:
Thank you, Madam Chair and honourable committee members, for your invitation to appear before the Standing Committee on the Status of Women and participate in this study on violence against young women and girls.
Public Safety Canada is acutely aware that violence against women and girls is a serious concern for many Canadian families and communities. It is an important responsibility, and we must all to work together to prevent and stop violence against women and girls.
[English]
At the department we are dedicated to supporting and improving the safety of our communities across Canada and my colleagues at all levels of government and organizations, educators, family, and youth to help prevent violence against women and girls.
I am joined today by my colleagues Angela Connidis, director general, crime prevention, corrections and criminal justice, at Public Safety's community safety and countering crime branch, and Shirley Cuillierrier, chief superintendent of national aboriginal policing and crime prevention services at the RCMP.
To keep Canadians safe, we work at different levels. For instance, crime prevention is a pillar of Public Safety Canada's work with an increased focus on the specific needs of marginalized communities and at-risk groups.
As you know, the depth and scope of this particular issue have many facets. Therefore, I would like to present several initiatives that address violence against women and girls in which the department and the RCMP play a key federal role.
To begin, the national crime prevention service within the RCMP has developed a national youth strategy for 2015-2017 that identified four priority issues: bullying and cyber-bullying, intimate partner violence, drugs and alcohol, and youth radicalization to violence. Some of these initiatives include the Centre for Youth Crime Prevention website, RCMPTalks, the youth leadership workshop, and delivery of social media campaigns.
In addition, the primary objective of Public Safety's national crime prevention strategy is to develop and disseminate practical knowledge to help governments and institutions, non-profit organizations, and local communities to implement effective crime prevention strategies.
The national crime prevention strategy is based on the premise that well-designed interventions can have a positive influence on behaviours and that crimes can be reduced or prevented by addressing risk factors that lead to offending. Successful interventions have been shown to reduce not only victimization but also the social and economic cost that result from criminal activities and the cost related to processing cases in the criminal justice system.
Since 2008, based on the research of what is known about risk factors, delinquency, and future offending, the national crime prevention strategy has focused on the following priority groups: indigenous peoples and northern communities, children aged six to 11, young people aged 12 to 17, and young adults aged 18 to 24. As well, in some instances we consider supporting projects involving high-risk offenders and youth gangs.
This strategy funds the implementation and evaluation of crime prevention projects in communities across the country with an annual envelope of approximately $41.9 million for project funding.
Although the department's programs and initiatives are designed to improve public safety, our priority issues are not uniquely gender focused. For example, under the crime prevention strategy, our current priority issues include youth gangs and youth violence, drug-related crimes, hate crimes, bullying and cyber-bullying, and exiting the sex trade.
Nonetheless, various crime prevention projects strengthen prevention interventions to address gender-based issues related to crime and violence in collaboration with, and in strong partnership with, locally based women's organizations, the best place to address these issues of violence and victimization against women and girls.
[Translation]
Prevention programs and strategies aim to reduce risk factors associated with crime, and are linked to violence against women in Canada. They also increase the protective factors or build resiliency in the most affected communities.
Since 2008, the National Crime Prevention Strategy has focused on conducting impact evaluations and reporting on the results and impacts of selected crime prevention projects in Canada. Many projects have demonstrated positive results in reducing risk factors associated with violence and crime.
[English]
As the committee has shown an interest in the nature and extent of cyber-violence against young girls and women and best practices to address and prevent it, I would like to bring particular attention to the efforts our department has undertaken to expand our knowledge of the issue and further understand what interventions can work to prevent the victimization of young girls and women.
Public Safety has a continued commitment to find effective approaches to prevent bullying and cyber-bullying. We are currently working to identify best practices and innovative initiatives to build on evidence-based cyber-bullying prevention and intervention practices. This knowledge is shared with policy-makers and practitioners to help inform advice on projects that can be funded under the strategy in the future and to deepen our understanding of the issues, particularly among young girls and women.
