Thank you.
Kwe' Ni'n teluisi Pam Palmater. I am from the sovereign Mi’kmaq nation and unceded Mi'kma'ki. My home community is Ugpi’Ganjig Eel River Bar First Nation. Today I'm coming to you from the sovereign territories of the Mississaugas of Scugog.
Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this important study on the relationship between resource development and violence against indigenous women and girls. This is something I've worked on for quite a long time, not just for the national inquiry but also for international human rights.
I think it's appropriate to start with the fact that several years ago, KWG Resources Inc., a Canadian mining company, posted a video online of women in bikinis to promote mining on indigenous lands in the Ring of Fire. The then president, Frank Smeenk, defended the video, saying that “sex sells” mining. This goes to show just one of many examples that mining is not just about exploiting minerals on indigenous lands. It's about the exploitation of local indigenous women and girls as well.
Sadly, this is consistent with research and statistics on Canadian extractive companies in particular. In 2009 a secret report commissioned by the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada confirmed that Canadian mining corporations are the worst human rights violators globally—not just here in Canada but all around the world—and that they are far more likely to engage in unlawful activities and grave human rights violations despite the fact that they all have corporate social responsibility policies.
It's not limited to mining. Obviously, it's also other extractive industry. We know that high-risk projects include resource development but also the extractive industry and transnational corporations specifically; energy projects like hydro and nuclear; and megaprojects that include major construction and decommissioning projects, highways, airports, bridges, roads and tunnels. The high-risk areas within those projects include man camps but also the high influx of temporary or transient workers who are predominantly male: the trucking industry, the transportation industry, private security and, sadly, law enforcement.
The types of violence that indigenous women and girls are subjected to by all of those players are increased rates of physical violence, including but not limited to domestic violence, high rates of sexual exploitation and sex trafficking, sexual assaults and rapes, and increased rates of disappearance. This is in addition to the failure of all of those parties just mentioned to not respect the aboriginal title of indigenous women and girls; their aboriginal and treaty rights; their rights to self-determination, which includes an equal voice in decision-making; and the right to have free, prior and informed consent—basically, the right to say no to violence.
Canada as a state has failed to protect the rights of indigenous women and girls by not preventing the racism, sexism, misogyny and sexualized violence by state actors like law enforcement, in particular the RCMP; private actors like human sex traffickers; and corporate actors like those engaged in man camps, private security and especially the trucking industry.
The failure to address all of these things has led to severe rates of sexualized violence, but it's also important to note that Canada as a state has the responsibility to uphold the human rights of these women regardless of what their constitutional makeup is. It is not a defence in international law to say that the provinces are responsible for this and we're responsible for that. Canada as a state is responsible for all of it. Its continued failures hurt indigenous women and girls directly.
This PDAC report, FBI reports, Amnesty International, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations—all have concluded that indigenous women and girls face high rates of sexualized violence and criminalization, and surveillance by state, private and corporate actors.
In terms of solutions, we need a public inquiry into the relationship between all of these resource and extractive projects and megaprojects by state actors and corporate and private actors.
We need to respect the right of indigenous women and girls and their nations to say no to projects. We should heed the UNCERD calls to halt all megaprojects until there is free, prior and informed consent.
We must give reparations to those who have been harmed and ensure that indigenous women are key decision-makers moving forward.
Thank you.