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View Jason Kenney Profile
CPC (AB)
Thank you very much, Chair.
Honourable colleagues, it's a pleasure to be here with you today.
As you know, just a few days ago, Prime Minister Harper and I were aboard HMCS Fredericton in the Baltic Sea, observing its participation in NATO's Operation BaltOps, which constitutes part of NATO's assurance measures for our friends and allies in eastern Europe and part of Canada's Operation Reassurance.
It was very encouraging to be aboard the first fully modernized Halifax-class Royal Canadian Navy frigate to be deployed in such a fashion overseas and to see the excellent equipment and kit resulting from this $4-billion modernization of the frigates in our navy, but also to see first-hand the remarkable skills and dedication of our men and women in uniform.
Mr. Chair, speaking of my trip last week, let me start with Canada's contributions in Europe.
In response to Russia's aggression in Ukraine, under the umbrella of Operation Reassurance, the Canadian Armed Forces have, once again, deployed to Europe; training in Central and Eastern Europe to increase interoperability with our allies in the region; and sailing the Mediterranean, Black and Baltic seas as part of NATO assurance measures.
Canada has also provided extensive support to Ukraine in the form of financial assistance, the donation of key military equipment of a non-lethal nature, and later this year, the provision of training to Ukrainian military forces. In fact, I hope to be able to see the initial deployment of some of our trainers in Ukraine first-hand. Of course, this is in addition to diplomatic and political support, represented recently by the Prime Minister's third visit to Ukraine in the last 18 months.
On April 13, we announced this training operation. Our contribution will consist of approximately 200 personnel who will provide training assistance until March 31, 2017, in the fields of individual and unit tactics training, military police skills and procedures, explosive ordnance disposal, flight safety training, combat first aid, and logistics systems modernization.
Through our efforts and those of other allies, we are demonstrating the continuing strength and unity of NATO.
Next week I will travel to Brussels to meet with my NATO counterparts and reaffirm our commitment to the alliance and our solidarity with our eastern European allies, as I did in meetings with the defence ministers of Poland, Italy, and the United Kingdom last week. We will take key decisions on the implementation of practical measures to strengthen the readiness and responsiveness of our alliance, wherever the threat comes from.
Chairman, Russia's aggression in Ukraine has shown NATO's resolve and resiliency, and Russia must understand that the long-standing principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity are non-negotiable. Indeed, I think there's a broad consensus that the best and most effective way to prevent a miscalculation on the part of Mr. Putin's posture of aggression is through a posture of readiness and a message of deterrence.
Mr. Chair, the Canadian Armed Forces are also engaged in battling a significant danger to international stability. Since last year, Canada has played a strong role in the multinational coalition countering the atrocities of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. ISIS has been complicit in absolute atrocities: committed against children, women, men, and religious and ethnic minorities.
ISIS has been complicit in unspeakable atrocities, including the rape and enslavement of countless women and children. It is estimated that 7,000 Yazidi women alone are being kept as sex slaves by ISIS. A recent report by the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights contains countless reports of abductions, rape, and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence perpetrated against both women and children.
They are particularly targeting religious and ethnic minority communities in Iraq, many of whom are slaughtered.
We have demonstrated our clear determination to confront this menace to Iraqi and regional security. Indeed, last year we sent troops in an advisory capacity, providing assistance to local peshmerga forces. As you know, the Prime Minister and I also had an opportunity to meet our special operations forces troops, who are engaged in an extremely effective advice and training mission near Erbil in northern Iraq.
In addition, approximately 600 personnel were deployed to the region in October to support Joint Task Force-Iraq and the Royal Canadian Air Force operation of three types of aircraft there. The CC-150T Polaris supports coalition air assets in the region with aerial refuelling, and has now delivered over 10,000 pounds of fuel to coalition aircraft. CP-140 Auroras, recently modernized aircraft, are providing critical aerial reconnaissance intelligence to the coalition. Of course, six CF-18 Hornets have just completed their 100th air strike against ISIS. Earlier this month, altogether the Royal Canadian Air Force has conducted over 1,000 sorties.
Recently the Government of Canada extended the mission and expanded it to include air strikes, as you know, against targets in Syria. Although there have been very few of those, in large measure because of limited intelligence on the ground, it is important as a strategic statement we are making. Insofar as ISIS or Daesh does not recognize a border between Iraq and Syria and they are completely interoperable between the two sides of that border, nor should the coalition, in our view.
Mr. Chairman, the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces are providing critical support to the coalition effort. While much has been achieved to stop the advance of ISIS since the start of coalition operations last October, there is more to do. We are committed to this continued effort to support Iraq's security forces, who must be primarily responsible for their own country's security.
The cumulative effects of striking ISIS targets along with training support to Iraqi forces will ultimately allow Iraqi forces to transition into offensive operations. A few offensive operations have been carried out, but Iraqis on the ground must clearly do more.
