Status of Women committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm here with my colleague, Julian Morelli. He's our communications director at the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples. Good morning, Chair and committee members. It's a pleasure to be here on the traditional territory of the Algonquin people to speak to you

Status of Women committee  —but that is not the norm.

Status of Women committee  Well, I can always go back to my own personal experience with a small community called the Thessalon First Nation, which is just outside Sault Ste. Marie in northern Ontario. I've also had experiences in Grassy Narrows, which is a community of about 700 people north of Kenora. I

Status of Women committee  I'll give you a little bit of my background. I'm an aboriginal man, a status Indian, and I have five children. Unfortunately, I went through two marriage breakups. Right now, I'm a single father, so I know personally some of the realities of separation, the emotions, and some o

Status of Women committee  Yes, two marriage breakups, unfortunately.

Status of Women committee  By reading the act, you at least have some rules and some process to address this. What I really like about this piece of legislation, and it's not a perfect piece of legislation—no legislation is perfect—and it doesn't speak to the issue of—

Status of Women committee  It doesn't speak to the issue of communal land, and that's very complicated. What it does is put in place emergency processes so that you can have support for a woman who's a victim of violence and some interim orders so they can at least have custody of the matrimonial home.

Status of Women committee  I come at it from two points of view, I think. Our organization believes there has to be put in place protection for these women. We have to have some way of speaking to this. It's an issue that's been talked about and put forward. There's no legislation that speaks to it in a si

Status of Women committee  I would like to speak to that, but, first of all, there's an urgency that has to be talked about, that this legislation speaks to. It's speaking to safety issues. I think you have to put that as paramount when you're thinking about this piece of legislation. That's one thing. Th

Status of Women committee  No, I didn't.... My circumstance is quite unique, because under Bill C-3, which is a brand-new piece of legislation for people to get their status back, it's going back to discriminatory actions against aboriginal women, which is how my family lost their status. So this is not ju

Status of Women committee  I don't know, but from my experience in almost every community I've worked near or on, there is access to shelters. Unfortunately, I know from my own experience—

Status of Women committee  With this legislation they would have to.

Status of Women committee  When I made my presentation earlier, I said there's no perfect piece of legislation; even this piece of legislation is not perfect. In a perfect world they would talk about some of the support systems that women need, but lacking that, I don't think you should jeopardize the whol

Status of Women committee  I'll speak to the first question about legal aid. In my experience, there are not enough legal aid systems all across Canada. The provinces haven't stepped up to provide a significant amount of legal aid. I've known people who were turned down for legal aid; they couldn't acces

Status of Women committee  In almost every aspect of being on reserve and being an aboriginal person in Canada, you have fewer services. But I will still speak in favour of this legislation, even if it doesn't speak to the totality of what we're talking about. If you're talking about legal aid and shelters