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Results: 106 - 120 of 139
View Ruby Sahota Profile
Lib. (ON)
Actually, Mr. Diotte asked a few of the questions that I wanted to ask, so I think I'm going to continue along that line.
For CARE, I know, Barbara, that your organization and others have called gender-based violence the “shadow pandemic”. I found interesting as well the high increase that you were seeing in some issues such as female feticide and FGM. I'm finding it hard to understand why we are seeing those increases.
Can you talk to me about whether there was a decrease that you were seeing prior to the pandemic, or a levelling out of these incidents, and now there's a spike? In the last decade, has your work been able to decrease what we saw in this area?
Barbara Grantham
View Barbara Grantham Profile
Barbara Grantham
2020-11-19 16:27
When we look at those troubling statistics around femicide, female genital mutilation and access to family planning, to contraceptives and to safe birthing situations, I think that globally we have made remarkable progress over the last 10, 15 or 20 years. Globally, virtually every single indicator—through the social development goals and through UN and other large metrics—was coming down, and I mean that in the sense of moving in the right direction.
What I think COVID has brought about, because of the complexity, particularly in conflict areas.... The restrictions have brought...what used to be conversations that could be had in a more public or even quasi-public setting, in a family planning clinic, in a community health setting, where we could be helping and working with women and girls over a period of time to help them learn how to make choices. Also, frankly, we could work with the men and boys in their lives to help them understand why it was a good thing to empower women and girls to be able to make these choices.
Now, because many of those quasi-public, public or community settings where those kinds of conversations are able to take place are no longer available within the confines of the social and movement restriction requirements of COVID, it is pushing people back into more private spaces. Those kinds of more constructive social conversations about giving women and girls choice and about the broader opportunities that are open for women and girls and for their families are no longer available to us.
From a rather horrific perspective, it has also brought back, sometimes quite literally indoors, some of the violence and the lack of access to basic sanitation such as latrine access. Many of those things where we had been making gains have now been reversed.
View Rosemarie Falk Profile
CPC (SK)
Thank you, Chair.
Ms. Hache, I want to thank you for sharing your testimony and your experience. I think that's courageous and so wise because you have firsthand experience of this.
I'm really interested in rural and remote.... I know you talked about violence against women. How does access to safe housing have an impact on the health and safety of indigenous people, especially in rural and remote areas and locations?
Arlene Hache
View Arlene Hache Profile
Arlene Hache
2020-11-19 17:02
At the end of the day, safe housing is everything in rural and remote communities. Who defines safe housing is the question. How you access safe housing is also the question. We find that women are often flown from remote communities or rural communities into cities and into regional centres, where they're also at risk. It's just a different level of risk and a different type of risk.
Because they're not involved in the decisions about what that looks like, it creates another problem and a different problem. For example, when women are flown in from small communities, they often end up losing their children to child welfare. They often end up on the street and in a different kind of violence because they're not able to navigate cities or regional centres as much as they are the communities.
I actually think that's a broader conversation that needs to be explored further in a more open-dialogue way.
Maya Roy
View Maya Roy Profile
Maya Roy
2020-11-19 11:22
Thank you, Madam Chair, vice-chairs and committee members.
My name is Maya Roy and I'm the CEO of YWCA Canada.
We are the largest and oldest gender equity organization in Canada. We work with 300 communities across nine provinces and two territories, with 34 shelters on the ground and 2,000 units of affordable housing.
Regarding the impact of the pandemic, the previous witnesses spoke very well to the lack of transportation and lack of Internet access.
In our shelters we have seen demand increase anywhere between 20% to 40% across the country. We have also seen an increase in human trafficking and cases of sexual exploitation in communities such as Niagara, St. Catharines and Halifax. We've also seen a very troubling turn in rural, remote and northern communities. For example, with the lack of Internet access, we have seen abusers refuse access to data or phone to women and gender-diverse people in the pandemic. As previous witnesses have stated, being in lockdown with your abuser can potentially be a death sentence.
Another issue we've seen sometimes is the conflicting public health measures and messaging. For example, women fleeing violence in the Northwest Territories are asked to check with public health first before leaving an abusive relationship and they're asked to call a phone number. When our front-line staff connected with this particular phone number, the lack of trauma-informed response, the lack of training, meant that government officials didn't necessarily have the assessment skills to assist a woman to make a safety plan. We were quite concerned.
It's very important to have a gendered trauma-informed approach to public health messaging, especially as gender-based violence is on the rise across the country. The United Nations refers to this as a shadow pandemic.
