Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to speak today on one of the tragic realities facing our elders: the huge yet hidden prevalence of elder abuse.
The NWT Seniors’ Society has been working hard to push this reality out into the open through their Building Networks on Elder Abuse Project. The project’s three phases were reviewed at a two-day symposium in Yellowknife, November 30th and December 1st, attended by more than 100 participants drawn from all regions.
Community and literature research was reported. National experts shared their wisdom on the state of knowledge on elder abuse. The results of the 12-community survey of 528 adults aged 50 and older and the survey of 98 service providers and policymakers was provided. The survey results are startling: 71 percent of respondents said elder abuse is a problem in their community; 77 percent reported financial abuse; 68 percent neglect; 62 percent reported emotional abuse; 54 percent verbal abuse. Half said they didn’t know how to protect themselves from abuse. A third said they didn’t know where to get help. Only one out of three said they knew elder abuse is a crime.
Elders said abuse isn’t reported for a number of reasons: shame and guilt; fear of authority or reprisal, including losing their independence; lack of knowledge was a clear finding. Service providers and policymakers cited familiar factors creating the situation: poverty and lack of affordable housing; addictions; unemployment; ageism; lack of community and agency supports; lack of clear elder protection policies.
What did people say about attacking the problem? The answer takes itself in the name of the symposium, Building Networks. People said we must get together to respond. Get community people together on programs such as home visits, whole community training workshops and other local steps. The people know the answers must come from the communities.
It has been said that the public consciousness on elder abuse is where awareness of family violence was 20 years ago. The work of the NWT Seniors’ Society is forcing this issue into the open and I applaud them for helping us all to understand and leading the drive for action. We must help, but how?
Mr. Speaker, I will have questions for the Minister responsible for Seniors on how this government will pitch in. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to join my colleagues in speaking out today against elder abuse. I was disgusted and sickened by a story on the CTV two days ago where a man and his wife had left his elderly mother in an unheated garage for an extended period of time. Mr. Speaker, this action was reprehensible and highlights the fact that elder abuse is happening every day, not only in communities in our Territory but across this country. In this case, laws were broken, but the abuse can take many forms, Mr. Speaker, such as financial abuse, people stealing money, belongings, forging cheques or tricking an elderly person into giving away their money; neglect, when a caregiver does not provide adequate food, medicine and proper living conditions; physical abuse, rough treatment through slapping, hitting, punching or pushing and threatening to hurt an elder; sexual abuse, when elders are touched sexually without their consent; and perhaps the most common form, Mr. Speaker, emotional abuse, which includes threatening, swearing, keeping elders from friends and community members, and guilt trips.
The only way to stop the abuse from taking place is to report it. Elders have every right to feel safe in their homes and in their communities. They also have every right to manage their own money and belongings. If you know of any of this abuse taking place, you can help by telling someone about it. If you are the victim, then you should talk to a friend or the RCMP.
Again, other colleagues of mine have mentioned the NWT Seniors’ Society and I wanted to publicly thank them for all the work they’ve put into addressing the issue of elder abuse in our Territory. I’d also like to thank this government and the Department of Health and Social Services for the material and the campaign to tackle elder abuse in this Territory.
In closing, please, if you see someone – anyone -- being abused in our communities, report it. It’s the only way to stop it.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also join my colleagues today in talking about elder abuse. I’m sorry to say that elder abuse does go on in our country and does exist in the Northwest Territories.
Elders are the maturity and wisdom of our nation and it’s appalling for me to hear some of the stories of abuse that go on behind closed doors. We hear of stories of physical and emotional abuse and these things truly upset us. I was going to tell the same story that was just cited so recently in the news that Mr. Ramsay has cited. I’m not going to speak to that.
I’d like to look for tangible and practical ways of how we individually in our lives can reach out. Mr. Bromley touched on Building Networks. I think that’s very important. How many times do we sit down to a family dinner at Christmas or Thanksgiving or sometime a year and do we have our minds trained on the fact that perhaps there is a senior out there who is away from family and friends that we could set an extra place at our table for?
When my son was married about 10 years ago, a post-war family friend of my father’s showed up for the wedding unexpectedly. His name was Grandpa Ken. My father had since passed away. We invited Grandpa Ken to come and stay with us for a few days. He stayed for four years. You might remember him. You would see him around Yellowknife sometimes wearing placards. He wasn’t the most politically correct person in the world. Grandpa Ken did stay with us for four years and our kids were accustomed to the fact that when there was something going on in our family, it was time to run down to the Harbour House and pick up Grandpa Ken. I do apologize to those people. He was a retired pastor. Some of the people who stayed in the Harbour House got an unexpected sermon or two when they stayed there, so I do apologize for that. He was eccentric but beautiful and we loved him. It was an opportunity.
Not everybody can do that, what I just stated, but I bet you there are many times when we can reach out, build a friendship, make a connection to a senior in the community. My children did not have the advantage of growing up with their grandparents nearby. My father was in Ontario. So we can look at other people and think that could be your father, that could be their grandfather, and when those people may need at a time when they come into a difficult time in their life, how wonderful it would be for them to have a family that they were connected to.
We have programs like Big Brother and different things that try to link people in the communities. I think this is something we could extend to the elders community, as well, and we could all be on the lookout for opportunities where we could network with and reach out and be a servant to those who are our seniors.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In December last I attended the NWT Seniors’ Society symposium held here in Yellowknife. It was called Making Connections: Building Networks to Prevent Elder Abuse. There was lots of grey hair in the room, but oh, the knowledge and the experiences to be shared. I felt privileged then to be part of such a group and I still feel that way.
The symposium was the second phase of a three-phase NWT Seniors’ Society Elder Abuse Project. One of the symposium sessions shared the results of the society’s research findings from phase 1 and I was particularly struck by a couple of the findings. First, that 71 percent of the 450 or so older adults surveyed said that abuse of older adults is a problem in their community. Second, that one of the biggest contributing factors to elder abuse is silence. People do not speak out about the abuse that they experience or that they see around them.
For a very long time, abuse of older adults has been a taboo subject. It’s not acknowledged publicly and it’s gone unnoticed in our communities. In the last 15 years or so the NWT Seniors’ Society has been working hard to change that. Due to their efforts, elder abuse is starting to get the recognition it should. We are starting to better understand the breadth, depth and magnitude of this problem.
Abuse of older adults is not something that can be left to an NGO to fix. It’s too big an issue. The government must shoulder some responsibility and assist the NWT Seniors’ Society in their endeavours. There needs to be a different kind of assistance than what the government normally considers. What is required is to give a higher profile to elders in our government hierarchy. GNWT must start to consider elders as a cohort of their own, gather statistical data for elders, and fund elders as a distinct segment of our society, much as we do for our youth.
The Elders Parliament held last May passed a motion calling for an elders secretariat. That’s one possibility. As well, this House recently passed a motion calling for targeted funding for a seniors home repair and maintenance program. That’s another possibility. Paramount is the need to fund programs to reduce and eliminate the abuse of older adults as a separate program.
At the moment, funding comes under the umbrella of a Family Violence Action Plan. Funding for elder abuse programming needs to be separated out and funded on its own.
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
Funding for elder abuse programming needs to be separated out and funded on its own, within the Family Violence Action Plan but funded as a separate line item. Until we do that and until we speak out about elder abuse, a lot of our elders and seniors will not improve. Certainly abuse of NWT adults will continue and that is a shame. I will have questions for the Minister responsible for Seniors at the appropriate time.
