Ms. Beth Symes (Legal Counsel, Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada) at the Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee

I'll try not to repeat what Mr. Bond or Ms. Omeniho has said.

For Pauktuutit, the UNDRIP bill is hopefully a dramatic change in the relationship between Canada and Inuit women, indigenous people. It provides a new pathway forward in terms of that relationship.

I listened to you last Tuesday and read the transcripts of previous witnesses. You focused very much on natural resources and free, prior and informed consent, but I ask you to take a different lens—the lens of women—and in sections 21 and 24, the UNDRIP act promises a commitment to an improvement in the economic and social conditions: education, housing, health, employment and social security.

A young Inuk girl right now will live 10 years less than my daughters. That's not acceptable. It's not acceptable. There is a way to do things differently. Please focus as much on the social, economic and human conditions, because they're just so important.