Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on June 17th, 2021

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you so much, Chair.

Ms. Skye, I want to come back to you. You talked in your presentation about the importance of governance systems, and you just gave an excellent answer on human rights and how those are connected.

Could you talk about governance systems and how they impact the trafficking of persons? You also talked about the trafficking of adoption. I'm just wondering if you could talk about the governance systems, the undermining of those governance systems, and how it relates to the human trafficking today.

[Courtney Skye]

This is really important because I think that Canada has really lapsed and not been advancing strong policy around many different forms of trafficking. Oftentimes other jurisdictions in the world have had to enact policy in reaction to Canada's not having strong policy program services legislation, because women from this country are being found in other parts of the world. International organizations have started to have a little bit more well-developed policies or programs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Courtney, could you lift your mike up?

[Courtney Skye]

Yes, thank you.

I think it's important to remember. That's why I became involved with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, because they look at many different forms of trafficking and whether it's people who are being trafficked across borders for the purposes of terrorism or children being trafficked for the purposes of adoption. People might consider the child welfare system, as it exists in Canada, which has seen indigenous children continue to be adopted by non-indigenous families and removed from their communities, with that being the only way that they can be placed into what's deemed as an appropriate family, as a form of trafficking. There is also how trafficking has impacted Canada and child trafficking. Specifically, Canada for a long time maintained a program called “home children,” where children from Europe were brought to Canada to populate Canada and specifically to populate western provinces in order to bolster the Canadian population, the settler population here. Actually, about 12% of Canadians are descendants from this program.

We need to think about what those historical contextual pieces are, but also the way that their legacy continues to form and shape the policies that we have today, because there's a direct policy law line to that from the legislation that was developed by Canada in the 1800s through the 1920s, which were inherently racist and discriminatory towards indigenous people, with the legacies of the Gradual Civilization Act and such.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Schmale. are you ready for your five minutes? Please go ahead.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I most certainly am. Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here today. It is a difficult study, but we appreciate your contributions.

I wanted to talk more about some of the content that was mentioned earlier. I'm going to direct my first batch of questions to Ms. Skye and Ms. Smiley, if I could. I'll let you two decide who would like to go first.

A lot of the conversation that both of you mentioned was in regard to the universal basic income or guaranteed income or whatever you want to call it. To my knowledge, the only country in the world to have that is Iran and that's paid for through subsidies and sales of oil and gas.

Have either of you looked at other potential solutions, such as economic activity and opportunity in some of these communities, rather than a direct payment?

[Courtney Skye]

I can start with that.

It's become a misnomer that economic development actually leads to liberation. It actually doesn't. What makes the biggest difference in mobilizing and creating lasting or systemic change for people, and women generally, is political mobilization. That's the catalyst social change draws from in communities, especially within indigenous communities.

Making small investments, the “teaching someone how to fish” kind of examples, don't actually address any of the systemic issues that create multiple barriers to allowing people to work or be self-reliant. We're talking about broad, systemic changes and making space for women and their decision-making, leadership and governance. That is what actually creates lasting social change and creates safety for people. That's what works if you're trying to advance that.

It can't just be limited to socio-economic investments. It has to go much beyond that. Otherwise, it's just solving a small problem perhaps with one family or however many people you can get into a program with small service numbers or one worker limited to so many clients.

Without broader systemic changes, we're not actually going to be able to meet many people's needs and that's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to talk about lifting and supporting all people, which is why something like guaranteed minimum incomes and that kind of thing—providing a safety net—is really important. As a society, we're a very wealthy country where we believe in the value of every person. Every person is valuable and every person deserves dignity regardless of their circumstances.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Wouldn't that ensure the maximum opportunity for all? Would that not help?

[Courtney Skye]

You can't just look at it from today moving forward. It has to be contextualized historically.

I'll give you another example from my territory. We had funds as a nation—investments and Indian trust dollars—which is in the Yellowhead report “Cash Back”. Our community had around $12 million in 1840. The federal government redirected that fund into a trust for us. Trustees appointed by the Crown misspent about 40% of that trust fund.

By the early 1900s, that entire trust fund was almost depleted to do things like build Osgoode Hall, Toronto City Hall or bridges and infrastructure. It didn't actually go to our community for our investment and our prosperity. It was exploited from the Crown.

We have many generations of people who were not able to have control of their financial resources, who now exist in a state of chronic poverty because Canada used our money to build infrastructure that serves the settler population and doesn't benefit the indigenous population.