The weakening of ISIS, whether it's through destroying or disrupting equipment, leadership, or infrastructure, will provide the necessary freedom of movement for Iraqi forces to make more tactical gains. Over the long term, success will be achieved when ISIS capabilities are significantly degraded to the point where they can no longer claim credibly to have caliphate control over large swaths of territory or to pose an international security risk.
That said, Mr. Chairman, obviously in any military campaign there will be regrettable setbacks, as there have been in Ramadi and elsewhere in the region. But fundamentally, in part thanks to the support of coalition forces, ISIS has lost control of approximately 25% to 30% of the territory it controlled last August, representing 13,000 to 17,000 square kilometres.
This will require continued persistence. As we know, some of our allies, including the United States, are calibrating somewhat their approach with additional training resources. We will observe that with interest, but we are committed to the current level of operations as defined in the motion that was tabled and supported by the House of Commons recently.
I think their efforts I have outlined today—in Operation Reassurance and Operation Impact—are a great example of Canada's and our forces' effectiveness.
I would be delighted to take any questions. Thank you.
Luis Eliud Tapia Olivares
View Luis Eliud Tapia Olivares Profile
Luis Eliud Tapia Olivares
2015-06-02 13:23
Good afternoon.
First of all, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak here on Ángel's case and on the human rights situation in Mexico, knowing that your committee is studying and reviewing what is happening in Mexico.
Today there's a severe human rights crisis in the country. Serious violations of human rights are taking place, and they have increased dramatically. The case of Ángel Amílcar Colón is not a coincidence. There are explanations in that policies have militarized safety under the heading of the so-called fight against drugs. Certain behaviours have become generalized, as was reported by the UN special rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, after his recent visit to Mexico. As well, there are forced disappearances of individuals in many areas throughout the country, as the United Nations committee on forced disappearances indicated in January of this year.
As to torture, I would like to share with you our dramatic figures with regard to denunciations of torture. In just three years, the national ombudsman reported, he received 7,000 complaints of torture. These include the torture of innocent individuals, such as in the case of Ángel Amílcar. In other words, in the face of a lack of serious investigation, the use of torture has become, in Mexico, a method of investigation in order to carry forward procedures based on a simple declaration obtained under torture.
This serious crime affects vulnerable groups, as happens with migrant groups crossing Mexico, but it also affects women through the terrible practice of sexual torture, as in the case of Claudia Medina, a lady from Veracruz who was tortured by the Mexican navy in Veracruz. It is documented that military forces, in the navy and pretty much all of the police forces throughout the country, are involved in sexual torture when they're holding a woman. This happens in pretty much all of the cases.
As to the forced disappearance of individuals, according to official information from the secretariat of internal affairs in Mexico, contained in the national data register for people who are lost or disappeared, as of January more than 25,000 individuals have disappeared in Mexico. During the current administration of Enrique Peña Nieto, some 10,000 individuals have disappeared. In other words, in just two years and a couple of months, this large number of individuals has been lost in Mexico. Organizations in civil society in Mexico have compared their list of denunciations with the official list of the government: they matched in only 10% of the cases registered.
During this serious crisis, we saw also the disappearance of the students of Ayotzinapa. This is a pragmatic example I'm giving you, and it's not isolated. There is collusion between Mexican authorities and organized crime. Students between the ages of 18 and 22 years, who were getting ready to become teachers, were disappeared by the state.
Now, some eight months after the event, with the help of two international independent experts, such as the Argentine forensic anthropology team and the group of specialists designated in order to review this case with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, we see that there have been serious inaccuracies in the investigation. The Mexican authorities to date haven't yet clarified what happened on the 26th and 27th of September, 2014. That's why the intervention of these independent groups, in this case, is of fundamental importance as well as the support received from the international community, and in this specific case from the Canadian government.
With regard to extrajudicial executions and massacres, they have grown exponentially in number, linked to the war against drugs. In many cases, there has been intervention by the authorities as though what was occurring was an internal conflict.
On June 20 last year in Tlatlaya State 22 people were killed. In an initial statement the government of the state said that it had been a conflict between groups and that the military personnel had acted in self-defence. However, the national ombudsman made a recommendation concluding that between 12 to 15 people were executed out of court by the Secretary of National Defence.
There is evidence of other possible summary executions in Apatzingán, where 16 people were killed on January 6, 2015, and there's also the case in Tanhuato in Michoacán, where 42 people were killed. It's important to note that investigations must be held in Mexico that are independent, because the legitimacy of state authorities has been lost because we have seen that there have been these summary executions.
With regard to criminal violence the state has responded with more criminal violence, detaining people, torturing innocent people as well, and executing people. There is a lack of funds and they execute civilians in this internal war. According to the overall index of impunity in 2015 from the Impunity and Justice Research Center, Mexico is next to last on the list of the 59 member states of the United Nations that have information and sufficient statistics to calculate the levels of impunity within the country. What this means is that there is only one country that is higher on the list of countries of impunity than Mexico.
According to a report that was issued last month by the International Institute of Strategic Studies with its headquarters in London, IISS, Mexico is the third ranked country in terms of armed conflict. It's only behind Iraq and Syria.
