate; the hon. member for Vancouver Centre.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Madam Chair, I am so glad we are having this debate tonight. I think it has long been overdue.

I heard a lot of people speak. All of them were passionate and really cared about what they were saying, but I want to make a statement: COVID did not cause violence against women. It exacerbated it and exposed it, but violence against women is pervasive. It has been rooted in history, tradition and culture for millennia.

In history and culture, women were possessions. They were chattels. It is only a little over 100 years ago that women in this country stopped being chattel and had the right to vote. They began that long march to being treated equally.

The idea of toxic masculinity, while it sounds horrible, is very real. It is real because, as women are becoming more equal and are moving forward toward equality, we find that some men who are still rooted in that history, tradition and culture do not like it, especially as women like MPs or judges begin to make decisions in influential places. These are the women who are being focused on. We need to think about that and recognize it.

Also, violence against women is intergenerational. We know that 43% of boys who grow up in an abusive home become abusers themselves and that 35% of girls who grow up in an abusive home marry, live with or find a partner who is also abusive. I think we need to talk about the fact that this is a reaction. What we have seen today is an absolute reaction by toxic masculinity against women moving forward.

When we look at violence against the women we love, we get upset and react if they are raped or murdered, but that is not the only form of violence against women. Women experience psychological violence every day. They are being threatened. Social media have increased the ability for people to speak out against women. Social media have been threatening to women. They can be threatened anonymously on social media, and those threats are part of the violence. They do not even have to happen. Just the fact that they are being threatened with language that demeans women to make them feel less valuable and feel badly about themselves—

[The Deputy Chair, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I am sorry to interrupt. I cannot remember if the hon. member mentioned if she was splitting her time.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Madam Chair, no, I did not. I am sorry. I would like to say that I am sharing my time with the hon. member for Vancouver East. She is a champion for the cause of gender equality as well, so I am pleased to share my time with her.

However, I wanted to say that it is the psychology that starts it all. For instance, when we sit around a boardroom table with male colleagues and say something, they pretend we did not speak or put it down or make it sound silly. When women are threatened with rape, the death of their children and those types of things, they do not have to come to pass, but it is part of that act of putting women back into their places, of demeaning and threatening them. We see it everywhere. We see it specifically in the language in pornography and social media, the language that shames women, makes them feel like less than they are and devalues everything they do. It happens in the workplace and it happens at home. When carelessly we say something to our daughter or we say something to a female partner and it is putting down something that she just said, that again gives a strong message. We see it in film. We hear it in jokes.

What is more important is that we see it in parliaments around the world. I want to point to Ocasio-Cortez in the United States, who was berated, shamed and had vile language used against her by members in her own Congress.

This is the kind of thing we need to talk about. We need to talk about all those root causes.

We need to talk about intersectionality. Women are not one large group of people. Women of a visible minority, women who are LGBTQ+ or indigenous or suffer with mental illness or disabilities are put down and demeaned and experience violence, whether it is physical or verbal or comes in other ways.

I want to quickly touch on what we need to do about it.

We have shelters, and right now my government is responding to the emergency of it all by putting millions of dollars into shelters and helping women get food, find stability and be safe. That is all good, but that is a band-aid, as far as I am concerned. We need to deal with the root causes. We need to change the institutions—the police, the judiciary, parliaments and all of the institutions that continue to foster systemic violence against women in the way they behave and the way they treat them, and the way that moves forward.

I want to talk about one institution—

[The Deputy Chair, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Unfortunately, there is no more time. The member only had five minutes. There is five minutes for questions and comments.

The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Chair, I thank the member for her passionate remarks, and it has been a pleasure working with her on the foreign affairs committee. We do not always agree, but it is certainly a pleasure working with her.

I think that the member is quite right to say that this problem of violence against women did not start with the COVID-19 pandemic. It certainly did not, and there are many root causes. However, she also said that the situation has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the issues may be the kind of isolation some people have experienced as a result of the pandemic. People are not as able to connect with others and maybe share things that they are experiencing, which is much more challenging as a result of this kind of isolation.

