Evidence of meeting #154 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was sterilization.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Okay.
My other question, if I have time, is about warrants. Medical records typically are privileged. In order to access them, you'd probably need specific incidents to get a warrant about. If you had a complainant who was a victim, you could presumably get a warrant for that person's medical records much more easily to follow up on that specific complaint.
Commr Brenda Lucki
Yes. Normally, though, when we do have a victim, it's basically consent. The victim can provide consent and we can get access to the records.
Liberal
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Yes, I would like to ask a question if we have a bit of time left.
I will continue in the same vein as Mr. Davies, who asked you why you do not investigate until you receive complaints or names are submitted to you.
In that specific case, what do you think organizations defending those who have been wronged should do? There are about 100 such organizations. According to those people, a crime has taken place. What do you suggest they do so that you can do your job?
Commr Brenda Lucki
For the lawyers who have the 100 names, if they were to speak with those victims and provide them the option of coming to the police, we would absolutely sit down with each and every victim they have, to look at it from a criminal point of view. That's one thing they could do.
Obviously they're not going to release the names without their consent as well, but if they were to, and if we could have those conversations and possibly could convince victims to come forward through the lawyers, that would be one avenue we could explore.
Liberal
Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB
I was just wondering how the RCMP would balance this out between criminal investigations and the professional obligations of professional bodies, such as the college of physicians, which also has to conduct investigations and regulate its members. Is there a difference? How do they balance out?
Commr Brenda Lucki
They have their own processes, their regulatory processes that we don't get involved in. We go through the Criminal Code, and so it's criminal.... When it comes to regulatory, it's no different from how in our organization we have internal investigations. Maybe it's not against the Criminal Code, so we do our internal investigation, just as any—
Liberal
Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB
Meaning that a doctor could have not taken the necessary precautions to ensure that someone truly wanted to have sterilization or a tubal ligation yet proceeded with the procedure anyway and the college could determine they had broken its code of ethics, but it might not be a criminal matter.
Commr Brenda Lucki
It depends. If they feel it was criminal they should be bringing it forward to the police. It's no different from it is when we do an internal investigation. If we get enough reason to believe—reasonable and probable grounds—that a criminal matter has occurred, then we would go that route.
Liberal
Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB
I have another short question. If someone wanted to make a complaint to the police—indigenous people often don't do this—how would they go about doing that? Is there a number for the RCMP that you can call?
Commr Brenda Lucki
If it's urgent, you can call 911, obviously. Each town has its own local number, which—
Liberal
Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB
We're talking about Saskatchewan, where we say there's a very great problem and a great gulf between police services and indigenous peoples. If I don't trust the police in Saskatchewan, how am I going to call them? Who am I going to call?
Commr Brenda Lucki
You could present your complaint to another police agency and they would take it to the police of jurisdiction. If you wanted to, if you trusted the police in Alberta, you could go over to Alberta and make your complaint, but the complaint would come back to Saskatchewan, the police of jurisdiction.
Liberal
Liberal
Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB
Okay.
I have one final question. In Canadian history, has anyone ever been charged under the Criminal Code with aggravated assault in relation to forced sterilization, as far as you're aware?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
Thank you very much. That brings us to exactly four o'clock.
I want to thank you again for coming on such short notice.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
I believe that's the shortest notice we've ever given anybody, and I know you're very busy so I wanted to thank you.
Now we're going to take a break for a couple of minutes and change panels.
Thank you very much.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
We'll reconvene our meeting number 154.
Welcome, guests. We appreciate your taking the time to come to provide us with testimony. We are going to go to 5:10.
I'll introduce our guests. Dr. Judith Bartlett is a retired professor from the faculty of medicine, University of Manitoba. From the DisAbled Women's Network of Canada, we have Sonia Alimi, research coordinator, and Jihan Abbas, researcher. From the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, we have Dr. Lisa Richardson, chair, indigenous health committee. From the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, we have Dr. Jennifer Blake, chief executive officer.
Thank you very much for coming.
We're going to ask each of you for an opening statement and then we'll go to questions. We'll start with Dr. Bartlett.