Finally, I would like to say that the Canadian government has close ties with Mexico and that is why we are here today to talk to you about Ángel Amílcar's case. We request that in his case the Mexican government be requested to investigate what happened on March 9, 2009, when Ángel was tortured and we want to know who was responsible for that torture.
We would also like for measures of non-recurrence to be applied not only in his case but also to prevent such cases from ever occurring again. For us there is a great concern because we know the Canadian government is also very concerned about human rights. We would like to have a response. We would like to see recognition of the severe human rights crisis that is present in Mexico. This is a first step toward changing the situation.
There is no other way of dealing with the situation. It is very necessary for Canada to see its relationship of cooperation with Mexico in a way that is conditioned by concrete steps by Mexico to respect the human rights of Mexicans or in Mexico.
Thank you very much.
Leah Gazan
View Leah Gazan Profile
Leah Gazan
2015-02-19 11:34
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
It has been 44 years since the brutal murder of Helen Betty Osborne, in which the Aboriginal Justice Implementation Commission concluded that racism, sexism, and indifference resulted in the incomprehensible amount of time it took to solve her murder. We are now in 2015, and things are not getting better. This has been noted by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the former UN special rapporteur on indigenous rights, James Anaya, who unanimously noted a need for a national inquiry and immediate action to address the crisis levels of violence perpetrated against indigenous women and girls.
Such high levels of violence were also noted in the 2014 RCMP national operational report on missing and murdered aboriginal women, which affirmed an overrepresentation of murdered and missing indigenous women and girls, exceeding what they thought in previous estimates.
We represent 4.3% of the Canadian population, yet we represent 16% of all reported homicides. It is not safe to be an indigenous woman or girl in Canada right now. This is related to a number of factors, including high rates of poverty—more characteristic among indigenous women—and issues with the very systems that are supposed to uphold the safety of Canadian citizens.
The most recent examples are with our dear child Tina Fontaine, who passed through five systems who could have helped her before she was brutally raped, murdered, dismembered, and thrown into the Red River. These included the police, the hospital, and the child welfare system.
We also recently heard about the brutal attack and rape of Rinelle Harper. Although the police found her attackers, there were a number of cases involving murdered and missing indigenous women and girls that have not been solved, and authorities have been criticized for their lack of action.
We also heard about Kevin Theriault, who took an intoxicated indigenous woman who had been arrested out of her jail cell to his home. It was allowed by a senior police officer, who stated, “You arrested her, you can do whatever the f--k you want to do.” It took two other police officers going to his home to convince him to drop the woman off at her own house. He said he took her “to pursue a...relationship”.
We also heard about Lana Sinclair, who was brutally assaulted and beaten by a Winnipeg police officer on October 31, 2014, after they came to her house to respond to a call saying there was yelling. She was trying to hurry her son up to go trick-or-treating.
And let's not forget the Highway of Tears in British Columbia.
Indigenous women and children deserve the same fundamental human rights to affordable housing, safety, and food security. This is not happening in the city of Winnipeg, the province of Manitoba, or in Canada. Also, the very systems that are supposed to protect us now have their legitimacy and safety in question. In fact, in response to the latest RCMP report outlining the serious issue of murdered and missing indigenous women and girls in Canada, the Harper Conservative government made cutbacks on women's programs, including cutbacks on programs aimed at violence reduction in communities.
The constable who took the woman home to “pursue a...relationship” only received a seven-day suspension without pay and was allowed to return to work.
We constantly see pushback against a national inquiry into murdered and missing indigenous women and girls by the Conservative government in spite of recommendations coming from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the former special rapporteur on indigenous rights, James Anaya, who stated in his own words that there needed to be “greater and more effective action” to address the problem of murdered and missing indigenous girls, pointing towards the need for immediate action and a national inquiry.
This is not an indigenous issue. This is an issue for all Canadians who want to protect the fundamental human rights of all persons. We need a community-led and community-driven national inquiry the does not preclude immediate action now to ensure that the issue related to violence against indigenous women and girls is addressed aggressively.
I have the following recommendations.
First, I recommend that immediate action is taken to address the root causes of poverty that compromise safety and keep a disproportionate number of indigenous women living below the poverty line. According to the Canadian Women's Foundation's report on poverty, 36% of first nations, Métis, and Inuit women live in poverty, which they partially attributed to inadequate levels of education, lack of employment opportunities in local communities, and discrimination and sexism in the workplace.
Such barriers often result in women failing to have the economic means to access basic human needs, including safe and affordable housing, and food security. As a result, many women have been forced to remain in violent and abusive relationships and take up residence at an unsafe location, which often places both themselves and their children at risk.
The federal government needs to provide immediate funding for educational programs and training initiatives for indigenous women that support acquiring skills to participate in employment opportunities that assist with poverty reduction where they receive, at the very least, a living wage to ensure that women have access to safe and affordable housing, food security, and family stability.
