Thank you very much for inviting us to participate.
I'm here on behalf of Terri Szabo. I am a clinical social worker and a mental health service provider. I've been working with first nations people in rural communities for more than 43 years.
I am trying to put all this together. I had short notice. I'll do the best I can here.
The Yukon Aboriginal Women's Council needs the committee to know that colonization has played a great role in the disempowerment of first nations people all across Canada. Resource development has fed into the continuing process of colonization. We have seen that industry has pillaged the land and that the people have not authentically been involved in an empowering way. They tend to have low-paying jobs and they tend to not stay in the industry, because they do not have the continued opportunities for development to take on more powerful positions.
Industry needs to be educated regarding the plight of the first nations people and the result of colonization all across Canada, particularly in the north, which has so greatly disempowered the people of the first nations communities.
We need to have the committee consider who plays a role in the educational transformation of the resource developers. They need to be enlightened about the damage that has been done. They need to see that first nations people have been disempowered. There needs to be resources put in place so that first nations people can take on equivalent opportunities for development in education and in the planning of resources.
Gender-based violence has been an outcome of resource development all over the north and, I'm sure, all over Canada. Industry needs to be educated about the extent of the oppression of the people. Things need to be put in place to mitigate the damage that has been done. The government needs to consider who plays a role in the educational transformation of resource development.
There needs to be security for the women who work in and near the resource development sites. This would include such things as on-site indigenous security, as well as available 1-800 numbers so that female workers can call with the confidence that they're not going to lose their job for reporting situations that they see as violence towards them. This includes derogatory comments, racial comments or sexual misogyny going on in the camps. This needs to be addressed, and it needs to be addressed right from the get-go, so that the security of the women can be put in place.
The Yukon Aboriginal Women's Council also asks you to consider who provides the funding for the engagement of the economic development for first nations people and resource development. The IBA agreements must be implemented so that they work for the benefit of the empowerment of first nations people.
When you think about the way personalities develop and you think about the way societies develop, everything starts from the self. If you look at colonization as a form of aggression, you can see that they were the bullies and that first nations people all across the land were the victims. That relationship has always stayed the same. The government and resource developers have bullied first nations people everywhere, and first nations people have become more and more passive, and more and more disempowered as time goes on.
They're in a state of apathy. That needs to be shifted, and that can only be shifted if there are enough resources and enough opportunities for positive change and positive empowerment of the people all across the land, so that they can be equal partners in all of this and not just the recipients of what is done to them. Instead of just having the pick and shovel jobs, they need to have the jobs all up the line, so that they can be in control of what is happening in their communities and of the resources in all of the areas where resource development wants to take things, as colonization has always done. Colonization has always taken.
We want a more level playing field, and we want supports put in place so that the opportunities are more equal for all first nations people, they can rise to the challenges and become more empowered.
I'm sure you're all familiar with Abraham Maslow and his theory of self-actualization. I'm not sure if you're aware that he was studying the Blackfoot people in Alberta when he came to that conclusion. The Blackfoot people in Alberta, at that time, were a very empowered people.
We want to see the people empowered again, so all the steps of self-actualization have to be put in place. This will allow for the people to be on a more level playing field with everybody else in resource development.