EVIDENCE

Standing Committee on the Status of Women NUMBER 049 3rd SESSION 40th PARLIAMENT Tuesday, January 18, 2011 Le mardi 18 janvier 2011 Standing Committee on the Status of Women CANADA [Recorded by Electronic Apparatus] EVIDENCE January 18, 2011 Committee Edited Evidence * Table of Contents * Number 049 (Official Version) Official Report * Table of Contents * Number 049 (Official Version) Témoignages * Table des matières * Numéro 049 (Version officielle) 49 18 01 2011 2011/01/18 11:45:00 House of Commons Comité permanent de la condition féminine Standing Committee on the Status of Women FEWO Chair The Honourable Hedy Fry 40 3

(1145) [ English ] The Chair (The Honourable Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre, Lib.)) : I will call the meeting to order. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), this committee, the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, is going to study violence against aboriginal women. It's a unanimous decision by the committee to do this. What we are looking at are the root causes of violence against aboriginal women. We're looking at the extent of violence. We're looking at the types of violence.

And we're looking at ways in which to resolve that violence, because I think the committee believes that for a very, very long time various levels of government have done all kinds of things in a well-meaning way, but they have not achieved results. We feel that by talking to aboriginal communities, and not only to leaders but to community groups and NGOs, we might be able to find a resolution that will work this time. When the committee finishes with its study, it will present a report, with recommendations, to the House of Commons, to Parliament itself.

The government of the day will have 90 days within which to respond as to what it intends to do with regard to the report and the recommendations. Now I'll begin. We have two groups today. From the Ending Violence Association of British Columbia, we have Tracy Porteous and Marilyn George, and we have Asia Czapska from Justice for Girls. What we do normally is give each group ten minutes to present. Tracy and Marilyn, you can decide if you want to split it five and five, or if one of you alone will present, because you will get an opportunity to answer questions later on. Asia, of course, you have ten minutes.

Now, you don't have to use the whole ten minutes--I'm just telling you--and I will give you two-minute and one-minute indicators so that you can wrap it up and we can move on to the questions. Now we'll begin. Who's going to speak for your group, Tracy? Ms. Tracy Porteous (Executive Director, Ending Violence Association of British Columbia) : Marilyn is speaking first. I'm going to follow her. The Chair : All right. Marilyn, are you going to do five minutes? Or are you just going to speak and then whatever's left over, Tracy will take...? A voice: That's correct.

The Chair: Just to be clear, you're not doing a five-five split. Please begin, Marilyn. Welcome. Ms. Marilyn George (Representative, Outreach Services Coordinator, Smithers, British Columbia, Ending Violence Association of British Columbia) : Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Marilyn George. I am the outreach service coordinator in Smithers, B.C., which is almost the midway point on the Highway of Tears between Prince Rupert and Prince George, where, thus far, upwards of 19 women have either been killed or gone missing.

I'm also here today as an aboriginal women's representative to EVA BC, a provincial organization in B.C. that works on behalf of 240 programs located throughout the province that respond to violence against women. Like the work of my provincial organization, EVA BC, my work is solely related to responding to violence against women, which includes domestic and sexual violence, child sexual abuse, and criminal harassment. I have been doing this kind of work for 14 years. I am from Sik-e-dakh, or Glen Vowell, B.C., in the Hazelton area.

I have travelled here from the north to speak with you about the shocking levels of violence being perpetrated against aboriginal women and girls here in B.C. I don't think I need to speak about the kinds of violence or the extent of the violence experienced by aboriginal women. By now, through the many hearings you have attended already, you will have heard that over 90% of aboriginal women have either been sexually abused as girls, gang-raped as adolescents, or raped and/or beaten as adults.

According to Statistics Canada's 2004 general social survey, rates of physical and sexual assault against aboriginal women are more than three times higher than against non-aboriginal women. Aboriginal women report experiencing more severe and potentially life-threatening forms of physical and sexual violence. Aboriginal women are almost seven times more likely to be murdered than non-aboriginal women. It's like walking around with an X on your back. In B.C., as you know, our province has more missing and murdered women than anywhere else in Canada--160, according to the Sisters in Spirit report.

This is a shocking and shameful reality that must be addressed without delay. I wish to thank you for caring enough to hold these hearings. I wish to focus my talk with you today on what to do and where we should go from here. I wish first, though, to caution you very strongly against concluding these hearings with recommendations for more reports and more studies. Aboriginal people have been studied perhaps more than almost any other group, and the time for study on the subject has passed. The time for action is now.

Throughout the first decade of 2000, EVA BC, working in partnership with the Pacific Association of First Nations Women and BC Women's Hospital, held a number of meetings, bringing together aboriginal women from across the province to discuss the violence perpetrated against us and what needs to be done. During that time, numerous aboriginal women across B.C. came together for many meetings. We studied the issue very carefully. We looked at all the other studies and wrote two reports ourselves, the second of which I will share with you today.

It is entitled “Researched to Death”, and I think the title alone speaks to what many aboriginal women feel today. The three organizations that were involved concluded that the findings in previous reports were especially alarming given that the violence experienced by aboriginal women is believed to exceed that of any other group of women in Canada. As said by the late Patricia Monture-Angus, “For Aboriginal women, violence frequently begins in childhood and continues throughout adolescence into adulthood.” That is the same for me and for most other aboriginal women I know.

Violence in aboriginal women's lives is pervasive, and is compounded by violence and systemic and institutionalized racism as well as the effects of historical violence, such as residential schools, the Indian Act, and other legacies of colonization. In school, I grew up feeling looked down upon and punished for who I was. I experienced people feeling sorry for me and my sister, and punishing us for being “dirty little Indian girls”. Violence in many aboriginal women's lives is a daily occurrence, for too many women have died either by murder or by their own hand.

(1150) Many governments have been willing to fund studies and reports, but very few have been willing to step up and fund the long-term solutions to the problem of violence against our women and girls. How many more women have to die before any concrete, long-term action is taken? We need programs designed by us and for us. Anything short of that will not do. We need the kind of big action that will support an ongoing network of anti-violence services run by aboriginal women and for aboriginal women.

All across B.C. and, in fact, in every province and territory in Canada, there are networks of services to respond to violence against women. Not all jurisdictions have enough of these services, but they exist, and they have been making a difference. As I mentioned, I work at one of these services in Smithers and Hazelton. These anti-violence services are mostly what I would call “mainstream” services, that is, services set up by mainstream non-aboriginal social service agencies, women's agencies, and governments.

In looking at these services across the north of B.C., I can say that while many of these programs have aboriginal women on staff and are doing excellent work, and while many reach out to women on reserves, there are many women on reserve who either have no way of getting to town and who are not allowed to engage in these services because of the control their abusive partners have over them, or who don't trust the mainstream services, no matter how good they are.

Without getting into the history of colonialization, which I'm sure you are all familiar with, the issue of violence against aboriginal women on and off reserve is very complex. Many women want the security of confidentiality that comes with going to town for help; therefore, the existing mainstream services must have cross-cultural competencies and training and have aboriginal women on staff. This could be a funding stream you put in place that is for existing anti-violence services.

You provide funding for an aboriginal counsellor-advocate position, but in addition, and most importantly, there should be anti-violence services run by aboriginal women and for aboriginal women in communities all across the nation. I believe that this one-to-one support work, the advocacy, and the community education these programs would also do that will make the difference immediately and in the long term. The solutions that will work will come only from our women, and we need to empower them to act and to help others to speak out. The Chair : Thank you. Go ahead, Tracy. Ms.

Tracy Porteous : Well, we may be out of time. The Chair: No, no. Go ahead. Ms. Tracy Porteous: I'm the executive director of the Ending Violence Association of B.C. and I'm here as an ally to Marilyn and other aboriginal women from across the province and the nation. I just want to share with you a little bit about the second report that Marilyn was speaking about, which is called “Researched To Death”.

A number of times over a period of three years, we brought together aboriginal women from across the province, and we consulted quite extensively about what aboriginal women were saying they wanted and needed in order to increase safety in their lives. Aboriginal women have said to us over and over that one of the overarching issues is the extent to which racism is alive and in action in communities across our nation. I can attest to that, being a front-line worker for many years, and taking to the hospital women who had just been sexually assaulted, or intervening as an advocate in some way.

Whenever I had for myself the privilege of working with an aboriginal woman, I can attest that they are treated differently by the system.... I think it is unconscionable that this still exists. Therefore, we need to take action in addition to what Marilyn has said, in terms of anti-racism and anti-oppression training for police, for crowns, for all the systems in place, because I think in this day and age, in 2011, that isn't at all acceptable. In addition, we believe that training needs to be provided to aboriginal women before they have...let me just back up.

Many anti-violence programs are searching for aboriginal women to hire, but all of the anti-violence programs in B.C. provide post-employment training, and there is no pre-employment training in the area of violence against women. We've had discussions with Northern Lights College in Terrace. They're interested in providing courses on how to become an advocate or counsellor in anti-violence programs for women; it would be similar to the George Brown College program in Ontario.

We believe it would really move things forward if we were able to support colleges and universities to provide courses so that aboriginal women are supported and prepared in order to be able to apply for some of these jobs that exist.

(1155) The Chair : Thank you, Tracy. I would like to go to Asia. Asia, ten minutes. Ms. Asia Czapska (Advocacy Director, Justice for Girls) : Thank you for taking the time to hear us today. My name is Asia Czapska. I am the advocacy director at Justice for Girls. Justice for Girls is a B.C.-based non-profit that promotes social justice, freedom from violence, and equality for teen girls who live in poverty. We advocate for both individual girls and systemically, to challenge laws, policies, and practices that breach the rights of teen girls who are homeless and low-income.

Over the course of 11 years of our work, we have observed that aboriginal girls are disproportionately the victims of violent crimes. They are subjected to extreme sexual and physical violence and constitute a shocking number of murder victims in B.C. Justice for Girls has monitored many cases of violence against aboriginal teen girls in this province. Actually, realizing that we have ten minutes, I might be able to talk to you about some of the specific cases that we've monitored and some of the criminal justice failures that we have witnessed in our work.

According to the Native Women's Association of Canada's Sisters in Spirit 2010 report, about one-fifth of the cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women across Canada are actually cases of missing and murdered aboriginal girls under the age of 19. Sisters in Spirit points out that a huge number of the women were actually young women. So if you count women under I think the age of 31, then it's a very large proportion of the women who were murdered and went missing.

And as I said, a fifth were girls, just from the number that Sisters in Spirit has documented, which, as you know, is a small proportion of the actual number of missing and murdered women and girls. Historical and current colonization of aboriginal peoples, lands, and families has created a situation in which aboriginal teenaged girls are one of the most oppressed groups in Canadian society.

Aboriginal girls face the deepest poverty, extreme male violence in the form of sexual abuse, rape, racialized sexual assault and racism, as well as institutionalization in prisons, mental health institutions, and apprehension into alienating racist and abusive non-aboriginal child welfare placements, and homelessness when they escape or when they attempt to escape these abusive situations when they face more violence on the street. The impact of these institutional and colonial assaults on indigenous girls is egregious. A disproportionate number of homeless girls, for example, are aboriginal.