Second, I recommend that the federal government review its economic action plan, which focuses on aggressive resource development at the expense of the safety afforded to indigenous women and girls. Victoria Sweet, in 2012 in her study on human trafficking, asserts that there is a direct correlation between the establishment of man camps that house workers in extractive industries and increased reports of violence against indigenous women and girls.
According to Sweet, male workers, often disconnected to the community and having little regard for local culture and traditions, are often hired. This has resulted in increased rates of sex trafficking and violence against indigenous women residing in these communities. She uses the example of the Bakken oil formation in North Dakota where there's been an increase in the numbers of forceable rape, prostitution, sex trafficking, and violence against indigenous women and girls, and notes that a similar phenomenon is occurring in Fort McMurray, Alberta, where violence against indigenous women and girls is rapidly on the rise.
Third, I recommend that the government invest moneys into economic development ventures that nurture the safety and economic well-being of women and girls, including providing small business grants for women and girls living on and off reserve.
Fourth, I recommend that there be a major increase in funding provided for training and prevention programs to support local communities and to facilitate community-driven initiatives to address the issue of sex trafficking, sexual violence, and all other forms of violence against indigenous women and girls.
Fifth, I recommend that the federal government reinstate the multi-millions of dollars that were cut from violence prevention and healing programs, including programs aimed at addressing the intergenerational impacts of residential schools, that were formally used to support indigenous families and communities in violence reduction. This is much more effective than rerouting money towards regressive bills like Bill C-36, which will further marginalize already vulnerable indigenous women and girls. This includes vital programs that were formally facilitated through organizations such as Sisters in Spirit and the Native Women's Association of Canada. I question why that funding was cut in the first place, given the acknowledgement by the international community that violence against indigenous women and girls in Canada is a crisis.
Sixth, I recommend that the government provide funding for a 24-7 resource centre in each province to provide a one-stop shop for families impacted by violence, including advocacy support, referrals, counselling, and cultural programming for families experiencing trauma.
Seventh, I recommend that the federal government provide funding programs to support services and programs for families and communities impacted by violence against indigenous women and girls. This should include funding to support families in their searching efforts and liaison workers to guide families in working with agencies that become involved when a person goes missing, such as police, child welfare services, and schools. It is not okay that families are forced to use their own limited income to look for a family member, often leaving them financially vulnerable and economically unstable.
Eighth, I recommend that the federal government immediately support a community-led, community-driven inquiry, and implement immediate actions to address the crisis of violence against indigenous women and girls. This is not an either-or discussion. The international community is watching. Canadians are watching. When the world is criticizing Canada for its lack of action, it is not the time to cut corners. Ending violence against indigenous women and girls requires investment. It should not be guided by either-or discussions. We need action now and we need a community-led, community-driven inquiry to make systemic changes to protect indigenous women and girls from dangers persistent within the very Canadian institutions that are supposed to protect us. People care. Canadians care.
I have witnessed care with grassroots initiatives such as the Drag the Red campaign, led by Bernadette Smith, where people came out to support her efforts in searching for the human remains of their loved ones.
I have witnessed such care in the current We Care campaign that I started in solidarity with Rain Hamilton, a non-indigenous woman who was appalled by the lack of action and level of violence perpetrated against indigenous women and girls. This campaign has been endorsed by the leader of the official opposition, Hon. Thomas Mulcair, who has shown his support for immediate action and a community-led, community-driven inquiry; the Aboriginal Peoples' Commission; Council of Canadians; the International Women's Forum on human rights; and many other organizations and individuals who have shown that they care.
I saw Canadians care at a vigil for beautiful Tina Fontaine, where over 2,000 Canadians came out, with an estimated 50% who were non-indigenous. They cared.
It is time for the federal government to come on board and show they care. We are waiting to be on their radar.
Thank you.
Megan Walker
View Megan Walker Profile
Megan Walker
2015-02-19 11:46
Thank you so much, Madam Chair.
I'm representing the London Abused Women's Centre, which is an agency in London, Ontario, that provides women who are being abused by their intimate partners and women in prostitution with counselling, support, and advocacy. During our last fiscal year, the agency provided 3,300 women with services and responded to more than 5,000 phone calls.
I think it's important to go back almost 19 years ago to March 9, 1996, when Arlene May was murdered by her partner, Randy Isles. He then killed himself. After that the coroner for Ontario held an inquest into her murder and his suicide. The jury met with 76 witnesses over 51 days. On July 2 the jury returned with 213 recommendations.
In its opening statement the jury wrote:
Until we, as a country stand up and declare a 'Zero Tolerance', this problem will not only continue, but in this jury's opinion, will escalate.
They further went on to say:
A combined effort must be made by our Government and Communities in order to put an end to family violence.
Finally, they stated:
Domestic violence cases are different than other criminal cases. In most situations the accused and the victim would normally never meet again. With domestic violence, the accused often must have contact with the victim due to property, support and child issues.
The criminal justice system will have to be changed to deal effectively with these differences.