Our efforts in relation to cyber-bullying have focused mainly on two approaches: promoting awareness and implementing programs to assist youth, parents, and educators in combatting bullying. Public Safety has developed the get cyber safe awareness campaign to educate Canadians about Internet security and steps to protect themselves online. In 2014 the department launched the “stop hating online” anti-bullying awareness campaign to raise awareness among Canadians of the impact of cyber-bullying and how this behaviour amounts to criminal activity. The department also supports the initiative www.bullyingawarenessweek.org, with the theme “stand up to bullying”. The campaign emphasizes the need for all Canadians to speak out against bullying and cyber-bullying.
For example, since October 2014, the strategy has funded a $2.1-million five-year project to implement a leadership and resiliency project in Newfoundland and Labrador that will use the leadership and resiliency program, know as LRP, to enhance participants' internal strengths and resiliency while preventing involvement in substance use and violence. The organization delivering the program, Waypoints, has selected the LRP model to address the priority issues of school-based bullying within the greater St. John's area.
[Translation]
You may have heard about the leadership and resiliency program as part of the emergency debate on indigenous affairs recently, where it was referenced as a project we are supporting in La Loche, Saskatchewan.
[English]
Another initiative is the aboriginal community safety development contribution program. Aboriginal women are a priority, as violence against aboriginal women is commonplace in Canada, where societal indifference often leaves aboriginal women at greater risk of violence, particularly intimate partner violence or violence perpetrated against women because of their gender and identity.
Public Safety's community safety planning initiative helps indigenous communities understand the underlying issues that result in the victimization of indigenous women and girls. It also helps community members work together to define risks that lead to crime and helps them build on the strengths in their community to respond to those risks.
As a parallel and supportive activity to both the upcoming missing and murdered indigenous women inquiry and the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the community safety planning initiative supports community efforts to heal and to become healthier and safer places to live and raise families.
I will now refer to the online sexual exploitation of children, which is another issue faced by young women and girls. Statistics Canada reports that sexual violations against children have risen in recent years, despite an decrease in violent crime in Canada. Over 4,000 child sexual exploitation offences were reported in 2014, a 6% increase over 2013. In addition, the number and rate of child pornography incidents continued to rise, up 41% in 2013-14. Cybertip.ca is Canada's tip line to report the suspected online sexual exploitation of children, and they have observed an increase in reporting, particularly of child sexual abuse on the Internet. Research indicates that girls are more frequently the victims of a sexual offence than boys, representing 81% of child victims. A study released by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection in January 2016, titled “Child Sexual Abuse Images on the Internet: A Cybertip.ca Analysis”, examined 43,762 images and videos classified as child pornography. These findings corroborated that 80.42% of the children are girls.
Lastly, budget 2016 proposed to provide $35 million over five years, starting this fiscal year, with $10 million per year ongoing to establish an office of the community outreach and counter-radicalization coordinator. The office will provide leadership on Canada's response to radicalization to violence; coordinate federal, provincial, territorial, and international initiatives; and support community outreach and research. The impact of radicalization of violence on young women and girls will be an important component to the outreach and research.
We are encouraged that this committee is gathering valuable information and perspectives, and believe in the ability to work together and establish mechanisms for further co-operation.
We'd like to thank you for the opportunity to be here today.
:
Thank you for your question.
I don't remember when we started to review the data, but I know that our review concluded in 2012, and our first report was published in 2014.
In the beginning, we were able to review the data thanks to an agreement between the RCMP and 299 other police forces. In total, 300 police forces provided data, and we reviewed it. Certainly, at that time, it wasn't clear, in the files, whether the missing or murdered young woman or girl was aboriginal. There was a gap there. In the 2015 report, we were able to review all the files and specify whether individuals were truly aboriginal. That's why there is a difference between the figures in the 2014 and 2015 reports.
With respect to the people who were improperly identified, it's clear that in the past 20 years, Canadian police practices did not require that people be identified based on their membership in a particular group. The data we collected aimed to determine whether these people were female or male, for example. Since our 2014 report, the data from all Canadian police forces identify aboriginal women, whether they are Métis, Inuit, or first nations.
As for the investigation and prevention measures, we ensured that there was better supervision of investigators. We implemented the National Missing Persons Strategy. In addition, we updated our policies regarding investigations of homicides and missing persons.
In terms of prevention, we organized a number of media campaigns, using posters and television ads. We worked a lot with the five national aboriginal organizations, including the Assembly of First Nations and the Native Women's Association of Canada. The objective is to develop tools that can be used in the future, for example, in training RCMP officers. That said, when I work on something, I like to share it with other police forces.
:
Thank you very much for the question.
I'll just give a bit of an overview in terms of the crime prevention program. We have about 67 programs operating across the country today. Of those, there are two specifically targeted toward young children, girls. There are about 27 targeted toward aboriginal, and there are another 21 or 22 that are actually on reserve. They address both men and women, boys and girls. There are different models in place to take on some of those challenges. There are different age groups as well.
I will give you an example of a gender-specific one in Halifax. There is a crime prevention program called SNAP, which focuses specifically on young girls, starting around the age of six and going up to about the age of twelve. It is gender-sensitive. It is focused specifically on the issues these young girls have, everything from aggression and low self-esteem to self-injury and substance abuse, even at that young age. The program model works on behaviours post-going into the program. It works on attitudes. At the same time, it also works with parenting. While the children are going into the program, the parents, typically single moms, are also going into the program during their sessions—at the same time but in separate areas—and they learn together in terms of how to manage behaviours, how to parent, and how to address some of those particular issues.
At the same time, at the other end of the country, we have a crime prevention program that would be gang-related. Again, that would focus on youth, both young boys and young girls. They would look at both risk factors and protective factors, how they got involved in violence and gangs, and then how to remove them from those situations.
Depending on the model that is used by a particular crime prevention program, and depending on what that focus is, it could touch specifically on women and girls, specifically on boys, or on both.
:
I'm sure they'd be willing, and I shouldn't say we can't ask, because we can ask. It can go about that far. It's such a local responsibility that the provinces exercise on their own. To the extent that they ask for research on issues and want advice on it, we are pleased to give it to them. It's also one of those tricky things with our provincial and federal relations in terms of who we are connecting with. Right now you're talking about the education.
In terms of our provincial relationships, we have a working group on crime prevention. We have the provinces at the table, and we're trying to integrate our crime prevention initiatives. What are the provinces doing, what are we doing, and where are some of the issues? At that table, discussions would come up. Well, it's really important that this be part of the education curriculum. If it does come into the education curriculum, what do each of the provinces do? Our partners around the table will then go back to their provincial colleagues, because remember our partners are also public safety partners. They might gather the information, come back, and report to the table. They may share that information with their education partners in their provinces, and say, “Here, this is an issue, and there are some really good crime prevention tools.” SNAP actually works within the education system as well, so they would maybe introduce SNAP to them.
It is about sharing information, sharing best practices, encouraging provinces to take that back. But we don't actually have a one-on-one relationship with the ministries of education in the provinces.
Some of the provinces are actually doing some very interesting work that we are not quite collaborating on, but we're very interested in. Alberta, for instance, has a hub, and at their hubs they have all their provincial ministries around the same table. When a school will notice they have someone in their community who's away from school a lot, social services might say, “That person's family is on our list as a problem family,” or the police might say at that meeting, “Actually, that person's older brother is engaged with the law.” They identify a problem, they talk among themselves, and at that point they say, “Which is the best ministry, which is the best organization to intervene and help?” It could be, then, reporting to the schools that they need to do something.
Federally, we would work collaboratively, but we're not going to call up the people doing the curriculums and say, “You need to do that.” We work through our provincial colleagues who then will pass on the information and influence.
:
Thank you for the question.
I have a couple of comments on your point.
We do have a lot of conversations about at what levels we influence and how we actually bring these in at the grassroots level and at a very young age. A number of schools are now introducing civility with respect to use of computers, as an example, because most schools have computers available and the kids are using technology. They are now building into their curriculum things like how to be appropriate with respect to technology as part of that. Many schools now have pathway types of programs that address issues of children who have aggressive behaviours or who are having difficulty integrating into the classroom. It's really important to recognize that many school systems across the country are now starting to introduce a number of those initiatives you're speaking about.
One of the things that we do on the crime prevention side is, when we're looking for programs and we're looking for people to submit programs, we want them to be working with the school. I'll just give you an example of one that we have now.
It's a program in Vancouver. It's called the SACY program, and it's really about violence against young women and girls. It's from the ages of 12 to 17. Now I know it's not the younger piece that you're talking about, but it's just an example of how people are just so much more aware that there's a need to intervene, not just in the community or with a social program but that it has to be connected to the education system. The reality is that we want our youth in the education system. They spend a lot of their time, hopefully, in that system, and there has to be a connection. There is the role-modelling piece, the sense of competence and self-worth, the issues of reduction in terms of negative behaviours of cyber-bullying, and so on.
It's just an example of a program that engages youth, and it also has recreational components to it. It also builds in a consequence piece so that kids of that age can really recognize the consequences of their actions.
:
Thank you for the question.
We actually have a couple of programs. We had two programs running. One, a program called Venture, finished. It was very well received by La Loche.
The program focuses on two main components. One is very much an outdoor intervention in activities—hunting, fishing, recreational activities—in which the kids are involved with community leaders. It's also building resiliency factors, meaning how to stay away from drugs, how to not be involved in substances, and how to manage issues at home when you're living in a house of 15 people and there's conflict all the time and there's no place to get away for your own kind of space.
It ran for five years and it was extremely popular. It was very well received by the community, because the community owned that program. They invested themselves in it, they invested their own leadership in it, and there was significant positive impact. For example, more children were going to high school than before. There was less truancy, less violence in the home, and more uptake in terms of looking for role models in people, away from their homes, who they could spend time with.
I've forgotten the name of the second program, but I'll get that for you. We have a second program running right now—
:
We have what we call a community safety planning initiative where we work with indigenous communities. One of the biggest challenges with an indigenous community is their capacity to do the work. There is a lot of teaching that has to happen before they can actually even apply for programs.
First we contact the mayor or the chief of a community. Would you be interested in us helping you build your capacity to understand what your risks are in your community, what your strengths are, and how you could build a plan to become a safer community?
The actual impetus behind this was to support missing and murdered indigenous women and make safer communities for women and girls. Women and girls benefit from a safe community. You can't just deal with them in isolation. We go into the community after the chief has, with their influence, gotten a group together. It's usually men and women, but often more women, from their community. They have to be committed to this. We then hire a facilitator. We go with the facilitator to teach them, first, here's what you need to do. What do you have in your community? What are your problems? Where do you think your biggest risks are? What are some of the things you as a community could do to help?
We go back a second time to look at that a little bit more with them and help build their capacity. The third time we go with them is to actually develop the community safety plan. It's a pathway for them to build up their community and identify some of the things they need to improve and where their gaps are.
At that stage, they are in a position to actually benefit from, and provincial and federal governments are in a better position to target, programs that help them. They can now realize where the problem is—i.e., we actually have a community centre here that we could change into a drug and addiction centre to help our youth. They might do that. Or we can work with our colleagues at health and say there's a big health issue and they need help here, so can you use that program? The community itself has a better capacity to identify these programs, do outreach, and see what's in their own community. This way we can engage provinces and territories to say, okay, we have this community safety plan, so what can you do to help?
We have 80 communities—