A recent report in B.C. in which over 400 aboriginal youth in nine communities were interviewed found that about 60% of aboriginal girls had experienced sexual violence. In the last 30 years, according to police, at least 12 teenaged girls and young women, almost all of them aboriginal, have been murdered or went missing along central-northern B.C.'s Highway of Tears, as Marilyn had spoken about, within the RCMP's jurisdiction. According to community members, many more girls and women have gone missing.

The extreme violence that aboriginal girls face is one of the ways in which colonization continues to ravage the lives of indigenous girls in modern-day Canadian society. In every court case Justice for Girls has monitored over many years where multiple girls were being exploited by men, either most or all of the girls targeted were aboriginal. It has been our observation in the cases we have monitored that racism and sexism have motivated crimes against aboriginal girls.

Aboriginal girls are targeted by violent non-aboriginal men partly because of the vulnerability created by the non-response of the police and the courts to violence against them. Justice for Girls has become steadily more frustrated and enraged with utter failures of the criminal justice system to respond to violence against aboriginal teen girls in this province.

In the last five years we have met with various provincial politicians, including the Attorney General, and, along with other groups, have called for a broad inquiry into the criminal justice system's failure to respond to violence against aboriginal women and girls in B.C. We continue to demand an inquiry into the criminal justice system's deeply inadequate response to violence against aboriginal girls and women. More broadly, the Canadian government must specifically uphold the inherent rights of aboriginal girls and women and make every effort to remedy the consequences of colonization.

In so doing, the Canadian government must follow and respect the leadership of the Native Women's Association of Canada and provincial or territorial indigenous and grassroots women's groups, such as, for example, in British Columbia, the Aboriginal Women's Action Network. Given that I think I have a moment, I can talk to you about some of the cases we have been involved with monitoring.

(1200) As some of you probably know, in 2004 Prince George ex-judge David Ramsay pleaded guilty to sexual assault causing bodily harm, breach of trust, and three counts of purchasing sex, sexual exploitation of persons under the age of 18. All of Ramsay's victims were under 16, aboriginal, and girls. As you may know, he had presided over their cases in court. Some of them had child welfare cases before him, where he was the presiding judge telling them whether or not they could keep their children. The RCMP began their investigation into Judge Ramsay's assaults in 1999.

He was not removed from his judicial duties for three years. The crimes committed by Ramsay continued, according to the media, until 2001, so for two to three years after the investigation began. His judgments in cases of sexual abuse have never been reviewed, so decisions he made on cases of sexual violence before his court in communities in central-northern B.C. were never reviewed. We asked the previous Attorney General, Wally Oppal, to review those cases. We asked and nothing was ever done about that. Anyway, that's just one of the cases we brought to his attention.

In the course of the investigation into Ramsay's crimes, it was revealed that Prince George police officers and a youth criminal defence lawyer had also been accused of abusing girls in that community. Despite many groups' calls for action, there has never been an independent investigation of the alleged police abuse of girls in Prince George. I think one of the reasons that young aboriginal women don't trust the police is because the police perpetrate some of the violence against them. That's important to point out.

In 2003, coming back to the lower mainland area, we monitored the case of sexual offender Martin Tremblay, who pleaded guilty to five counts of sexual assault against five aboriginal teen girls. He admitted to videotaping and assaulting the girls while they were unconscious in his home. He was never given a no-contact-with-children condition on his probation. Justice for Girls called for the crown to ask for no contact with children. This did not happen, and upon his release he impregnated a 14-year-old aboriginal girl.

Since his release from prison, girls have reported that he has given them drugs, alcohol, and a place to party, and girls have reported waking up after lengthy durations of unconsciousness in states of undress and abandoned in various public locations. In 2010 two teen girls, Martha Jackson Hernandez and her friend Kayla LaLonde, died on the same night from a lethal combination of drugs and alcohol. Martha's body was found in Tremblay's home, and there have never been charges against Tremblay. Those are just some of the cases we've monitored. I guess I'll just leave it to you for questions.

(1205) The Chair : Thank you. You had one minute left, but that's good. Thank you, Asia. Now we're going to another part of the hearings. It's the question and answer part. This will be a seven-minute round. As you know, the members of this committee are from all parties, and they'll have seven minutes to ask and have the answer, so you have to be tight if you want to get as many questions as you want. I will begin with Ms. Anita Neville, who is a Liberal. Hon. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.) : First of all, let me thank the three of you for being here. I very much appreciate your presence.

You all touched on something that we've heard. Actually you've probably more than touched on something we've been skirting around and have been hearing about, both through the committee and I've travelled fairly extensively in western Canada on the issue of the missing and murdered aboriginal women. We're trying to gather information on systemic racism with systemic injustice, the lack of response by social welfare agencies, the lack of response or the inappropriate responses of the justice system, the court system, the police system.

In one community--not with the committee, but another community I was in--the women who had gathered there said to me that the women in that community do not feel they have protection, do not feel supported. I'm raising this because, as you can hear by my colleague's response, we're horrified. Some of what you raised, Asia, I've heard before, most notably the circumstances of the judge's situation. I guess my question to you is what is your best advice to us on the recommendations, recognizing that we are federal members of Parliament and there are jurisdictional issues?

We can speak loudly, and I hope that the report we bring in will be a powerful report and a strong report. But what actions should be taken by the government when this report is put before Parliament? And what should they be doing right now? I'm horrified at the situation you've described. Perhaps the people from B.C. are familiar with it. I'm from Manitoba. Give us your best advice on how we should put forward our recommendations. I open this to all three of you. The Chair : Who wants to start? Tracy. Ms. Tracy Porteous : I think it's a really important question.

I think there are some really concrete things you can do from a federal jurisdiction. One of the ways systemic racism and sexism is manifesting itself that we're seeing across B.C. is in a really high number of women who have experienced abuse over a number of years being arrested themselves. We've been talking with the RCMP about this for about the last five years, asking them to take some action and to train their officers not to arrest women who are themselves victims.

Obviously it can be difficult for police officers to arrive on a scene and there's a lot of emotion and stuff going on, but what we're seeing in the results is a lot of women being arrested and a lot of aboriginal women being arrested. So we've asked the RCMP if we can look at the training that happens to new recruits in Regina, and that hasn't been made available to us. Hon. Anita Neville : Can I interrupt you for a moment? Ms. Tracy Porteous: Please. Hon. Anita Neville: I asked a question this morning at the site visit we were at. I'm concerned about the number of women in jail.

The number of aboriginal women who are in jail, as you are undoubtedly aware, are disproportionate to the population numbers. The question I asked this morning, and I don't know whether you can answer it, is do you have any numbers or figures on numbers of women who are in jail because they responded to violence--personal, systemic, however you want to describe it? I don't want to divert you from the other answers either.

(1210) Ms. Tracy Porteous : If I may say one more thing in terms of what you can do, concrete recommendations from the perspective of justice and federal jurisdiction, restorative justice is a modality that a lot of justice system people are using to try to resolve crime and bring it back to the community's hands. We don't believe that it's a safe resolution for women who experience violence. Hon. Anita Neville : You do not believe? Ms. Tracy Porteous : We do not believe.

There are potential uses for restorative justice if it's done correctly, but there are federal programs that are supported by the Department of the Solicitor General federally that.... I think that action needs to be taken immediately to look at whether there are standards and screening guidelines and other protections in place to ensure that women who have been victims of violence aren't revictimized in the process. We could probably spend a lot more time talking about restorative justice. I won't say more about that today, but if you want to follow up with me at any point.... Hon. Anita Neville : I may well.

Asia, can you respond a little? Ms. Asia Czapska : Thank you. On the numbers, as far as women who are in jail for responding to violence against them, I think the Elizabeth Fry Society nationally used to have those numbers. I don't know how updated they are now, but they used to have those, for sure. If we're talking federally, then we're missing bodies of accountability. We are missing any kind of accountability in a lot of ways for the RCMP, for example. We need independent police oversight. That's one of the basic things.

We need a body that is not police that will investigate violence by police, or misconduct or mishandling of cases, of investigations. We also need an independent body that enforces the UN recommendations to Canada. We know that the CEDAW committee at the UN has made all kinds of recommendations for the status of aboriginal girls and women in Canada, the violence against aboriginal girls and women, and there is no federal body that is responsible for making those recommendations real.

There needs to be some kind of enforcement, basically, at different levels for the recommendations that, as Marilyn and Tracy have said, have already been made for so many years. There needs to be some kind of body that enforces those recommendations. For sure, there needs to be a department or a

section of a department that enforces UN recommendations. As we have said before, the federal government needs to listen to the Native Women's Association of Canada. And more than listening, they need to take direction from the Native Women's Association of Canada at this point. Also, I know it's provincial, but they need to go to the provincial and territorial aboriginal women's groups. As far as criminalization, the same is true for aboriginal girls. Aboriginal girls are 40% to 50% of the girls in the prisons in B.C.

When we used to do visits to girls in the prison in Burnaby, there would be times when every girl in the room was aboriginal when we were doing outreach. The way we view it, obviously we'd like girls not to be criminalized at all. A lot of the times young women are in jail to protect them from violence. If they're going to the downtown east side, for example, they'll have a condition: “Do not go into the downtown east side, because that's where they use drugs.” The police and the social workers think they're protecting them, but instead they're jailing those girls for their own protection, really, supposedly.

Thank you. The Chair : Thank you very much. We've finished that round. Now I will go to Madame Demers, from the Bloc Québécois.

[ Translation ] Ms. Nicole Demers (Laval, BQ) : Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon. Like my colleague Anita, I am horrified. Why is it that we don't hear about these horror stories down east? Why do we speak out against the situation of women in Afghanistan and Iran and demand that their rights be respected, but we pipe down when it comes to the situation of first nations women? Our voices should be even louder. What can we do? Why is it that cases like that involving Judge Ramsay are not making headlines?

Could you explain to me what needs to be done so that these cases get the appropriate attention in the media? I would like these stories to be on page one. I want to talk about theses stories, I want to shout them out. I want women everywhere to deplore this situation out loud. It is disgraceful to leave things as they are. The fact that the police and the judicial system have not gotten involved is scandalous. How did we get to this? Could you explain that to me? Is it because of ignorance or simply because we do not care, since we don't think that aboriginal women deserve better?

Is that the reality we must face? If it is, what is going to happen? We are touring the provinces, and people are sharing things with us. Afterwards, we will return to Ottawa to tell a nice little story and put it on a shelf. But out here, the same things will keep happening to you. Marilyn, you said that the time for talking has passed and that now is the time for action. I agree with you. As I have been saying from the beginning, the objective of this tour is not to make decisions and establish positions for you once we are back in Ottawa.

We would like you to give us the tools we need to enable you to establish your own position. Currently, we are trying very hard to do things properly. Please, help us. As a woman, I am angry and hurt. Could one of you three answer? (1215) [ English ] Ms. Marilyn George : Forgive me, but it's a very emotional topic. I don't have an answer as to why this hasn't been heard. But now is the time, which is why I sit here as a first nation woman, to be a voice for all of my sisters that the violence has to stop. I have heard that this exists back east too. I've read reports. It's always done in secret.