We live in a society where gender inequality, while present in almost every single aspect of our lives, is largely made invisible by our silence. I'm often asked whether we can ever end men's violence against women. I do know one thing for certain. With certain actions that we take we can definitely shift the culture for future generations and reduce men's violence against women. I often compare it to the work being done by MADD Canada. Drinking and driving was once considered the norm. Now thanks to legislation, advocacy, education, and awareness it is socially unacceptable to get in a car when you've had a drink. I believe we can do the same for domestic violence.
We need three things. First of all we need to speak out, just as President Obama and former president Jimmy Carter have done. We need the government at all levels in Canada to take a stand and say, “Not on our watch. On our watch we have a zero tolerance to men's violence against women.”
We need to name the problem and understand its source. The source is patriarchy and women's inequality, and we need to set our minds to achieving women's full equality in society.
We also need action. We need an investment in violence prevention, and public education and awareness programs, starting in the very early years in school. At the London Abused Women's Centre, six years ago, we started a campaign known as Shine the Light on Woman Abuse. The goals of the campaign were to raise awareness about men's violence against women, increase the profiles of agencies that can provide service to these women, and shift the blame and shame abused women so often feel to the shoulders of the perpetrators. Finally, we wanted to show women that we stood in support and solidarity with them as they tried to live their lives free from violence and abuse. The campaign has been overwhelmingly successful, has now spread to 25 communities throughout Ontario, and service demands at the London Abused Women's Centre continue to increase by about 100% each and every year.
We also initiated a Value Women campaign, which was started as an alternative to what was called, and is called still, the SlutWalk, which we opposed. The goals of the Value Women campaign are to change the culture for women to one where women are equally valued. To do so we're asking that everybody recruit one person, who then will recruit five, who in turn will recruit five more.
Over the next five years we hope to reach five million individuals and call them champions for women.
The London Abused Women's Centre is part of a coordinated effort between the City of London and the London Coordinating Committee to End Woman Abuse. We partnered with the corporation of the City of London to develop a national, award-winning, collaborative program called “I Step Forward to End Violence and Abuse in my Community, Workplace, and Home”. It is a training program for all City of London employees to increase their understanding of men's violence against women and to increase the capacity to recognize and respond to situations of violence at home, at work, and in the community.
The London Abused Women's Centre is the lead agency for the Ontario woman abuse screening project, which has promoted collaboration between the woman abuse, sexual assault, mental health, and addiction sectors to provide trauma-informed services including routine universal screening for abuse and trauma, and to promote these as best practices across all sectors. The project has been successful in ensuring improved services, with fewer women having to live their lives alone, homeless or in isolation. In fact, that project has now spread throughout 141 communities across Ontario.
Finally, we need legislative change. We strongly recommend amending the Criminal Code to reflect the realities of those women being abused by their partners. We have great models in place where they have done that, including Sweden, where they have put into place the “gross violation of a woman's integrity” legislation. We've done a lot of research and are certainly happy to make that available to you.
Finally, I want to say that never in my life, and I've been at the London Abused Women's Centre for 18 years, did I ever think we would see the result of legislative advocacy. We saw that with the passing of Bill C-36, which we did support.
We're already seeing an increase in women seeking service from our agency. Legislative changes, along with advocacy, public awareness, and information can make a difference in the lives of women and their children.
Jenny Wright
View Jenny Wright Profile
Jenny Wright
2015-01-29 11:24
Good afternoon, Madam Chair, and members of this committee. We thank you, and we are grateful for the invitation to address the committee.
In the development of any best practice, policy, legislation, or charter, we must never forget that violence against women is preventable. That fact must be the very foundation that any real change is built upon. Violence against women is yet to be considered preventable; instead, it is simply considered one of the many social ills that we must endure and manage. We need not look very far back in our own history to find a time when it was indeed acceptable.
Through the hard work of feminism in our country we are moving towards a culture in which these forms of interpersonal violence are now widely considered unacceptable. Great women doing great work have spoken before this committee. Best practices, new and emerging programs, research, and critical analysis have been brought forward with intelligence and with experience.
We suggest that women's organizations are all well versed in best practice and that we have been creating it and utilizing it for many decades. Evidence of this body of work can be found in the submissions to this committee, in scholarly research, in the endless reports we write, in university gender and social work classes, and around women's kitchen tables, yet women continue to die.
We have made great advancements in education and awareness both nationally and internationally. Policies and programs are implemented at all levels of government and within our communities and within our schools, yet the statistics that we are all intimately aware of are staggering.
Violence against women has been called the global epidemic of our times. It can lead one to think that there is nothing left to add to this discourse, but if we hold steadfast to the truth that violence against women is preventable, then there is much for us to discuss.
Best practice, education, and all of our combined work in the field will not be enough if we do not directly eliminate the root causes: gender inequality, long-standing neglect in upholding women's human rights, and decades of closures and funding cuts to front-line and advocacy women-led organizations.
Imagine if the programs and policies we created together were aimed at these root causes, at breaking down the systems that create gender inequality. Imagine if they were built on our existing human rights framework, and imagine if they were resourced sustainably so that women-led organizations could do what they have done well for many decades regardless of fluctuations in the economy, politics, and our laws.
