Status of Women committee  Thank you for the invitation and the opportunity to share our thoughts on Bill C-337. Women's Shelters Canada, formerly known as the Canadian Network of Women's Shelters and Transition Houses, brings together 14 provincial and territorial shelter organizations representing over 4

Status of Women committee  My sense is that those in the legal system might think it's sufficient, but definitely those affected first-hand will not, as will the organizations and the advocates that work directly with survivors of sexual assault and violence against women generally.

Status of Women committee  No. I haven't been. I think on this issue it's a question of bringing together the theory and the practice. I don't think it's one or the other. It's really needing to bring them together to see how they work or don't work. That needs to be incorporated into the training.

Status of Women committee  It's definitely support, but I think it would be a missed opportunity to just zone in on sexual assault. It should be on the whole continuum of violence against women and gender-based violence.

Status of Women committee  I think it's often a case of daily occurrences of bad decisions that just build on one another and make it difficult for women to move out of this life of violence that they are living, essentially. I have a family court example of a judge providing time for his preschool childr

Status of Women committee  Thanks for the invitation. We commend you for this study. Following Monday's session, however, we are concerned by the fact that there was quite a bit of misinformation circulated and that there appears to be some confusion in terms of the focus of this study, which is violence-

Status of Women committee  I'm almost finished. We also recommend that housing be recognized as a basic human right in the upcoming legislation.

Status of Women committee  Just a second—

Status of Women committee  As I said, there is a difference between operating costs and the capital cost of shelters. At the federal level, it is the cost of housing. An error was made on Monday. Someone from CMHC said that Canada's national housing strategy provides 4,000 new homes for women who are victi

Status of Women committee  Yes, it's a point Tim made about visiting shelters. I would like to extend to all of the members.... Since the House will be in recess the week of November 12, I would encourage all of you to go and visit a violence-against-women shelter. I'm glad to make that connection. You can

Status of Women committee  A national action plan would provide a baseline, and it needs to be resourced. Like the national housing strategy, which provides resources to the provinces and territories, an action plan on violence against women would need to do this in the same sense. We heard on Monday that

Status of Women committee  Yes, of how we're addressing violence against women.

Status of Women committee  Sure, I can file the blueprint document. The document was collaboratively developed by 22 provincial and national women's organizations. It addresses the continuum of violence against women. Even though we're talking about shelters here, we all know there's a huge continuum when

Status of Women committee  I'm not sure of the process but I did give it to the clerk of the committee.

Status of Women committee  As I said, the federal government's only program is through CMHC and that is not for operational funding. When shelters want to do additional work or find out a bit more information on the women they're serving, or how to provide better services to the women they're serving, it's