Now we have people experiencing poverty who have not been able to participate in the economy and were never able to get the economic prosperity that comes from all of the wealth that was generated over the past years in the industrial era. That's why we need to move forward with thinking about that.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I get that government is the problem. I believe that “Ottawa knows best” is causing a lot of these problems. I understand that.

I'm saying that if we're creating opportunity for all and the ability to climb the ladder no matter where you are or where you're from, it's ensuring a foundation that allows people to do that. That is kind of the cause of poverty—the fact that in some of these communities “Ottawa knows best”—but we want to ensure that there is equal opportunity for all and that these opportunities are available.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

That brings us to time, but perhaps you can pick that up, because we have more opportunities coming along.

Adam van Koeverden, you're up for five minutes.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I really want to thank you, witnesses, today for your extraordinary testimony, but beyond that, your extraordinary work, your research, your community service and your advocacy. It's really extraordinary.

I had a question about disaggregated data, but before I get to the question, I feel as though I have an obligation to highlight or at least address some of the fallacious comments regarding universal basic income that my honourable colleague just put forth. Iran is not the only country in the world with a universal basic income. Countries like Spain, France and Brazil have one, and so does Alaska. Alaska's permanent fund has alleviated extreme poverty almost entirely in Alaska, and versions of a universal basic income have been shown around the world to be extremely effective measures at doing exactly what our witnesses today have pointed out. On behalf of the committee, I apologize for that misleading statement, because it's not at all true.

My question today is about disaggregated data and how on the Parliamentary Black Caucus, we've committed to gathering more disaggregated data. While that might not have much to do with our business here on indigenous and northern affairs, I do think it's related to our ability to make decisions. We really can't change what we don't measure.

My question today is whether any of the witnesses—perhaps Ms. Skye, because, I believe, Ms. Skye brought it up first—can share with the committee their perspective on what is working and what's not in terms of collecting disaggregated data, specific data, and can provide some advice on how our government and other governments in Canada can do a better job of collecting and using this data to address some of these very sensitive issues.

[Courtney Skye]

If there's one thing I believe in, it's drawing strong policy from good data. It's critically important to know the populations you're working with. I echo what some of my colleagues on the panel here have said. In all of my work with indigenous women and people who've experienced violence, they want to know that we're actually ending violence. They want to know that women are actually being made safer, and if we don't have the data to back that up and show it, we're not actually going to deliver on the commitment that women and communities want and expect from their leadership. We have to be able to prove it.

I think it's really important that we look at and challenge the way that data is collected and the way it's reported, because especially with the work of the national inquiry, we found that there were a ton of gaps in information in terms of being able to identify whether or not someone was Inuit, whether someone was Métis, whether or not their data was being collected, whether or not their nationality was being properly recorded, whether or not white-passing or Black-presenting indigenous people are having their identities properly assessed, and whether or not there's been an effort to correct misinformation around people's identities, specifically around things like the way that Indian status is assumed to be patriarchal.

For people like my nation, which is matriarchal, we say that my status card says this but I'm actually this, because the way the federal government administers Indian status is completely patriarchal and doesn't include matrilineal descendancies. I'm enrolled under my paternal grandfather, as opposed to my maternal grandmother, the way it should be according to my culture.

Also there is the question of whether we are doing the work to respect people and their gender, and whether we are doing the work to identify trans people and their accurate gender, which is something that's completely lost in many of the forms, and a challenge that has been levied against some of the StatsCan data and the police-reported data around people who have been victimized. They don't actually have confirmation whether or not a person's gender identity has been accurately captured, and whether or not trans women are being accurately assessed and counted.

All of those things need to be addressed, but it starts with having a consistent expectation around, especially, how the police are reporting data, and standards and regulations around how they are assessing and directed on how to collect that data.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Skye.

Perhaps I could get a quick reflection on a universal basic income from whoever would like to do that.

[Cherry Smiley]

I hear what you're saying about how it has been successful in other places. I know there have been studies done and experiments with universal basic income in Manitoba. There have been some recently in the States.

If we think about what I heard a man refer to as economic opportunity maximization, he was talking about prostitution, that indigenous women should be maximizing their economic opportunities by selling their bodies. That's where we end up if we're like, well, everybody should just be able to go and make the most money they can. If we're looking at that in a very narrow way, it just doesn't reflect our reality.

Either way, women are the ones who end up paying the price for that, so universal basic income does really provide a way to address that unlevel playing field. Even if we think about the gender pay gap that we currently still have, the universal basic income provides a way to help alleviate that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much.

