Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin my remarks with the words of Betty Ann Lavallée, the national chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples. She has said that Bill S-2 is:
—addressing the real human issue of an Aboriginal person, sometimes often taken for granted by other Canadians. A spouse within an Aboriginal relationship should not be denied or put out on the street alone and without any recourse because of a family or marital breakdown.
I agree with her completely. Her words are truly informed by her knowledge of the often harsh realities of the day-to-day life faced by many women residents of first nation communities.
At the end of the day, this bill is about one very simple thing, and that is equal rights.
As members know, in 1921, women in Canada were first given the right to vote in the 1921 federal election. However, that did not mean all women in Canada. In fact, aboriginal women, covered by the Indian Act, could not vote for band councils until 1951 and could not vote in federal elections until 1960.
Today, we are seeking to eliminate another unacceptable human rights issue. Through Bill S-2, we will finally be extending the same basic rights and protections to aboriginal women that all other Canadians already enjoy. I urge the opposition to stop denying aboriginal women equal rights and vote in favour of Bill S-2.
As my colleague said already, it has been over 25 years since the Supreme Court of Canada identified this legal gap that exists today on reserve and our government would finally close it with this bill. Bill S-2 proposes an effective solution to this injustice and we are proud to be the government to bring an end to it by providing women and children on reserve with legal protection.
As Minister for Status of Women, I feel strongly that the proposed legislation will provide options to women and children living on reserve who are experiencing family violence. Wives, spouses or common law partners who are living on reserve today face the reality that in the event of separation, divorce or death, the law currently does not protect their matrimonial real property interests or rights.
This is now our government's fourth attempt to pass this legislation. Clearly, as my colleague said before me, it is time to move forward with the bill.
Bill S-2, as proposed, will guarantee the matrimonial real property rights and interests of women who live on reserve and will protect spouses from violent domestic situations.
Statistics show that aboriginal women are almost three times more likely than non-aboriginal women to report being a victim of a violent crime, including spousal violence. Among victims of spousal violence, six to ten aboriginal women reported being injured. For comparison, the proportion was four in ten among non-aboriginal women.
According to the 2009 Statistics Canada “Women in Canada” report, 15% of all aboriginal women who were married or in a common law relationship had experienced spousal violence in the previous five years. In that same report, the rate among non-aboriginal women was 6%.
Nearly half of all aboriginal women who experienced spousal violence reported that they had been sexually assaulted, beaten, choked or threatened with a gun or a knife. A similar proportion reported that there were many times they feared for their lives.
This legislation is about eliminating an injustice by giving on-reserve women access to the options that are available to all other Canadian women to date. However, most important, the bill would provide emergency protection orders to aboriginal women and children who are experiencing violence in the home.
Emergency protection orders clearly save lives. They are recognized by child and family justice advocates as one, if not the most significant, means for preventing family violence.
Several witnesses before the Standing Committee on the Status of Women acknowledged the need for matrimonial real property legislation.
A member of a first nation in Ontario, Rolanda Manitowabi, described how she and her common law partner had built a home together. She invested her life savings into that home and to protect here interests, she got the band to issue her a document naming her as the owner of the property. However, when she and her partner split up, she was evicted from her home. It was at that time she found out that the document in fact had absolutely no legal foundation. Bill S-2 would change that. About the bill, she stated, “I hope it's available to help other women and children on reserves”.
Jennifer Courchene, a member of a first nation in Manitoba, also appeared before the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. Jennifer and her children became homeless after her abusive partner forced them out of their home. She said, “if there had been something [like this] to help us, we would have taken it, rather than be homeless, that's for sure”.
Aboriginal women on reserve who are not able to stay in the family home are forced to flee the reserve with their children, sometimes with nothing more than the clothes on their back, to a shelter or, even worse, somewhere homeless. Currently, a woman living on reserve who is a victim of violence has no legal protection other than pressing criminal charges. There is no mechanism to allow a parent and her children exclusive access to a family home.
I repeat the importance of using emergency protection orders to save lives. In the case of domestic violence and physical abuse, a court cannot order the spouse who holds the interest in the reserve home, which is almost always the male, to leave the home, even on a temporary basis. When a woman and her children are evicted from a family home on reserve, no judge currently has the power to intervene.
Extending the same rights that women off reserve have to aboriginal women living on reserve would address this dire situation. If emergency protection orders were enforced, abusers could be removed, allowing the women and children to find safety in the comfort of their own homes.
If aboriginal women were granted the ability to remain in the family home on reserve, they could escape situations of domestic violence, while the perpetrator was taken from the home, and they could stay to continue to care for their children and also maintain that vital access to the support in their own communities.
In addition to the protections provided by these orders, Bill S-2 would also provide for the granting of temporary exclusive occupation of the family home. This protection is important for two reasons. First, in situations of family violence, women could be granted temporary exclusive occupation of the home for a period of time extending past the emergency occupation.
Second, in the case of the death of a spouse or common law partner, the surviving spouse would be allowed to stay in the home for 180 days. During that time, the surviving spouse could apply for exclusive occupation of the family home for a period of time to be determined by the courts.
As my colleagues have said in the House many times, there has been a need for the bill for more than a quarter century. Our government has brought this issue before Parliament four times now, debating this issue in both chambers and in committee for more than 60 hours, and this includes more than 25 hours of debate on this particular iteration of the bill alone.
Yet after spending $8 million on 103 consultation sessions in 76 different communities across Canada, even after the Supreme Court of Canada has identified this legal gap and the United Nations Human Rights Council has identified this as a gap for aboriginal women in Canada, after countless reports and studies going back a quarter of a century, the opposition continues to propose that we need more talk. We have said clearly that we have had enough talk and it is time to act.
Some first nations have established matrimonial property rights, and I applaud them. However, similar legal regimes are not yet in place in hundreds of on-reserve communities across Canada. It is time that aboriginal women living on reserve shared the same rights as all other Canadian women.
As the Minister for Status of Women, I work very closely with my colleagues to address violence against aboriginal women, and we do this by supporting many projects that address this issue in a very comprehensive manner, the projects that build economic security and develop the leadership skills that prepare women to successfully escape violent domestic situations.
Since 2009, through the women's program, we have provided a great deal of funding in support of projects that helped to empower and protect aboriginal women and girls. For instance, the La Loche Friendship Centre Corporation is addressing violence against aboriginal women and girls living in northern Saskatchewan. With the support of community stakeholders—men, women, youth and elders—they will be able to better address violence faced by aboriginal women.
Actions taken by this government to end violence against women and girls include increasing funding to the women's program to its highest level in Canadian history. We have now funded more than 600 projects in Canada from coast to coast to coast since 2007.
We have also launched a comprehensive national action plan to combat human trafficking to ensure the safety and security of women and girls across Canada who are being targeted for sexual exploitation by violent traffickers.
We are moving ahead with Bill S-2, which would give aboriginal women equal rights and access to their matrimonial property rights and, most important, emergency protection orders to protect them in cases of domestic violence.
