Thank you for having me today and for considering this issue. I've been researching and thinking about the issue of coerced sterilization for over 10 years now. I want to highlight that indigenous women have been experiencing this issue for much longer than that.
I also want to acknowledge that indigenous women have their own voices on this issue and I'm not purporting to speak on their behalf.
I am encouraged to see that women's experiences are slowly being acknowledged, including by this committee. Thank you for this. As I've said before in other forums, however, I need to qualify that I am cautiously optimistic. That caution is based on my reading of history and the records of previous governments who have played a role in enabling the coerced sterilization of indigenous women. Despite having had many opportunities to intervene, they have sought to minimize the issue and avoid accountability, rather than approach it with the openness and honesty it requires.
My hope is that our appearance here today and the many brave women who are coming forward will result not only in getting something on the official record for future researchers like me to find, but also that the necessary actions will be taken to address the issue and ensure that it stops.
The coerced sterilization of indigenous women has taken place under what's often referred to as eugenics legislation in Canada, in Alberta and B.C. in particular. The documentary record shows that indigenous women were disproportionately targeted for sterilization overall under Alberta's Sexual Sterilization Act from the late 1930s until its repeal in 1972. Though much is unknown about B.C.'s Sexual Sterilization Act, some indigenous women were sterilized in provincial institutions under this legislation. These women were often viewed as mentally defective, sexually promiscuous or inferior in some other way.
We know that the federal government was aware that coerced sterilizations were happening under provincial legislation in provincial institutions, that it was sometimes looked to for consent for these operations and that, through broader legislative and other means, it also contributed to these taking place.
Coerced sterilization also took place outside of eugenics legislation. The documents I examined reveal that over 1,000 indigenous women were sterilized over a 10-year period, mostly in the early to mid-1970s, often in federally operated “Indian hospitals” across Canada.
These documents are only partial and don't tell the experiences of each individual woman, but they do show there was a loosening of guidelines on when sterilizations could be performed, that consent forms were inadequate and that qualified interpreters weren't always used. They also show a climate of racism and paternalism, leading to the view that sterilization was for some women's own good as a means of dealing with poverty and other public health issues so prevalent in indigenous communities.
This trend was allowed to continue following federal legislative and policy changes since the 1970s under the banner of family planning. The historical record shows that federal officials hoped that by decriminalizing contraceptives such as birth control and, consequently, sterilization for non-therapeutic reasons, this would curb the indigenous birth rate.
Federal actions and inactions set out parameters in which medical practitioners could act more freely in persuading indigenous people to adopt birth control and to consent to sterilization. This, coupled with the continued relations of colonialism and systemic racism faced by indigenous peoples, contributed to the context in which the coerced sterilization of indigenous women would continue.
The historical record also shows that Canada was aware that it may well be ultimately responsible for any actions taken by those it employed to deliver services, including contractually delegated services, to indigenous people. More recently, approximately 100 women have come forward alleging forms of coercion and systemic racism resulting in their sterilization without full, prior and informed consent, as recently as December 2018.
While other individuals have experienced coerced sterilization in Canada, indigenous experiences need to be understood within their own unique context, and unique actions are needed to address the issue.
In terms of immediate actions, those performing coerced sterilizations need to be held criminally responsible. Clear directives need to be given to all health professionals that coercion of any kind in the delivery of health services is not tolerated, and clear consequences need to follow if coercion does take place.
The mandatory framing of health and welfare professionals on issues of colonialism, systemic racism, poverty and the stereotypes associated with those is needed. Culturally grounded supports should be made available for indigenous women who are navigating decision-making in western medical institutions.
I have submitted these and further recommendations in my written brief to you.
I want to highlight that, for indigenous people, systemic change is also needed to the relations that continue to fundamentally shape every interaction indigenous women have with Canadians and Canadian institutions that lead to the possibility of coercion in the first place.
The coerced sterilization of indigenous women is connected to colonialism and the continued expropriation of indigenous lands to the benefit of settler society and private corporations.
Coerced sterilization is one of many forms of violence experienced by indigenous women. The violence committed against indigenous bodies is connected to the violence committed against indigenous lands. Coerced sterilization also works to destroy the connections between women and their peoples while reducing the number of those to whom the federal government has obligations. It breaks the link between aboriginal women and future generations. It undermines the ability of women to make decisions about their own lives.
The practice is linked to other policies stemming from the Indian Act, including the sexist and race-based definition of who is an Indian, which has denied many the ability to participate fully in their communities. Other policies like residential schools or the sixties scoop forcibly transferred children out of their communities and into state-run institutions and non-indigenous families.
Indigenous children continue to be disproportionately targeted in the child welfare system today. Indigenous women are over-incarcerated in prisons. These interventions promote assimilation and reinforce the stereotype that indigenous women are unfit mothers, unable to care for children. The practice is also consistent with how other medical services have sometimes been offered to indigenous peoples. Systemic racism in health care is well documented and has often resulted in the control of indigenous bodies, the undermining of indigenous health and wellness and the criminalization of indigenous health and reproductive practices.
For indigenous women, to be able to freely choose western medical options or fully funded and supported indigenous options, created by and under the control of indigenous peoples, needs to be viable alternatives.
Coercively sterilizing indigenous women allows the Canadian state to deny a responsibility for and avoid doing something about the deplorable social, economic and health conditions in many communities, conditions that are recognized as being the direct result of dispossession and colonialism. It becomes more cost-effective to limit the ability of indigenous women to reproduce than to do what's required to improve the conditions into which children are born.
There's a finality to the practice of coerced sterilization. The break that comes from robbing indigenous women of the ability to reproduce can't be undone. It effectively terminates the legal line of descendants able to claim indigenous rights and title to land. In a settler, colonial and capitalist nation such as Canada, this has always been a goal of Indian policy. It's this context that leads to the long-standing and credible charge that coerced sterilization is not only a human rights violation, but it's also an act of genocide.
I'm left wanting to ask you distinguished members of Parliament: What is the full extent to which government knows about the coerced sterilization of indigenous women? Who performed the operations and who approved them? Where are the documents and where is the data? Where are those who are criminally responsible, either directly or indirectly? Why has the government failed to act on this up until now?
Women who have experienced coerced sterilization deserve all possible supports to assist them in sharing their experiences, if they choose, and in dealing with the continued impact of this violence in their lives. Addressing the individual harms resulting from coerced sterilization, as important as this is, isn't enough.
With all due respect, I want to reiterate that, until government responds with the transparency and humility required to fully investigate this issue, and until conditions of colonialism are ended and aboriginal peoples are returned lands, resources and the freedom to meet their own needs in their own ways without stipulations, we will be falling short of what's required to ensure this injustice and the many others experienced by indigenous peoples are stopped.
Thank you for listening.