Thank you very much.
I want to thank you for inviting the United Steelworkers to speak with you today.
My name is Pat Van Horne. I'm the legislative representative for the union, and I'm based here in Ottawa. I've also brought with me, in the peanut gallery, a number of our members who are here this week talking to MPs on another important issue, which is retirement security, but we won't talk about that now. I'm also here on behalf of our national director Ken Neumann, who could not join me today.
The United Steelworkers represent over 180,000 women and men employed in all sectors of the Canadian economy right across the country. Many of our members are indigenous peoples—first nations, Métis, and Inuit. Many are employed, for example, by Cameco, at the uranium mines in Saskatchewan; the Vale nickel mines in Voisey's Bay, Labrador; Glencore's Raglan Mine in northern Quebec; in logging and sawmills from Ontario to B.C.; at the Frontier School Division in northern Manitoba; and many other places.
USW has a long history of struggle for social justice and human rights for working people, their families, and their communities. Today, along with many Canadian organizations and institutions, which include unions, we are taking active steps to work toward reconciliation and full recognition of the rights of indigenous people.
Our support for Bill C-262 is based on an official policy position adopted by USW members in 2016, and it reflects their deep concern as citizens, co-workers, and community members from all walks of life in all parts of the country, over the unjust and racist history of Canada's treatment of indigenous peoples.
We also have within our union an aboriginal people's committee, which meets regularly and brings issues to the larger union.
The adoption of Bill C-262 would be a powerful affirmation of Canadians' collective desire to do better and engage in genuine reconciliation with first peoples. More than that, Bill C-262 would provide a practical, rights-based path that Canada must follow in order to ensure that reconciliation is comprehensive, far-reaching, and uncovers and redresses the colonial legacy embedded in Canada's legal, economic, political, and other systems, which, I dare say, includes our economic relationships with employers.
The rights-based approach of Bill C-262 is a key part of efforts to address crisis in many indigenous communities and among many indigenous people in Canada's urban areas. This crisis includes, as has been mentioned many times, inadequate education, health, child welfare, and housing. It includes gender-based violence, poverty, and the loss of language and cultural identity. These are big jobs to do, but I think Canadians are up for it, and this bill would help.
If properly implemented, Bill C-262 would help ensure that there is a comprehensive, consistent legal framework based in international law within which indigenous communities can work with private, non-state actors to arrive at equitable arrangements for resource and community development. In fact, the representative from PDAC alluded to that in his presentation.
The USW would never accept a mine design that was unsafe. The USW would never accept a mining operation based on the harassment or exploitation of workers and their families, or a mine constructed without environmental safeguards preventing the poisoning of local communities. Health and safety has been one of our major thrusts throughout our history and particularly over the last 25 years since the Westray mine explosion. Likewise, the USW can no longer accept mines built without consultation and participation of indigenous rights-holders in decision-making, in violation of UNDRIP. That, of course, means free, prior, and informed consent, among other things.
The USW is not concerned that the adoption of Bill C-262 would somehow paralyze resource development in Canada. On the contrary, the implementation of Bill C-262 would help ensure that the Canadian legal system offers a clearer framework for balancing rights and a more certain basis on which resource development decisions can be made. In our experience, when indigenous communities feel secure in their rights, they are quite prepared to entertain appropriate proposals, including partnership for resource development, collective bargaining, and other issues.
My final comment is simply that processes like this one, Bill C-262, to make human rights meaningful in a relationship fraught with racism and exploitation, in a framework of colonialism, will help organizations like the United Steelworkers to become instruments of reconciliation, where solidarity is the guiding principle.
Thank you for your attention, and I'm happy to answer any questions.