What steps do I think could improve data reporting? From my understanding, going back at least 10 years, you already have the data. It just needs to be put together in a certain way to present it in terms of knowing the rates of sterilization across the country for aboriginal people on reserves, status Indians, to be specific. My understanding is that data already exists. It just needs to be culled in a particular way.
Do I think that this is the complete solution to understanding the issue? Do I think the data alone tells us whether forced sterilizations are happening or not? I don't. Is it possible to identify clusters. Potentially. More important than that, I think the work on the ground needs to happen, because numbers are one thing, but people are another thing.
There are a lot of innovative things that could be done, such as putting people into hospitals, whether they're actual birth practitioners, doulas or midwives, but also cultural supports for people who are navigating western medicine as indigenous peoples and as other marginalized or racialized people. It isn't just indigenous peoples who experience that power dynamic in western medicine. I think beyond the numbers, the human aspect is equally, if not more, important.