Status of Women Committee on Dec. 10th, 2018

[Valerie Gideon]

Yes. I can tell you that in 2017, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada adopted a measure that included an obligatory cultural component in all medical programs. That was a big step forward.

The Indigenous Physicians Association of Canada is preparing a series of cultural components in connection with that requirement, which will become a part of the medical schools' curriculum. The association is also assessing approaches that take trauma into account.

We have to go even further. We don't just have to show cultural sensitivity, we also need to understand the specific issues of indigenous populations, such as the intergenerational effects of colonization, residential schools and so on, as well as issues in the Canadian medical system.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Is there a federally funded program that indigenous women and organizations could use in order to obtain the necessary tools to themselves do awareness-raising work in colleges, universities, provinces and territories, as well as in organizations?

The point would be to use federal funds to allow them to raise awareness on these topics. This would allow organizations like the Native Women's Association to get the message across.

[Valerie Gideon]

I think that is a really excellent idea.

The Native Women's Association of Canada has a cultural competency training program, but it is general in nature. Although the program is not aimed at health professionals, I am sure it could be adapted.

We will certainly present that idea to the association through our committee.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thanks very much.

We're now going to move on to our second round. Those are all five minutes.

We'll start off with Cathay Wagantall.

Cathay, you have the floor.

[Cathay Wagantall, Yorkton—Melville, CPC]

Thank you, Chair.

I have a question with regard to the indigenous issues around sterilization globally. UNDRIP talks specifically about indigenous rights to freedoms, not forceably moving children, all of these things.

Have you worked with Global Affairs and the Department of Justice in looking at Canada in relation to other countries in the world, such as in Africa, where there's a real movement internationally with the Marie Stopes foundation and others, and our government, putting funding toward basically controlling populations through sterilization and removal of the fetus?

[Valerie Gideon]

I have not specifically.... We've certainly worked with them in terms of preparing materials for the studies the UN has conducted and the committee presentations and for responses for specific questions that they've had, but we have not had a discussion with them.

Katherine, am I missing something? Okay, I just wanted to make sure.

We have not had a specific discussion with them to actually put that into that global context. I think it's an excellent suggestion and we definitely should do that.

[Cathay Wagantall]

I would really encourage that, because it seems like we are doing one thing here and another over there.

[Valerie Gideon]

Absolutely.

[Cathay Wagantall]

Also, you were talking about health services barriers to our first nations communities. The goal I'm hearing is to give them freedom and autonomy in taking care of their own community's health care delivery. Is that the goal?

[Valerie Gideon]

Absolutely.

[Cathay Wagantall]

Okay. With that autonomy, then, they have the opportunity to determine what that should look like.

[Valerie Gideon]

Yes, absolutely.

[Cathay Wagantall]

I actually have a first nation community that has met with me and with the community they live beside, which was building and adding on a hospital. They wanted to contribute to that facility, because they use it extensively, but they weren't allowed to because the funding they receive has to stay within certain pillars. Basically, their health dollars have to stay on their first nation's community reserve.

Does that make sense to you?

[Valerie Gideon]

It is actually part of the conditions of our health infrastructure program that we fund health infrastructure on reserve. But I do think that we're looking at different options with respect to innovation by enabling communities, for instance, to have access to grants or to have access to more flexible agreements, which this government is very committed to under the new fiscal relationship. Communities will have more flexibility in terms of how they access—

[Cathay Wagantall]

Is that flexibility there as long as they do it only on their own land? Like, I—

[Valerie Gideon]

The terms and conditions of our program are that we fund health facilities, but in the first nations communities on reserve.

[Cathay Wagantall]

So even if that first nation community says that this is what they want to do.... I can't think of a better way to build reconciliation than to be working and living together. If they find that it is the best way they want to have those services provided, that wouldn't be an option for them as far as self-determination of how those funds would be spent.

[Valerie Gideon]

It would be an option for them if they had other sources of revenue, but if it was.... I would need to know a little more about the specifics of the situation you're referencing. If they have received health infrastructure funding from our department, it is to build facilities on reserve specifically.

[Cathay Wagantall]

Okay.

I have one other question. You mentioned the opportunity to have an escort come with them when they deliver, which I think is wonderful. Would there be a priority, first of all, for the father to be that escort, in light of trying to encourage family cohesion? There's nothing quite like a dad watching a birth to build that sense of responsibility. Would that be something you would build in there, that first and foremost that individual would have the opportunity to be that escort?

[Valerie Gideon]

We don't place restrictions on the escort, in the sense that it is the woman's choice, but we do have a responsibility to ensure that the escort is able to support the woman throughout labour, and of course we would say a close family member is obviously best placed in most circumstances to be able to do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have one minute.

[Cathay Wagantall]

Okay.

Is the maternal and child health program you were speaking of specifically a first nations program?

[Valerie Gideon]

We also fund territorial governments to provide some support in Inuit communities, so it's a first nations and Inuit program.

[Cathay Wagantall]

Okay. Can you give me a little more detail on what the priorities of that program are?