It's kind of like, “We can't put this on record. We can't speak about this. It's for your eyes only to see.” This was just over a couple of years ago that I read this, and I asked myself, “Why? Why can't it be voiced out there?” So I sit here in hope that our voice will be heard loud and clear as first nation women. I speak for my daughter, my cousins. I speak for those I've lost in my past due to suicide because of domestic violence and other assaults that have happened to many of our women in our communities. There are no easy answers right now, but I know that this action has to be taken now.

Change has to happen. This stuff should not be happening in our communities in this day and age. Making those connections outside of first nations communities, making those connections with the RCMP detachment to make better relationships--that also has to be done with women. We need women speaking to women. We need aboriginal women speaking to each other. We need education for our women on what domestic violence is, and sexual assault--everything. I grew up with violence around me, thinking that it was just a normal thing. But when I became a woman myself, I realized that it was not normal.

So I want this to stop. Thank you.

(1220) The Chair : We have about a minute left. Does anyone want to add something to that? Asia. Ms. Asia Czapska : Maybe this is more of a question or a thought for women in Parliament, but what do you need to be able to act? It feels like there are so many recommendations, but I would ask you, what will make government act? What are the barriers that are in your way or in the way of taking on some of these things? [ Translation ] Ms. Nicole Demers : I think that we need to break the silence. We need to put an end to it. You must give us all the information you have gathered, so that it can be published.

Social networks that exist today can help disseminate that information. People need to know the identity of the men involved and what they are doing to young women and girls. Canadians have the right to know these things. What do you think, Tracy? [ English ] The Chair : I'm sorry, we're out of time. Now we have Ms. Nina Grewal for the Conservatives. Nina, you have seven minutes, as does everyone else. Mrs. Nina Grewal (Fleetwood—Port Kells, CPC) : Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to thank the witnesses for appearing today in front of our committee and for sharing their insights. My heart goes out to you.

These are very heart-rending stories. Currently we're looking into violence against aboriginal women, and it does seem we also could be looking at violence against immigrant communities. Unfortunately, these are very complicated problems that we are facing these days. I understand that part of the problem we have in dealing with this is a lack of national data. Do you agree with that in terms of violence against women? Is there any way we could be helping law enforcement agencies with the data or something like that? Do you have any thoughts on that? Ms.

Tracy Porteous : We actually are experiencing a problem with data collection here in B.C. I don't know if that's an issue across the rest of the country. We have been told that B.C. police have only about a 30% compliance rate in providing statistics to Statistics Canada in terms of crimes committed...in cases as they proceed through the system. B.C. is a little bit different, because the police investigate and the crown lays the charge. Police don't have control over the crown laying the charge, so there's some kind of complication that happens here.

Also, the police have just switched over to a new investigative system that also collects data. It's called PRIME. As far as we can tell, it's very difficult to pull numbers from that, and it should be easy. The Vancouver police have found a way of changing some of the technical foundations of PRIME to allow them to use it for statistical gathering purposes so they can submit that. I mean, we can't really develop proper social policy unless we know if the things we put in place are working or not.

When we have gone forward and asked for information from crowns, from police, and from police services here in the province, we have been told that the information is not available. It's mind-boggling to us that we can have our criminal justice branch say they're sorry, but they can't tell us the difference between how cases of violence against women proceed through the courts now as compared to before they changed their policy, because the data from before they changed their policy is all gone.

Now, I appreciate that it's a provincial issue, but on the federal perspective, I think a lot of oversight and accountability can be brought to the RCMP by asking them to account to a committee or an office. We don't have a national office responsible for violence against women overall or violence against aboriginal women. I agree with what's been said about the need to support the Native Women's Association of Canada and the work they're doing, but I think a lot can be done immediately by asking for accountability from the RCMP.

For example, just recently I asked them for numbers of women being arrested here in the province of B.C., just for the first six months of 2010. I was staggered by the numbers. It would be interesting to ask for those numbers across the country, because I think this is one big difference that can be made. If you arrest a woman who has been a victim of violence for the last 15 years, she'll never call the police again. She'll never reach out, so as she goes forward, her life and her children's lives are at much greater risk if the police make a mistake the first time she reaches out or somebody calls the police.

So a huge difference you could make immediately is looking to the RCMP to be more accountable.

(1225) Mrs. Nina Grewal : Do you have any thoughts on what the main root cause is of all of this, of what's happening? These are really heart-wrenching stories. Do you have any thoughts on what the main root cause is of all of this? Ms. Tracy Porteous : It's a good question. Ms. Asia Czapska : Something we've all talked about is probably the immense impact of colonial repression. I think if you look at the situation of indigenous girls and women in Australia, you'll see very similar situations. You'll see the over-criminalization. You'll see a majority of women and girls in prisons being indigenous.

You'll see a staggering amount of violence. You'll see police failure. I think some of the things we've spoken about.... But on your first question, I know that the Native Women's Association of Canada will speak to you about data and data collection, if they haven't already, and what's happening with Sisters in Spirit. Obviously, they need to be supported to continue to collect data on missing and murdered women and girls. More specifically, as far as statistics go in the RCMP, let's say, it's very hard to get numbers.

For example, people think that there are laws against sexual exploitation in Canada and that those laws are enforced, and that's just not true. When it comes to men buying girls and boys for sexual exploitation, those men are not prosecuted very often, and they're not even charged very often. It's very hard for us to get those numbers on how many men are charged because, for example, sexual exploitation is not separated specifically. That

section of the Criminal Code, subsection 212(4), is not separately segregated by the police. It's just put by the police into “sexual assault--other” or “sexual offences--other”, so we actually can't even tell you how many men are charged with sexually exploiting children and youth in Canada right now. That number would be very useful for us, to be able to say, well, you know, it's ten men per province, and one or two are found guilty every year.... Mrs. Nina Grewal : Madam Chair, do I have some more time left? The Chair : I'm sorry, Nina, we just ran out. Now it's Ms. Davies for the NDP. Ms.

Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP) : Thank you. First of all, thank you very much for coming today. I know it's hard to have a discussion and answer these huge questions when you have seven minutes or ten minutes, but hopefully we can have some discussion. Based on what you've said, I wanted to get at the idea that the lack of information is an issue.

I know that when Hedy and I were on another committee looking at the issue of the sex trade as it pertained to adults and not children, it was very difficult for us to even get information about what was going on in terms of the sex trade, who was being arrested for what, what violence there was, and how that was being reported. So I do think that's an issue, and I do agree that better information-gathering systems are really important. I think what's underlying this--and Madam Demers asked this big question--is that we're in this culture of denial.

When I think about a culture of denial, it is not so much from a community point of view, because I do think there is a lot of information out there. The cases you've spoken about were very explosive cases that hit the media for days if not weeks, but then they disappeared. So the culture of denial is more among police or different ministries or governments themselves. I know back in 1999 when I first started raising the missing women issue in Ottawa, I met with the Minister of Justice, who is a very decent guy, and he actually didn't know about the missing women, the biggest case in Canada.

So that's in response to your question about why it didn't hit back east or somewhere. I do think this issue of denial is a huge part of what we're dealing with here. I just wonder, to throw that out there, how we deal with that. How do we get past these individual situations, whether we're talking about the Pickton trial...and then everything just goes back to what it was? To me it's very much about this being a systemic issue and trying to focus attention on that.

I just want to give you some opportunity to respond to the idea of how we draw attention to these systemic issues so we can get out of this culture of denial.

(1230) Ms. Tracy Porteous : I very much appreciate the question, and I think we also need to proceed with great caution. What I've heard from my friend Marilyn and other aboriginal women is that you can't just go into a community and start talking about violence and then leave. Expecting women to speak up and disclose what's happened to them can actually create a dangerous situation for them.

My friend Marilyn recommended to you that one thing she thought was important would be services run for aboriginal women by aboriginal women in every aboriginal community in the province--or, from your perspective, in the country. I think we need to think very carefully about putting some of those supports in place before we expect women to talk, because there needs to be some level of safety and some oversight in a community, some safe place, some initiative where there's support and building and communities.

One of the federal initiatives that's going on right now, which I very much support, is the building of community safety plans in aboriginal communities. In addition, it's not just about building a plan or a protocol. There has to be some support in an ongoing way. There has to be some advocacy. I just want to echo what Marilyn has suggested to you, because more than anything else, if you could embed advocates for women by women in communities, I think that would go a huge long way to helping women find their voice.

I think in the mainstream non-aboriginal communities that's probably how non-aboriginal women found their voice: through the proliferation of anti-violence services, of feminist voices in communities throughout the province. Now, obviously that hasn't ended violence, and every community isn't the same in terms of having these services, but one of the things we've been saying to the Province of B.C., because they fund these provincial services, is that they need to fund services in aboriginal communities for aboriginal women. They have funded a few, but not nearly enough.

We believe very strongly in the recommendation by Marilyn that doing that would make a huge difference in terms of opening up the denial but at the same time doing so in a way that's safe for women.

(1235) Ms. Asia Czapska : If I can take a moment, I'll say that I'm completely and strongly in agreement with that, and ditto--the same--for girls and for aboriginal girls: there need to be specific advocates for young women, for aboriginal young women. As far as denial goes, I think one thing would help.

Sometimes we write reports to the United Nations about this situation of homeless girls in Canada--about how there is homelessness of girls in Canada--and one of the things that happens is that when Canada goes before the UN, it prepares reports, as you know, for different covenant committees, and I think there's a lot of denial in those reports. One of the first things would be.... Some countries, when they're preparing reports to the United Nations, approach preparing those reports by saying, “These are our challenges, this is where we have problems, and we have not done this and this”.

They say, “Women and girls are not succeeding in these areas and this is what we're going to do about it”. When Canada goes to those UN committees and reports, I think it hides as much as it can and denies as much as it can about what is happening. Those reports are not very useful. I think one of the things would be that those departments that prepare those reports need to start being honest about what's going on in Canada.

They need to start looking at those UN consultations or presentations before different committees as moments to actually work on recommendations, rather than just to defend how amazingly forward Canada is on human rights. I think they need to actually say, “Okay, we have problems, and this is where we need to work on those things”. And once again, a body of accountability would be useful. The Chair : Thank you. That's it. I want to thank the committee. We don't have time for a second round.

We have had to have very short panels because we've had so many people who want to present that we've had to cut our panels to size. Therefore, we have one round at this panel. I want to thank Tracy, Marilyn, and Asia for coming. I know that it has taken a lot of time, Marilyn. Thank you for being brave enough to share with us your pain. I think we will suspend now until we get to the next round and the next panel. We'll suspend for two minutes.

(1240) The Chair : I'd like to call this session to order. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Standing Committee on the Status of Women is studying violence against aboriginal women, and we are travelling across Canada to do so.

There was a motion that was adopted unanimously by the committee to study this issue and to travel across the country and meet with aboriginal communities and other groups that are involved in the issue so that they could tell us about the extent of violence against aboriginal women, the types of violence, the root causes of that violence, and of course the solutions to what is an ongoing problem. Obviously, despite their best efforts, governments in the past, it seems, have not been able to deal with the situation.