Could the member comment on that social context? How can we think about the particular challenges that result from the isolation associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and the requirements that are in place, and how can we try to combat that to ensure that people can access those supports in the midst of an environment where they may not be exposed to community outside of their home in the same way they might normally be?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Madam Chair, I think we could do that by providing shelters and places that are safe, such as safe houses, where women can go and be free from violence. Here I mean all women, not just women who suffer from domestic violence. I think that is the first thing we can do. However, as I said before, that is a band-aid.

We need to now look at how we can deal with it, and I think we need to teach our children, our boys, to value women. We need to teach it in schools. We need to work with provinces and create a pan-Canadian plan, because provinces are responsible for education. The value of women should be taught in schools.

There are so many things we can do, such as in our institutions, including training our judges, training our police and MPs, because sometimes without knowing it, what we tend to do in the House when a woman speaks with a high voice and says “Oh, excuse me”, is to titter and laugh at her. This is part of being—

[The Deputy Chair, NDP, Carol Hughes]

We do have to allow time for more questions.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Saint-Jean.

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

Madam Chair, I thank my colleague for her passionate speech. All of the speeches we have heard this evening have been passionate.

There is one topic that we have not really talked about, though, and that is violence among seniors. Talking about how seniors have been affected by the pandemic has become a recurring theme for the Bloc Québécois. Financial violence is a form of violence, and we have highlighted the fact that the pandemic has left a lot of seniors financially vulnerable.

Does my colleague agree that we need to make seniors more financially secure and that this could have a direct impact on violence among seniors?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Madam Chair, I fully agree with the member. When we talk about intersectionality, we want to talk about all of the different types of women who are more susceptible, and seniors are susceptible.

Financial violence against seniors by dependants, by their children or by someone they are sharing their home with, also disempowers them. It treats them with that kind of psychological violence that we talk about where they are frightened and unable to make decisions on their own or to have any money to go out and buy something for themselves. That is a huge piece, but we have to talk about that under the intersectionality rubric: the different types of violence that women face based on who they are and the group they belong to.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Chair, the member talked about societal issues, institutional barriers and changes. Sex trade workers often face some of the gravest situations, yet our society continues to segregate them and treat them in a way that puts them in even greater danger. I wonder whether or not the member will support the call for action to decriminalize the sex trade.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Madam Chair, absolutely. The Supreme Court ruled on it. With regard to the three areas that we have to decriminalize, we just have to do it.

I speak to sex trade workers very regularly, about 50 of them, on Zoom. They really need to get help to find safe places to work, to live and to be protected.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Chair, I thank the member for Vancouver Centre for sharing her time with me as we acknowledge and highlight the risks and violence women are exposed to in the face of the pandemic, but, of course, not just during COVID-19.

Many members spoke about intimate partner violence, toxic masculinity and offered statistics about the situation. I really do appreciate their heartfelt words. I would really like, though, to harness the energy tonight into action. As we know, behind every number is a real person, someone's daughter, a partner, a mother, an aunt, a friend, someone who is loved and deserves to be loved.

With the onset of the pandemic, income loss was dramatic and significant. We know that 63% of pandemic job loss was experienced by women. Other factors affecting women included things like school closures, which meant women were more likely to stay home with their children and abusers all the time. It meant that fewer people were reaching out for support and had no privacy to call for help. For some women, especially those in precarious employment such as the sex trade, their loss of income was swift and significant, yet they were not eligible to access federal emergency benefits.

In fact, PACE Society, an organization that does exceptional work in my riding in support of sex trade workers, knows all too well what that meant for so many of the women with whom it works. It had to resort to crowdfunding to generate some support for the women, because it was not able to access government support. This is in no small part the result of societal as well as the government's lack of action in addressing the structural issues, the criminalization of sex workers, which, in turn, put them in an even more unsafe and precarious position not just during the pandemic but every day.

Parliamentarians can do something about that. It means we have to challenge ourselves to step outside our own comfort zones. It means we have to set aside judgments. It means valuing the women as they are. All too often, there is so much judgment, which escalates the stigma. Whether a person is someone in the sex trade, or struggling with mental health challenges or experiencing domestic violence, the stigma is real and its effects can be deadly. This must stop.

