Status of Women Committee on May 6th, 2021

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Now we'll go to Ms. Mathyssen for six minutes.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We heard in this panel and the last, as well, about the importance of the relationship that women have with their midwives, and that is a special relationship because it is fully about trust. Delivering in the best of situations is very stressful—not that I've done this yet but so I've been told by many friends.

To have services in your own language, to be able to be serviced in ways that are culturally appropriate and culturally sensitive.... Could the witnesses talk about the importance of that, in addition to—and I know that Ms. Recollet and Ms. Wolfe are in more of an urban centre—the special needs for northern remote, as you also mentioned before, communities and women having access to those culturally sensitive, traditional knowledge-based practices with indigenous or aboriginal midwives?

[Angela Recollet]

Naomi, would you like me to go first on this?

[Naomi Wolfe]

Yes.

[Angela Recollet]

We're not just going to talk about Ontario and Quebec. We need to talk about what you now call Canada as a whole.

I'll give you an example. With the Inuit nation, those mothers, those expectant mothers, have to be displaced from their communities and their families, with only one individual to accompany them as a support system, and have to travel hours and hours, sometimes 40 hours, in order to get to a nursing station to have a non-Inuit or non-native practitioner provide care that is unsafe, lacking cultural bias to their birthing right. That in itself has to be recognized. A solution-based policy would be to provide access in our traditional territories. We do not want to be displaced anymore, and that goes from coast to coast to coast when it comes to our circle of life.

Even here in an urban setting, as you're asking, it wasn't by choice that we were located to urban settings, but I can say that 80% of the indigenous population in what we now call Canada has been displaced to urban settings so that they can have the same access to care that all of you on this call have.

We continue to have to fight for this, to reclaim who we are as indigenous people in these first territories with limited access to resources and constantly needing to justify why we require it. Right from birth to death, this is our ongoing struggle and our ongoing education that we need to provide to newcomers, to government officials, to everyday people walking down the street, to break down what you've learned and provide you with a different education so you know the true history in Canada.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

One of the calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, number 16, was a call for post-secondary institutions and the creation of the understanding that culturally sensitive and inclusive programs that are indigenous-led but also in the indigenous languages be provided.

With the direct closure of Laurentian University's indigenous midwifery program, do you see that as obviously contradictory?

[Angela Recollet]

Of course, and in fact, I just want to share some history. This is far prior to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 calls to action.

These recommendations happen and we're continuously having to repeat history, and it goes back to the the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in what you now call Canada. These same recommendations were heard then, and we're still having to tell our story now.

With the RCAP recommendations, we established the AET strategy. The aboriginal education and training strategy was established in 1989-90 and incorporated in 1991. Laurentian University was a recipient of that AET strategy, and that strategy included the recruitment, retention and increased success rates of aboriginal people in post-secondary education. That included colleges and universities, and that also included the reclamation of our languages.

I can speak to this very eloquently because I was the one who was leading it. We strived to ensure that the reclamation of our cultural identity was celebrated and that it was recognized, just as the francophone population demands success and demands that they have authority to deliver their programs, their education. The problem is that we're working in your system, in your institutions, and you're still not recognizing our form of education, our form of governance, our language, our culture, our birthing right, our inherent right to take care of our own people.

That will always be an issue and we will continue to have these conversations, and I hope to goodness that when my five grandchildren are at my stage of life, they're not having to continue to educate other citizens in what you now call Canada.

You can see my passion about this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Yes.

Ms. Wolfe had her hand up.

Do you still want to say something?

[Naomi Wolfe]

I did. I wanted to be very clear that you mentioned that Laurentian had cut its indigenous midwifery program.

It was not an indigenous midwifery program, and that definitely would be one of my recommendations moving forward. That is at the core of how, for a huge.... I realize that we also need to support our francophone students as well, but Laurentian did a very poor job at that, and this is an opportunity, now that this has happened, to do a much better job at this being indigenous midwifery by indigenous midwives and community, and that is at the core of how that education is going to be delivered to indigenous communities.

Angela talked a little bit about the north. We need to really be able to support expansion of care in the north and have appropriate care providers so that women can stay in the north and there is a trained birth attendant regardless of.... When we put these labels of scope and practice that there are appropriately trained providers in communities who can do prenatal care and education to help our communities be healthier so that they can stay in community to have their babies....

If there are births happening in community, and we have the right skilled people there to be able to deliver these babies in safety, we can improve the morbidity and mortality of our communities, starting with pregnancy and childbirth.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I wonder if, in the time remaining, the committee would be okay with each party having a question, since this was Ms. Mathyssen's motion. Is that okay? Very good.

We'll go then to Ms. Wong.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond Centre, BC]

Do I have one question or five minutes?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

You have one question.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond Centre, BC]

After listening to all the witnesses, instead of closing the program, in fact, it should be expanded because there's such a great need.

I also heard about national accreditation. I think that's a great idea, because in order to.... That would be for the rest of the nation, as well, but of course, our focus is on Laurentian right now. The degree-granting status is very important, so I'd like to ask the panellists to comment on that part.

[Angela Recollet]

Buffy, do you want to take the lead here?

[Buffy Fulton-Breathat]

Sure.