If we re-envision how we conceive and develop best practice so that it eradicates gender inequality, then a national child care strategy, a national housing strategy, pay equity, access to women-centred health care, education, and a fair justice system is best practice. Further, the lack of these strategies in Canada is not only a causal factor, they are simultaneously the very barriers that prevent women leaving violence and living to their full potential.
This work, we cannot do alone. Women are protected in principle by the charter of human rights as individuals of this nation. These rights must apply to all women equally, including trans women, seniors, indigenous women, sex workers, disabled women, young women, and women new to our country. Women's organizations struggle daily to keep women safe in communities where there are no lawyers, no social workers, no courthouses or doctors, where women are left dangerously vulnerable and without access to basic supports. This must be viewed as a denial of their basic human rights.
Still, Canada has signed on to numerous conventions protecting and advancing the rights of women, including CEDAW, where article 3 states that the convention gives positive affirmation to the principle of equality by requiring state parties to take “all appropriate measures, including legislation, to ensure the full development and advancement of women, for the purpose of guaranteeing them the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality with men.”
Yet women continue to die. Why? We have not applied these basic human rights to our work in ending violence against women. If anti-violence work were built on our existing human rights frameworks, then access to this that fosters safety and quality of life should not and could not be denied women, no matter their geographical or social location.
Years of funding cuts and closures, and silencing of women's organizations are in themselves a pervasive form of violence against women. Federal policy must act to strengthen women's organizations and to secure sustainable funding, so they do not continue to be casualties of the fluctuations in our economy, political agendas, and our laws.
Our Province of Newfoundland and Labrador is a great example of this double bind. Dropping oil prices leads to dramatic job loss, job losses lead to a dramatic rise in domestic violence. Already overburdened we scramble to cope with the increased need for services, while simultaneously being told that because of falling oil prices there will be no increase in funding, and there are silent whispers of impending cuts that will affect our work.
The economic boom that arrived at our doorstep 10 years ago created a dramatic rise in women who are exploited by the sex trade, and the new prostitution bill, Bill C-36, has left us scrambling to provide supports and safety for a population left vulnerable and moving deeper and deeper underground.
This scenario plays out time and time again in our work, leaving us with band-aid solutions, patchwork support, and never the time nor the resources to tackle the fundamental issues of gender inequality and justice, human rights, and advocacy. It is time that we recognize and redress the fact that diminished or no access to basic services because of chronic underfunding places women's lives at risk and by extension their children and by extension our communities.
This is a very real cause of continued violence against women, and it is preventable. We need the indelible human rights of all women to be upheld in law and in policy in their entirety. We need long-promised and undelivered national strategies to target and eradicate structures and social norms that perpetuate gender inequality. We need sustainable resources to do what we do well—advocate and provide services, supports and resources to women, freely and without threat.
There must be a shift in how we view gender inequality and how we eradicate it together as a nation. Gender inequality is simultaneously inherent to and produced by our institutions. We must shift our focus to improving our nation's ability to respond to the needs of all Canadian women. Until our Canadian institutions and our social systems prioritize and nurture the unimaginable and untapped potential of women in this country, we fear we will be living in a state of never-ending, managed violence.
In closing, we need to recognize that the situation is dire, but that the future need not be bleak. The real solutions to the issues already exist. Symbolically, it is there in the human rights framework that we uphold in this country. Practically, it is in the work of those on the ground, our women's centres, our female-serving organizations. The missing ingredients are the social and political will and sustainable resources necessary to create a coordinated national strategy. If we as a country can commit to these things, then we have not only created best practice, we have built the very foundation to prevent violence against women.
Thank you.
Nathalie Duhamel
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Nathalie Duhamel
2015-01-29 11:33
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Good morning, everyone. I would like to thank the committee for this invitation.
I will make a brief presentation about the Regroupement québécois des Centres d'aide et de lutte contre les agressions à caractère sexuel—or RQCALACS—and then focus on best practices. I would like to mention that I can answer your questions in French and English.
The Regroupement québécois des CALACS was established in 1979 and has 27 members in 16 different regions of Quebec.
We are involved in providing assistance and prevention among young people and the public through outreach activities. We provide information to the media, do research and are involved as representatives with governments. Our main concerns are the cross-sectional approach of discrimination, hypersexualization of the public space, the trivialization of sexual violence, prostitution and sexual violence on the Internet.
I will now address the issue of best practices. I would like to underscore the fact that the 27 CALACS members in our organization are themselves preventative measures for sexual violence and are examples of best practices. We provide an alternative to the legal system because we know that 75% of women do not file complaints. So it is essential to provide them with services that are rooted in their community that can provide them and their families with assistance.
The CALACS provide individual and group assistance services. They also provide accompanying services and can even accompany a woman through the legal system, if that is what she decides.
These centres came out of the women's movement in the 1970s. They developed a feminist approach to intervention that aims to give the power back to women. These centres view sexual violence as an act rooted in the inequality between men and women. They helped to broaden the definition of sexual violence. Now, this definition doesn't include just rape, but also sexual harassment, incest, online luring, sexual exploitation for the purpose of prostitution, pornography and sex trafficking.
