Evidence of meeting #17 for Status of Women in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was countries.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Michelle Simson Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I'd like to thank the witnesses. This has been very interesting and informative.
I'd like to start by asking you all a question. I'd just like a one-word response. I only have five minutes, so I'm going to keep it short.
We've heard testimony from witnesses during the course of this study that access to full reproductive and sexual health care is not just a health issue, but it's a basic human right. Would you agree with this view or not?
Director, Development and Public Affairs, Western Hemisphere Region, International Planned Parenthood Federation
Yes.
Executive Director, Canadian Federation for Sexual Health
Yes, absolutely.
Project Manager, Fédération du Québec pour le planning des naissances
Yes.
Liberal
Michelle Simson Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
Thank you.
I'd like to also pick up on a few things that Ms. Brown had to say with respect to how Canada should be viewed as not interfering in terms of countries like the Congo, where abortion is illegal. Would you not think that the flip side of that is where it is legal, and our failure to provide full family planning, which we do in our own country...could that not be viewed very much as a significant foreign policy shift, because it's not domestic policy, and that it is also, to some degree, some form of political interference from our country by trying to impose our values in some of these developing countries?
Executive Director, Canadian Federation for Sexual Health
I have a couple of comments.
It's important to refer back to the many consensus documents that exist in the international context in terms of what is required. I also think it's important to refer back to the Paris declaration on aid effectiveness, whereby we agree to be directed by individual countries in terms of what they need for their health systems and for their development dollars. In both of those cases we would be deferring to those countries themselves. And then it's important to refer back to the international agreements, where we've outlined a broad spectrum of needed interventions.
We've heard today about even more diversity than what we'd heard about in some of the other days of testimony, in terms of skilled attendants, family planning, as well as safe abortion, where abortion is legal. It's all laid out there. They are effective health systems. The evidence is all there.
Liberal
Michelle Simson Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
Would you not agree, though, that it's rather bizarre that we're trying to impose certain restrictions that we don't even have within our own country?
Executive Director, Canadian Federation for Sexual Health
Sure. Absolutely. I think we need to follow what's there internationally and not try to export our own values, but rather--
Liberal
Michelle Simson Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
But this, obviously, isn't our own value, because we don't restrict the women here.
Executive Director, Canadian Federation for Sexual Health
Fair enough.
Liberal
Michelle Simson Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
That's the part I find bizarre, but in any event...
Ms. Jenicek, would you like to answer?
Project Manager, Fédération du Québec pour le planning des naissances
I would just like to wholeheartedly agree that we should not try to impose present government values on a foreign country.
But I just want to come back to the fact that we must really remember that when it comes to abortion services... As Bridget Lynch mentioned, there is a whole host of issues. That's why I'm so glad there are such diverse voices on the panel today. Abortion services are linked to infant and child health. The children who lose their mothers, worldwide, are ten times more likely to die within two years. Those under a year old have an 80% chance of dying in childhood. For those under five, more than half will not reach adulthood. I would just come back to that.
Liberal
Michelle Simson Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
There are so many aspects to this. Again, do you not see this as a shift in foreign policy, a really significant shift in Canada's foreign policy abroad?
Coordinator, Political Issues, Regroupement Naissance-Renaissance
Is this a one-word thing again?
President, International Confederation of Midwives
Yes.
I just wanted to speak to the democratic piece of this as well. We fought so hard and long in this country for women to be respected, for their voices to be respected. This isn't just about abortion; this is about not respecting women's voices. It's much larger than an abortion issue. It's silencing, taking the voice away and taking the choice away from other people. And hypocrisy doesn't even begin to address the significance of this.
But my fear is that we're getting sidelined in another debate, and we're using an international arena to have a debate. There's a lot of politics at play here, and we have to be careful about what rabbit hole we might fall down.
Conservative
Alice Wong Conservative Richmond, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thank you, all of you, for coming.
I want to set the record straight. On May 4, Margaret Biggs, the president of CIDA, clearly stated that this is not a policy change, that this government did not change any policy on abortion, and it is not imposing ideology. I just want to make that straight.
I think my colleagues have been quoting a lot from The Lancet report, and I would like to quote as well:
In fact, researchers and health leaders in the field of child and maternity health in developing nations say that the rough outline for a Canadian strategy unveiled at the G8 meeting of development ministers in Halifax, Nova Scotia, amounts to a highly promising boost for evidence-based international health programs.
That was from Paul Christopher Webster, in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. In fact he is also the author of The Lancet report.
I would like to quote another person and then pose my question. Jean Chamberlain, executive director of Save the Mothers, a medical education program focused on maternity and child survival in Mukono, Uganda, concurs, and I quote:
I applaud the focus on child and maternal health, which are inseparable.
All of these quotes are from the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Honourable officers can just cherry-pick the quotes that justify their political tactics. I agree 100% that this should not be used as a political agenda. This should be focused on people who are in need in developing countries--for example, the children who are dying because of insufficient food and the mother who cannot have good milk for the baby because of malnutrition.
I actually agree with what Ms. Lynch just said. Let's focus not just on the destructive and other things that are strictly political but on the actual needs of the mothers and the children.
Can you further comment on the real needs of the mothers and the children in these countries, please?
President, International Confederation of Midwives
Yes, and not to misquote Ms. Lynch...because Ms. Lynch wants to be really, really clear that Canada is playing horrific politics right now.
And when I'm saying it's politics, it's going to cost women's lives. Now we're put in a position of having to compromise what we do instead of doing the best job and giving the best leadership we possibly can.
As a Canadian and as a woman, I want to identify that I am horrifically embarrassed by what my country is saying. That voice of my country is as much my voice as it is the government's voice. I really wish that the voices of women in this country could be heard loud and clear internationally, that we disagree with this aspect of this Canadian proposal.
Having said that, we have to do the best job we can to get money at the table at the G8. We have to have commitments, not just verbal commitments, and this is where the rubber hits the road. We have to put money into maternal, newborn, and child health. We have to get it into the health systems. We have to be building health systems. We have to be developing workforces. We have to do the real work on the ground, beyond the talk.
Conservative
Alice Wong Conservative Richmond, BC
Yes, I agree. However, at the moment if you want the mothers and the children to live, we have to pay attention to clean water, good food, good medical support, and also access to medical support staff like you. I think these are some of the practical issues we should bring to the table.
I think this aspect has been applauded by those who are at the table as well. Yes, women's voices should be heard, and I think we should not just focus on one issue that doesn't really help in those areas.
