Status of Women committee  I want to thank you for the invitation and the privilege of being able to share our experiences in providing services to female victims of violence and their children. I commend you for undertaking this study and caution you that the results and recommendations must include immed

Status of Women committee  Sure. The centre opened its doors in 1997 with 1.5 staff. In 2017, with a staff of five, more than 2,000 interventions were completed, of which more than 700 were with victims of family violence; 78 of those were women, along with 32 children, who remained in the abusive relati

Status of Women committee  Absolutely. First, when it comes to how shelters are built, we need to take into consideration that we have women staying across the lifespan. That might mean that if an older woman is to feel comfortable to come stay at the shelter, she has her independent space so that she's no

Status of Women committee  I do feel that by conducting this study and doing the research you are doing to better understand what's going on.... Perhaps when that transfer payment is done, there is still some say from the federal government. It is a national housing strategy, and as much as the province s

Status of Women committee  We'll screen for it, but programs...? No. It's lack of funding; it's not because we shouldn't be doing it.

Status of Women committee  In our rural community, we didn't have any transitional housing. We had two second-stage units. What I spoke about was our $4-million campaign that we've been doing for quite some time. It is all transitional housing; it's just at different stages. Across the country, there are

Status of Women committee  I think that core funding is always going to be something that women's organizations are going to fight for across the country. I'm sure I'm not the first to say it, nor the last in this committee study, because at the end of the day, we can't do our jobs effectively if we don't

Status of Women committee  We need translators and people who can help us connect with people from different cultures. I'm in a rural community in which the vast majority of people who are working in the fish-processing plants are from different cultures. It's hard enough as it is to connect with a survivo

Status of Women committee  Thank you.

Status of Women committee  I agree that one of the biggest problems in homes or shelters in indigenous communities is the lack of confidentiality. The women are not necessarily comfortable because they are located close to their aggressor, and there is a relationship between the aggressor and the extended

Status of Women committee  For our funding campaign, since this is a rural community, we decided that it was really important to provide various services in the same building. Previously, women victims of violence were forced to go to various places. They had to go to an RCMP office, although that was a lo

Status of Women committee  You need to invest in the initial services. If you decide to simply increase the number of affordable housing units, you bring the victim back to poverty. You don't help her get out of poverty. When we provide our services, our purpose is not to place a victim in affordable hous

Status of Women committee  It is possible that many of those responsible for shelters will not like what I'm going to say today, but under our new model, we don't want to hide our location. We visited a lot of rural communities, and it is impossible to hide. In two seconds people find out where we are. Th

Status of Women committee  Thank you.

Status of Women committee  We see that there are three categories of older women who are victims of violence. The first category is made up of women who experienced a violent relationship during all of their coupled life, and once their children reach adulthood and leave the home, they decide to get out o