Thank you for the opportunity to speak with your committee today.
I worked part-time as a prison physician for 16 years in federal and provincial corrections. I sent your committee a policy brief that has seven recommendations. These include recommendations about mother-child relationships and trauma and health. I invite your questions about the policy brief.
In 2005 we started a participatory health research project with incarcerated women. We wrote about this transformative research in the book Arresting Hope, which I encourage you to read. We sent a copy of it to the clerk of the committee. In that we describe participatory health research as a process of inviting the women who are incarcerated to be engaged in the research process.
This afternoon I invite you to listen to experts who are women with lived experience of incarceration. Your committee has heard from some great experts of organizations, but today you will hear stories that will generate for you some very real and concrete recommendations about how to improve indigenous women's experience within the federal justice and correctional system.
I invite Elder Mary Fayant, Holy Cow; Chas Coutlee; Odessa Marchand; and Mo Korchinski to speak with you today.