So we need to be able to get from you a lot of information and concrete solutions so that when we write our report we will be able to at least, as some people have told us, stop studying the issue to death and get on with finding solutions. Normally, as you know, these are public meetings, so they are being taped. There can be media here. Media are allowed to come in. I just want to point out that representatives of the consulate general of the United States are here as observers. They're very interested in the issue, and they're in the audience today listening.

I also want to welcome them here to listen to the issue. Today we have representatives of Battered Women's Support Services, Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter, Women Against Violence Against Women, and the YWCA of Vancouver. Normally we give you five minutes each to present. I'll give you two-minute and one-minute indicators so that you know you'll have to start wrapping it up.

You don't have to say everything in your presentation, because there will be, hopefully, a couple of rounds of questions in which you'll be able to flesh out some of the other things you want to say and actually be specific about them. I'm going to begin with Battered Women's Support Services, from which we have Lisa Yellow-Quill, co-manager of the aboriginal women's program. Lisa, you have five minutes.

(1245) Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill (Co-manager, Aboriginal Women's Program, Battered Women's Support Services) : I timed this, and it's actually six minutes. Is that okay? The Chair : We'll try to get you six minutes. We can play with that. We're not rigid, but we don't want to go to seven or eight or nine. Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : Hello. They call me Blue Thunderbird Woman, Strong Medicine Woman Standing. Nekaway , with Cree, Dakota, and Anishinabe blood— The Chair : Excuse me, Lisa. Can you just make sure that you have the microphone positioned so that we can hear you? Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : Is that good?

Everybody can hear me? As I was saying, my name's Blue Thunderbird Woman, Strong Medicine Woman Standing, from Long Plains, Manitoba, Pizhew Dodem . My colonial name is Lisa Yellow-Quill, and I'm the aboriginal women's program co-manager for Battered Women's Support Services. Battered Women's Support Services is a feminist non-profit organization that employs women from around the world, reflecting our values of balance, inclusivity, and wholeness. We have been in existence for 32 years providing education, advocacy, and support services, including system advocacy and law reform to women experiencing violence.

Our priority is to end violence against women. I'll be speaking to the root causes of violence against women, which have resulted in more than 500 murdered and missing aboriginal women across Turtle Island, together with the need for social and political accountability for the healing of women, their families, and their communities. This oration is a concerted position Battered Women's Support Services has taken to stand with our sisters who speak today and who have spoken before us across the provinces. Our position is strict.

We believe inaction maintains the status quo of violence against women, so we want action. I'm sorry, I'm a little dry now. The Chair : Relax, Lisa, that's okay. You don't have to rush. Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : I asked Creator and the grandmothers to come to speak through me so that these words I speak would be felt to the core of your being and reverberate to the cores of those once in authority to take seriously the issue of violence against aboriginal women.

We at Battered Women's Support Services acknowledge that we are on unceded territory, Coast Salish territory, and we ask the grandmothers to bless the work we're doing today with the courage, the clarity, and the words that will lead to actions to end violence against aboriginal women. We know that continued state research on aboriginal women without action is further causing violence in our lives.

We further acknowledge that by participating in this research initiative delivered by Status of Women Canada, we could possibly be implicated as co-conspirators or perpetrators in the ongoing objectification and co-optation of aboriginal women and their experiences for financial gain and political masturbation if this research results in mere band-aid solutions. We know that continued research initiatives without action are also false promises.

There is a wealth of research material from government and academia to grassroots front-line workers that has provided documentation naming the root causes and various forms of violence against aboriginal women. There are imperialism, patriarchy, colonization, and now globalization.

In Vancouver, women demonstrate the enormity of this issue by raising consciousness via the Battered Women's Support Services' initiative, “The Violence Stops Here” campaign, which is training developed to invite men's accountability in ending violence against women, the Walk4Justice, the downtown east side smudge ceremony, and the February 14 Women's Memorial March, which promote individual and community healing, to name a few. At a national level, in 1996 there was the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, which gave a whole account in volumes of root causes resulting in violence against aboriginal women.

The report by Amnesty International called “Stolen Sisters:...Discrimination and Violence Against Indigenous Women in Canada” is another. In Black Eyes All of the Time Anne McGillivray and Brenda Comaskey address root causes and provide recommendations in a clear and concise way on issues of intimate violence, aboriginal women, and the justice system. As a result, we know the Canadian state is familiar with the issues relating to violence against aboriginal women and, as it is, the patriarchal state that initiates, maintains, and perpetuates.... I need a glass of water. I can't even drink my water.

(1250) The Chair : Relax, Lisa. You're among friends. Nobody's judging you. Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : Yes, but we don't usually get to talk. The Chair : Well, then, take your time. Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : I can't even drink my water. The Chair : Would you like some coffee? Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : No. The Chair : Would you like us to come back to you? Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : No. I want to finish. The Chair : Okay. That's good. All right? Ms.

Lisa Yellow-Quill : Resultantly, we know the Canadian state is familiar with the issues relating to violence against aboriginal women, as it is the patriarchal state that initiates, maintains, and perpetuates the objectification, stratification, normalization, racialization, invisibilization, sexualization, marginalization, criminalization, institutionalization, hospitalization, and colonization that in the end may result in the cremation of our women in this country because they are so badly beaten by society.

To us, it is overtly exemplified in the Eurocentric feeling of land entitlement as demonstrated by the public and private spheres of economic and political entities. I am speaking to the rape of our Mother Earth. Our main concerns at this point are the issues of paternalistic racism inherent in the socio-political institutions and legislation, the lack of education and resources for urban and rural aboriginal women, and gaps in the justice system, together with jurisdictional barriers. So for our action items, we want action because women make up 50% of the Canadian population.

We want the “Ministry of Women and Equality” reinstated in British Columbia and in place in all provinces across Canada. For the record, there is no longer any ministry that has “women” in its name. We want action. We want women named on every agenda and their voices included in all the planning and decision-making processes of Canada and its provinces. We want action. We are asking for socio-political attitudinal change. We want action. We want the focus of women's experience of violence placed on the perpetrator, not the women. Too often women are blamed and pathologized for the violence they experience.

We want action. We want structural change in governments, law enforcement, and other institutions that maintain the status quo of gender inequality. We want action. Battered Women's Support Services calls for anti-violence services rooted in historical understandings of colonial violence and informed by aboriginal women. We want action.

We support the Native Women's Association of Canada's call for a reduction of violence; a reduction of poverty; a reduction of homelessness and access to housing; improved access to justice; the 2006 Highway of Tears Symposium's call for victim prevention; community development and support; emergency planning and response; and victim, family, and counselling support. I'm almost done. Status of Women Canada and the House of Commons have been relatively silent, notwithstanding this meeting.

Violence against women has to be a national priority in ending violence on every level of society, with all institutions mobilizing efforts that are on the ground right now. We have been doing this support without support. Finally, I will repeat the words of Chief Robert Pasco from Merritt, British Columbia. He says, “Whatever the words of your final report and recommendations may be, they will mean little if they are not met with the political will, the knowledge and the ability to achieve their intent”. Furthermore, in the

section on “How to Begin”, in the highlights taken from the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, it is said: Change of this magnitude cannot be achieved by piecemeal reform of existing programs and services--however helpful any one of these reforms might be. It will take

an act of national intention--a major, symbolic statement of intent, accompanied by the laws necessary to turn intention into action.

(1255) The Chair : Thank you very much, Lisa. Now I'll go to the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter. Hilla, you are speaking? Ms. Hilla Kerner (Collective Member, Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter) : Yes, I am. The Chair: All right. Good stuff. Ms. Hilla Kerner: I'm here on behalf of the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter and on behalf of CASAC, the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres. I trust that if you don't understand my accent, you will stop me and ask me to repeat. The Chair : Yes, but I think we understand you, Hilla, very easily. Ms.

Hilla Kerner : I think two months ago I was at a hearing on legal aid, and I was completely misunderstood in the first five minutes. We appreciate the committee's decision to invite women's groups to speak about violence against aboriginal women and about our struggle to end it and achieve liberty and freedom for all women. Surely in this room we can agree that although women in Canada formally have equal rights, in reality women in Canada, and aboriginal women in particular, do not have equality in their political, economic, and domestic lives.

Aboriginal women do not have representational power in the living political institutions in the democracy of Canada: the federal Parliament, the government, and the Supreme Court. Therefore, independent aboriginal women's groups have a crucial role to play in bringing the voice, the experience, and the wisdom of aboriginal women to the political decision-making arena.

We are calling on the Government of Canada to provide appropriate funding--with no strings attached, with no demands, with no conditions--to the only national aboriginal women's group in Canada, NWAC, the Native Women's Association of Canada; and to consult with NWAC regarding any issue that can affect aboriginal women in Canada. My second point is about policing male violence against women. We know from 35-- The Chair : Hilla, could you please lean into the microphone? It's because the people in the room may not be able to hear you as well as we can. Great stuff. Ms.

Hilla Kerner : We know from 35 years of front-line work that men attack women in their own race and down in the racist hierarchy, and that aboriginal women are vulnerable to violence both of aboriginal men in their homes and communities and of all men everywhere they go. The criminal justice system that is consistently failing to protect all women is especially indifferent to male violence against aboriginal women. Not only that, but cases of criminalizing aboriginal women for acting in self-defence against the attacking men are extremely high....

I want to encourage the members of the committee to find out how many cases of violence are reported to the police by women and compare them to the conviction rates. I assure you that you will be shocked to find out how small is the number of cases that are taken seriously by the police, that are fully investigated, and that are being brought before the courts in Canada. My third point is about the poverty of women and aboriginal women. It is a well-known fact that aboriginal women are the poorest women in Canada.

In the hearing about trafficking and sexual exploitation in front of this committee in 2006, many witnesses pointed out that aboriginal people are disproportionately affected by poverty in Canada. The committee heard that 40% of aboriginal women in Canada live in poverty. Poverty of women and violence against women are two powerful oppressive forces that feed each other. The Department of Justice Canada recognized poverty as a factor in increasing vulnerability to violence against women.

The Public Health Agency of Canada states, “Poverty limits choices and access to the means to protect and free oneself from violence”. Canada has been criticized by the United Nations for its shameful income assistance rates. Women return to or cannot leave abusive relationships because they are unable to adequately provide for themselves and their children on welfare. A crucial measure to prevent the vulnerability of women to men's violence is in providing economic security to aboriginal women and all women.

Our ongoing vision is a guaranteed livable income, but definitely a mid-term measurement is to just raise the welfare rates. They're completely unlivable. My next point is about aboriginal women and prostitution. One extreme expression of violence against women is prostitution. Later today, we'll hear from the Aboriginal Women's Action Network on their opposition to prostitution and the legalization of prostitution. We are calling on this committee to adopt the recommendation of the report of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women from 2007: “Turning Outrage Into Action”.