However, I must point out to the committee that the CALACS are still in dire need of funding and that a few additional human resources would help us better respond to the demand, to prevent long wait times before women can get assistance and to eventually develop services in northern Quebec.
I would like to mention our second best practice. The CALACS work with young people in schools through sexual assault prevention programs. We talk about sexuality, power relationships, consent and hypersexualization.
We also work with the general public in local communities through lectures and public activities. We organize a day of action against sexual violence against women that is held every year on the third Friday in September.
In terms of other best practices, we have also developed training on preventing sexual violence against seniors. We have also created a guide for responding to hypersexualization. At the moment, we are working on developing best practices for cybercrime.
In addition to direct services and prevention activities, the CALACS have developed what we call a cross-sectional approach to better include aboriginal women, disabled women, immigrant women and women refugees to better take into account their unique circumstances and their vulnerability to sexual assaults. This project includes providing training to our members, but it is also open to other people. We can tell you today that four CALACS have developed expertise for working with aboriginal women.
This year, a contribution from Status of Women Canada has enabled us to create a francophone community of practice dealing with sexual violence that brings together organizations working in Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick.
The purpose of the project is to create a virtual library of programs, projects and activities to ensure better sharing. The project also aims to provide a forum for discussing various concerns. We think this community of practices will have an impact on the ability of participant resources to intervene better.
In terms of promising practices for prevention, I would like to mention that Regroupement québécois des CALACS has made it possible to create the Concertation des luttes contre l'exploitation sexuelle, or CLES, which has done a significant amount of work on making legislative progress on prostitution in Canada.
The Regroupement québécois des CALACS is also involved in various research projects at the university level. We mention this as a best practice because it is essential. We are currently working with academics to focus on trafficking and sexual exploitation, which enables us to train 45 trainers who, in turn, provide this training to others.
We also have a research project that deals with the cross-sectional approach. We are also doing research that aims to document sexual violence in universities. We have seen this issue of sexual violence in universities on the rise recently in Canada. We are looking at the need to adjust institutional approaches to this problem.
We are also doing research on equipping the CALACS with a shared program on working with youth. Lastly, we are doing research on improving our data collection system to create a better profile of the women who use our services.
In recent months, during the “been raped, never reported” campaign, we have seen that many women need to talk about what has happened to them. It's an important step forward, but the current media treatment of sexual assaults must be better so that the effort the women are making to talk about what has happened to them does not fall on deaf ears.
We would like the government to invest in a sexual assault awareness campaign. We find that there is a gap in this respect. The government raises awareness about smoking and drunk driving, but there isn't enough discussion about violence against women. The government could explain what exactly sexual assault is and what constitutes consent. Our goal is to fight against the myths and bias to change people's thinking in the long term.
NGOs alone cannot invest in campaigns like this, which are very expensive. We would like to have men speak out during these campaigns, which should be rolled out on television, radio and on social media, as well as in print.
We can't just rely on social media or traditional media to boost awareness about sexual violence against women. We have to be able to reach out to a large audience. We absolutely must respond to the needs of women who spoke out during the “been raped, never reported” campaign. We must do so in a way that makes it possible to reach women in the regions who are not necessarily on Twitter. We must increase our support of prevention and public awareness activities.
Thank you.
View Susan Truppe Profile
CPC (ON)
You said that Status of Women had funded, I think it was, a francophone program. When was that funded and how much did you receive?
Nathalie Duhamel
View Nathalie Duhamel Profile
Nathalie Duhamel
2015-01-29 11:43
It's funded for three years and it started in July 2014. It's really about establishing a practice community. I don't know how you say that in English really, communauté de pratiques, but it's between resources that are in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick and who cater to the needs of French-speaking women.
View Scott Reid Profile
CPC (ON)
Today is January 27, 2015, and this is the 51st meeting of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.
In this meeting, we are continuing our study on the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
We have here today a long-sought-after witness. We have wanted to have Sue Montgomery here for some time, and we've finally succeeded. That's a wonderful gift to us.
Ms. Montgomery works for the Montreal Gazette. She has considerable insight into the Rwanda situation.
Ms. Montgomery, what we'll do today is this. Normally we ask for a presentation of about 10 minutes, but that's at your discretion. When you're finished, we'll then turn the floor over to our members to ask questions. The length of each question and answer is determined by taking the total membership of the committee and dividing it by the amount of time that's left. In other words, the length of your presentation to some degree determines the length of your answers.
At any rate, I'll turn things over to you. Please feel free to commence.
Sue Montgomery
View Sue Montgomery Profile
Sue Montgomery
2015-01-27 13:04
Thank you for inviting me, and thank you for looking into this very important issue that's often ignored.
I was able to travel to Rwanda last year. I had been there a few times before to teach journalism, but this time I went as a journalist. I applied for and received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to do my stories. Unfortunately, that journalism grant has been cut. That might be a suggestion for the government: to give journalists some money to be able to do these kinds of jobs, because certainly our own newspapers and media outlets don't have that kind of money. All that money goes to the CEOs.