I was going to comment on that and say that, in whatever new entity a third site becomes, wherever that may be, one of the things that we had already identified as really important was that we do have a true tri-cultural mandate. Even if we were still confined to 30 spaces, make sure that's one-third English, one-third French, one-third indigenous learners as the population, recognizing that there are different ways of knowing.

One of the things that we were confined by at Laurentian, because of a hiring freeze, was our ability to hire full-time faculty who identified as being experts in indigenous knowledge. We recognize that. It was something that we couldn't address, so I think that would be really important going forward, hopefully expanding beyond the number 30 with the ability to have out-of-province placements, recognizing the provincial boundaries as being permeable, as being a colonial entity.

I don't want to step into that too much. It's not my area of expertise, but at the same time, it's really important that we stop confining this to being just an Ontario issue, because midwifery is a national issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you.

Over to you now, Mr. Serré.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

As we don't have much time left, I'd like to focus on one point.

To all the witnesses, please, if there's anything that you want to submit in writing afterwards, please do so.

I want to ask Angela and Naomi: Can you explain a bit about, when we look at midwifery, the aboriginal community, which is where it started, and the ceremony of birthing? Can you provide some education here to the committee about that, please?

[Angela Recollet]

Naomi, you can go ahead here.

[Naomi Wolfe]

I'm trying to follow exactly what it is that you're asking. Is it how we deliver services in a way that's reflective of our traditional practices?

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Yes.

[Naomi Wolfe]

I think number one is knowing the history and the context of where people come from in their particular story or situation, and how their home or their community or family has moved through that trauma that they've been through. Also, it's recognizing the diversity of our communities in terms of how we share and learn and bring babies into the world in a way that is traditional to us, and what that looks like. I think it's just being genuine in the care that we're providing and understanding the historical context, and then the knowledge about those ceremonies and that commitment.

We always say, we know when we're walking this road that there's so much we need to learn. We need that openness to continue to learn those stories and to support families, in parenthood and childbirth, to have the birth that is reflective of what their community knows and where they've come from. In order to do that there has to be an understanding of their history and their specific community.

At Shkagamik-Kwe we have a whole traditional team. All of our clients access both midwifery and physician OB care when and if needed, and vice versa. Those with high-risk pregnancies also have access to traditional support and midwifery care so that we can normalize birth and make it a safer experience for families.

That's very much the role that I take on at Shkagamik-Kwe. I look after every woman who comes through that door so they're not turned away from midwifery care, they're not turned away from having care, like Buffy talked about. Their practice has to cap. We don't do that. Anybody who comes in has the support of the midwife, our obstetrician or our nursing, our traditional team and program.

We land in this urban centre, and we come from all different parts of Turtle Island. Wherever they come from, we are supporting the knowledge and the stories of each individual family, and how we can help them have the safest birth in terms of, obviously, medical safety, but also safety in terms of how they give birth to and care for their little one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Larouche, you have time to ask one question.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Once again, I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here with us today.

I already mentioned my support for the cause at issue concerning Laurentian University, and for francophones, and I'd like to reiterate my support, and the support of the Bloc Québécois, for the Cree communities and all the other indigenous communities. Quebec has forged a special relationship with indigenous communities, and I feel that it's important to move in this direction.

The relocation and closing of this program would have a disastrous impact on indigenous families in the region, and midwifery services are particularly important for indigenous families. If I have understood you correctly, this is what we should remember from your testimony.

I'd like all three of the witnesses to make brief comments about this.

[Angela Recollet]

Thank you for your question.

I think we'll just reiterate what we've already stated. When it comes to your leadership in what you call Quebec, your partnership and the reciprocal respect that is required to continue and to evolve with Cree nations—Algonquin nations—within Quebec is paramount to ensuring that the systemic racism that happens in the health care system, and not just in Quebec but right across what you now call Canada.... Everyone needs to stop racism in its tracks. We're human beings. We require the same humanity that everyone in what you now call Canada has.

Going back to midwifery, first of all, the school has closed. Let's be clear on that. This, right now, is our lobbying and our advocacy and our pushing back to both provincial and federal governments to ensure that individuals in what you call the north—but again, Sudbury and Thunder Bay are certainly not northern communities....

We're looking at indigenous communities that are fly-in, that don't have road access, that don't have access to clean water. That is why it's paramount for us to ensure that midwifery programs developed in the north stay in the north. We require every effort from every individual who is in a decision-making position to advocate, to lead and to ensure that the midwifery program remains here and that we collectively identify solutions and what those look like.

You can't make those decisions without us. It requires us to lead this. We know our territories. We know our population base, and we partner with one another. We respect our francophone partners as equal partners just, as you've heard from Buffy, as they recognize us.

That, however, is still not the case in mainstream society. Systemic racism is very much alive. It continues on a daily basis. We see it in hospitals. If you had a true, regulated degree-granting institution in which the midwifery school were recognized to have an equal part in authority with those three tri-cultural places in what you now call Canada, then we collectively could break down some systemic barriers.

The reason Naomi, once an aboriginal midwife, chose and then began her registered midwifery program was so that she could have access to hospital privileges. Right now, aboriginal midwifery does not have access to hospitals. There are many systems that we need to break down to recognize that western education and governance does not hold the monopoly on knowledge. It does not hold the monopoly on how we provide service—

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm sorry to cut you off, but we're running out of time, and I want to give Ms. Mathyssen the chance to ask the last question.