The report's recommendations are calling on the federal government to target the poverty of women, and the poverty of aboriginal women in particular, and to decriminalize the victims, the women, who are prostituted—they should not be criminalized for being victims of inequality and violence—but to criminalize the consumers, the men exploiting the women's vulnerability, the consumers of prostitution and the pimps. My last point is about aboriginal children in care. It's so short that I'm doing it an injustice, and I encourage the committee to invest the appropriate time to have hearings about this issue.

Less than 5% of the B.C. population is aboriginal, yet more than half of the children in care are aboriginal. According to the MCFD, in the last year there were 4,666 aboriginal children in care. The state uproots aboriginal children from their mothers, paying a fortune for foster care instead of investing this money in the mothers and offering them the economic security that enables them to get housing, food, and child care, which in turn enables them to take care of their children.

So basically my points are these: consult and fund NWAC; end poverty of aboriginal women and poverty of all women, because that's what makes them and us so vulnerable to violent men; end prostitution by targeting poverty on the one hand and criminalizing the buyer on the other hand; and force the police to follow the responsibility of the state to protect women by thorough investigation, by pursuing appropriate charges, and by bringing men to court to hold them accountable for violence against women.

(1300) The Chair : You have 30 seconds. Ms. Hilla Kerner : That is it. The Chair : All right. Now we'll go to Women Against Violence Against Women. Darla Laughlin. Ms. Darla Laughlin (Aboriginal Outreach Coordinator and Youth Counsellor, Women Against Violence Against Women) : Good afternoon. Thank you to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women and to the House of Commons for the invitation and request for Women Against Violence Against Women to take

part in this important work. My traditional name is Singing Thunderbird Child, Twice Standing Woman. I am a Cree Ojibway woman from Peepeekisis First Nation in Saskatchewan. My colonial name is Darla Laughlin. I am currently the aboriginal outreach coordinator and counsellor at the Women Against Violence Against Women rape crisis centre here in Vancouver. I am here, upon your request, to shed some light on the surmountable forms of violence that are perpetrated against aboriginal women and that we at WAVAW have witnessed.

Of course, working in the environment we do, we could speak about the horrific acts of physical, emotional, and mental abuse; about women who have been raped, sexually assaulted, and exploited. This would speak to the various types of violence we see working as front-line workers. As far as the extent goes, I think the papers speak for themselves. Aboriginal women are murdered, and very recently it seemed that no one noticed. So the “extent”, I would have to say, is death. I think the important question to be asked is how did we get to a place in society where aboriginal women are so undervalued?

What can we do to make change, and where do we go from here? Let me say that the most significant forms of violence witnessed thus far have, shamefully, come from the government itself in the form of patriarchy, racism, and sexism. The systemic oppression that aboriginals face is by far the greatest threat to their well-being. It has long been the norm for the Canadian government to impose institutionalized systems of oppression, colonialism, and political repression on aboriginal people, particularly our women. It is our view that unfortunately little has changed.

Currently you are all here to further study the violence that is perpetrated on aboriginal women. I would say that it is known what types of oppression and violence aboriginal women face. We have statistics. We now have government saying that aboriginal women have fallen through the cracks. My question is why do we need to study what we already know? We know that aboriginal women face marginalization, discrimination, racism, and sexism. We know that women are suffering from the effects of residential school and its legacy. Why, then, are women's organizations not being supported to help these women?

We have no money for training. We have no money for core funding. Cuts to women's programs continue to rise. I would like to say that the work completed recently to look into these systems of oppression did not go unnoticed. However, we have not seen any increase in funding for counselling or programming for aboriginal women who face violence. And yet here we are again, studying the issues of violence against aboriginal women. It is time for government to understand that without readily available long-term resources for women, the picture is not going to get any better.

Women must have the option for counselling, safe and affordable housing, and child care in order to truly heal from the effects of violence. Harm reduction is clearly not enough to assist women forward. It is time for real decolonization practices to be put into place for women to have the tools necessary to be successful in overcoming the effects of violence. Another key factor in the healing of aboriginal women is to recognize the need for true traditional ways of being. Government has a responsibility to recognize traditional healing in the work they do with women to help disintegrate the barriers of mistrust.

Women have an inherent right to seek traditional healers to assist in their process, and we, as change-makers, have the responsibility to assist women to be able to find these ways of healing or to bring these traditional values to our places of work. This is not sufficiently being supported by the government at present. We also bear witness to the dangers women face who are involved in or trying to exit the so-called sex trade. These women are given minimum support, while johns are supported with programming such as john schools.

Women deserve to have available more than harm reduction tools, such as condoms and safe injection sites, to provide help.

(1305) Laws must be changed and perpetrators should be held accountable and charged to the fullest extent of the law. Canada needs to understand that this is a despicable action that allows women who are the most vulnerable to be bought and sold while living in fear and under threat of death. Long-term and sustainable life-skills-building programming and counselling are needed to address the issues of women who are sexually exploited. Government needs to understand that sexual exploitation of aboriginal women is not a trade.

Finally, I would like to say that the Ministry of Children and Family Development has scooped and continues to scoop aboriginal children from their families. This is a direct result of the lack of sustainable support from the ministries for housing and social development. Marginalized women--aboriginal women--are expected to pay rent and bills and feed families on moneys that do not meet expectations and are lower than the poverty line. These two ministries continue to work separately and continue to support the breakdown of aboriginal women and their children.

This directly forces women into places of despair, homelessness, and, sadly, the sex trade. What can be more violent or oppressive? Currently we know that the world view of Canada is rapidly changing in regard to the way Canada portrays its values and the truth behind the non-support of aboriginal women. It is time for the government to step up and make real change for the safety of and quality of life for aboriginal women. The following statistics are taken from the 2005 report “Researched to Death: B.C. Aboriginal Women and Violence”, by the B.C. government and the B.C. Women's Hospital and Health Centre.

Aboriginal women are 3.5 times more likely than non-aboriginal women to be victims of violence. Approximately 75% of survivors of sexual assault in aboriginal communities are young women under 18 years of age. Approximately 50% of these girls are under the age of 14, and approximately 25% are under the age of 7. Canadian aboriginal women between the ages of 25 and 44 are five times more likely than other Canadian women in the same age group to die as a result of violence. This study was conducted in 2005.

Since 2006, the Harper government has cancelled funding for universal day care programs and has cut funding for women's groups and organizations' front-line work and violence work for women's and aboriginal women's issues. With these statistics alone, it is clear: funding is needed for programs and programming for aboriginal women who face violence. Thank you for the opportunity to share our knowledge. We appreciate your time.

(1310) The Chair : Thank you, Darla. Now we have the YWCA of Vancouver. Nancy Cameron. Ms. Nancy Cameron (Program Manager, Crabtree Corner Community Program, YWCA of Vancouver) : Thank you. I want to thank the women who have spoken. I don't want to repeat a lot of what they've said. I just want to say that I have worked in the field of women and violence for almost my entire career, which has been about 30 years, if not longer. I've come to other committees such as this to speak around issues of women and violence. Unfortunately, over the years not much has changed. If anything, it's probably gotten worse.

I think the longstanding facts, statistics, and information that have been spoken about already, and that most of us know at this table still exist...and now in particular the issues of aboriginal women and violence are more of a concern. I work for the YWCA Crabtree Corner, which is a women and family program located in the downtown east side of Vancouver. Abuse is interwoven into about 99% of the women who come to Crabtree, and of our clients at Crabtree, I'd say about 70% are aboriginal women. I want to speak particularly about what we see.

I think the other women who have spoken have covered very well the issues of why abuse is so prevalent within the aboriginal women's community. I mean, it's prevalent anyway, and what we see at Crabtree are the things that have been spoken about here--issues of oppression. Poverty seems to drive almost all of it.

It's very difficult for a woman to leave an abusive relationship when there are issues of housing, when she's living on social assistance--which has been mentioned, that it's not enough money to support someone, let alone children--when there's a lack of resources; I think there's only one treatment facility in the lower mainland where a woman can go with her child to deal with issues of addiction. So there are many reasons why women will remain silent. It was also addressed that when the police come to a woman's home when there's been a call around violence, an alarming thing is happening.

When the police are called around issues of domestic violence, the ministry comes and children are taken. That almost makes the woman victimized again. She's told that if she wants to keep her children, she has to get this man out of the house. We know statistically, and research shows, that that just isn't going to happen, that it takes a woman several times to leave an abusive relationship, and certainly not on the spot. So we have been working with an increased number of aboriginal families headed by women where the children are being removed because there are issues of violence in the home.

Of course, this silences the woman; this creates an enormous barrier for her to be reporting abuse, and she's just not likely to do that. It also increases an already existing distrust of the police and the legal system. I mentioned, and other women have mentioned, the issue of poverty, the stereotyping of aboriginal women that is very prevalent. I see that in my work, in the people who come to do research in the building, and in the community where I work, this sense that aboriginal women, and the judgments that are placed on them...approaching them as almost invisible people within our society.

I see that exemplified over and over and over again, and, as has been mentioned here, within the sex trade, within the judicial system, and within the Ministry of Children and Family Development. I also see the toll it takes on front-line workers. As I said, I've been doing this for 30 years, and I see how difficult this work gets to be and how hard it is for front-line workers to be doing this work when they're up against a lack of funds.

(1315) At Crabtree we've only had our violence prevention worker's position for one year, and it took a long time to get the funding for that, and that came from a private donor. So it's very difficult, even in this day and age, to convince those in positions of authority to be funding this kind of work. The other thing is the lack of resources. When a woman does come and she is in a situation where there is abuse, the lack of resources, of places to refer her or her children or ways to keep the family together....

I think the inconsistencies between the judicial system and the government about just what constitutes abuse, how to work with abuse, sometimes make our work quite difficult as well. The Chair : Thank you, Nancy. Now we're going to go to the question and answer part. This will allow you to expand on some of the things you have said. Each question and answer is seven minutes apiece, so if you want to get as many questions and answers, you're going to have to be as succinct as you possibly can. And I'm saying that not just to the witnesses, but to— Hon. Anita Neville : Me. The Chair : No, to the members.

Now, Anita. We're going to begin with Ms. Neville for the Liberals. Hon. Anita Neville : Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you to the four of you for coming here today. I have three particular questions that I want to ask you, and you can decide how you want to answer them. You are all service providers. My first question relates to funding, what advice you would have specifically for the federal government, your own funding challenges, because they're significant, and we've heard about it.

We've heard increasingly—and I don't know whether you were in here for the previous panel—about the challenges that aboriginal women have in working with government agencies, with the police, with the justice system. I'd like to know what roles your organizations take on in working with women as they work through some of their challenges with institutions, however you want to describe them. I think one of you, maybe two, mentioned Sisters in Spirit. You're all undoubtedly aware that Sisters in Spirit have not had their dollars renewed for the larger study into the missing and murdered aboriginal women.

I'd like to know your views on the role of Sisters in Spirit. I know my own thoughts, but I'd like to know what you think, in terms of the importance—or not—of Sisters in Spirit being able to continue the work they're doing. So there are three questions, and I don't know whether they're succinct, but if someone wants to have a go....