As we progress towards one o'clock, for our witnesses joining us today, I want to say how proud I am that we have been working hard as a committee on the issues that are brought forward on behalf of the people who are affected by those issues. It works that the committee members ask questions and the witnesses give answers.

I would caution members to avoid any interplay between the committee members, because we want to ensure that all we have in mind is listening carefully to the testimony of our witnesses, the people who are coming to visit us and their answers, and then moving towards recommendations.

That said, Mr. Viersen is up next, for a five-minute intervention.

Arnold, please go ahead.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for the admonition there. I appreciate that.

I'll go back to Ms. Smiley.

I appreciate your testimony. One of the things you talked about is a defence of our current PCEPA bill. Could you expand on that a little more?

[Cherry Smiley]

It's absolutely necessary that we keep that legislation. We can keep it and we can try to improve it. Of course, there's lots of room for improvement there, but the fundamental message the legislation sends is that it is not okay for men to purchase sex acts from women.

I would respectfully disagree with my friend here, Courtney. There is no right to sell sex, because there's no right to buy sex. That's not a fundamental human right.

If we get rid of this PCEPA bill, it really does open the door for traffickers, for pimps, for brothel owners. They come in and they set up shop. If you're are not targeting the demand for paid sex acts, you're not really going to get anywhere substantial, because there will always be women in the current circumstances in which we live who are poor enough and desperate enough and who just have very few choices available to them, so they will make the best of their circumstance. A lot of times we talk about meeting women where they're at, and that's fantastic, but we need to meet women where they're at and not leave them there. That's the second part.

The PCEPA bill is incredibly important in sending that message. If you're saying that you like to suck all the dicks, fine, but putting that aside, men do not have a right to expect sex from women and girls on demand and they don't have an entitlement to that simply because they have the financial ability to pay for it.

It's really important that we start there. We can move our way out and work with women, of course, where they are at. That's also why it's so important that we have a feminist understanding. If we look at battered women, for example, so often women will leave and go back, and they leave and go back, or I could think of women who are in the hospital with their throat slit open by their husband, saying “I don't want him to get in trouble, though. He really loves me.”

How do we understand these types of sentiments, because they don't really make sense? If we have a feminist understanding of male violence and how it impacts women, both materially in our conditions but also psychologically in the messages we're getting day in and day out, it's so important that we look at the root cause. The root cause of sex trafficking is the male demand for paid sex acts, so we need to start there and make sure we target that, because the men really don't care. They don't care if she has been trafficked or not. They don't care if she's underage or not. They don't care if she likes her job or not. They really don't care, so we really need to start there.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

I know that the average trafficking victim raises or is worth about $320,000 a year. There's a lot of money in the sex trafficking world. How do we get that money out of the system? How do we end that demand? That's the big question.

Do you have any comments around that?

[Cherry Smiley]

It is a big question. I think there are a lot of moving parts, but we absolutely cannot legalize and sanction that industry. It will not get the money out of the industry if we decide, okay, we'll just make it legal and fully decriminalize it, with brothels everywhere, as they do in New Zealand. Organized crime is very tied up in that, and it's a little bit easier for them now. They can function legally. They're businessmen. They're not pimps anymore. They're brothel owners. They have business associations like other businesses do. It has become that much easier for them to function and to move that money around.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

The PCEPA bill was based on—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

I'm sorry, Arnold. We're at five minutes.

There will be more opportunities coming. It's such an important conversation, and I wish we could go on and on, but we will follow along with our agenda.

Jaime Battiste, you have five minutes.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you.

I'm hearing loud and clear that decriminalizing prostitution is not part of the solution. What are your thoughts around decriminalizing drug offences and treating addictions like a health problem and not a criminal problem? What are your thoughts around that? Can you give me a sense of whether this is part of the solution?

Anyone can chime in, please.

[Courtney Skye]

I definitely agree with decriminalizing and treating addictions like a health issue. That's absolutely necessary. I also think, too, if we understand that people come to be exploited because they're made vulnerable by our systems and structures, then we have to turn to those systems and structures and understand what exactly about them creates that vulnerability. Going back to ONWA's submission around the need for housing, the need for economic stability and the need to have good access to health care services, especially to address drug issues, that should be the priority here. We're talking about creating systemic change.

I hear what you're saying around the need to respond to people who are addicted with dignity and respect, prioritizing them and viewing them as people who have value in our communities, whether or not they're using and whether or not they're choosing to use different types of drugs that are more addictive.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Would anyone else like to chime in? If not, I have another question.