It's also given us an opportunity as a feminist organization to start to innovate and test new solutions. For example, tech companies such as Uber stepped in to provide in-kind rides for essential workers as well as women leaving abusive relationships to get to the shelters. It's very important if we're not investing in public transportation across the country.
We also partnered with the humanitarian aid organization, GlobalMedic, and worked with them to use FedEx to send hand sanitizer to shelters in the Arctic. How can we possibly ask community members to physically distance or wash their hands regularly if over 60% of reserves do not have access to running water or potable water? We have seen Canadians step up and they're interested in working with us on solutions.
We also partnered with the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto to start to develop a framework around a feminist economic recovery.
I'd like to now turn it over to my colleague, Anjum Sultana. She is the co-author of “A Feminist Economic Recovery Plan for Canada”.
Thank you.
View Leah Gazan Profile
NDP (MB)
Thank you very much.
My question is for Madame Marin-Comeau, with regard to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
A report that came from the Native Women's Association of Canada indicated that first nations women living off reserve experienced “gendered and racialized discrimination by potential property owners”, which affects their ability to find not just adequate housing but safe housing.
Call for justice 4.7 of the report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls says, “We call upon all governments to support the establishment and long-term sustainable funding of Indigenous-led low-barrier shelters, safe spaces, transition homes, second-stage housing, and services for Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people”.
My question is, how many low-barrier, 24-7 safe spaces have been created since the national inquiry report was released a year ago?
Chantal Marin-Comeau
View Chantal Marin-Comeau Profile
Chantal Marin-Comeau
2020-11-17 19:49
Thank you very much for the question.
I don't have the answer to that question. Perhaps some of my other colleagues from the federal departments would have some of those answers. If not, I'll get those answers and provide them to the committee.
View Leah Gazan Profile
NDP (MB)
I ask that because, since the beginning of COVID, I've heard the government say that the reason they haven't been able to follow up on the action is due to COVID. However, we know there's been a 400% increase in violence against women in some areas, mainly targeting indigenous women.
I'm wondering if that is a focus going forward. I know you don't have a number, but is that a specific focus? As we know, in many cases it is a life-and-death matter.
Chantal Marin-Comeau
View Chantal Marin-Comeau Profile
Chantal Marin-Comeau
2020-11-17 19:50
Perhaps I'll answer for the responsibility of Inuit and the Métis Nation. The partners we're working with to develop the strategies certainly have that as a focus. Obviously this is something that is very prevalent, as you've just mentioned, and it's very important for indigenous communities. When we developed housing strategies with Inuit and with the Métis Nation, there was certainly a very large focus on gender-based violence and how housing can help to alleviate some of the gender-based violence, as well as the shelters and homelessness. There is a very strong focus in those strategies on what you've just mentioned.
View Ruby Sahota Profile
Lib. (ON)
Yesterday it was very interesting in the House. We were debating Bill C-3, the bill that will require judges to take training when it comes to sexual assault. During that debate, Mr. Genuis was also very interested in the assistance that Canada could provide to developing countries to help women there to be able to access justice and protections for themselves when it comes to some of these terrifying atrocities that are committed against mostly women.
Can you describe any programs that may be assisting in that area?
View Karina Gould Profile
Lib. (ON)
Yes. Again, when I was in Kinshasa, I had an opportunity to visit a hospital that receives victims of sexual violence and speak with some of the survivors and hear their stories. It's a project that we fund in collaboration with UNFPA. It's called JAD. This program not only trains hospitals and health care workers to receive and diagnose sexual violence; it also provides legal support for them to take their cases through the court system. It also helps them to build up their self-confidence, whether through education or economic opportunities.
That's one example. We also—
Paulette Senior
View Paulette Senior Profile
Paulette Senior
2020-07-22 12:02
Thank you, committee, for the invitation.
My name is Paulette Senior. I'm president and CEO of the Canadian Women's Foundation, which is Canada's only national public foundation for women and girls, and one of the 10 largest women's foundations in the world. Our three decades of granting work has focused on moving women out of poverty and violence and into safety and confidence.
Thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee to discuss the question of the government's pandemic response.
The mission of the Canadian Women's Foundation is transformative change in the lives of women and girls in Canada. The COVID-19 pandemic has heavily impacted women. For this reason, we would like to encourage the government to ensure that women's safety, livelihoods and well-being are central to all parts of the pandemic response. Women have been put at risk—most severely, women from communities that are marginalized by systemic discrimination.
