Status of Women Committee on June 17th, 2022

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I would like to welcome everybody to the 27th meeting of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. I call this meeting to order.

Before I get started, I just want to commend everybody. We are finishing up our session today on the status of women, and today we've had the IVP report tabled. Thank you so much to Sonia for making sure that was tabled. Moreover, Bill C-28 was introduced. I just want to say congratulations to everybody and great work on collaboration.

Today we are returning to this very important study as well.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on Tuesday, February 1, the committee will resume its study of resource development and violence against indigenous women and girls.

Today's meeting is taking place in hybrid form.

Pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021, members are attending in person in the room, and remotely using the Zoom application. Per the directive of the Board of Internal Economy on March 10, 2022, all those attending the meeting in person must wear a mask except for members who are at their place during proceedings.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating via video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike and please mute yourself when you are not speaking. On interpretation, for those on Zoom you will the choice at the bottom of the screen of the floor, English, or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel. I remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

Today I would like to welcome our witnesses.

As an individual, we have the Honourable Michèle Audette, senator and former commissioner of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. From Regroupement des centres d'amitié autochtones du Québec, we have Jennifer Brazeau, executive director. From the Department of Natural Resources we have Kimberley Zinck, director general, reconciliation.

From the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, we have Christine Moran, the assistant deputy minister, indigenous secretariat; Mélanie Larocque, director general, program development and intergovernmental affairs, crime prevention branch; and Michelle Van De Bogart, director general, law enforcement and border strategies.

And from the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, we have Patricia Brady, vice-president, external relations and strategic policy, and Brent Parker, director general, external relations and strategic policy.

Everybody, we have a big day today. So, to all of you we will be granting you five minutes for your opening statement. I will be putting up a notice for your one-minute reminder, indicating that you have 60 seconds to go. I will give you maybe 10 seconds over that, but because we have such an extraordinary panel today, we want to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to hear from all of the witnesses and that all of the questioners get their opportunity to speak as well.

I am going to pass it over for the first five minutes to, as an individual, the Honourable Michèle Audette, senator.

[Michèle Audette, Senator and Former Commissioner, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, As an Individual]

[Witness spoke in Innu as follows:]

Kuei! Nutim etashiek,tshipushukat Tshipushukatitunau.Niminueniten ute a taian

[Innu text translated as follows:]

Hello everyone. Greetings to you all. I’m pleased to be here.

[Translation]

I thank the Anishinaabe Nation very much for welcoming me every day to their territory and for allowing me to continue every day this portage that is dear to my heart and mind.

I thank everyone here, as well as those who are participating in the meeting virtually from the indigenous territories where they are, for taking part in this very important and urgent exercise. This study on the rise of violence against indigenous women and girls in Canada in the context of resource development also reflects calls for justice 13.4 and 13.5 of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. So you can see from the outset why it was critical for me to be here.

In all sincerity, I confess my impatience and dismay at the lack of information we are receiving on the implementation of the calls for justice and all the proposals contained in the report tabled on June 3, 2019. Recently, we celebrated the third anniversary of the tabling of this report as well as the first anniversary of the National Action Plan for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2ELGBTQIA+ Persons. However, as you have all noticed, after reading the progress report on the national action plan, it is clear that very little has been implemented. This demonstrates the importance of a study such as the one undertaken by your committee.

What I feel most strongly about is the whole issue of coordination mechanisms, the establishment of a national emergency hotline, the establishment of a guaranteed minimum income, and the establishment of 24‑hour support services for people who are vulnerable or at risk. There is a great lack of such services across Canada.

Let me quote The Globe and Mail:

Nearly two years after the federal Liberals announced a $724.1-million fund to support Indigenous women and girls facing gender-based violence, the money sits largely untouched, according to government figures as of May 31. More than half of the fund is allocated to the construction of at least 38 new shelters and 50 transitional homes across Canada, but none of that money has been allocated. The fund’s remaining $304.1-million is intended to support the running of the new shelters, as well as violence prevention activities. The lack of construction means no operational funding has been spent, but the government has spent $12.6-million on prevention activities – representing less than 2 per cent of the total fund.

So, as I've mentioned many times, all of the calls for justice are important, but we need to push forward with call for justice 1.7, which calls for a national ombudsperson and a national indigenous and human rights tribunal, and call for justice 1.10, about the reporting that needs to be done. As we saw the day before yesterday, transparency and accountability on the status of the work is paramount. So I hope you will also heed these calls for justice.

In 2022, far too many indigenous women and girls feel unsafe and less secure. As you can see, the data speaks for itself. Last month, in the space of two weeks, three indigenous women were murdered in your territory, Ms. Gazan. Now we understand that it's more than that. For me, this is an urgent and unacceptable situation that everyone must address. Of course, every time we hear sad news like this, we think of the families and send them all the love we can, as well as our condolences.

Human rights and women's rights must also be protected. We must put in place protection mechanisms that, based on laws and regulations, provide for severe penalties. I cite as an example the $15‑million fine just imposed on ArcelorMittal, a mining company convicted of environmental violations. Imagine what it would be like if we put in place similar mechanisms to protect indigenous women. This is the most recent and striking example, and I wanted to share it with you today.

Beyond physical and sexual abuse, resource exploitation has consequences across the board for indigenous women, and for women in general. I would suggest to you that it is important to link this issue to the spiritual, physical and mental relationship we have with water, nature, flora, animals and all that nature and the land allow us to honour. Holistic health and environmental health are also affected.

In conclusion, no matter where we are in this great land, we all have a responsibility to honour the truths of the women and girls, and, of course, the survivors and families who spoke out at the inquests.

I wish you a good study. I look forward to seeing your recommendations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much for your time.

I'd like to pass it to Jennifer Brazeau from the Regroupement des centres d'amitié autochtones du Québec for the next five minutes.

[Jennifer Brazeau, Executive Director, Regroupement des centres d'amitié autochtones du Québec]

[Witness spoke in Anishinaabemowin as follows:]

Kwe kakina.

[Anishinaabemowin text translated as follows:]

Hello everyone.

[English]

My name is Jennifer Brazeau. I'm the executive director of the Lanaudière Native Friendship Centre. I'm here today representing the Regroupement des centres d'amitié autochtone du Québec, which is a provincial association that has campaigned for more than 45 years for the defence of rights and interests of indigenous people in the urban centres, as well as supporting indigenous friendship centres in Quebec in frontline service delivery.

Across the province of Quebec, there are 10 friendship centres and one service centre. These friendship centres are there to serve indigenous people living or passing through urban centres in Chibougamau, Joliette, La Tuque, Maniwaki, Val-d'Or, Montréal, Québec, Senneterre, Sept-Îles, Trois-Rivières and its point of service in Shawinigan.

At the national level, I also represent the province of Quebec at the National Association of Friendship Centres as a board member. Just so that you know, there are over 100 friendship centres across the country that are also serving indigenous people living in urban centres. The RCAAQ and the NAFC are recognized as being the largest urban service infrastructure for indigenous people.

The friendship centre movement has been working for several decades to support indigenous people in order to improve their quality of life. We also support indigenous people navigating through various systems put in place by the government by being corridors of services between our friendship centres and the public services in each of our regions. When the system has failed our indigenous people in our urban centres, the friendship centres are there for our people. We're there to offer them support, but, above all, we're also there to offer them a space that is safe and free from judgment.

Over the past decades, the RCAAQ has been a witness and has participated in several commissions and inquiries, parliamentary commissions, reports, testimonies and the development of recommendations and calls to action. We have proposed innovative solutions to issues brought forth by the government and by the population and by our members. We have worked hard, without denying our history, without erasing the trauma that our members have been living, and, above all, without forgetting the tragedies that are happening presently, even in 2022.

We will never forget. That's why we want to break the cycle of indifference and violence by offering concrete actions and solutions for indigenous people, and also through partnerships throughout our networks. Several decades of the status quo faced by indigenous people have left a chronic existence of a cultural barrier that has devastating effects on our people. We all know there are higher rates of criminalization and higher rates of victimization. We have individual and collective rights of indigenous people that are not being respected, and indigenous women are often at the forefront living this colonial violence.

I can continue and keep talking about the statistics of the violence that indigenous women are facing. You're going to have other experts who are going to come to bring that to you. But what I want to be able to talk to you about is how this violence is rooted in the Canadian culture of genocide through the exploitation of our territories, and how that reflects on how indigenous women view themselves and how their own bodies are being exploited by the systems that are put in place through systemic racism, through the continued displacement of indigenous people from their territories, through the rupture in being able to practise our cultural activities on our own territories, through the exploitation of mining companies that are well overrepresented in Canada. We need to be able to take a moment to pause and to question why we have so many extractive companies within our country. Is it something that's rooted systemically in how Canadians exploit our territories? But then we also send those companies to other countries, where they continue that exploitation and those systems of abuse and trauma in other countries.

I think it's important for us to note that, as indigenous women, when we witness these companies coming in destroying our natural areas, which we have a strong cultural connection to, where they're exploiting the nature around us, it has a severe impact on indigenous women because then we ourselves, our own bodies, become exploited, too. When you have companies that come in, you have a rise in violence that's associated with fly-in and fly-out. You have indigenous women who then flee those communities to be able to try to find safer spaces in the cities, and then who, through maybe self-medication, will end up having to use their own bodies to be able to pay for their own services.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much. I'm sorry for being late on that. I was writing so many notes.

I'm now going to turn it over to the Department of Natural Resources, and Kimberley Zinck, director general, reconciliation, for five minutes.

[Kimberley Zinck, Director General, Reconciliation, Department of Natural Resources]

Thank you, and good afternoon.

I'm Kimberley Zinck, the director general of reconciliation implementation at Natural Resources Canada. I'm joining you today from the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin and Anishinabe people.

I'm pleased to contribute to the committee's study on resource development and violence against women and girls. I'd like to share with you how the department is changing the way it works by weaving indigenous perspectives and opportunities into the fabric of what we do.

In 2021, we merged the office for major projects management with the office for indigenous affairs and reconciliation, and in March of this year the resident elders we work with and who advise us gifted us with the name Nòkwewashk, an Algonquin word for sweetgrass. To our knowledge, we are among the first in the Government of Canada to embrace an indigenous name, and its meaning is impactful to the work that we do.

The imagery of braided sweetgrass reminds us of the connection among the land, resources and people.

Our work is focused on relationships with indigenous peoples, economic reconciliation, and regulatory innovation.

It is in this spirit that I am here before you today.

We acknowledge that the discrimination and violence experienced by indigenous women and girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people are a result of generations of racist, sexist and colonial laws and policies.

This is why we are working with federal partners to develop the United Nations declaration act action plan, and to implement the national action plan to end gender-based violence and the federal pathway to address missing and murdered indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people.

Indigenous people are the stewards, rights holders, and in many cases title-holders to the land upon which development takes place. The calls for justice tell us that more needs to be done to understand the impacts of resource development on indigenous women and girls and to ensure that indigenous people have equitable access to economic benefits.

By working with indigenous women's organizations like Pauktuutit, we are helping ensure the safety and well‑being of Inuit women in the resource extraction industry.

We are leading the way for Canada in the global Equal by 30 campaign, which is working towards equal pay, leadership and opportunities for women in the clean energy sector.

Through our programs and governance we ensure that the perspectives of indigenous people are considered, reflected and represented throughout the life cycle of projects, and that indigenous people benefit economically from resource development.

The indigenous natural resource partnerships program increases the participation of communities and organizations in major natural resource infrastructure development. Since 2019, we've provided $18 million in funding for indigenous-led projects like management and leadership training for indigenous women in the oil and gas sectors.

We work directly with communities through the indigenous advisory and monitoring committee for the Trans Mountain expansion project to address the impacts of temporary work camps and the influx of workers.

The mining industry has deep and long-standing relationships with indigenous communities. Canada's critical minerals strategy will ensure respect for indigenous and treaty rights, and meaningful engagement, partnership and collaboration with indigenous people.

By working with industry organizations like the Mining Association of Canada, we're helping to support intercultural awareness, human rights and anti-racism training for employees.

In closing, by acknowledging the mistakes of the past and changing how we work today, we're shaping how we care for the land, resources and indigenous people.

Thank you. Meegwetch. Merci.

Thank you for your time today. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

I'm now going to pass it over to Christine Moran, who is with the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

Christine, you have five minutes.

[Christine Moran, Assistant Deputy Minister, Indigenous Secretariat, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you today.

As you noted, my name is Christine Moran, and I am the assistant deputy minister of the indigenous secretariat at Public Safety Canada. I am joined by my colleagues, Michelle Van De Bogart, who is the director general of law enforcement, and Mélanie Larocque, who is the director general of program development and intergovernmental affairs. I will provide opening comments on behalf of Public Safety Canada, and we would be pleased to take your questions.

Public Safety Canada is a partner in advancing the federal pathway to address missing and murdered indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people, a key part of the larger 2021 national action plan that was developed with indigenous partners and provincial and territorial governments.

The federal pathway is organized in four themes, with Public Safety Canada’s contributions falling mainly within the human safety and security and justice themes.

Collaboration with indigenous communities, provinces and territories, police and other organizations is crucial to developing more culturally appropriate and socially responsive approaches to community safety.

Budget 2021 announced $861 million over five years, beginning in 2021-22, and $145 million ongoing to support culturally responsive policing and community safety services in indigenous communities. This includes funding to support the co-development of federal first nations police service legislation. Virtual engagement sessions with first nations have just taken place to support this objective and a “what we heard” report will be made publicly available shortly.

While efforts to co-develop federal legislation for first nations police services are ongoing, Inuit and Métis groups are also being engaged to better understand and identify their unique policing and community safety priorities.

We are also enhancing RCMP services funded through the first nations and Inuit policing program, increasing access to dedicated and culturally responsive policing services in areas often impacted by natural resource development, including the territories.

In addition to our investments in indigenous policing, budget 2021 announced up to $64.6 million over five years and $18.1 million ongoing to enhance indigenous-led crime prevention strategies and community safety services, including through the aboriginal community safety planning initiative, the ACSPI.

The purpose of ACSPI, created in 2010, is to directly support indigenous community healing through a facilitated community-driven process that works to address multiple safety and wellness issues as determined by the community, using a community safety plan process. The plans reflect community safety challenges, community strengths, resources and goals.

In addition, ACSPI coordinates with government, provincial and territorial partners, local municipal governments and services and industry partners to address issues raised in the safety plans. For example, Public Safety, Natural Resources Canada and Trans Mountain Corporation recently worked together to support indigenous communities to mitigate risks posed by the proximity of industry work sites to their communities, including impacts on indigenous women and girls.

I know that you've previously heard testimony about transient natural resource development camps and the clear link between these camps and sexual violence against indigenous women and girls, including human trafficking.

Human trafficking is a complex and highly gendered crime, with root causes including poverty, gender, racism, wage inequality and lack of education and employment opportunities, which we know indigenous people experience disproportionately. In September 2019, the Minister of Public Safetylaunched the national strategy to combat human trafficking, which brings together federal efforts under one strategic framework. The national strategy is based on the internationally recognized pillars of prevention, protection, prosecution and partnerships and adds a new pillar of empowerment, which focuses on enhancing supports for victims affected by this crime.

Through the national strategy to combat human trafficking, the Government of Canada invested up to $22.4 million for organizations that are working to prevent human trafficking and support at-risk populations and survivors. Half of these organizations serve indigenous people and 10 are indigenous-led. These projects have increased and will continue to increase access to services and supports for victims and survivors, raise awareness of human trafficking among youth at risk and develop innovative technological ideas to combat human trafficking.

Raising awareness of human trafficking among Canadians is critical. Public Safety launched an awareness campaign, “Human Trafficking: It's Not What It Seems”, to educate the public, especially youth and parents, about human trafficking, which included indigenous-specific focus groups. We are also working to develop and support guidelines and training tools for frontline service providers, including specific guidelines to support indigenous survivors.

With these efforts, Public Safety Canada is working with indigenous survivors, communities, organizations and police services to strengthen the safety and security of indigenous women and girls.

Michelle, Mélanie and I would be happy to take your questions.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

I will now pass it over to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada.

Patricia Brady, you have five minutes.

[Patricia Brady, Vice-President, External Relations and Strategic Policy, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon. My name is Patricia Brady. I'm the vice-president of external relations and strategic policy at the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada. I'm joined today by my colleague Brent Parker, director general of strategic policy at the agency.

We're both grateful to be joining the committee today from Ottawa, the traditional unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to the committee's study on resource development and violence against indigenous women and girls.

The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls brought to the fore the devastating scope and scale of the issue, and provided direction to address it. The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, in its role leading federal assessments of major projects, is committed and actively working to address the calls to justice relevant to our work.

The Impact Assessment Agency is responsible for assessing major projects, such as certain large mines, oil facilities and dams, for their positive and negative environmental, economic, social and health impacts, supporting the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and the Governor in Council in making decisions on those projects. Assessments identify in advance the best ways to avoid or reduce a project's negative impact. They also look to find ways to enhance the positive aspects of a project on health, social or economic outcomes.

The Impact Assessment Act, which came into force in August 2019, replaced the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act of 2012. It governs our work and includes important provisions and process steps that are relevant to the committee's mandate, which I'll highlight now.

First, the Impact Assessment Act's preamble includes the Government of Canada's commitment to reconciliation, to implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and to ensuring that the rights of indigenous peoples are respected throughout federal impact assessments.

Second, on an assessment and decision-making level, the act requires that a project's impacts on the rights of indigenous peoples and effects to indigenous health, social and economic conditions be considered. The act requires that indigenous knowledge be considered. It specifically requires that indigenous women's knowledge be considered in strategic and regional assessments. We must publicly report how this knowledge is considered while protecting confidential knowledge from disclosure.

The act also requires the application of gender-based analysis plus to understand the disproportionate effects that major projects have on diverse subgroups of people. To support this requirement, we draw on expertise and advice from Women and Gender Equality Canada. The application of gender-based analysis plus means that the disproportionate effects, including impacts to indigenous women's rights and their safety and security, and the mitigation measures can be identified in advance. The decision-maker must take these disproportionate effects and mitigation measures into account in decision-making.

On a process level, to facilitate meaningful participation in an assessment, we require an indigenous engagement and partnership plan to be developed at the outset in order to help guide the assessment. The agency also has an indigenous capacity support program that offers financial supports to indigenous groups so that they are prepared to engage in assessment processes in general, and a funding program to facilitate participation in specific project assessments.

For each project assessed, tailored impact statement guidelines are issued by the agency. These outline the information that proponents must provide in their assessments. To date they have included a requirement that risks to indigenous women's safety and security be considered. The agency has dedicated guidance for proponents on GBA+ in impact assessments, which includes specific reference to calls to justice 13.1 to 13.5.

The process also requires that the proponent mitigate adverse effects to the greatest extent possible. If the project moves forward, these mitigation measures are included as enforceable conditions in the decision statement issued by the minister, and the proponent must comply with them. These would include measures to help protect indigenous women's safety and security.

Finally, in order to improve our processes, over the last number of years, we have been actively working with partners, such as the Native Women's Association of Canada, to better understand the issues and strengthen impact assessment for indigenous women.

The agency has also funded research on gender‑based analysis and impact assessment, including reports on specific impacts of major projects on indigenous women and girls.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak to the committee and contribute to this important work.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

We're now going to start off with our six-minute rounds. We're going to be starting with CPC.

Dominique, I'm going to pass the floor to you. You have six minutes.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for their testimony.

Mrs. Brazeau, your network is well known. What kind of data do you collect? What kind of situations have you gathered information on? What do you know about violence against indigenous women and girls in the context of resource development?

[Jennifer Brazeau]

Friendship centres don't collect data on these issues. However, I can tell you stories of women who have experienced violence in communities further north where there are mining development projects, for example. Of course, these are already vulnerable women. They sometimes fall into prostitution, while many men from abroad come to work for these companies for short periods of time. It certainly contributes to an increase in violence against indigenous women and the exploitation of their bodies in these areas. Often, the increase in violence in the community as a result of the arrival of these companies causes women to leave their communities to try to escape from this system, and they end up on the streets of Montreal, for example.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Clearly, you are at the heart of a network that knows what's going on. The women and the networks talk to you. You're in contact with indigenous communities. Would you say that the situation has worsened, is improving or is stable?

[Jennifer Brazeau]

It's a little difficult to say. I can't say that the situation has worsened or that it's improved. I think it's fairly stable.

That said, the numbers show that indigenous women are still the most likely to be victims of violence. They are caught up in a cycle of violence that continues today, so it is obvious that the situation hasn't been resolved.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Mrs. Zinck, Ms. Moran and Ms. Brady talked about initiatives, and we heard the word “millions” often in their presentations, which were also very informative. However, you're telling me that the situation hasn't changed.

Are you seeing the impact of all these investments and initiatives on the ground?

[Jennifer Brazeau]

Investments are important for developing programs and services. However, it's often project‑based funding. That doesn't fundamentally contribute to a social awareness and a willingness to change these effects. Action is needed on multiple fronts. For example, systemic racism is embedded in the Canadian system. Indigenous women continue to be discriminated against and exploited. So it's going to take more than a few million dollars to change the situation. It's also going to take social awareness. That's the first thing.

Furthermore, when you're in an emergency situation, you have to first try to stop the bleeding. Right now, we have to stop bleeding in our communities. Then we have to stabilize the situation. Right now, I don't see that the situation has stabilized.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you, Mrs. Brazeau.

Ms. Moran, correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, you support police forces and organizations that work in the field of public safety. However, we've heard that indigenous women and girls have little faith in policing. There appears to be a lack of credibility and trust between the two groups.

How do you respond to that today? You, too, are doing some great things, I agree, but the situation seems a bit different on the ground.

[Christine Moran]

We discussed the issue of culturally responsive policing. You are correct when you say that there are many times when women and, I would say more broadly, indigenous people do not trust the police. For this reason, the federal government has embarked upon the co-development of federal legislation to establish first nations police forces and first nations policing as an essential service. That supports culturally responsive, community-driven policing in those communities. It is work that is under way. We are working with the Assembly of First Nations. We have just completed our round of engagement, and we will be publishing a “what we heard” report.

What I can say to add to that is that communities that have—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I'm sorry, but we're going to switch to the next questioner try to ensure that everybody has an opportunity. We can expand into that with the next question.

I'm going to pass it over to Marc Serré. If he wants to continue with the thought, he could.

Carry on, Marc. You have six minutes.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank everyone here very much for their testimony and their leadership in this area. I could spend a lot of time with each of the witnesses, but unfortunately I only have six minutes, and the chair would call me to order if I went over my time.

My first question is for Senator Audette.

Thank you very much for your leadership on behalf of the indigenous community and for your work as commissioner of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. I'd also like to thank you for your comments on the fact that we need to do better and need to continue our calls to action.

I would like to ask you to elaborate on your thoughts. You ended your opening remarks by saying that you were eager to see our recommendations. Since you have a lot of experience in the field, I would really like to hear your recommendations on the topic before us, which is violence against indigenous women and girls in the context of resource development.

Madam Senator, can you give the committee some specific recommendations?

Our committee works very well together. We work in a non‑partisan way, and we want to find solutions.

[Michèle Audette]

Thank you very much for your question.

The zero tolerance principle must be applied to all forms of violence, whether sexual violence, physical violence, discrimination or racism. It's up to you to develop the wording accordingly.

However, let's remember that the issue of resource exploitation and the rights of indigenous women must not be addressed in isolation. It's also important to think about the relationship with the land, the environment, and so on. All these things are interrelated.

Let's also remember that we have members of Parliament here who represent territories and regions where mining occurs, and this is an issue that involves provincial and territorial governments. The exercise must also be done with those who seem to be giving things away without necessarily listening to our voices on the land.

When it comes to safety, let's make sure that the mechanisms or spaces provided for reporting a situation of violence are known and that they are overseen by people with expertise. I will end briefly with this extremely important recommendation that the presence of an indigenous person is not enough to ensure the legitimacy of a mechanism. For their part, Canadian institutions have a wide range of experts to defend their interests. It's important to reach out to women who have experienced various situations or who have in‑depth knowledge of indigenous issues.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Excellent. