Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Human Rights
Issue 13 - Evidence - October 26, 2009 - Afternoon
OTTAWA, Monday, October 26, 2009
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met this day at 2:06 p.m. to examine the issue of the sexual exploitation of children in Canada, with a particular emphasis on understanding the scope and prevalence of the problem of the sexual exploitation of children across the country and in particularly affected communities.
Senator A. Raynell Andreychuk (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights is here today to examine the issue of the sexual exploitation of children in Canada, with a particular emphasis on understanding the scope and prevalence of the problem of the sexual exploitation of children across the country and in particularly affected communities.
We have on this panel before us today witnesses from Statistics Canada. Ms. Lynn Barr-Telford is the Director of the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. Mr. Craig Grimes is Unit Head of the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. Ms. Mia Dauvergne is Senior Analyst of the Policing Services Program of the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. I remember when that centre was established. It has come a long way.
Welcome here this afternoon. We are looking particularly at the scope and the issue of sexual exploitation. We know how difficult it is to get concrete evidence. We hear anecdotal evidence. We asked you to come forward to assist us in trying to identify the scope of sexual exploitation in Canada as you are able to state it and to determine what groups, if any, are particularly affected. I know you have a presentation. I would ask you to begin and then we will turn to questions.
Lynn Barr-Telford, Director, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada: I invite the committee to follow along with the presentation.
The Chair: Committee members please note as you enter that we have a handout with some charts and statistics to which we will be referring.
Ms. Barr-Telford: Thank you to the committee for the opportunity to present on the issue of sexual exploitation of children in Canada. In our presentation, we provide information on the extent and nature of sexual offences against children from a justice system perspective. The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics collects information on sexual offences against children that come to the attention of the police and information on how youth and adult criminal courts process child sexual offence cases.
At the outset, it is important to make a few observations. First, the information we are presenting speaks only to offences that come to the attention of the justice system through the police and into the courts.
Second, not all sexual offences against children come to the attention of law enforcement. For example, a survey we conduct every five years that asks Canadians aged 15 and over about their experiences of victimization indicates that sexual assault offences often go unreported. According to the victimization survey, more than eight out of 10 sexual assaults against persons aged 15 to 17 were never reported to the police. We do not have information from the victimization survey about experiences of those younger than 15 years. However, it is not unreasonable to expect that reporting rates for sexual offences against younger children would also be low. This means that information we will present on sexual offences against children likely understates their overall prevalence in Canada.
Third, sexual offences against children cover a broad range of offence types. Our policing data includes all sexual offences where a child can be identified as a victim. In other words, these are sexual offences where a child was a victim, as well as the series of child-specific sexual offences specified in the Criminal Code, such as sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching, et cetera.
Court data allows us to look only at cases where child-specific sexual offences are present, because we do not have the age of victims in information from court cases. In the notes for each slide, you will find the offence types that are included, the data source used, and any pertinent data notes.
In addition to our presentation, we have distributed for the consideration of the committee a copy of a recent Juristat article on police-reported child luring offences in Canada. My colleagues, Mr. Grimes and Ms. Dauvergne, will assist me in answering questions.
I invite the committee to turn to slide 2 in the presentation. Slide 2 and the next several slides are based on police-reported incidents of sexual offences against children where there was a known, identifiable victim. We have defined "children" to include those 0 to 17 years of age.
Slide 2 shows a victim rate by age and by sex for 2008. You can see from the chart that, at all ages, the rate of female victims of sex offences against children was higher than the rate for males and that the gap in rates for males and females tends to be greater at the older ages. Among children, girls between the ages of 13 and 16 were most at risk of being a victim of a police-reported sexual offence.
In 2008, about 13,700 children were identified as a victim of a sexual offence that was reported to police. This means that for every 100,000 children, there were about 202 victims of a police-reported sexual offence. As we have seen, most of these victims were girls — about 8 in 10. For every 100,000 female children, there are about 337 victims, and for every 100,000 male children, there were about 72 victims.
While it is not shown here, the trend in police-reported sex offences against children has been relatively stable over the past five years.
Slide 3 shows victim rates of police-reported sexual offences against children by province and territory. Clearly, victim rates are higher for female children than for male children right across the country. Among the provinces, overall rates were higher in New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador. The rates for females were highest in New Brunswick, while for males, the rate was highest in Newfoundland and Labrador. For both males and females, victim rates were lowest in Ontario.
Once population is accounted for, it is not uncommon to see higher overall crime rates in the territories than elsewhere in Canada. This was also the case for victim rates of police-reported sexual offences against children, but particularly in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.
Slide 4 provides the same information as the previous one, but for census metropolitan areas. You can see variations across these areas. Again, the police-reported victim rates for sexual offences against children were higher for females than for males, regardless of the location. For female victims, the rate was highest in Saint John, while for males, it was highest in Peterborough.
To better understand who children are at risk of being victimized by, we can look at information on those accused of sexual offences against children. Slide 5 uses police-reported information to show the relationship of the victim and accused when the victim of the sexual offence was a young child, aged 0 to 5 years. Most of the time, the accused was someone known to the child, usually a family member. This was true for both young male and female children, although the proportion was higher for female victims. A higher proportion of boys were victimized by an acquaintance, such as a family friend or neighbour. For about 6 per cent of young male victims and 3 per cent of young female victims, the accused was a stranger.
Slide 6 shows the accused-victim relationship when the victim of the sexual offence was a 6- to 11-year-old child. As children get older, it is not unreasonable to expect that their circle of contacts may widen. As with younger children, those aged 6 to 11 years old were also most likely to be victimized by someone known to them. Again, accused persons were usually family members, although the proportions were lower than those for younger children. The 6- to 11-year-old victims, particularly boys, were more likely than the younger children to be victimized by an acquaintance.
Slide 7 shows the accused-victim relationship when the victim of the sexual offence was between 12 and 17 years of age. At this age, one might again expect their circle of contacts to change. Slide 7 shows a drop in the proportion of family members accused of victimizing an older child. Male and female children in this age group were most at risk of being victimized by an acquaintance. We also see an increase in the proportion of older children victimized by strangers — about 14 per cent of boys and 15 per cent of girls. We see an increase in the proportion of 12- to 17-year-old boys victimized by an authority figure. The accused person was an authority figure to about 13 per cent of the male victims, which is about three times higher than the percentage for girls.
Turning to slide 8, we look at the age of persons accused of sexual offences against children. Of note, in 2008, 97 per cent of all persons accused of a police-reported sexual offence against children were male. In slide 8, we look at offences where one accused person has been identified. Not all incidents of sexual offence against children will have an accused identified, because not all incidents are solved by police. The slide shows that the rates of persons accused of a sexual offence against a child aged 0 to 17 were highest among 13- to 16-year-olds.
Thus far, we have looked at sexual offences against children using police-reported information. We have seen that victim rates are higher for females, especially those aged 13 to 16; that the accused is most often known to the child and most often a male person; that the accused-victim relationship changes as the victim ages; and that the rates of those accused of sex offences against children are highest among youth.
On slide 9, we turn our attention to questions of how youth and adult criminal courts processed child sexual offence cases in 2006-07. Recall that in our courts data we cannot identify victims. Here we are looking at cases where there was at least one charge for a Criminal Code sexual offence that specifically refers to a child victim. For example, sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching are among the offences specifically identified for child victims.
In 2006-07, there were about 2,900 cases completed in adult and youth criminal court that contained at least one charge for a child sexual offence. As you can see from the chart, most of these cases contained multiple charges.
In total, there were over 13,500 charges for all offences in these cases and 6,500 charges for child sexual offences. The large number of charges in these cases is not common within criminal court cases, generally. Generally, we see about 6 in 10 cases having more than one charge. Cases with child sexual offences tend to have a large proportion of cases with a large number of multiple charges. Approximately 40 per cent of child sexual offence cases have four or more charges.
On slide 10, we look more closely at the nature of cases with at least one charge of a child sexual offence. The offences listed in the chart show the most serious offences in cases with at least one child sexual offence. You can see that almost half of the time, a sexual interference charge was the most serious offence in the case. Sexual assault level 1, which is the least serious of sexual assault charges, was the most serious offence in 14 per cent of the cases; and in 10 per cent of the cases, child pornography was the most serious charge.
It is clear that the most serious offences in these cases are almost exclusively various types of sexual offence charges.
Slide 11 shows the age of the accused in court cases with at least one child sexual offence. In just over one in five child sexual offence cases completed in criminal court, the accused was a young offender, and the accused was a male in 97 per cent of cases. This is consistent with what we have seen in the policing data.
On slide 12, you can see that two thirds of the cases with at least one child sexual offence had a guilty finding in court. In total, there were about 1,900 guilty cases in 2006-07. While the child sexual offence was not necessarily one of the guilty charges, we saw earlier that in the vast majority of these cases, a sexual offence of some type was the most serious charge.
The proportion of sexual offence cases with a guilty finding was about the same as court cases in general; but cases with at least one child sexual offence tend to have a much higher proportion of cases found guilty than do sexual assault cases generally. A higher proportion of child sexual offence cases were found guilty when the accused was a young offender than when the accused was an adult.
Slide 13 shows the types of sanctions imposed for guilty cases with at least one child sexual offence. For youth, probation was the sanction most often awarded, while for adults, it was custody. Over half of adult guilty cases resulted in a custody sentence.
This is higher than what we typically see in adult courts. For example, about one third of guilty cases overall were sanctioned to custody in adult courts in 2006-07, and about 44 per cent of the guilty crimes against person cases when we exclude minor assault cases.
On the next and final slide, slide 14, you can see the length of sentences awarded for guilty cases with at least one child sexual offence that were sentenced to custody in adult criminal courts. The chart shows the cases to be spread across the sentence length categories. This is not what we typically see for custodial sentence lengths in adult courts.
Most custodial sentence lengths imposed by adult courts are of a short duration. Over half of all custodial sentences imposed in 2006-07 were for one month or less. As you can see from the chart, only 13 per cent of guilty cases with a child sexual offence that were sentenced to custody received a sentence of one month or less.
On the other hand, about 4 per cent of custodial sentences imposed in adult courts are for two years or more. A sentence of two years or more was imposed in a higher percentage of guilty cases with a child sexual offence sentenced to custody — about 19 per cent. What this means is that custodial sentences for guilty cases with at least one child sexual offence tend to be longer than cases in general.
In summary, court cases with at least one child sexual offence appear different from other court cases in several respects. They more often have multiple charges in the cases, most of which are sexual offences. Once convicted in adult court, these cases are more often sentenced to custody, and the custody sentences tend to be longer.
In this presentation, we have provided information on sexual offences against children from the perspective of the justice system. Thank you to the committee. That ends our presentation.
The Chair: I will remind senators that your data goes to the criminal courts and is the justice system statistics. You quite rightly pointed out that you are not in a position to speak on the activity of sexual exploitation, if it is broader. The statistics are based on those that find their way into police investigation and charging of some sort.
Senator Jaffer: You have covered so much that it will take a little while to digest. Therefore, I may be asking a question that you have already covered, so excuse me for doing that.
You are probably aware that the House of Commons recently passed legislation on minimum sentencing for people who traffic children. Can you please tell me in which chart we can assess that? I realize that you have not covered trafficking, but I see that as sexual offences against a child. Maybe I am stretching it. From what I understood you to say, people who sexually exploit children get higher sentences than otherwise. Is that correct?
Ms. Barr-Telford: That is correct. You also are correct that human trafficking information is not contained here.
With respect to the criminal court sanctions, for example, in adult criminal courts, we do see a greater use of custodial sentences than we typically see in adult courts generally. We also see longer custodial sentence lengths than we typically see in adult courts generally.
Senator Brazeau: Do you have a breakdown of the proportion of the offences that are done against Aboriginal people?
Ms. Barr-Telford: No, we do not. We do not have any information on the sexual exploitation of Aboriginal children in Canada.
Senator Brazeau: When you receive the information from the police force, is it all lumped into one, so that there is no breakdown of any minority groups?
Ms. Barr-Telford: From our policing data, we do not have consistent or reliable information on the Aboriginal status of offenders or of victims. We are not able to break down the statistics in that way.
Senator Brazeau: If we were to talk to those who provide you with this information, what could you recommend that we ask to get this breakdown? It would paint a different picture of what is really happening.
Ms. Barr-Telford: We certainly do not have the information that is supplied from our police services in a consistent and reliable fashion, so that is most definitely true. Addressing those questions specifically to police services may net different answers than what we are able to provide, but we are not able to address those questions with our data set.
The Chair: As a supplementary on that, it seems we have had this conversation with Statistics Canada before. What are the judicial or Charter impediments to collecting information from a particular community in Canada as opposed to generic statistics? Is that what is precluding getting those statistics? Or is it because you have not been mandated to do that, and the courts are not set up to get it?
Ms. Barr-Telford: I will address the latter part of your question first. The court information we have is not set up to collect the identifying information for subgroups within the population. However, with respect to collecting subgroup information, the difficulty is often the challenge of having that information collected from our information providers. It can be a difficult set of information to collect.
We have worked with our partners, and we have talked about this particular issue in an ongoing dialogue about collecting the information. Regarding your point about legislation that would preclude us from collecting, that is not the case.
Senator Dallaire: You collate a lot of information, but what is your analysis responsibility with the data? Let me ask the questions that might help.
For example, you said the trend in police-reported offences is stable. I take that as being proportionally stable with the increase in population, correct?
Ms. Barr-Telford: Correct.
Senator Dallaire: Do you make a deduction from that?
Ms. Barr-Telford: It falls within our mandate to collect information as well as publish, analyze and disseminate the information. It certainly is within our mandate. Typically with our information, whether from the police, courts or Corrections Canada, we publish annual reports on trends. We address various issues, and there is an analysis component on trends and what they tell us about the nature and extent of criminal offences in Canada.
Senator Dallaire: It is normal intelligence gathering.
Why is it stable?
Ms. Barr-Telford: That is a difficult answer to supply.
Senator Dallaire: I do not need the answer now, but perhaps you could give us a sense. With the increase in attention to this kind of offence, one would expect the trend to have decreased over the years, but you say that is not so. I do not know whether you have analyzed that.
Ms. Barr-Telford: It is difficult to analyze reasons and underlying factors that can be attributed specifically to change. One important observation with respect to child sexual offences is that not all offences will come to the attention of law enforcement. It is important to keep that fact in mind. As I mentioned in my introductory comments, about 8 out of 10 sexual assault offences against 15- to 17-year-olds were not reported to law enforcement, according to victimization surveys. We know that the information underestimates the prevalence.
Senator Dallaire: That is anecdotal; you do not have scientific data to support that.
Ms. Barr-Telford: With respect to reporting, the information comes directly from a survey that we conduct every five years in which we ask Canadians about their experiences with victimization. We ask whether an incident was or was not reported to police.
Senator Dallaire: It is under-reported extensively, and yet the trend is the same. There must be a methodology for deducing that.
Slide 3 shows us that the territories experience a higher proportion of sex offences reported. Slide 8 shows us that the vast majority of those who perpetrate the reported offences are youth. We have in the Northwest Territories a strong proportion of Aboriginal persons; and we have a strong proportion of youth, mostly male, committing the offences. Then, you speak of sexual interference being the primary cause raised. Slide 11 shows us that only 14 per cent of all cases brought to court are youth-related.
There seems to be a disconnect here: the majority of sexual offences are being committed by youth in specific territories that potentially have a large proportion of Aboriginal people, and yet very few are brought to any sort of court solution. It makes one wonder what we are doing to reduce the prevalence amongst youth. Given that most offenders are male, what are they doing? What analysis have you done on what young boys are doing to young girls in these isolated areas where the majority of the population might be Aboriginal?
Ms. Barr-Telford: I will run through the various streams of your question.
It is important to know that the information on the provinces and territories reflects the rates. To do this, incidents are divided by population to take account of the varying sizes of populations across the country. It is not a proportional analysis, but it is a rates analysis. For any given population, these are the number of incidents you would expect in a population of 100,000.
Senator Dallaire: Does that apply to that area?
Ms. Barr-Telford: Yes, it is a rate analysis of that particular area. You are correct that in our analysis, youth are more often accused or at greater risk of being accused of a sexual offence against a child; and 97 per cent of the time the accused was a male. With respect to the types of offences that are appearing, we have two different sets of data. One set speaks to police-reported data, which is gathered from incidents that come to the attention of the police; and the other set is data from the court system.
About half of the cases that made it into the courts for a specific sexual offence were sexual interference, which was the most serious offence. We also see a significant proportion of sexual assault offences in the police data. There is a slightly different perspective depending on whether the data comes from policing data that is reported or from cases that make it into the court system and are disposed of through the court system.
In summary, the data show that for victim rates, we see greater numbers of females than males. In particular, we see 13- to 16-year-old females at greater risk of being a victim. We see males accused of such crimes more often than females at a rate of 97 per cent. We see youth at greater risk of being the accused according to the police-reported data. In the courts we see young offenders, most definitely. In terms of court resolutions and decisions in cases, we see more often the use of custody and longer custody sentences.
Senator Dallaire: You are giving us data without an analysis of the data. You simply repeated all of your data.
The Chair: Senator Dallaire, Statistics Canada gives us the statistics. We should move to other witnesses who might be able to give us the interpretation of the data based on their work. Statistics Canada gathers the data.
Senator Dallaire: They do analysis.
The Chair: They do some analysis, and I believe the analysis was just provided.
Senator Dallaire: Well.
The Chair: You are saying it is not helpful enough.
Senator Dallaire: Is it not intelligence gathering?
The Chair: I do not think it is intelligence gathering.
Senator Dallaire: We seem to be talking about 20 per cent of what is actually reported. Can you extrapolate from the data that the 80 per cent not reported bears similar proportions, or does the 80 per cent not reported perhaps involve mostly adults and not youth?
Ms. Barr-Telford: In the five-year information that we gather, one difficulty is that we collect information only for those who are aged 15 and over in the population. We are limited to an analysis of 15- to 17-year-olds, if you were to look at the definition of children. In that respect, we are limited in drawing any conclusions on the nature of your question. We simply do not have that information from that survey source.
Senator Munson: I am in a similar spot in terms of the statistics that we have before us. They are very sad. At number 4, I see high numbers and wonder why in places such as Saint John, Saguenay, Peterborough, Brantford, Thunder Bay and Saskatoon as opposed to the larger cities. Something is happening in these smaller communities. I am a New Brunswicker and naturally am startled when I see that the numbers in Saint John are so high. It is very disturbing. I recognize the difficulty in getting into that, but you have the numbers, so someone must be curious enough to answer the simple question of why.
Ms. Barr-Telford: That is one of the challenges in the information you see before you. It describes the nature and extent of the phenomenon, but it certainly does not speak to the factors that may underlie the phenomenon. We simply cannot speak to the underlying multiple factors that may be at play in these various regions, resulting in a rate such as the one you see.
Senator Munson: I will leave it there, too. This is important data to have, as the chair says, to move on and to get the "why" answer to all of this.
The Chair: It is important to remember that we put together a list of witnesses, and this is one piece of the study. Hopefully, if other witnesses can take this data and explain their piece of it, we will start to see the picture.
Senator Dallaire: Does the Ministry of Justice get this data? To whom does the data go in order for the Ministry of Justice to work on prevention rather than simply applying the law? Does someone pick up this data from you and do that analysis within the Ministry of Justice in order to work on prevention?
Ms. Barr-Telford: I am not familiar with the various structures within the Department of Justice and what particular department, area or section would be responsible for that kind of work. However, I can say that Statistics Canada information is public information; it is available to the public and is put into the public domain.
Senator Mitchell: I would be interested in knowing whether you have statistics on what portion of these crimes involve the Internet.
Ms. Barr-Telford: We have some information around child-luring offences through the Internet. It is a relatively new offence type, introduced around 2002. Few of these offence types have been processed through the court system yet, but we have provided to the committee some information in a supplemental document that describes, for the data we have available now, child-luring offences through the Internet.
Senator Mitchell: Whereas general child abuse offences seem to emphasize family members, close and then less close, child luring would weight the other side, I expect. Would the accused be much more likely to be people the victims did not know?
Ms. Barr-Telford: I do not believe we have done a specific analysis of the relationship of victims and accused for child-luring offences. We can certainly follow up to see whether there is any possibility of doing that with the particular data we have available. The difficulty of course with child-luring offences through the Internet is whether an accused has been identified and whether we can do that kind of analysis.
Senator Mitchell: I have a couple of questions that get at the seriousness with which the judicial system views these kinds of offences. Have you made any comparison between trends in sentencing for child abuse or sexual offences against children versus other forms of violent crime, for example, how long a sentence you get if you are a father who abused your child versus if you walked into a store with a gun and robbed it?
Ms. Barr-Telford: There is some information, some of which is covered in the presentation. I will draw your attention to a couple of slides and speak to those.
In particular, slides 13 and 14 show the types of decisions. With the criminal courts data we can look only at offence types that are specifically identified for child victims, so these would be offences such as sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching.
We see that about two thirds of our cases coming through the courts where there was at least one of these sexual offence types had a guilty finding. That is about the same for court cases generally. However, if you look at sexual assault cases generally, this is a higher proportion. Sixty-five per cent of the cases with at least one child sexual offence had a guilty finding in court, whereas 52 per cent of sexual assault cases generally had a guilty finding.
On slide 13, we look at the types of sanctions that are imposed with a guilty case where there was at least one child sexual offence. Relative to what we see in adult courts generally, the use of custody is higher among adult courts, so there is a difference there. About one third of guilty cases overall in adult courts result in a custody sanction. It is over half in this particular case, where there is one child sexual offence in the case.
Similarly, we see differences in the length of the custodial sentences awarded in adult criminal courts, and you will find that information on slide 14. Generally, in the adult criminal courts, we see custodial sentences being of a short duration. Over half are typically for one month or less. In cases where there was one child sexual offence, we see that 13 per cent were one month or less.
Generally speaking, when it comes to the adult courts, we more often see the use of custody and a tendency towards longer custodial sentences.
Senator Mitchell: Do you have any statistics on recidivism?
Ms. Barr-Telford: No.
Senator Mitchell: Is that something you cannot do or you have not got around to doing, or is it logically impossible to do?
Ms. Barr-Telford: We have been working towards being able to provide information on what we call re-contact. There are some challenges to doing so, such as linking across different data sets. There has been some exploration, but we do not have the specific data that speaks to recidivism in this particular context.
Senator Mitchell: The corollary of that is whether you have any evidence that longer terms are greater deterrents or have a greater impact on reducing recidivism.
Ms. Barr-Telford: I do not have that information.
The Chair: I want to understand your statistics. Looking at the urban statistics of St. John's, Halifax, and so on, Saint John really jumps out at me. Did you go back to look at it as you do every five years? Sometimes a snapshot can be unfair to the broad spectrum of offences there. Does this tally up with the data you were getting before, or is this new data and you cannot compare it with anything?
Ms. Barr-Telford: The information you have here comes from our police-reported information, so we conduct that annually. We have annual information. I will ask Ms. Dauvergne to speak to whether we can generate that information for another year. If we can, we could provide it to you.
The Chair: When I look at Regina, Saskatoon and Winnipeg, the statistics are high. Maybe they are higher one year than the other. I can get at what that means, and I can get other research to tell me why it is that high. Saguenay, Saint John and Moncton stand out, and in all the research I have done and received, they have not been areas of discussion or concentration in any of the literature from all of the other sources, such as non-governmental organizations and others.
I am curious as to why that has come up that way. Is it a blip in the system that sometimes happens — one year, when something unusual happens, it drives up the statistics? Or is there another year we can measure it against?
Mia Dauvergne, Senior Analyst, Policing Services Program, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada: I could go back in time and look at that information for the various census metropolitan areas, CMAs; however, I would not be able to cover all of the CMAs.
The Chair: If you could find us another marker that we could compare Moncton, Saint John and Saguenay with, that would be appreciated.
Ms. Dauvergne: That information would be available for some of the CMAs you see before you. I would have to explore the data set to determine which CMAs we have information for. We could provide that to the committee.
The Chair: Thank you.
Since we are talking about court-driven statistics, I would also be interested in statistics on police contact into the court system. In other words, someone is assessing whether to lay a charge, the charge is laid, and then you get this information.
Is there any way to track the information to find out how the police are contacted? Is it in their investigation? You know where I am probably going with children. Are these cases generated from social services sources or are they generated from other sources? Over the years, statistics have pointed out that if you are trapped in the social services system, you are more likely to be the subject of police investigation. Some of that tie-in is fair and helpful; some it of discriminatory. That has been an ongoing debate in children's welfare issues.
Do you trap any of that information?
Ms. Barr-Telford: No. This is police-reported information. The incidents that are reported to us either came to the attention of the police or were identified through investigation by the police. We do not collect the source of how that information came to the attention of the police.
The Chair: Do you have any data on particular issues where a number of people are charged? I am going back here to a high-profile case in Saskatchewan that has been ongoing for quite a while. Many adults were charged and came under police scrutiny. My memory fails me totally here, but it was in the way the case was investigated and the conclusions that were drawn by some people. In that year, the statistics were horrific because all these charges were laid, but in fact, in time, the accused were acquitted.
Is there anything in your data that talks about multiple offenders? Where I am going for future is gang activity that drives this rate up. Is there anything else that we can find from the raw statistics?
Ms. Barr-Telford: I will ask Ms. Dauvergne to speak directly to how the data are collected into the police system and all the various intricacies of that. We do collect information on multiple accused; we do collect that nature of information on our various incidents. Perhaps we can give you some specifics centred on how we count that and how that information is collected.
The Chair: Is it like the Internet ring. When you catch it here and here, we need to know that.
Ms. Dauvergne: There are a variety of ways that we could present the information — that is, a variety of different units of count. As you say, there can be multiple accused persons associated with the incidents; there can also be multiple victims associated with each of the incidents; or you could just present each incident in and of itself.
How we present information depends on what information you are looking for. In what Ms. Barr-Telford has presented here, we have used "victim" as the unit of count. If you wanted further information on persons accused, and specifically multiple persons accused in these incidents, it gets a little tricky. It is difficult to link our data sets together, but we could certainly look into that.
The Chair: One area is prostitution and the use of young people in that kind of exploitation. Does anything in your data point to street activity as opposed to another environment for some of these crimes?
Ms. Dauvergne: We can look at the incidents that occur according to their location. We can tell you when they are occurring in residences and when they are occurring on the streets, in public places. We can break it down in a variety of ways.
The Chair: If we specifically asked you for that, we could get that information?
Ms. Dauvergne: Absolutely.
Senator Jaffer: For clarification of your presentation, you said that you look only at data that is reported to the courts. Is that correct?
Ms. Barr-Telford: We look at data that comes to the attention of the police for the police part of the explanation. The courts data is a separate data set specific to court cases that are heard through the courts.
Senator Jaffer: You have mixed those two for the presentation?
Ms. Barr-Telford: The presentation is almost divided into two parts. Slides 1 to 8 are police-reported information; from slide 9 on onwards, it is court information. In the note, you can see the source of the information. It is helpful to know the source for the data.
Senator Jaffer: I am probably having you stretch your mandate — and, if so, you can tell me — but you only get the police cases and the court cases. We all know that all cases are not reported to the police and the courts, so we do not get the complete picture of what is happening in our country; is that correct?
Ms. Barr-Telford: That is correct. However, every five years we conduct a victimization survey and we ask Canadians about their experiences with particular types of crimes in Canada. That survey is limited to those in the population who are age 15 and over. We do not ask those specific questions of anyone younger than age 15. When it comes to child-based experiences of victimization, your statement would be correct. Generally speaking, however, we do gather victimization from those who are age 15 and over.
Senator Jaffer: When is your next five-year study?
Ms. Barr-Telford: We are coming out of the feed and our anticipated release is June or spring of this coming year, 2010. We have collected more recent data.
Senator Dallaire: What authority do you have to get institutions to provide you with the data you think not just the general public but maybe legislators could use? You use some finesse words in regards to your discussions with the ministry of justice or your colleagues in regards to giving you hard data on the ethnic background of victims and accused.
Having been in the world of public servants, I know that could mean you could talk beside each other for the next 50 years and still not receive the data that you want. Do you have an authority to say, "This data has been requested and we will now incorporate it into the questionnaire" or "We want to have the authority to impose on institutions to gather that data?"
Ms. Barr-Telford: The answer I can provide on that is complicated. The Statistics Act governs our mandate to collect information. Within that context, when it comes to police-reported information, we gather what is collected from the various systems. In many cases, we are collecting information that is captured in the administrative systems of our various partners. In some respects we are restricted by the amount of information they collect in order to receive that. In many cases, it is administrative information. It is information they use to manage their administrative records, and we collect information from that.
There are some constraints around the types of information that are available to us to collect. Having said that, we have ongoing dialogues with justice communities and with various justice stakeholders, including policing, the courts, and Corrections Canada, with a view toward filling any existing data gaps.
Senator Dallaire: We sit here as part the legislative process and we need data. You are an agency of the government that is supposed to provide data. In order to meet one of the challenges that we have in achieving our aim, we need data — good intelligence — to be provided to us. Do we go to you — and you are there to collect that data — and say, "We want you to get that information," or do we have to go to every individual department that might have that information and have them provide it to you so that you can give it to us?
There seems to be some disconnect here. We have a problem out there. We need the information, but you do not seem to have the authority to get that information to us. Maybe the outfits that are doing it are not providing it, either.
The Chair: I have a slightly different take on what you are saying. I think they are providing us what is public — the charging or the processing system. I was involved with the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. In that system, we needed information. There was a lot of discussion with the caregivers, the legal system, and so on, saying, "We need good data to do our job well." As a result, the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics was set up. It is not that old, but there was a response that the politicians and the bureaucrats responded to.
I am not sure at this moment whether there are statistics within each department. I know we can go to them. They are doing a specific job, which is getting it from the public sources, provincial and federal. As a result of this study, we might recommend what we think Justice Canada should study more of, as we did with the centre. Because of the Internet and so forth, perhaps we are not getting what we need as legislators, caregivers and provinces. We might do a service by pointing out what is lacking or recommending what would be beneficial.
From the other witnesses' testimony and the preface that Ms. Barr-Telford made, if it is reported, that is, if it is known, we can get at it. The problem with much of what we are studying is that the victim does not come forward. That will be the other part of our study: How do we get at what was pointed out to be anecdotal? Let us hope that some of our other witnesses will give us that information. However, the age-old problem in studying this, and the bibliography we have, is having children come forward. The statistics, even those we have before us, indicated that the perpetrators are so intertwined with the victim; they are people the victim knows, the caregivers. The stranger on the street is a small proportion, apparently, according to this. Anecdotally, can we say that is true for the entire group? We will have to decide.
Senator Dallaire: We are trying to get as far as we can go.
The Chair: We will push the envelope as far as we can.
Senator Dallaire: If we can get at least the 20 per cent they can get data on, because that is what is being reported, then we will have to extrapolate or find a way to get at the other 80 per cent. I am trying to push the envelope on the 20 per cent.
The Chair: Exactly, and that is where we can make the recommendations and then get as many fine minds around this table to help us get at the other data that seems to go underground for a whole host of reasons. Maybe if we get at those reasons, we can start developing. There may be non-judicial answers to some of those other problems.
Ms. Barr-Telford: When it comes to some data elements, it is not always the case that we do not have the capacity to collect that information. We may have the ability to collect the information, but it comes down to whether the information is in fact collected from those we collect information from.
Senator Dallaire: That is it exactly.
The Chair: That is where we are trying to get to. The statistics they have now were not available 30 or 40 years ago in many cases. We are moving, but we need to be more sensitive to the young people in this area.
I would like to thank you for appearing. Obviously, you generated an even greater debate amongst us about how we can further our study to a productive conclusion. Thank you for bringing the information that you have. Please provide the other aspects we have asked for and anything else you think might be helpful in this. I do not assure you that we will not give you more work in the future. Thank you for coming today.
Honourable senators, we now have a panel of four. From the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, we have Cindy Blackstock, Executive Director. From the Métis National Council, we have Clément Chartier, President. Bernice Cyr is Chief Executive Officer of the Métis Child and Family Services Authority. Ms. Deborah Tagornak appears for the Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada.
If you have short opening statements of some of your highlighted points, that would be helpful. You know this area of study that we are embarking on very well. Then I would like to leave enough room for questions from senators.
Cindy Blackstock, Executive Director, First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada: Thank you. It is an honour to sit here on Algonquin territory, and I recognize them.
The question I will speak to goes right to the heart of the conscience of the nation. The principle of equality was embedded by the forefathers of Canada and celebrated by First Nations peoples for millennia before the first settlers arrived. It is so important to the well-being of children and young people that it is enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child's General Comment on the rights of indigenous children, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and, of course, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms under section 15.
We know from all of the research that sexual exploitation as an experience is not a choice for children. It is a result of a pathway of disadvantage and discrimination that leaves them no other choice to meet their basic needs. What is maybe not as well known is that some of that discrimination happens at a systematic level sourced in the federal government itself.
This committee will hear great evidence from many people about what can be done at a line level. The problems I want to focus on are the inequalities in federal funding on reserves and how they create a perfect storm for the structural disadvantage and sexual exploitation of First Nations children.
As you know, senators, provincial child welfare and education laws apply both on- and off-reserve, but the provinces expect the federal government to fund the services on-reserve. If the federal government does not do so or does so to a lesser standard, the provinces do not top up that level of funding.
As a result, in education, the estimate is that First Nations children receive $2,000 to $3,000 less per year than other children. The estimate for child welfare is that they receive 22 per cent less funding than all other children receive in the child welfare system.
Those levels of federal funding inequalities are aggravated by the lack of voluntary sector investments. As honourable senators would know, the voluntary sector in Canada provides very necessary services to Canadians, such as food banks, recreational and cultural services, and shelters for those dealing with domestic violence issues. They employ over 1.2 million Canadians and take in about $115 billion in annual revenue. Sixty per cent of that is funded by the federal and provincial governments.
In a study we conducted in 2003, we found negligible benefit for First Nations children on reserves. That means two sectors of society, which every other child takes for granted, are simply not available or are available at far lower levels than for other Canadian children.
It is not because there are no solutions. In First Nations child welfare, for example, we worked with the federal government for over 10 years on evidence-based solutions involving 25 of the leading experts in economics, child welfare, substance misuse, sociology, and community development. The federal government walked away from both of those solutions at a time when it was running a $22-billion surplus budget. It would have cost only half a per cent of the federal surplus at the time to give First Nations children child welfare equality, and yet it did not happen.
Now, as the federal government is spending billions of dollars on shovel-ready projects to stimulate the economy, First Nations children in the 2008 and 2009 budget announcements will receive only 33 per cent of what is needed for equity, excluding the province of Ontario and First Nations in the territories.
As we celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, a document Canada was so proud to be amongst the first to sign and ratify, I will be sitting at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which is reviewing a claim against the Government of Canada alleging that the Government of Canada is racially discriminating against First Nations children by providing them a lesser standard of child welfare funding. This has been documented by the Auditor General of Canada and more recently by the Standing Committee on Public Accounts in May of 2009; and, just last week, the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada was before that same standing committee providing similar evidence.
Dealing with these inequalities in federal funding will not eradicate the problem of sexual exploitation, but it will give First Nations children, youth and families on-reserve an equitable chance to prevent those issues from arising. There is no doubt about it: there is a reason why discrimination, why inequality is not a determinant of health for children. It is also a moral obligation of a country such as ours to ensure that no child gets less simply because of their race.
First Nations children, by all evidence, would need more funding than other children receive because their needs are higher, and yet they are not even getting the same level. This is a question of moral conscience. It is something that can be resolved quickly. There are solutions. They just need to be implemented.
So, too, with the question of sexual exploitation, I had the great honour of presenting before the Senate committee as it looked at the issues of children's rights and published the great report entitled Children: The Silenced Citizens. There is also the Trisha's Trust Report and so many other reports on sexual exploitation.
With the greatest of respect, senators, I do not think that your work needs to be to find solutions: it is to enable the implementation of the good solutions that are already out there. Equality for First Nations children and respect for First Nations, Metis and Inuit children all together should be the cornerstones of any prevention and response strategy on sexual exploitation.
The Chair: Now we will turn to Mr. Chartier.
Clément Chartier, President, Métis National Council: Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee on this very serious issue of child exploitation. I am pleased to have Bernice Cyr, Chief Executive Officer of the Manitoba Metis Federation's Métis Child and Family Services Authority, along with me here today. Ms. Cyr has spent most of her career focusing on issues affecting Metis children, and we are fortunate to have her expertise and perspective today.
I begin with a very brief overview of the Metis Nation. The Metis Nation's homeland is the traditional territory of the Metis people in west central North America, which encompasses the three Prairie provinces and extends into Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the United States, for example North Dakota and Montana.
The Metis represent approximately one third of the Aboriginal population in Canada, residing primarily in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. The Canadian census indicates that the Metis population is increasing at a rate faster than both First Nations and Inuit, and that the Metis are a young population with 25 per cent under the age of 14.
Bernice Cyr, Chief Executive Officer, Métis Child and Family Services Authority: Sexual exploitation of children and youth is a paramount concern. Many Metis children and youth are victimized on the streets, in drug houses, private homes, in remote, rural and urban areas.
It is broadly acknowledged that a disproportionate number of sexually exploited children in Canada are Metis, First Nations and Inuit children. However, the lack of Metis-focused research and research capacity prevents us from providing the committee with the precise statistics it is seeking on the scope and prevalence of sexual exploitation in particularly affected Metis communities.
The absence of evidence-based data, as other witnesses have attested to, is a significant concern and a barrier to the development of culturally appropriate laws, policies and programs that directly address the needs of Metis children. In the research that does exist there is a lack of disaggregation data that differentiates between Aboriginal people and between Metis people and other Canadians. Metis are frequently included in the broad Aboriginal category with no disaggregation between Metis, First Nation and Inuit participants.
The absence of Metis-focused research, policy and program approaches contributes to the systemic neglect of the rights and interests of Metis children and youth in Canada. Research points to the complexity of the underlying social determinants that contribute to Metis children's vulnerability to sexual exploitation. These issues include endemic poverty, the legacy of residential school experiences, social and cultural marginalization, sex-based discrimination and mental and physical health.
Colonization has led to the highly destructive policies that set the stage early in Metis history for a legacy of social inequities and poor health that persists today and is most evident in the health and social status of Metis children. Those factors in turn make our children and youth vulnerable to the negative outcomes, including involvement in child welfare, gangs, human trafficking, the sex trade and involvement in the criminal justice system.
In short, Metis children who are victimized are at risk of long-term dependence on social services and raising children at risk of repeating these cycles. On almost every quality-of-life indicator, Metis children do not fare well compared to non-Aboriginal children. These disparities are outlined in UNICEF Canada's 2009 report entitled, Aboriginal children's health: Leaving no child behind, the Canadian supplement to The State of the World's Children 2009 report.
The report acknowledges that there are distinct challenges and barriers facing Metis children and that these challenges are embedded in the federal government's lack of will to afford Metis the same status as on-reserve First Nations and Inuit. Metis children not provided with similar health care infrastructure to deliver the programs and services aimed at other Aboriginal children receive as much as non-insured health benefits. Metis children have access to mainstream services; however, little or no attention is paid to cultural or geographical needs.
Although there is a lack of consistent evidence-based data, anecdotally we know that the scope of sexual exploitation is alarming. For example, the provincial sexual exploitation youth coordinator in Manitoba has reported that at least 70 per cent of sexually exploited children and youth in the province are Aboriginal.
Metis community workers report that most adults involved in the sexual exploitation industry report that their victimization began at a very young age; as young as eight or nine years of age. The majority of Metis children and youth who are victimized by sexual exploitation are female; however, there is growing awareness of the sexual exploitation of boys and transgendered youth.
A qualitative study of Metis people trapped in the sexual exploitation industry was recently undertaken through the Metis Survivor Family Wellness Program of the Manitoba Metis Federation. This program aims to ensure that Metis children who attend residential and day schools are not the forgotten children of the forgotten schools. The study estimates that about 87 per cent of people trapped in the sexual exploitation industry in Manitoba are of Aboriginal descent. Of those, nearly half are Metis. Seventy people trapped in the industry were interviewed in Winnipeg and in Thompson, where the RCMP indicates the majority of these people were under the age of 18.
Mr. Chartier: Promising practices in addressing child exploitation are those undertaken by the Metis community itself. A leading practice is the legislated provincial government devolution of child welfare jurisdiction, such as that established with the Métis Child and Family Services Authority under the governance of the Manitoba Metis Federation.
Ms. Cyr can elaborate on the issues the Métis Child and Family Services Authority is addressing through initiatives such as the program that provides outreach to sexually exploited and high-risk children when missing from their homes or placements. Preventive programs aimed at the building of positive, healthy relationships, such as the Circle of Care program being delivered in Manitoba, are needed across the Metis homeland.
The Métis Child and Family Services Society in Edmonton was formed in 1984 by concerned Metis citizens. This organization is involved in human trafficking research and delivers family violence and street outreach programs to about 15 youth at any given time. These practices are promising but need to be taking place on a much larger scale and in a consistent, community-led manner to really impact on the scope and prevalence of the problems.
Clearly, improving supports and access to services for Metis children and families is part of the solution. However, broader inequities indeed require broad-based changes to public policy, including a consistent distinctions-based approach such as that at the core of the Métis Nation Protocol signed with Minister Strahl, the federal interlocutor, in September of 2008.
In my addresses to the Senate of June 11, 2008, and in 2009, I called upon the Senate to urge the federal government to assert its jurisdictional responsibility for dealing with the Metis Nation. Specifically, I called upon the Senate to request that the Prime Minister refer to the Supreme Court of Canada the issue of whether Metis are included in section 91.24 of the Constitution Act, 1867, as was done in 1930 for the Inuit.
I also recommended mandating the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples to convene a special hearing on the implementation of federal legislation that led to the dispossession of the Metis from our lands and resources. For your reference, I have provided the clerk with a copy of my letter to the Senate following the June 11 appearance sent perhaps two weeks ago.
The constitutional gap cannot be ignored any longer. It has material, moral, political and legal implications for Metis, especially as the federal government has abdicated its responsibility in the areas of health care, education and the resolution of federal land claims processes for Metis citizens.
We recommend that the following principles be reflected in any recommendations you may adopt: equalizing health and social services for Metis, First Nations and Inuit children; enhancing collaboration between federal, provincial and Metis governments to increase involvement in the design, development and delivery of health and social services for Metis children; devolving child welfare jurisdiction to Metis governments and authorities; creating an ethical Metis-led framework that places the rights and well-being of the Metis child at its centre to guide evidence-based research and program and service delivery; and increasing financial support for Metis governments to participate in building equitable and strong research and community partnerships.
In the interests of Metis children, we need to collectively advance reconciliation by addressing long-standing issues that currently impede the full realization and advancement of our constitutionally recognized rights and freedoms. Political will at the highest level is required to drive change for Metis children in Canada.
On behalf of Metis children and families in Canada, I respectfully ask for full consideration of our recommendations. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Cyr and Mr. Chartier.
Our final witness is Ms. Tagornak.
Deborah Tagornak, Manager, Abuse Issues, Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada:
[The witness spoke Inuktitut.]
Dear distinguished members of the committee, it is our honour and pleasure to appear before you today. I bring greetings from our president, Rhoda Innuksuk, who cannot be here today.
Pauktuutit was incorporated in 1984 with the broad mandate to address the social, political, health and wellness priorities of Inuit women, their families and communities. Pauktuutit has a wide range of areas, including health, gender equality, abuse prevention, the protection of cultural and traditional knowledge, the environment and climate change, and economic development, to name but a few of our current priorities.
Family abuse, family violence and abuse prevention have been key priorities for Pauktuutit's membership since its incorporation. A key to Pauktuutit's success in addressing the painful and sensitive issues has been to develop and implement Inuit-specific initiatives guided and informed by Inuit and other experts. Our work is produced in Inuktitut and English and distributed through a variety of means. Radio is particularly effective in the North.
Child sexual abuse prevention has been a priority for Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada. Child sexual abuse was a subject rarely discussed or acknowledged by Inuit society. It was a subject that made nearly every individual uncomfortable because, in our hearts and minds, we knew it was morally and legally wrong.
Many factors unique to the North can make Inuit children vulnerable to child sexual abuse or sexual abuse and exploitation. We have experienced many extremely rapid changes to our society and communities. We have struggled as individuals, as families and as a people to adapt to outside institutions and Western economic models, such as the wage economy. Many of us are still trying to deal with the legacy of residential school abuses. I would point out that child welfare cases are three times higher than the residential school survivors in the past, and this is something we have to consider.
There is a high rate of suicide among our youth in the North, and if the suicide epidemic among our youth was happening in southern urban centres, it would no doubt be treated as a public health emergency. We also need to understand more about the specific circumstances and difficulties experienced by Inuit in urban centres across Canada.
We know that the impacts of unresolved abuse can manifest in many ways that are harmful to the individual and those closest to them. We know in our hearts but cannot yet prove through evidence that many victims of child sexual abuse are choosing to end their pain by ending their lives.
Pauktuutit's focused work on this issue began in 1991 when it released No More Secrets, the report of an Inuit child sexual abuse research and education awareness project in Northern Canada. The scope of the groundbreaking research on sexual abuse in Inuit communities was to determine its nature and extent and to find out legal reporting requirements for front-line workers.
One finding of the research was that, at that time, 85 per cent of the health care professionals, police and social workers contacted said they knew of a child who had been sexually abused or a case of abuse that had not been reported. Additional information gained from the project was that public education was the key to primary prevention. It also showed that societal attitudes contribute to child sexual abuse. In order to deal effectively with child sexual abuse, we must get to the roots of the problem.
One of the objectives of No More Secrets was to acknowledge the problem of child sexual abuse in Inuit communities as a first step towards healing. The publication was aimed at demystifying child sexual abuse by providing information on what it is, how widespread the problem was thought to be, what to do when a child discloses abuse, how one reports child sexual abuse and, finally, recommending ways of dealing with this problem in the North.
Ten years later, in 2001-02, Pauktuutit, with the support of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, conducted a survey of northern organizations and individuals that provide child sexual abuse prevention services. The report recommends increasing efforts to promote awareness of child sexual abuse in northern communities to support community efforts to prevent and detect abuse and to provide healing services for survivors and offenders.
In an effort to reduce family violence generally, Pauktuutit established the Nuluaq Project in 2003 in order to bring together individuals, agencies and groups in northern regions stretching from Nunatsiavut, Labrador region; Nunavik, which is Northern Quebec; and Nunavut and Nunatsiaq in Inuvialuit settlement regions who share a common interest in preventing abuse. The three-year Nuluaq Project developed a national Inuit strategy for abuse prevention based on research and the identification of root causes, gaps in services and best practices. Pauktuutit continues to work towards implementing the recommendations from the strategy through project-based activities.
In implementing the National Strategy to Prevent Abuse in Inuit Communities, we developed four healing modules led by Inuit for Inuit. They are the couple counsel and healing modules, someone's daughter project, community healing circle and family healing circle modules.
Most recently, in 2008-09, with funding provided by Health Canada, Pauktuutit undertook projects to adapt for use in Canada an existing child sexual abuse prevention DVD that had been produced in Greenland. The broader objectives of this project were to increase public awareness of sexual abuse of Inuit children and youth in northern communities and support community efforts to prevent and detect abuse; to promote and, whenever possible, facilitate the engagement of Inuit experts in discussions pertaining to sexual abuse of Inuit children and youth; and to promote culturally appropriate approaches in the prevention of sexual abuse of Inuit.
The film is about how sexual abuse affects all areas of a child's life, creating difficulties for the child. It will be a valuable resource for front-line workers, educators and others who may be working with children or have experienced child sexual abuse.
We would like to gratefully acknowledge Pauktuutit Child Sexual Abuse Working Group members who guided the DVD project. This multi-disciplinary group's members include representatives from the RCMP, Kativik Regional Police Force, social services, court services and Inuit organizations, as well as community local Inuit experts. We worked with Inuit and experts from northern regions as well as some urban centres in Canada. This was to seek direction and guidance for the project and to assist with developing recommendations and priorities for action. This project also allowed us to develop an initial communications strategy, including target audience and key messages.
In addition to distributing specific resources such as this Hidden Face DVD, broader recommendations from the working group include increasing local capacity to prevent child sexual abuse and heal those affected; developing and implementing Inuit-specific parenting workshops in all Inuit communities, including content on this issue. Mind you, we have over 53 Inuit fly-in only remote communities, and the high cost of living is horrendous, three times and sometimes four times higher than southern rates. Other recommendations are as follows: improving the availability of services for children who have been sexually abused; training local Inuit resource people to handle child sexual abuse; and enhancing the ability for local services to respond to possible increases in child sexual abuse reporting.
Recommendations from a relevant Pauktuutit project intended to identify gaps in services available for Inuit children who witness violence address issues including social services legislation and practice for any jurisdiction that has a significant Inuit population; children's mental health services; coordination of services; and school-based abuse prevention programs.
It is nice to see Senator Dallaire. We are a member of the Committee against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Youth that he led.
I will be very happy to provide detailed information if anyone is interested. I would like to thank you again for inviting us to this meeting.
The Chair: Thank you to all of you for your varying perspectives. It has been extremely helpful, and there are many practical recommendations.
Senator Jaffer: I would like to hear more about the issue of trafficking, especially of children. I come from British Columbia, so my concern is how it relates to the Olympic Games. In B.C., we have observed that our government is doing a good job to ensure that women and children from outside Canada are not trafficked for the games. However, when I walk in Vancouver at night, I see more and more young Aboriginal and Metis children on our streets not receiving many services. Do you have observations about that?
Ms. Blackstock: If I may, I would turn your attention to the World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children. That document has a number of very good recommendations, some of which Canada has acted on, many of which they have not. Those recommendations were good when they were made, and they continue to be important, especially, as you are pointing out, at a time when so many members of the international community will be coming to Vancouver and will want to see the human rights of all children, both domestic and abroad, upheld by the host country.
Ms. Cyr: To add to that, if we look at rural and urban communities in the Prairies, most kids are either running to or running from, and the end of the line is Downtown Eastside Vancouver. As communities, we must work with the RCMP and the police and have coordinated youth strategies before they make their way out to B.C. B.C. is the end of the road for most of our youth. Having worked in the north end and with many youth through North End Women's Centre and Andrews Street Family Centre, I know many good resources and networks already exist. We often struggle with the lack of funding and the lack of larger coordination, particularly with the sexual exploitation outreach workers. It involves trying to work with these youth before they run away, before they go out to Vancouver. Once they get there, they get lost in the Downtown Eastside. There are many harm reduction sites and organizations out there, but our kids are not necessarily connecting to them. It needs to start at home in our communities.
Senator Jaffer: My next question is about missing children. What is your experience with the terrible phenomenon we have of so many missing Aboriginal people and children, especially in my province?
Ms. Blackstock: I, too, come from the British Columbia, from the Gitxsan Nation, which is right in the middle of that horrible Highway of Tears. In some ways we absolutely need to prioritize the investigation of any case when there is a missing girl, woman, young man or man in this country.
Before that, to echo the point, we can do much in prevention. Many of these children are leaving their reserves because they cannot get equitable services. They have been denied an education that is adequate; they have been put in child welfare care at rates three times those of residential schools; and there is a lack of investment in culture and education plans. Then we all stand back and wonder why First Nations kids are so to disproportionately represented amongst missing children.
The answer is that because we have not invested equally in those children, we are getting unequal results, and as a country, we must embrace that. If we want to complain and authentically express concern about the fact that only three out of 10 First Nations kids graduate from high school, let us at least give them the same opportunity to get good education funding as every other child. We can mess around with many other types of symptomatic treatments, but it is fundamental that we get to the cause of this, and the cause is inequality and it needs to be addressed.
Senator Poy: I will follow up with what you just said, Ms. Blackstock, about inequality of federal funding. What you covered was only on-reserve, so when the children are not happy with being on reserves and they leave, do they then get into the regular community services? Is that how it works? Would it not be better for them then if they leave the reserve and have schooling like everyone else? I am a little puzzled about that.
Ms. Blackstock: I do not think any child in Canada should have to leave their home and family to get a good education. You are remote in Canada only to the degree that the governments do not find diamonds, oil or forest products on your land. Our greatest natural resource is our children, of any racial or cultural group. These children simply want to be educated with the same opportunity as every other Canadian child. It is the duty of the federal government to ensure that that is comparable. It is not only something that First Nations believe; it is enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Do we ask one racial group of children to leave their ancestral homes and the comfort of their community and families simply to get a good education? Is that the standard we want in a wealthy country such as Canada? That is an untenable choice, one not given to any other group in this country.
If we were to say today as a government that some other racial group of people would have to relocate to educate their children to the same standard of other Canadians, there would be an outrage, and there should be. That is the situation we are confronting with First Nations children. This government can afford equality. I am not sure that, morally, it can afford inequality, but that is what it has been pedaling over the last 140 years.
Senator Poy: I would agree with you that, morally, it is totally wrong. Is that why some of the parents and whole families move out of reserves, for exactly that reason?
Ms. Blackstock: That is exactly it. We found, too, that those families then are away from the places where they can learn their language and hold onto their culture. You are in a Catch-22 as a First Nations family: Do I want to give my child the same education and child welfare services as every other child? If I want to do that, I have to leave those envelopes that preserve our culture and heritage. It should not be a choice; it should be a "yes, and," in my view.
Senator Poy: Thank you. I have a question about the Metis Nation. I have never quite understood what makes a person a Metis. Do you say that I am a Metis because of a certain percentage of Aboriginal blood? How does one become a Metis?
Mr. Chartier: That is a very good question.
The Chair: I believe you have answered this before; therefore, you are well equipped to do so.
Mr. Chartier: It is a question that is posed very often. It is not mixed ancestry because — not to offend anyone — the vast majority of people who are covered by the Indian Act would be Metis if you go by people of mixed ancestry are Metis. It is more than that; it is a culture, a people, and it is based on history. The Metis are a new people in this country, some 400 years old or thereabouts. They did emerge as a people with a history of political consciousness, a geographic homeland that I enumerated, and one is born into it.
Of course, yes, there are many people with mixed ancestry who have fallen through the cracks who may not currently belong to their home community, like the Cree Nation or the Ojibwa people or whomever, and they still need to find their way. Hopefully some day soon that will be corrected, but the Metis are a distinct people with distinct rights, distinct geographic territory and distinct issues.
That is why we propose distinct solutions through distinct processes that address the Metis Nation specifically; it does not help us when there is an Aboriginal general policy, because invariably the Metis Nation citizens fall through the cracks, and we need to resolve that particular issue.
I try to address that in this and also in the letter to the Senate where I have asked the Senate to pass a motion requesting the Prime Minister to refer the issue of section 91.24, which is part of the 1867 Constitution, whereby the federal government has jurisdiction for Indians and lands reserved for the Indian people. "Indian" there is used as a generic term today, meaning Aboriginal peoples, but because of federal policy, being that Metis are not covered under section 91.24, Metis are a provincial responsibility; in the province Metis are a federal responsibility, so we are into this political football, and we need to resolve that.
The Metis are a specific people and it is not merely that anyone of mixed ancestry is Metis.
Senator Poy: When you talk about equalizing health and social services for Metis, Metis can live anywhere in Canada, so if you go for social services or health services, you access the same health services like everyone else; or am I wrong? Perhaps I do not understand.
Mr. Chartier: Metis cannot live anywhere they want in Canada. For example, they cannot live on First Nations home territory, so that is an exception.
Metis can live like any other person in Canada. They can live in any centre that is open to any citizen within Canada. Yes, that is true. Metis, like anyone else, can access programs and services generally available to Canadians, but by and large often either they are not adequate or the availability is not there for various reasons, such as language or other reasons. The truth of the matter is Metis cannot live in their home territory. We cannot go and say that we are demarcating this territory as our traditional homeland, because Canada supposedly has extinguished our rights to live on that particular territory and has dispossessed us of our lands, so we do not have that choice.
Yes, basically the federal position is that Metis can access provincial programs and services like any other Canadian, or any federal program that is available to every Canadian, but again, by and large, the Metis fall through the cracks. Like the H1N1 virus, for example: many of our communities have no health care services where our people can go for inoculations, so we have to go to the nearest city. If you cannot afford to get there, how will you get this inoculation? The current federal position is that they are not going to deal specifically with the Metis but they are prepared to provide money so we can inform people how they can go about getting their inoculation. We do not get many of the services provided by the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch, for example, or the national alcohol and drug abuse program. We are shut out of that completely.
To say we have the privilege of being Canadian citizens and can access what other Canadians can access is really not a solution to the social and economic problems encountered by our people.
Senator Poy: You are saying that if you are not living in major cities, you are living in the countryside; you do not have the same access of health care and social services. Is that what you are implying if you are outside of the major centres?
Mr. Chartier: That is only one of the issues that our people face, yes. That is one, but only one.
Ms. Cyr: I would like to add to the piece around social services and why they are not as available to Metis people. Concerning the provincial government, because we are under their mandate, we have 12 per cent of the provincial caseload. However, the federal government holds up the provincial government in order to negotiate federal dollars, and because we are under the umbrella of Aboriginal people we are at the whim of that negotiation. However, we do not benefit at all from that money. Therefore our child welfare system is held up because we are under four different authorities in the province. We have devolved our child welfare system so it is under the Metis governance, and because other negotiations go on, we are at that whim. To give you a perfect example, our system right now is this very day short 65 positions that are underfunded and has caseloads of 67, 57, 38 for permanent service workers and for family service workers. There is a crisis going on here with the Metis people, and the access is not the same. It may be perceived as being so, but it just is not.
Senator Dallaire: Madam Chair, how much time do we have?
The Chair: We are coming close to the end, but start out and we will see how it goes.
Senator Dallaire: I have 17 questions to start with.
The Chair: Perhaps we could get to the questions and we could then use our time, so please start with your questions and see how we will go.
Senator Dallaire: I will not object, but simply say that I think we would want them to maybe consider coming back.
The Chair: We always have that option.
Senator Dallaire: Good. That is all I wanted to hear.
Ms. Blackstock, do you believe that the way you have expressed the situation in regards to the First Nations people, and maybe by extension aspects of the Aboriginal people on the whole, is that in fact the government policies attempt to trick you through a sort of assimilation into mainstream Canada by not wanting to provide you with the capabilities of meeting the minimum standards we expect from everyone else?
Ms. Blackstock: We have said the Government of Canada is racially discriminating against First Nations children by consciously providing them with a lesser standard of child welfare funding. A year after the apology for residential schools, which was warmly welcomed and much needed, the Government of Canada has assigned the residential school division of Justice Canada to fight this case against First Nation children. They are spending thousands of taxpayer dollars to fight the case, instead of dealing with the problem.
If we are successful in this tribunal, as I hope we will be, there is not a dime in there for my organization or the Assembly of First Nations, AFN. We do not want any monies out of this. We simply want these kids to be treated equally.
I walk past that war memorial every day on my way to work, and I think about my uncle who fought in World War II. He fought for the values of equality, justice and freedom. Why do we fight those wars if we will not even give those values to vulnerable kids in our own country? I do not understand it. It has to be changed.
If Canada wants healthy Metis, First Nations and Inuit children, they need to invest in adequate, equitable, culturally based services, end of story. If they do not, then there will be hearings like this in another 20 years, and I would beg to say perhaps another government apology for the wrongdoing that is currently being done as we sit around this table.
Senator Dallaire: You have indicated that we do not need to study the situation in regards to the sexual exploitation of Aboriginal children because that has been studied to death already and there is a whole whack of solutions out there. What is your analysis of those solutions, inasmuch as they have not been implemented?
Ms. Blackstock: I have not looked at them systematically. We have looked at it in regards to the Convention on the Rights of the Child looking back to 2003. In general, I would guesstimate that 20 per cent of recommendations are ever implemented. Most of those are not the substantive ones.
The substantive recommendations would deal with the drivers that result in sexual exploitation: dealing with poverty; dealing with lack of educational opportunities; dealing with the importance of cultural and language enrichment. Those things remain outstanding.
It is easy to put out a glossy brochure or a book, but it does not do much for the experience of children and their families right now who are being sexually exploited. We have a duty to deal with those recommendations.
One thing I commend to the committee is having the committee clerk survey those recommendations and set in place a monitoring activity so we can ensure that the good things already developed get implemented and we are not re-studying things to come up with the same set of recommendations.
Senator Dallaire: That should be a two-way street. I think it would be most worthy of the Aboriginal peoples to hold us accountable for having produced all those recommendations and publicly indicate whether we have actually attempted to implement them or not. It should be done on both sides. You should be out there beating the bushes to raise that awareness.
I come to the dimension of sexual exploitation on-reserve or in isolated areas covering the Inuit. I have interviewed Inuit men who have said there is no such thing as sexual exploitation amongst the Inuit. I have also heard that from a gentleman in Darfur of a particularly religious background, and we know the massive violations there.
In the cultural backdrop, which is strong within the Aboriginal peoples, how did this shift to exploitation of children happen? That is to say, is it a more modern phenomenon than it was 20 or 40 years ago? Is it because poverty is more difficult?
Ms. Tagornak, you have indicated that your people are having a hard time adjusting to modernism and so on. Has something shifted within the Aboriginal peoples, particularly considering the statistics that they are potentially young males who have moved them more towards the exploitation of Aboriginal girls in particular?
Ms. Tagornak: Thank you for that question, Senator Dallaire. There are two things that we deal with as Inuit. There are Inuit from northern, isolated, fly-in communities where there is hardly any sexual exploitation. However, with this technology there are some areas that we need to do research on to really identify and figure out to what extent there is child sexual exploitation in northern communities.
For those Inuit brought up in the North who have to go to southern centres — for medical purposes, to further their education or to flee a violent situation — that is a big culture shock for them. Coming from a small, isolated community, it is difficult to adjust to a major city.
About 2,600 Inuit live in Ottawa, but we still need to do research as to how many Inuit are living outside of their associated communities. We need to figure out how many people are living in Montreal, St. John's or Vancouver. There is hardly any concrete evidence about how many Inuit are living in urban centres.
Having said that, in the census or any statistical research, Inuit are clumped into First Nations or other Aboriginal. It makes it very difficult to figure out the distinct groups. Much work needs to be done.
Unfortunately we do not have any numbers on Inuit living in urban centres in each of the provinces in Canada other than some parts of urban centres.
Senator Dallaire: Thank you very much.
Ms. Blackstock, with respect to non-status and non-reserve First Nation people, what is the state of affairs within that group in regards to being more or less targeted by trafficking and also sexual exploitation?
Ms. Blackstock: I reiterate what you heard from Statistics Canada: There are very poor statistics, disaggregated in any way, on Aboriginal people.
We know from the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect that Aboriginal children are less likely to be reported to child welfare for sexual abuse than non-Aboriginal kids. This is consistent with data across two cycles of that study — a third is under way — and also consistent with data on indigenous peoples from the United States and in Australia.
It relates to your earlier question, that sexual abuse is not something highly endemic in First Nations communities. What are endemic are the social conditions that predispose children to disadvantage. Those conditions exist off-reserve and, to a higher level, on-reserve, because of the inequitable federal funding.
To the degree we find disadvantaged children — status, non-status, Metis, First Nations, Inuit, off-reserve — we will find them, sadly, at higher risk for sexual exploitation and other issues.
Senator Dallaire: To what extent are NGOs that work in the international sphere and NGOs that maybe work only nationally engaged in the places where Aboriginal people — I speak at large — live to assist them to advance their education, social programs, health and so on? We do so in a number of countries around the world where we are spending a lot of money, though I believe not enough, in helping those people.
Ms. Blackstock: My organization is the only national organization that works with Aboriginal children, and we have four staff. Before the filing of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, we used to get about a half a million dollars in federal government funding. However since we filed with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to try to achieve equity for First Nations children, we do not get a cent.
If governments are interested in real progress being made on some of these fundamental, entrenched issues, it must be resourced. People should not be penalized for speaking out about legitimate inequities and lack of investments in cultural programs.
My organization of four people is taking on the Government of Canada. We are prepared to risk our organization for it, because the kids are more important than our organization is. However, many other organizations are doing similar work. Pauktuutit is doing excellent work with the Inuit peoples of the North.
We need resources to deal with the advocacy issues. Not because we want to fight with people — we want to struggle together for a common idea, the quality, dignity, respect and honour of Aboriginal Peoples. That is why those things need to be resourced.
Senator Dallaire: By UNICEF International policy, UNICEF Canada cannot look at assisting Aboriginal people or people within Canada in the same context as it does in developing countries. However, has UNICEF International or other agencies actually come forward with resources, seeing as the Canadian government has not, in order to bring attention to the conditions that would lead to sexual exploitation or trafficking of Aboriginal children in isolated areas?
Ms. Blackstock: We have been very gratified that, in the last five years particularly, international NGOs have taken a particular interest in Aboriginal children in Canada. Ms. Cyr mentioned UNICEF Canada's recent report on Aboriginal children's health. Amnesty International was granted interested party status by Justice Sinclair in the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal on First Nations child welfare, and we are very grateful for their participation. Groups like Kairos, which Ms. Tagornak and I had the honour of presenting with last week, are critically aware of these issues and wanting to engage. We want to see more than that because this is not just an issue for Aboriginal people, not even just for Canadians. This is an issue about fundamental human values, and more and more in the international community are recognizing that.
Senator Dallaire: UNICEF Canada is in difficulty. It has raised that point, but it cannot do anything about it except raise it. That is a quandary that I think is absolutely unacceptable.
In regard to the reporting of missing Aboriginal women and its impact on Aboriginal girls, a study going on in Manitoba demonstrates that Aboriginal women are disappearing and that the reporting process has been imperfect. To what extent would seeing their mothers or aunts not being responded have an impact on young girls? Are Aboriginal children on reserves in isolated areas reported missing immediately, and is action being taken to find them at the same scale we see going on with an Amber Alert in downtown Toronto?
Ms. Cyr: There is a huge issue in Manitoba right now with murdered and missing women, and it has been an issue since Helen Betty Osborne in 1971. We have at least 137 murdered and missing women to date. Most of them, and the last three particularly, were young women who had been in and out of care, who had migrated from reserves, had been in a number of placements and had addictions struggles. These young women were treated as just sexually exploited Aboriginal women. That is how they were portrayed. No one took the time to look into the fact that they were someone's daughters. They have had interaction with all of us in various ways. I knew three of the last gals through interactions in the north end. You get the media account that she is young, Aboriginal and sexually exploited, so she does not count.
For the last 10 years, we have said to the police that when they respond to missing people, there must be a mandatory piece to this. This has to count. Only very recently have the Manitoba government and the City of Winnipeg Police joined together a youth task force, which is the RCMP and the police together with child welfare through the First Nations of Southern Manitoba Child and Family Services Authority, the Métis Child and Family Services Authority, the First Nations of Northern Manitoba Child and Family Services Authority and the General Child and Family Services Authority. We grouped together and started our own round table and task force to identify the high-risk youth in our cities and urban centres, as well as remote and rural. We keep this list and are trying to work with the police right now, because they have a list they have not shared with us to date of our own youth. The police started posting about kids being missing before we even knew it within child welfare because they have had this magical list.
There have been practical efforts to join together to identify these youth. This round table's whole focus is to identify which youth in care are most at risk and to bring all the systems together, such as Justice, Corrections, EIA, child welfare, youth service agencies and education, and have a systemic base to address these issues when our kids are at risk of going missing. The timing used to be a year, and they were gone and no one said anything, except for the parents or the community going around with posters within a day or two. I would caution with the Amber Alerts, which have particular criteria.
What I find very effective is having a round table where we come together and identify our youth at risk, whether in or out of care, and have the supports in place knowing that that 11-year-old will run, so you better have the supports in place for when she does. There are certain predictors that we can see. There are things going on right now in Manitoba that are very innovative, new and practical.
The Chair: Senator Dallaire, I will put you on a second round, if there is one. In fairness, I have other senators who have yet to ask questions.
Senator Brazeau: I believe I also have about 20 questions, but I will try to narrow them down to two. Comments were made about education, and I think a comment was made by you, Ms. Blackstock, that no one should be leaving his or her community for education. To be fair and realistic, citizens of this great country, whether they are Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal, sometimes have to move away to get an education. That is the reality for many of our citizens who live in remote and rural areas across the country. I wanted to make that comment.
I think the same applies with access to services as well. Many Metis people that I know in Labrador cannot access services. It is difficult. They live in remote areas. That is a challenge we all have as a country, not just the Aboriginal population, whether First Nations, Inuit or Metis.
Ms. Blackstock: I work on the Squamish First Nation, which I imagine you would have visited during your tenure. It is right in downtown Vancouver. Those kids are right across the street from one of the largest metropolitan centres in the country, and they get 22 per cent less, and they get less funding for education.
Senator Brazeau: I will not argue with that. However, those same kids also have the option of going to a provincial school to get their education. I am not here to debate the issue of education. I want to talk about sexual exploitation.
You mentioned that First Nations kids living on-reserve receive less money than those living off-reserve or with the non-Aboriginal population. Where do you get those statistics?