Over the years, I met so many women and their children who shared their experiences with me of being in a violent relationship but had nowhere to go because they could not access support or housing. Some told me that they felt they had no choice but to return to the abuser. For me, it is not that they do not have the courage to act. The pandemic has brought to the forefront the situation and has highlighted social inequities in our communities that have existed for far too long.

The biggest challenges are stemming from the collective inability to address poverty on a larger, much more comprehensive scale; the homelessness and housing crisis; and the inadequate supports for mental and physical health. COVID-19 brought these issues to the forefront and made things more dramatic, but those are the issues of many of the women in all our communities. In Vancouver East, this is especially apparent for those in the Downtown Eastside.

With COVID-19, this also meant an impact to less access to services, supplies, food security and even sanitation. Lack of bathrooms and sanitation options are a major problem for those who do not have a place to call home. WISH, another great organization in my riding, has been working to get some space as an extension of its services so it can get washroom trailers out back in its lot. Safe spaces now limited also means fewer spaces for people to be in the community in shared spaces to access free meals.

It also does not help that the perception of those who are deemed to be “lawless” in the media require significant police crackdown. This reality means that it all too often creates an even more dangerous situation for the people who are in those situations. Policing is not necessarily the primary solution. Addressing the issue of poverty and housing is. Safe, long-term housing is what is needed.

The report on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, in its call for justice no. 4.5, calls for the government to establish a guaranteed annual livable income for all. Calls for—

[The Deputy Chair, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Unfortunately, the member's time is up.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Vancouver Centre.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Madam Chair, I want to echo some of the things the hon. member for Vancouver East spoke about. I know that women in the sex trade have been given help by our government, by helping them with all of the things they could do.

WISH has an overnight shelter now. It is not just a shelter, but a place where women in the sex trade can come. During COVID, women in the sex trade had no single means of support. That was when they talked to me, and we went to bat and worked very hard to support them in many ways.

It is really important that we pick this up and run with it, and that we recognize that if we are going to talk about women and about violence against women, we need to empower women. Women in the sex trade should not be looked down upon by most of us. There should not be this stigma and fear. Pickton was able to do what he did because they were hiding in all of these places where the police and no one—

[The Deputy Chair, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Unfortunately, I have to allow for more questions and for the answer.

The hon. member for Vancouver East.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Chair, that is the crux of the issue, which is that we need to get at the structural issue. Yes, those organizations need funding, no question about it. They need core funding, by the way: many non-profits do not have access to core funding. More than that, we need to change the laws to address the issue and change the structural barriers there, including addressing poverty, racism, stigma, misogyny, discrimination, criminalized communities, criminalized activities, violence against women and long-term housing so that people can have an option and the support that they need.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Chair, I want to ask the member a question specifically about the issue of sex trade workers, which she spoke about in her speech. She knows the approach that was taken by the previous Conservative government was to recognize that sex trade workers are victims, to ensure that we are not prosecuting sex trade workers but that we are prosecuting their abusers: we are prosecuting pimps and johns.

This follows the Nordic Model, which has had great success in reducing human trafficking. Generally, if we look at European countries, those that have legalized the buying and selling of sex have had higher rates of human trafficking, whereas those countries that have stopped any prosecution of sex trade workers but have prosecuted those who are buying sex, including pimps as well as johns, have had much more success in reducing human trafficking.

I wonder if the member would see value in an approach that allows us to support workers and support victims but continue to prosecute the pimps and johns who are victimizing these women, while also providing a housing-first approach to homelessness and other measures that were put in place in the past.

Does the member agree that we have seen the success of this Nordic Model in Canada as well as in other jurisdictions?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Chair, there are still very many sex trade workers who are in very dangerous situations. What has been done, frankly, is not enough. The reality is that they continue to be criminalized. That is their reality right now, and it puts them in danger. We have to set aside our judgment to say, “What do we need to do to ensure that those women are safe?” We need to look at that and take it seriously, and not just say that what we have done so far is enough, because it is not.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Chair, I thank my colleague for her speech. She spoke about how we need to ensure women have safe, adequate housing to break the cycle of violence.

Why is it important for the federal government to invest more by transferring more money to Quebec, the provinces and the territories to do just that?