My project was to look at the state of mental health in Rwanda 20 years after the genocide. In particular, I was interested in the next generation, the kids that were born during or shortly after the genocide who would be turning 20 years old. What I discovered was an entire group of the population. Despite what things look like on the surface in Rwanda, in many ways it's a success story in Africa, partly due to a mini dictatorship of Kagame. He certainly can be criticized, but he's done a lot to rebuild the country. On the surface it's clean and people are working, and things are developing, but if you scratch that surface what you discover is a very troubled population.
Some of the kids I talked to had been born after their mothers had been raped during the genocide. As you probably know, rape was used as a weapon during the killings in those 100 days of 1994. What I found was that the treatment or the care of these young people was quite spotty. If they were lucky enough to fall into the hands of a small NGO, say from the States, or even a local one, they were able to get some kind of therapy, or someone to pay for their university education. Others who had grown up with these very damaged mothers were extremely damaged themselves. There was one young woman, Angelique. I was interviewing her mother and her mother described what had happened to her during the genocide. She had this horrible, traumatic reaction as she told me her story. Her daughter, who had been born of one of these rapes, just sat there completely cold and unable to react to her mother's pain. Both of them were very much in pain. I don't think it would take that much; I think they just need people to talk to.
There was a very impressive young man from Rwanda who started an organization called Best Hope Rwanda. I've kept in touch with him. He's forever looking for funding and help, because he sees in these women and their children—now adult children—people who are in need of support, psychological and in many ways financial, but mostly psychological. He has started a group therapy session. He has really no experience or expertise himself, but he brings these women together with their kids and he lets them talk, which seems to be extremely helpful for them.
Another is an American Rwandan who started a group called Step Up! She got into the country quite a while ago, early on after the genocide. You can tell that the women her organization has helped are much further along than some of the others I've met. They've created a group where they support each other. They keep bees and they have a sewing cooperative, so they have a way of supporting themselves economically.
One main problem with the kids born from rape is they're not recognized by the government as victims or survivors of the genocide. That's a huge issue. They're seen as the offspring of Hutus, or the génocidaires, or the enemy. They didn't qualify for any kind of educational benefit. That's one big gap that I saw. I think what would help is funding for their post-secondary or even their secondary education.
In terms of other countries that Canada could be helping...as we all know, rape is a weapon of war. It's happening in Congo, in Syria, any place where there's war. Even if there's not war, it tends to be a big issue.
There's certainly need for psychological support in Rwanda. They only have six psychiatrists for the entire country. There are a lot of groups and local Rwandans trying to create more support, where people can just get together and talk about what they've been through. It seems that part of the government's goal in many ways is to bury the past and move on, and declare that they're all Rwandans now, that they're not Hutus and Tutsis, but that denies a lot of the suffering that people experienced.
I'm not an expert in the field at all. I went there. I spent about six weeks to two months talking to people, which isn't easy because there's a huge issue of trust. Nobody trusts anyone in Rwanda. That's probably why there's no corruption: you don't know exactly who it is you're dealing with so you wouldn't dare bribe the person because they might turn you in. Maybe that's something we could use in Quebec a little bit more.
I spent a lot of time talking with people, listening to their pain. Twenty years after, there are a lot of problems. Now they're starting to see in this next generation that never dealt with their pain and especially among the kids of rape, drug abuse and alcoholism, which had never been part of their culture before. That's an unfortunate thing. It's probably partly because of their depression but also because they really don't have anything to do because nobody can pay for their education.
Those were my observations. I don't know, maybe it would be better if you asked me questions.
View David Sweet Profile
CPC (ON)
Thanks, Ms. Montgomery. Your frankness is refreshing.
It was staggering: you mentioned there are six psychiatrists for 12 million people. There's a shortage here of psychiatrists and psychologists to look after the entire population, but it's nowhere near six for 12 million.
Since you were on the ground recently, I want to ask if you have any sense of this. The number we have is there are 20,000 offspring that were born from these hundreds of thousands of rapes. Is that close to accurate? Do you have any feeling for that from the amount of time you spent there?
Sue Montgomery
View Sue Montgomery Profile
Sue Montgomery
2015-01-27 13:14
Yes, that's the number I have as well, 20,000. I certainly didn't see all 20,000, but in the villages I did visit, when I met with these people, there was quite a large group each time. That seems to be the accepted number. Of course, it's always impossible to know. They even argue over how many were killed during the genocide.
View David Sweet Profile
CPC (ON)
Yes.
From the CV we have with regard to your background, over the years of dealing with this subject you've actually acted in almost a pastoral way, in a confessional way, with some of the women who have gone through this trauma. Can you give us an idea about the kinds of things you've heard from them, obviously anonymously, but just the kinds of things they share with you?
Sue Montgomery
View Sue Montgomery Profile
Sue Montgomery
2015-01-27 13:15
The women in Rwanda?
View David Sweet Profile
CPC (ON)
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