In terms of women's work during the pandemic, the disproportionate effect of the pandemic on women at work cannot be overstated. The latest numbers from Statistics Canada show that women throughout the country have been hit harder than men when it comes to job losses. There has been a 17% drop in female employment, compared with a 14.5% drop for men. Additionally, women aged 15 to 24 are suffering the most, with a 30% fall in employment. Overall, women earning the lowest 10% of wages experienced job loss at 50 times the rate of the highest wage earners. This type of granular data, which is revealed by intersectional gender-based analysis, is needed to support decisions on next steps.
In terms of women in the recovery, under the present economic conditions, women are falling out of the workforce. They have stopped looking for work due to high unemployment in their sector and/or the pressures of children not in school or day care. With uncertainty about how long this situation will continue, there is little confidence among these workers. Given that women have lost jobs more than men and are not regaining them, the government must ensure that ongoing plans take into account this disproportional effect.
Major sectors where women are affected directly will need special attention, as they take longer to rebuild. These sectors include retail, the care economy, the non-profit and charitable sectors and the service sector in general, including travel and tourism. Given the number of people who have lost work already, plans to stimulate the reopening of any economic sector cannot go ahead without guarantees that parents will be able to depend on a reliable child care plan. The foundation supports the work of the “Child Care Now” campaign, which advocates for affordable, high-quality early learning and child care to be available to all families. We know that this is key to women's economic security and to violence prevention specifically.
In responding to gender-based violence in the pandemic, stay-at-home orders increased the risk of domestic violence and decreased women's ability to leave abusive homes for the safety of shelters. Evidence of increases in gender-based violence is now clear all across Canada. In Ontario, the York Regional Police saw domestic incidents grow by 22% since COVID-19. The Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses says that women's shelters are experiencing a 20% increase. Several provincial crisis lines have reported an increase of 30% in the number of calls they receive.
The organizations we work with are critical organizations when it comes to ending gender-based violence in Canada. From surveys and consultations with the sector, we know that since the start of the pandemic 92% of organizations of all kinds have seen an increase in gender-based violence. More than 50% have seen an increase of up to 30% in the demand for their services, and 67% have launched new services and programs to respond to the crisis, while 82% think that they will not be able to emerge from this crisis.
The government must continue to offer ongoing support to women's services. It has taken decades to build a sector that provides not only essential programming services but knowledge and advocacy that have put women's equality issues such as gender-based violence in the public eye and on the government agenda. We cannot afford to have the sector fail.
Before I finish, I would also like to bring to your attention three key recommendations for budget 2021 that we feel should be included in the response to the consultation. Any items in the recovery budget must have a GBA+ and intersectional analysis. There must be data to monitor the impact of the budget in terms of gender and intersecting identities.
Canada needs a stabilization plan for the non-profit and charitable sector, and funding to ensure thriving women's movements. Imagine Canada estimates that the cost to bring this sector into a strong recovery is $9 billion. Any stabilization fund must have an intersectional lens, with investments in diverse communities.
Finally, Canada needs to revitalize its social infrastructure through care-sector investments. This means strengthening social policies for long-term care, child care, violence against women and gender-based violence, and prioritizing investments in community and in state models.
View Maryam Monsef Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Hello, colleagues. Boozoo. Aaniin. As-salaam alaikum. I hope you're well. I hope you're safe. I wish the same for your loved ones and for your teams.
Given that this is my first time in front of a committee in our post-COVID world, let me take this opportunity to thank the public service of Canada for all the ways that you've put everything on the line. We are truly blessed to have the world's best public service moving Canada forward during this difficult time. Also, of course, it's wonderful to be here with Minister Qualtrough, who has been moving some significant pieces forward, not the least of which is the CERB program.
Madam Chair, I am very much looking forward to the response that comes from your committee as we navigate the ongoing impacts of the pandemic on the most vulnerable, on women and on the path to recovery. I want to thank you for the work there.
I'll talk about our government's response to COVID. I would like to spend a bit of time talking about the impact on women and the road to recovery, but first let me talk about this book. Those of you from Winnipeg and those of you who have been around the last little while know that Runaway Wives and Rogue Feminists is a book that tells the story of the women's shelter movement in Canada. Maybe I'll start with that.
In 1971, the Liberal government of the day introduced the local initiatives programs and the opportunities for youth program. These programs were to support those who were experiencing particular vulnerabilities during a time of severe economic downturn. The programs encouraged Canadians, particularly women and young people, to find solutions to pressing local challenges and receive a modest amount of funding from the federal government to help turn those ideas and solutions into action.