(1320) Ms. Hilla Kerner : I'll start with the funding challenge. There are two rape crisis centres in Vancouver, WAVAW and Vancouver Rape Relief, and Battered Women's Support Services offer, in spirit, similar services. None of us receive core funding at all for the rape crisis centres. WAVAW and BWSS receive some money for individual workers, but definitely not to the overall operation of women's services, and Rape Relief receives nothing.

So the political leadership of British Columbia does not think that rape crisis centres are worth existing for women victims of male violence and aboriginal victims of male violence. The only funding—and it's a political decision—comes for individual victims service workers, which completely dismantles the understanding of violence against women in relation to equality and the importance of women's services in changing the world and making it a better place for women. Thank you. The Chair : Darla. Ms. Darla Laughlin : I have to agree that the core funding issue is probably the most important.

I know that WAVAW has applied eight years consecutively to the Status of Women for funding and have been denied eight years consecutively. Literally, we're doing work off the side of our desks. The amount of need surpasses what we're able to offer. We need more workers. Hilla is absolutely right, the funding that we do have is not core funding. Our positions are funded individually through various funders. We don't have the sustainability, I guess you could say. We have to apply every single year for our funding, and we don't know whether or not that funding is going to be there year to year. Ms.

Hilla Kerner : Ironically, Status of Women— The Chair : Hilla, excuse me. Did either of the other two persons want to respond? Ms. Nancy Cameron : I'd like to respond. As I said, we have one position at Crabtree, and it took a long time to get the funding for that, even though all the staff are working on this issue. They may be funded to do something else--maybe work on FASD or something--but because this is so prevalent in the lives of our clients, they're all doing it. It's not only the moneys for the position; it's also that the staff themselves need support.

So it's money to provide that so they can keep doing this work, because they're at real risk of compassion fatigue--if they haven't already experienced it. I think we're losing key people in this field, key women in this field, because of that. I also think they need to keep it in order to continually be trained. Even to come to an event like this takes us away from our work and from a large number of clients we're not able to provide services for at this particular time. So definitely funding is an issue.

As I said, I've been working with funders for a very long time, talking about women and violence every which way there is to talk about it. I don't know what it takes to convince those who will fund us that we need the funding. I think it's been said every which way it can possibly be said. The Chair : Lisa. Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : What I know and understand about the funding for the organizations I work for is that we rely mostly on donations, on private funders.

We all have to scramble for the funding out there that is available for aboriginal programming around preventing violence, and that creates division in our system. That's what I'd say about that.

(1325) The Chair : You have about 30 seconds. Is there any one of you who would like to speak to the question on Sisters in Spirit that Ms. Neville asked? Ms. Hilla Kerner : I think there is consensus among women's groups all over Canada about the importance of the project. There was a breach of trust when the Minister for Status of Women allocated the money to the RCMP instead of giving it to NWAC. There is consensus all over the country among feminists and women's groups. The Chair : Darla, did you want to say something about that? Ms.

Darla Laughlin : I think there was a question put out there on how we can better assist women to approach institutions. I think one of the key responsibilities being missed here is that we need to understand that there isn't a very good track record, first of all. There needs to be some type of liaison work that is absolutely and completely clear about what the role of those institutions is when they see aboriginal women.

We have young aboriginal women who are single parents, who are really unable to speak to their social workers because they fear the worst, especially our teen moms who are constantly being diagnosed--misdiagnosed, I might add--with FAS and ADD and various mental illnesses. They might be suffering from the effects of the legacy of residential schools, and they are misdiagnosed as having mental illness and their children are removed. So I think having some sort of liaison in a traditional aboriginal values-based-- The Chair : So you're suggesting liaison workers of some kind? Thank you.

Now we go to Madam Demers from the Bloc Québécois. Merci . Welcome. Nicole, begin. [ Translation ] Ms. Nicole Demers : Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Ladies, thank you for joining us this afternoon. First, I would like to tell you that your document was very powerful, Lisa. At times, while you were reading it, I felt embarrassed. At other times, I felt very concerned, as, for instance, when you said that we talk a lot, but we do little. That's true. You are completely right. Darla, you said the same thing, and it's the truth. Why are we touring the country again?

Why are we asking questions about the living situation of aboriginal women when we are very familiar with it already? We know what kind of violence is committed against women. We wanted to go on this Canada-wide tour because we did not want only two or three groups to come to Ottawa to talk to us about the situation, and then to be told that those two or three important groups spoke on behalf of many aboriginal women, but did not represent all of them. We wanted to go on site, so that people like you, who represent smaller groups, could talk to us about the situation.

Having done this, we will be able to return to Ottawa and show that all these women testified and said that this is indeed the situation Canadian aboriginal women find themselves in. We wanted to make sure that it was not only the Native Women's Association of Canada, Femmes Autochtones du Québec and aboriginal leaders that described the situation to us. All aboriginal women have spoken to us about this situation and asked us to do something about it. Your voice is the most important one because it is the voice of all aboriginal women. That is why we are here today. Ms.

Cameron, you say that there have been no changes in the last 30 years. Why do you think that is? I also wanted to ask you whether you think that Canada's signing of the UN's Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and officially asking forgiveness for the events surrounding the Indian residential schools will change anything. We have not seen any changes over the last two years, and I am wondering why. (1330) [ English ] The Chair : Nancy. Ms. Nancy Cameron : I think there are many reasons why things have.... I wouldn't say entirely that they have not changed, but they have changed very little.

I still see an existing attitude towards women that has not changed, an attitude towards aboriginal women that has not changed, systemic beliefs about how to treat women that have not changed, and policies and practices that have not changed. There are many things. What I see is that there have been attempts to make those changes, and then other things happen that pull us back.

Because the numbers of women who are being abused are still enormous and unacceptable, because women continue to live in poverty--if not more poverty and more extensive poverty--because there are still difficulties in the justice system, and because there still are children being removed just because of systemic beliefs or oppression of women as I see.... I mean, some things have improved, yes. Back when I started doing this work 30 years ago, there were different views on child care, and there weren't as many transition houses. We have more shelters now. Maybe we have more treatment centres.

Maybe it's more common to have more women who have post-secondary education. Some of those things, though, still exist, and they exist in large numbers within the aboriginal community, and I think that absolutely has to improve, as the women have spoken to here. Even though those things are improving, there is still abuse of women. There still is.

Ms. Darla Laughlin : I'd just like to speak to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. One of the important things that's going to have to happen in order for that declaration to do aboriginal women any justice and to be helpful is that committees such as yours have to refer to it when you're speaking on our behalf, and you have to use that document. Although it's not a legal document, it should be. As an aboriginal woman, I think about the so-called apology we received.

Yes, we received an apology that many horrific things happened through the colonization process and the residential schools, but the reasons why were negated. No one said in that apology, “We did this because we wanted to steal your land.” That was negated. Those are the things that the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is going to bring forward. And until Canada airs its dirty laundry about what's really happening in this country, it's going to be very difficult. We're here to fight that fight and we're not going to go away.

We have young people who are coming right behind us who are going to continue this work. So I implore you to use that document for our women in a good way. Thank you. The Chair : Thank you, Darla. We have 30 seconds, if someone wants to make a quick.... Hilla. Ms. Hilla Kerner : Yes, I want to say that I don't have much hope.

I'm joining Darla's call, because the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, in November 2008, in an unprecedented step, called on Canada, within a year, to conduct a national public inquiry about the missing and murdered aboriginal women, and to raise the welfare rate. Nothing has happened. It's been almost two and a half years since then. Unless there is strong pressure from Parliament and members of the public, those UN convention calls are useless.

(1335) The Chair : Thank you, Hilla. That's it. Now we move on to Ms. Grewal for the Conservatives. Mrs. Nina Grewal : Thank you, Madam Chair. The funding issue came up, so I would just like to let you know that since 2007, through Status of Women Canada, the government has funded about 150 projects, totalling almost $28.7 million, for work to eliminate violence against women. We are also supporting prevention, providing shelters on reserves, and funding victim services. We want to ensure that the justice system meets the needs of aboriginal women and their families.

Are there any legal reforms, legislative changes, that you can recommend to this committee? Ms. Hilla Kerner : I'm sorry, I want to correct you. It's true that all the services-- The Chair : Hilla, I'm sorry. Have you finished with your question, Madam Grewal? Mrs. Nina Grewal : I have finished with my question. The Chair : All right. Just put your hand up if you want to speak, because I should really keep things flowing nicely so that one person doesn't answer all the questions. Hilla, go ahead. Ms. Hilla Kerner : I'm sorry. I come from a culture where you just speak.

It's true that all these services have been funded by Status of Women Canada, but in the last year Status of Women Canada refused and rejected all applications from women's groups and women's services who are for advocacy. It means there is no federal government funding for women's groups that want to advance the status of women or to advance women victims of male violence. Those services that have been implemented and funded cannot replace the work of women's groups seeking advocacy and equality. Ms.

Nancy Cameron : I'd just like to add that $28.7 million--if you look at the cost of running our programs--is a very small amount of money to be adequately supporting the staff in doing these programs. With that amount of money, it typically means that the woman herself is not going to be making a very high wage, and there wouldn't be many additional dollars for training or for resources that would go along with that kind of money. So even though it sounds like a large amount of money, when it's divided up, it isn't much money for the various programs. The Chair : Thank you, Nancy. Darla. Ms.

Darla Laughlin : I'd just like to say that I'm happy to hear that there is money coming forward for aboriginal women's programming. But I'd also like to add that both Vancouver Rape Relief and WAVAW, the only rape crisis centres in Vancouver, serving a very large population, have not received any funding. This is one of the major cities in Canada, so that speaks for itself, I think. The Chair : Thank you, Darla. Lisa. Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : About those moneys, did you say they were for on-reserve or off-reserve groups? Mrs. Nina Grewal : On-reserve. Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : So on-reserve; okay. There are many.

Mrs. Nina Grewal : I have one more question. We have been hearing about violence against aboriginal women for only a few years now. Previously the problem seemed to exist only in the background. Why is this the case? Why have we been hearing about this and talking about violence against aboriginal women for only almost half a dozen years now? The Chair : Lisa, and then Darla. Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : In terms of the $28 million or so that's been divvied up between over 500 bands across the nation, what I want to say is that those are the band-aid solutions that we don't want, right?

We're looking for structural change, attitudinal change, socio-political change. That's what we're hoping the moneys would be invested into, as well as the shelters on reserve and off reserve. Mrs. Nina Grewal : No, what I mean is that this problem has existed there for quite a long time. Why have we heard about this problem only for the past half a dozen years? This has been there for a long time. Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill: What problem? Mrs. Nina Grewal: The problem of violence against aboriginal women.

(1340) The Chair : Go ahead, Darla. Ms. Darla Laughlin : Well, there's been violence against aboriginal women in this country for 500 years. The reason behind why we are, I guess, only hearing about it.... I've heard about it my whole entire life, being an aboriginal woman, and my ancestors before me heard about it. I think there's been a huge blanket lifted off the eyes of some of our Canadian people. I think what needs to happen is that there needs to be mainstream education and curriculum in the high school education system that portrays a real portrait of colonization, the residential school and its legacy.

