Thank you for inviting me to present today, on behalf of my clients, the brave indigenous women who have painfully shared their experiences of forced sterilization to protect other women from the same experiences.
I would like to first acknowledge the land, the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, and express my gratitude to them for allowing us to gather here. As well, thank you, honourable members of Parliament, for inviting the voices of the survivors of forced sterilization to be heard here today, while keeping in mind that some women have not survived.
I want to caution those present and those listening that we are about to describe very difficult and traumatic matters. If anyone thinks they may be impacted by these experiences, I strongly encourage you to make sure you have trustworthy supports available to you, or wait to listen until your supports are available.
If you require mental health supports or are in crisis, please call the toll-free help line at 1-855-242-3310. Counsellors are available in English and French, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. On request, counselling can also be delivered in Cree, Ojibwa and Inuktitut. lf it is an emergency, call 911.
I represent indigenous women in a putative class action in Saskatchewan, M.R.L.P. and S.A.T. v Canada and other defendants, as well as indigenous women in other provinces, alleging similar experiences. We've been contacted by dozens of women reporting that they have been forcibly or coercively sterilized in publicly funded and administered hospitals in Canada. When there is a spike in public attention in the matter, more women come forward.
First, there are no words to convey the amount of pain and suffering my clients have survived, being robbed of their sacred ability to carry life, give birth, pass on their knowledge and culture and watch children in the number of their choice grow and become parents themselves. Their complete bodily autonomy over any and all decisions relating to procedures affecting their reproductive capacity has been violated.
As indigenous people, wealth is determined by the good relations we cultivate with our children, grandchildren and community members. For my clients, the decision on whether to gain in this kind of wealth was stolen from them, and we must all remember in our work the tremendous weight of this loss.
Many of the women who have reached out did not know that they had rights, that they had a choice. Some did not know that, under Canadian law, no doctor, nurse or government has any right to make decisions about their fertility for them. They were not given a fair chance to partake in medical decisions about their reproductive capabilities. In fact, their wishes for their own bodies were ignored. lt is critically important that women know what their rights are and that their rights are proactively upheld by medical professionals, their self-regulating entities and governments alike.
For the few moments I have here today, I will share the stories of some survivors further to their instruction and with their consent to do so. I've condensed the stories as much as possible without risking the exclusion of critical information and experiences. I share these stories in hopes that you will honour the voices of these survivors by creatively crafting a resolution process in co-operation with them that will put an end to these atrocities once and for all.
Liz is an Ojibwa woman from northern Ontario. She reports being pregnant with her third child at approximately 20 years old, in the late 1970s, when child and family services told her, “You might as well abort the baby, because if you have it, we are going to take it anyway.” After a late-term abortion, she was also sterilized without proper and informed consent. Her body bears the physical scars of the unwanted abortion and sterilization to this day.
S.A.T. is a Cree woman who gave birth naturally to her sixth child in Saskatoon, in 2001. When presented with a consent form for her sterilization, S.A.T. reports hearing her late husband say, “I am not [expletive] signing that,” before she was wheeled into the operating room, over her own protests. She recalls trying to wheel herself away from the operating room, but the doctor stopped her and redirected her back to the same operating room. She repeatedly said, “I don't want this,” and cried while the epidural was administered. When she was in the operating room, she kept asking the doctor if he was “done yet”. He finally said, “Yes, cut, tied and burned there. Nothing is getting through that.”
S.A.T. is a strong advocate for the specific criminalization of coerced sterilization.
D.D.S. is a 30-year-old Nakota woman from Saskatchewan. She was scheduled to have a Caesarean section for the delivery of her third child, in December 2018, six months ago, in Saskatchewan. Immediately before the administration of an epidural, the surgeon interrupted the discussion with the anaesthesiologist in an abrupt and aggressive manner, directing her to sign a consent form for the C-section. D.D.S. noticed that a tubal ligation was also listed on the consent form and believed that she had no choice but to sign. She does not recall prior conversations regarding a tubal ligation beforehand and did not want one. She wished to have more children.
D.D.S. was sterilized following her Caesarean section. She was devastated and immediately asked a nurse whether the operation was reversible. She has suffered psychologically as well as physically in the past months.
D.D.S.'s injuries are all the more tragic given that they occurred after this action had commenced and government defendants—the health authorities, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan, and the Saskatchewan Registered Nurses Association—had direct and specific knowledge of the practice of forced sterilization of indigenous women in Saskatchewan and in other provinces.
Sterilization without proper and informed consent continues to unnecessarily impact the lives of more women and families as responsible entities sit idle, decrying the heinous nature of the practice but failing to take any meaningful action to prevent it, punish it and provide reparations to the victims and their families. D.D.S.'s experience is evidence that the practice is ongoing, because it happened just over six months ago. Her beautiful daughter has not yet cut teeth and D.D.S. has yet to heal. From my experience in speaking with dozens of victims of forced sterilization, that healing is a very hard road.
D.D.S. was sterilized without her proper informed consent after the United Nations Committee Against Torture, having termed forced and coerced sterilization a form of torture, issued its recommendations to Canada and called on it to take measures to prevent it and punish the practice, and to provide reparations to the victims of the practice, over a year after a statement of claim was filed in this very matter. D.D.S.'s forced sterilization was foreseeable and preventable. D.D.S.'s unwanted sterilization falls squarely at the feet of those who were in a position to make change, who had notice and actual knowledge of this heinous practice, who yet chose not to take swift action.
Immediately following the release of the final report on the national inquiry on missing and murdered indigenous women, Prime Minister Trudeau announced hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for the protection of women's reproductive rights—abroad. My clients are disappointed but, sadly, not surprised. They are growing accustomed to the failure of successive governments to humanize them, to protect them, to honour them and to make things right. The courageous women who I have the honour of representing call upon you to govern and to work collaboratively with various orders of government to create solutions to mitigate the harms and losses for the indigenous women who have suffered this enormous injustice. Further, we call upon you to make reparations to help these women and their families heal from the insufferable dehumanization arising from indifference, negligence and racism that has been visited upon them.
My clients have asked the Senate, when it examines the forced and coerced sterilization of indigenous women, to remember the women and their lived experiences, and the little spirits who, against their will, they were prevented from bringing into this world. My clients respectfully ask the same of you, honourable members of Parliament, and ask that, when you put their experiences at the centre of your understanding of this issue, you immediately create solutions that will put an end to these horrific violations of human rights, and to what the inquiry on missing and murdered indigenous women's final report properly qualified as an act of genocide.
Thank you.