Among the many ideas that came forward was one put together by young women across the country. They came together in the early seventies and started women's shelters in Canada, the very first women's shelters in Canada. Today, there are some 600 women's shelters in Canada because a group of young women came together to ensure that battered women and their children had a place to go in their hour of need. In 1996, my family and I were able to stay at one of those shelters.
Because of a decision that was made in 1971 and because of investments made in 1971, people today are benefiting from the thoughts, the creativity and the opportunities that have been created. We are going to see young people seize opportunities to propose solutions that we haven't thought of, and the story of the shelter movement in Canada is a really good reminder of the opportunities that can be seized in times of difficulty.
When the pandemic hit, one of our immediate responses was to provide $50 million to organizations that are providing support to those experiencing increased rates of gender-based violence due to the isolation measures in Canada. Today, some one thousand organizations have been able to keep their doors open, have been able to keep their staff paid and have been able to keep their buildings clean and provide a place of refuge for women and children in really dark hours.
We started our efforts by focusing on shelters and sexual assault centres, and then we were able to flow funds in a new way, in a way that we hadn't done before, to organizations that provide gender-based violence supports but do so without having the specific mandate of being a shelter or sexual assault centre. This includes a range of organizations that, for example, are doing work in the Downtown Eastside, organizations that are working in smaller rural communities and, of course, organizations that are providing supports to victims of human trafficking.
There is more to do. There is more to come. We are moving forward with the plan to develop Canada's first national action plan on gender-based violence, and I will have more to say very soon about our efforts to support victims of human trafficking in this country.
From the very beginning, we recognized that those who were most vulnerable would be hardest hit by COVID, and every step we've taken has taken that into account. The intersectional gendered lens that the Government of Canada applies has been applied to all of our efforts. I am happy to talk more about that.
There has also been a recognition that women have been hardest hit by COVID, with jobs lost and their work on the front lines and the care responsibilities they taken on because schools and day cares have been closed and because elders have needed help—as well as the shadow pandemic of gender-based violence. Women have been hardest hit, and if we're going to get out of this “she-cession”, we're going to have to support women in their need to get back to work and to ensure that we remove barriers. Otherwise, we lose the hard-won gains that so many before us have fought for.
Our focus on the vulnerable has led to millions of Canadians being supported.
The thousand organizations that we were able to support with gender-based violence funds have an impact in supporting some three million women and children in this country.
The CERB has benefited over eight million Canadians. The CEWS, or the wage subsidy, has supported close to three million workers. The Canada child benefit top-up has supported 3.7 million families with kids. The GST credit top-up has supported 12 million low- and modest-income individuals and families. The CESB has supported some 600,000 students. The OAS and GIS top-ups have supported 6.7 million elders in our country, and they will be receiving the top-up this week. The CEBA loans have supported 688,000 businesses, and there are additional supports for those businesses being worked out.
Madam Chair, the road to recovery from this unprecedented global pandemic will be hard. We are still in the middle of the pandemic. There's still a lot that we don't know about the virus, including how it spreads. I am proud of the way that Canadians have come together in shared sacrifice to protect the most vulnerable.
I am grateful to everyone who has been on the front lines of this work, particularly the women, who have put everything on the line. Some have had to have some really difficult conversations with their loved ones about why they can't be in the same house with them because they do work on the front lines. I'm talking about front-line workers.
The road to recovery has to include supporting women and the most vulnerable. There is an opportunity here too. The pandemic has revealed strengths in our system: for example, the public service of Canada; for example, our democratic institutions; and, for example, our universal health care system. It has also exposed cracks in our system that make too many vulnerable. We have an opportunity in the path to recovery, in the reimagining of our country and these systems, to rebuild back better. It's going to take every single one of us to work together to make that happen.
I want to thank you again for giving me a space. I want to thank everybody who has worked so hard to make this different way of doing business and doing Parliament possible.
I'll hand it back over to you, Madam Chair. I look forward to the conversation we are to have.
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
BQ (QC)
Okay. I want to come back to Ms. Monsef.
Ms. Monsef, do you have a time frame for the national action plan on gender-based violence?
I also want to speak to you about projects that were set up in my region during the pandemic to work on the issue of sexual exploitation, and about the sexual assault centres, or CALACS. Yesterday, I met with the director of one centre. Your department has made investments. However, in Quebec, only three CALACS out of seven have received financial support. The other centres weren't eligible.
Wouldn't assisting these centres be a way to help more women find a way out of this sexual exploitation situation?
View Maryam Monsef Profile
Lib. (ON)
We do not, but I will say that we are working very closely with the provinces and territories. Those conversations have begun, and it is in my mandate—
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