This legacy is going to go on. People are going to suffer from the legacy of the residential school for a very long time. Aboriginal women have been victims of violence for decades. This is not a new subject. Unfortunately, the media do not portray what's happening in our country. Most aboriginal issues are swept under the carpet. Most people don't hear about them. It's no secret that women were murdered and went missing in Vancouver, in this city where we sit right now, for decades. The police knew about it. People knew about it. Politicians knew about it.

But it wasn't until a non-aboriginal woman went missing that something was done about it. So once again, the responsibility rests within our government to take action and to let the citizens of this country know what's going on in this country with aboriginal people. The Chair : Thank you, Darla. We have 30 seconds left. I'll go to Hilla, and then I'll go back to Lisa. Ms. Hilla Kerner : I've been here five years. I cannot speak to why it was not an issue on the government agenda before that. It's just ongoing colonizing and indifference towards aboriginal women. It's just a symptom. Ms.

Lisa Yellow-Quill : You know, as far back as I remember.... I think I was born when Helen Betty Osborne went missing--the violence against an aboriginal woman in northern Manitoba. Then of course there was an inquiry as a result of it. So violence against aboriginal women isn't new. It's always been on the agenda. I think it's gotten louder as a result of aboriginals standing up. Prior to that, in terms of media attention and so forth, aboriginal peoples weren't getting that very much--unless you wanted to prove a stereotype--i.e., “Look how sick these people are. You think you've got it bad?

Check out this.” There were those kinds of things and attitudes, right? I just think that maybe the Conservative government is just now open to hearing about it, because violence against aboriginal women has always been on the agenda. It has always been very, very present. This is how—this is how —Canada was built. You had to oppress us. You had to kill us. The Chair : Thank you. Now we will move on to Ms. Davies for the NDP. Ms. Libby Davies : Thank you very much. First of all, to all of you, thank you for coming today. You're major organizations in our city, so the work you do is really important.

I'm very tempted to continue the discussion on the funding side because I think we could spend hours on that, on the lack of advocacy funding and the lack of core support, but I also want to switch gears just so we get as many sorts of responses and issues into the record as possible. But I did want to say that I really hear the sort of level of cynicism that there is, right? You know: another committee, another parliamentary hearing, and another report.... This goes on and on. I think that's partly our challenge. How do we deal with that?

I mean, we're all people who want to see change, and yet we're dealing with this culture of denial. We're dealing with these huge systemic issues that just go on, and it's about how you tackle that. I just wanted to put that out there. The question I have--because a number of you raised it--is about the relationship with law enforcement, because that is so important. It's not the only thing, but in every single group that I've ever talked with about violence against women, particularly aboriginal women, the police come up: how they respond, how they don't respond....

For sure, there are good individual officers out there. We've met them. There are individual people within those systems who are doing their very best. But there is a bigger issue about law enforcement, and we do have a couple of fairly senior RCMP officers speaking later, so we will have an opportunity to actually question them. There's a question I have for you, though. You guys are very active in Vancouver. What kind of official relationship do you have with the police?

Is there any sort of ongoing process whereby you can actually bring forward issues of an overall nature about how law enforcement is done to deal with this whole issue of women who are already victims being re-victimized, in effect, or being charged with whatever because they're poor, because they're sex workers, or whatever their situation? Is there any relationship you have?

Now, you're all in Vancouver, so I presume that mostly it would be with the Vancouver Police Department, and of course outside Vancouver it would be the RCMP, but it's just such an important element in what we're talking about, the relationship with law enforcement overall. I just wonder if (

a) you have any experience, and (

b) if you have any suggestions about what you want to see changed that we can focus on, pick up, put in the report, and make sure we follow up on.

(1345) The Chair : Lisa. Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : I wonder what the implications are of answering that question. Ms. Libby Davies : None, I hope. Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : Well, I don't know...I'm just a bit of a conspiracy theorist. Ms. Libby Davies : Say what you feel comfortable saying. I just want to give you an opportunity to say what you think needs to be done. Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : Battered Women's Support Services is a member of the Valentine's memorial march committee.

Members of the committee, other community members, and organizations have meetings with the VPD around those issues, questioning their structure, the police structure, the jurisdictional issues, and the continued and ongoing violence against women in the downtown east side and existing Vancouver areas. It's a slow process and it's new. They're trying to build trust with us, and I don't know...accountability. The Chair : Lisa, can you keep speaking into the microphone? When you turn aside, we don't hear you at all. Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : Okay. Do you have anything to say...? The Chair : Hilla? Ms.

Hilla Kerner : Libby, I want to encourage you to ask those officers who will be coming today, because on Friday the VPD had a big community meeting, and they tried to brag that only in the downtown east side there were 666 reported cases, and they showed what happens before they get before the courts. I believe only 50 cases were actually brought before a judge. So I don't know how they think it's going to be a positive spin on their work. The rate of dropout, before those complaints go before judges, is enormous.

First and foremost, how many women are complaining, and how many actually get justice in the criminal justice system? The second point is there is no civilian oversight of police, and it's crucial in a democracy. It's crucial for civilians to have an ability to oversee police work. The two police complaints commissioners have nothing in their reports about violence against women, although we know that women's groups and victims of male violence, including the Battered Women's Support Services and Rape Relief, are constantly filing complaints. They have no echo in the police complaints commissions.

We have great expectations from the Oppal commission. We're hoping it will bring many women's groups standing. I think the decision will be made next month. You have the framework agreement on women's equality, male violence against women, and state responsibilities, through the police, to protect women.

(1350) Ms. Libby Davies : Do any of your organizations have-- The Chair : I think Darla wanted to say something. Ms. Hilla Kerner : We don't have a formal relationship. We're not interested in that. Ms. Darla Laughlin : I'd just like to add that I think it really comes down to the responsibility of the policing forces to find out exactly what it is we do and how we do it. I think there needs to be more than just sensitivity training on a cultural value. There are some real losses in understanding throughout the judicial system as well, which are totally and completely cultural.

We have traditional youth who are bearing their banners and wearing their headbands in society, in Vancouver, who are being harassed as gang members. These are kids who were born into ceremony, who are using their headbands for ceremonial purposes. So the police are not even aware of those types of understandings, that knowledge. It's really important that there be a critical understanding of aboriginal people as distinct. I'm Cree and Ojibway, and I have no idea about the ways of Coast Salish people, as far as my own inherent rights go.

So understanding that every aboriginal women who is in the downtown east side, or anywhere in Canada, for that matter, is not going to have the same belief systems, or understandings, or ways of being is crucial. This is unceded aboriginal territory. The people who belong here have a right to be understood. That's not happening, and it is creating further violence. We have many instances. I run two youth groups, and out of those youth groups, 90% of our aboriginal youth females have been dog-bitten, by dogs from the RCMP and from the VPD.

I think there needs to be much more work done than just sensitivity training. I think it's the responsibility of the RCMP and the VPD to look for that training. The Chair : Thank you. That's the end of that round. We're going into a second round, and it's going to be a five-minute round. I would like to ask everyone to please work within the time. We've gone a minute over time on every one. The point is that we have other people waiting to come in to other panels. As we bump the panels later and later, it's not fair to the people who have been waiting.

So can I ask you, please--and I know the sensitivity of the issue, and I'm fully aware and understand the emotions behind it--to try to be as concise as you possibly can with your questions and answers. Thank you. Now we'll go to the second round. The second round is a five-minute round, as opposed to the last one, which was a seven-minute round. I will begin with Ms. Neville for the Liberals. Hon. Anita Neville : I just quickly want to ask something. Darla, you made a comment at the end that 90% have been dog-bitten. What does that mean? Ms. Darla Laughlin : I mean by police dogs. Hon. Anita Neville : Oh, okay.

Thank you. I have a comment and then a question. My colleague across the way asked why we haven't heard a lot about it. I would beg to differ. I think the issue has been very much on the table for a long period of time, and I would say that it's amazing that this is getting as much play at the moment, given the lack of funding for advocacy groups right now, and the fear, on the part of many organizations who are funded by the federal government, to speak out for fear of further retribution.

So I thank those of you who are here for being here, and I think this issue has been there at various levels for a long period of time. I want to ask you something that we haven't quite addressed here. In the late nineties there was an inquiry done by the Minister of Justice at the time. People were involved and met with aboriginal women and dealt with the issue of violence against aboriginal women. I was told by one wise woman who was very intimately involved in these discussions that the reality for many aboriginal women is that incest and violence in their homes is viewed as a norm of life.

You may choose to differ with that. My question to you is this. Is that still the experience that you have--or perhaps not at all--that aboriginal women have come, over the years, to accept violence and incest as how a family operates? If so, what do we do? And if not, good.

(1355) The Chair : Darla. Ms. Darla Laughlin : First of all, I'd like to just state that I don't think that incest and childhood sexual abuse is normal in any family, aboriginal or otherwise. Hon. Anita Neville : If I can interrupt you, Darla, it's not that I'm saying it's normal, but it is viewed by many to be the norm in their.... Ms. Darla Laughlin : Does this happen? Absolutely, it happens, and we know this is one of the prevalent pieces that was handed down to the aboriginal people of this country through the legacy of residential schools.

I think those are the things in that legacy that need to be addressed. Is there sexual assault that happens within aboriginal families? Absolutely, there is. Is it the norm? I don't know the stats for that, and I don't know how we would even begin to collect stats for that, with it being such a sensitive subject. However, I think these are the issues. As far as counselling, I can say that 95% of my clients have suffered from childhood sexual abuse due to the legacy of residential schools, and this is why we're here asking for assistance.

This legacy is so detrimental to an entire nation of people that I can't even describe how I feel about the need. Hon. Anita Neville : Thank you. The Chair : Lisa. Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : In response to the normalization of sexual abuse and other forms of violence that happen in our intimate family homes, I don't think it's.... Of course, that extends into our community and so forth.

I think the problem is that we talk around it being a normalization, but I think the mechanisms of denial within society, within that abusive relationship, within the families and so on--the denial and the oppression of the issue of that sexualized violence and sexual abuse--are the normalization. I don't think we walk around thinking it's normal. I think how we deny it becomes normal and how we talk about it becomes normal. When we talk about it being a normalized state, then it becomes normal, but it's not. The Chair : Thank you, Lisa. We are now past five minutes, so I'm going to go to Ms. Cadman. Ms.

Cadman for the Conservatives. Ms. Dona Cadman (Surrey North, CPC) : Thank you very much. I would like to know who is the main abuser of aboriginal women. Is it aboriginal men? Is it white men? Is it aboriginal women? Who? The Chair : Dona, have you finished? Ms. Dona Cadman : I think you also have to get over it a bit, in a way. Yes, you were wronged, very wronged. People have apologized. What more do you want? Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : A change in legislation, justice-- The Chair : I'm sorry, Lisa. I'll come to you in a minute. We have to let Dona finish. Ms. Dona Cadman : That's fine. Go ahead.

(1400) The Chair : Please put up your hand, because the person with the fastest voice gets in and we have to try to let everyone have an answer. I know we haven't heard from Leslie and Nancy for a long time. Lisa, go ahead, and then Darla.

Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : I apologize for my fast voice. We're not victims. We just know the truth. These systems are still in place. Canada still has legislation from way back still in place. We still live under the Indian Act, which dictates a lot of our lives. It dictates who is going to dictate in future generations. We live and function within those parameters. We're not victims. We're not victims of it. We exist, and we exist and we live within it. We live in poverty. We live in marginalization. We live to be able to sit here and talk about the issue. The issue is that Canada marginalizes aboriginal women.

Colonization is violence upon our mother, the earth, violence on all our nations, and violence on us. As I just said a little while ago, we had to.... The settlers at that time had to remove us from our positions in our communities in order for them to be able to step in. It was done in many ways. We're not victims. I just want you to know that when we talk about the Canadian government being the main perpetrator, it's not that we are standing here talking like we can't get over it.

Ms. Dona Cadman : Okay, yes, but every time a government changes, it's that government's fault; it's the next government's fault. So where are you starting from? Are you starting from the beginning, or are you blaming us now? The Chair : Darla. Ms. Darla Laughlin : First of all, what I'd like to say is that I haven't gotten over it yet because it's continuing on from government to government. What I'd like to see is some attitudinal change from people who tell me to just get over it. It's not over. There has not been change. People are not getting what they need in order to heal, and that's why we're here today.

We're here to talk about what it is that we as aboriginal women need. We need a government.... There have been many governments before you and before your government. We need a government that is willing to stand up and say enough is enough. We need a government to stand up and say it's not all right to sell aboriginal women and to see them missing and murdered. It's not all right for us to take their children away from them. It's not all right for us to continue running our government on the backs of their resources and not help. This is what we're here to do today.

We're not saying that we're blaming your government. We are blaming the governments in general of this country for not standing up before 2011 to take notice of a 500-year-old problem, for women who have been murdered and missing for over two decades, for families who are in the middle of a breakdown, for ministries who do not support women to live in a position where they're not forced into poverty, for the children of these women in rural communities.

We have reserves in this country that don't have schools for children, that don't have clean drinking water for their children to drink, for nursing mothers to drink. These are the issues we're talking about. This is what's important for this committee to understand. It is not okay to say get over it, because we're not over it. The Chair : Hilla. Ms. Hilla Kerner : Yes, I think men are committing violence against women. White men, men from all kinds of races, aboriginal men--they are killing, raping, and beating aboriginal women. But the government is colluding.

As long as the government is providing women with impoverishing welfare rates, it's handing women on a platter to abusive men. As long as the government is not demanding from the criminal justice system that it hold men accountable, that it stop the violence through thorough investigations and through convictions, it's colluding in male violence against women. We cannot remove the responsibility from each individual man who commits violence, or from the community for tolerating it, but the government plays a huge role by enabling it. The Chair : Thank you. Now I will go to Madame Demers.

Nicole. (1405) [ Translation ] Ms. Nicole Demers : Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I was wondering about something. Out of all the countries in the world where members of first nations live, is there one where they have succeeded in living together in harmony, in recognizing first nations and in granting them the status they deserve? Have your brothers and sisters in the United States succeeded in having their rights recognized? If so, how did they achieve that? Could we find inspiration in what has been done by other peoples, other nations, and do the same?

Do you have an answer to this question? [ English ] The Chair : Lisa. Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : No, I don't have an example. But we can be the first.

[ Translation ] Ms. Nicole Demers : Oui. [ English ] The Chair : Did anyone else want to tackle that? Hilla. Ms. Hilla Kerner : Of course, my country, Israel, is doing the same, through its occupation, to the Palestinian people. The problem is that the colonialist force still has the power, and there is no international accountability, because of the alliances between the strong, powerful countries, to stop it.

So it will only come from the people, from the elected people in a democracy, to force their nation to stop having their alliances--between Canada and Israel, between Canada and the United States--and to stop all forms of occupation and colonialism. The Chair : Darla. Ms. Darla Laughlin : I think we're in a place in the world right now where we're coming out of a place of oppression and colonization throughout the world. Although I think Lisa's absolutely right--Canada being first would really be something--I think we're a long way away from being in a nation that is healed from years of oppression.

But I think there is a really good opportunity at present for that work to really have a great start and a solid foundation as long as the people are listened to. [ Translation ] Ms. Nicole Demers : In Canada, women account for 52% of the population. Could we begin by convincing them that all women must stand together? Could we begin to build bridges? What do you think about this, Lisa? [ English ] The Chair : Go ahead, Nancy. Ms. Nancy Cameron : I think we have been doing that. We have been doing that. My grandmother did that. My grandmother was a close friend of Nellie McClung's.

I think we've been doing that for centuries, getting women to come together and build those bridges. We're still dealing with the issue of women and violence, or women and abuse. Again, I go back to the historical.... Your question earlier was about why that's still happening. And it still is. For me, anyway, it's not just.... Yes, women have been coming together. Grassroots organizations have been doing the work. Women around the world have been doing it.

But there has to be work done at other levels, at the government level, with education, with advocacy, with changes in policies--on all levels, from the ground up. [ Translation ] Ms. Nicole Demers : You would like there to be more women in positions of power, right? [ English ] Ms. Nancy Cameron : Yes, absolutely: more women in positions of power, more women who have more of a women's voice, and, for those women who are sitting in those positions, that the solidarity is there as well in terms of how they're viewing the issue and how they're looking systemically at how these issues came about. The Chair : Leslie.

(1410) Ms. Leslie Wilkin (Violence Prevention Worker, Crabtree Corner Community Program, YWCA of Vancouver) : This is the first time I'm speaking. I apologize for coming in late. In terms of women joining in solidarity to end violence, I was just going to add that when we talk about the issue of violence against aboriginal women, the leadership has to come from aboriginal women themselves. White women can join as allies and support that, but they cannot take over the movement and cannot take over the activism, because historically that has happened as well.

Diluting the aboriginal perspective and the needs that aboriginal women are putting forward is not productive to the goal of ending oppression and racism, so non-aboriginal women would stand in that solidarity but would not be the leaders of that advocacy. It's about sitting on panels like this and really deferring that expertise to the aboriginal women themselves and to what they would like to see happen. The Chair : Thank you. We now have to move on to Ms. Davies for the NDP. Ms. Libby Davies : Thank you.

Just briefly coming back to the question about an apology and what that means, I do think that probably we have an understanding about the systemic nature of violence. There are individual acts of violence, but I think we understand that it comes from a systemic base, so maybe we need to view an apology in that way as well. To verbalize an apology and to have a formal thing is very important, but it has to be ongoing. I think that's what you're saying to us today: that an apology has to be acted out in terms of the programs, the resources, the laws, the ways things are...to deal with the inequalities, right?

So it's also systemic. Really, the question I have, because we're coming to the end of this session, is this: how do you feel about the future? Are you at a point where you feel that although things are pretty bad, there is a greater awareness, and therefore you feel optimistic about what might happen, say, within the next decade, whatever governments we're dealing with, whether they're civic, provincial or federal? Or are you actually feeling that it's going to get worse? I'm just very curious to know what your own sense is. We're here and now; we understand the reality of what here and now is.

But how do you yourselves see what the future might be in terms of how it's tough but it's going to get better because there is greater awareness? Or is it that we're going to sink down still more and things are going to get worse before they get better? The Chair : Thank you. Darla. Ms. Darla Laughlin : Personally, I feel unsure about the future. Right now, with the apology...and I say that term loosely because to me an apology speaks to what happened and why, and no one told us why they did this. It wasn't spoken for, so I have a hard time with the apology, as do many aboriginal people I know.

However, with that apology comes reclamation, I guess you could say; there's supposed to be some kind of reconciliation happening. I wonder what that reconciliation is going to take; it took hundreds of years to get to the apology. So for me and in aboriginal circles everywhere I go, I think the question is, okay, we said we're sorry, here's 50 bucks, shut up now.... That's really the question. Is there going to be real sustainable programming that is going to heal the next seven generations of people who are coming...?

As we've spoken about, the abuses that are entrenched now in aboriginal families and that were placed there strategically are well ingrained. It's going to take a lot to undo...to decolonize the aboriginal people of this country. Decolonizing is a huge piece of work and we don't have nearly enough workers. We don't have enough funding.

What we're dealing with now isn't even a drop in the bucket compared to what we're going to need to heal the young people and their families, to create healthy relationships, and young people who are fighting systemic violence that has been passed down generation after generation.... It's a huge piece of work. So what do I see in the future? I guess that all depends on what all of you have to give and offer to the aboriginal people of this country and whether or not that commitment is true, is steadfast, and goes on for the long haul.

(1415) The Chair : Thank you. Lisa. Ms. Lisa Yellow-Quill : I have hope. I really believe in our people, aboriginal people, and I see them moving forward. I don't see us and don't want us to be these people living within programs, and program to program, sitting here at the table and asking for money all the time. That's not who we are. That shouldn't be. We weren't put here by the one who gives life to be asking for money from somebody else. We have hope. I see, with a lot of the work we've done at the grassroots level, at different levels, that there's some movement, but the issues, of course, are always there.

I always try to remember that the stronger we get the stronger the opposition gets too. So I keep that in mind, but I'm really hopeful, because I know that I'm going strong in this, in my indigeneity, in my feminist indigeneity, in this movement, and that's still alive. So, yes, I have hope. I'm very hopeful. The Chair : Thank you, Lisa. Now we have finished this round. I'm sorry, but that went to six minutes. We're doing five minutes, guys. I'm really trying to give leeway here, but I can't keep adding minutes all the time. I can see my next panel sitting out there, ready to come on.

Before we move to see if we can do a third round, which I doubt very much we can do.... I sometimes don't ask questions, because if I think the answers are being given, I don't necessarily intervene, but there was a lot said at this panel that I want to reflect on, and maybe more so than by asking a question. We've been across this country. If we've heard one thing over and over, we've heard that the root causes of violence stem originally from colonization. I heard Nicole asking if you can tell us of any country that's better.

Well, in 1997 when Canada--and I was the minister in charge at the time--took to the Santiago conference the issue of aboriginal people and their rights as peoples, not population demographics, there was a lot of pushback from Latin American countries that also are “new world countries” and therefore have been colonizing their people. We've seen Australia. We've visited. We've heard from New Zealand and from the Sami, etc. While I think there is a sense...and I believe you have spoken very movingly about the continuing systemic discrimination.

It is systemic, and therefore, apologies are fine and wonderful, I think, but if you don't have the system changing...and the institutions of the system have to change.

I have heard very moving testimony across this country that those systems have not changed, that the nice words aren't followed by respect, by empowerment, and by allowing us to move away from the sense that aboriginal people are some second class of people, some savage groups who are no longer capable of living with us and who are stereotyped as being all of the things you hear people stereotyping aboriginal people as--and who were here over 40,000 years before the colonials came.

So you are absolutely right, and I want you to know that this committee has heard from all over this country the testimony that you do not want to be patronized anymore; that you don't want people to study the issue anymore; that you don't want people to say okay, thank you, and then pat you on the head and move on;