Ms. Blackstock: I commend to you the Auditor General's 2004 report on education and 2008 report on First Nations child and family services, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts 2009, and the Wen:de series of reports authored by 25 leading experts. The principle investigators were Dr. John Loxley from the University of Manitoba, Dr. Fred Wien from the Dalhousie University, Dr. Nico Trocmé from McGill University. There is also a study done in 2000 by McDonald and Ladd. All of those studies, as well as the report done by the Senate committee in 2007, Children: The Silenced Citizens, to varying degrees document the inequality. Probably the most specific ones are the Wen:de report and the Auditor General's report of 2008.
Senator Brazeau: You mentioned that your organization has been working with the federal government for the past 10 years or so, and you also mentioned that the government walked away. Did they walk away because you filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission?
Ms. Blackstock: No. The Wen:de series of reports was completed in 2005. The complaint was not filed until 2007. It was truly a last resort. I am a social worker. I just want these kids to get what they need. I am not a lawyer. I am not interested in tying myself up in knots in a legal proceeding, but, if it is necessary to achieve basic rights and dignity for First Nations children, then let it come. Sadly, in 2009, that is what is required.
Senator Brazeau: That brings me to my next question. With respect to discrimination, you mentioned that it saddens you, as it saddens me, to see that some First Nations kids are being discriminated against. If we go back to June of 2008, the federal government passed Bill C-21, to give human rights and offer First Nations people living both on- and off-reserve the option to file a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission if they felt discriminated against by decisions by their band councils or by the federal government. As you are probably aware, there was a backlash of some sort from some leaders across the country who did not want to see this piece of legislation pass. In some form, we were also successful in lobbying other political parties in the other place to be exempt from it for the next three years. In practical terms today, because it was passed in 2008, that means it is okay for band councils to continue discrimination against their own peoples, but with respect to discrimination by the federal government, any citizen now, including First Nations citizens, can file a complaint.
What are your views about that? I am not here to debate whether it is the right thing or the wrong thing to have filed a complaint. That is a right we all have; that is a great thing about this country. Do you not see an irony in not wanting to see that piece of legislation passed but using the same venue to file a complaint?
Ms. Blackstock: It is interesting. I was inspired by Minister Strahl's statement to the United Nations when Canada voted against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He said one of the reasons we have protections back home is the Canadian Human Rights Act. That was a couple months after we had filed the complaint. I was shocked, quite frankly, at Canada's behaviour after the complaint was filed. It has questioned the jurisdiction of the Canadian Human Rights Commission to hear the complaint at every single level. Canada's primary argument is a legal technicality. It says that you can apply the Canadian Human Rights Act only if there is discrimination on the basis of a good, an accommodation — rental housing, that kind of thing — or a service. The federal government is contending that federal funding, no matter how inequitable, is not a service, and, therefore, it should not be held accountable under the Canadian Human Rights Act.
That act was put in place by parliamentarians because of the higher moral questions of discrimination. The government has offered no evidence that discrimination is not happening. It is simply relying on this legal technicality. If it is successful, I wonder if that lays track for the Government of Canada to knowingly discriminate against any minority group, whether women, persons with disabilities or different faith groups, as long as that underfunding is limited to government underfunding of services. If that is the kind of Canada we want, that is the kind of track being pursued right now by the Government of Canada.
I believe in human rights for everyone, and I want to see those types of things upheld in using those mechanisms.
The Chair: I need to intervene now. I have given a lot of latitude. I cannot see this committee supplanting what the commission has to do in the application. I have given great latitude to put your side on, and to go further would be inappropriate at this time because then we are in a position where I have to reflect on whether I call the other side and then we are playing arbiter. That is not the point of this study. Please respect that we will not go into that issue any further.
Are there any other questions?
Senator Brazeau: Mr. Chartier, human trafficking is becoming an increasingly big issue in Canada, in Western Canada in particular, but it is making its way into Eastern Canada as well, in Montreal. The Metis Nation homeland spreads from a portion of Ontario west to a portion of B.C. What happens if a group of Metis individuals or potential victims call the Métis National Council from Montreal? Do they get service from the Métis National Council?
Mr. Chartier: We are not in a position to field calls, even from Saskatchewan, because of lack of capacity and new employees. How we function on the ground is that if there is a call from Saskatchewan, it is the Métis Nation Saskatchewan, which is similar to the Manitoba Metis Federation. It is a weakness that we do not have the full capacity to service our Metis citizens who have moved to other parts of Canada. We are addressing that and hope we can deal with in the future more adequately. Currently, we do not have that capacity, although that is not to say we will refuse any call for help from anywhere within Canada from our citizens. We do not have a department; in fact, we do not have very many staff. We would respond as best we could in those types of situations, but we have no program in place.
Senator Brazeau: Would that include Metis individuals or citizens, for example, who are born and raised in the province of Quebec?
Mr. Chartier: Yes. It does not matter where our nation's citizens live or were born. As long as they are a Metis Nation citizen, we are prepared to deal with them to the best of our ability.
Senator Brazeau: If they are not Metis Nation citizens, do Metis people in Eastern Canada get service from the Métis National Council?
Mr. Chartier: I guess that begs the question as to whether they are Metis. If they are, that would be for them to work out. We simply have a responsibility to deal with citizens of the Metis Nation.
Senator Brazeau: Thank you.
Senator Mitchell: Ms. Blackstock, I am compelled by your argument about the differential between funding levels for non-Aboriginal children — mine — and Aboriginal children. I think the figure you used was 22 per cent.
Ms. Blackstock: Twenty-two per cent with regard to child welfare. There are differing levels for other children's programs.
Senator Mitchell: That is what I am trying to get at. That is just child welfare.
Ms. Blackstock: Yes, that is just child welfare.
Senator Mitchell: Would education be another differential?
Ms. Blackstock: Yes, it would be another differential.
Senator Mitchell: Do you have those figures, or at least what services are differentially funded? Is there any way of knowing, or do you have a figure, roughly, of what that would be? I am not saying that it should matter; it is equality, and I understand that. What would the federal government have to spend in addition to what it is spending now to make it equal?
Ms. Blackstock: I can respond in the area of child welfare. In a 2005 study co-authored by the economist Dr. Loxley, he estimated that it would be an additional $109 million, excluding Ontario and the territories, in order to achieve basic equity in child welfare. It is not a lot of money. At the time, I think it represented less than 1 per cent of the federal surplus budget.
Senator Mitchell: That is child welfare. That is not in any way, shape or form prohibitive, nor should it be, even if it were a lot more. However, education would add to that.
Ms. Blackstock: Yes, education would add to that. In that study we also costed out the cost of not doing anything. If you do not invest in children now, especially if they are in foster care for a long period of time or they have lack of good educational outcomes, we will raise a generation that will be more reliant on social assistance, more involved in the justice system, and have more health care concerns and substance misuse issues.
A study done in 2006 estimated the cost of maltreatment in Canada to be about $15 billion a year. We need to get in front of that tide as responsible governments and ensure that we are investing now so that we can save later and reinvest those dollars we save in other public programs to benefit everyone.
Senator Mitchell: You have made the point, as others have, that, clearly, vulnerable children are way more likely to be sexually exploited, so it is the services, their educations and all those factors that would develop them to be less vulnerable.
The other side is that if they are in an environment of profound poverty, unemployment and addictions among parents, those issues would not be fixed just by equalizing service payments. When we consider that, there are no easy answers. If there are not jobs there, there just are not. What do we do about that?
Ms. Blackstock: We still have the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples to rely upon, and many of those good recommendations remain outstanding. Most of my work is in child welfare, but I look at Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug, KI, in Northern Ontario. They have a huge housing shortage, but they have logs on Crown land. They cannot log the logs in order to build homes, which they would be happy to do, and eradicate the housing crisis. Those commonsensical things could be easily done and would provide some relief in other areas, so that as we do investments in children's services, we are seeing overall improvements in socio-economic outcomes in First Nations, Inuit and Metis communities.
Senator Mitchell: Let us suppose someone is caught for child abuse in the North in a remote community, and they are charged, convicted and go to jail in the South. When they come back, clearly, the problem exists as to what kind of supports are there for them and how we work to ensure it does not happen again. Do you find this is what occurs? Do they come back and have not been rehabilitated in any way, shape or form, Ms. Tagornak, or are there sufficient services in the jails in the South?
Also, if you could comment, would longer sentences make any difference?
Ms. Tagornak: When a child sexual abuse case happens in the North, we have no court system. A fly-in court from another jurisdiction comes into a community or a larger centre to deal with the trial, and it could take a long time — months, sometimes years — to get over that process. Once the perpetrator is convicted then jailed in a southern jail institution, in a maximum penitentiary, for example, there are no programs and services available that are culturally appropriate. When the perpetrator goes through the parole system, there is yet another difficulty that we face, because there are no halfway houses in the North, which makes it very difficult to rehabilitate the offender, or just to reintegrate and get that person back into the community.
Therefore, many of the municipalities and the local organizations ban that person from coming back to the community, which makes it very difficult for the larger centres to take in all these sexual offenders into one community or region. That could become a challenge and a problem that is just waiting to happen. We face many unique challenges in the North in dealing with perpetrators and offenders in sexual abuse cases.
Senator Mitchell: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you. We have run well over time and I apologize to those senators who have other commitments and committees. I do not want to stay here so long that they will usher us all out.
We have a tradition that has been started in this committee, with Senator Jaffer, understanding the shortness of time and putting her questions in writing and asking the witnesses to respond. Those senators who still have questions of this panel, I would urge them to put them in writing to the clerk and then we will pass them on. If we need to have you come back, we would appreciate your doing so. There are many issues we have not covered. I hope that we can cover them in that written format.
I thank you all for the work you do. I particularly thought I was back in my court process when I used to sit around the table. It is the kind of detail that you told me. You very graphically pointed out what so many people are doing in the communities, and we need to hear more of those stories.
I thank you all for your work and please, if there are any specific recommendations — and I thank Mr. Chartier for actually enumerating them — it is helpful for us to work that way. Ms. Blackstock and I go back so long that I will not remind her the first time I met her many years ago. Thank you for your comments and any further ones.
(The committee adjourned.)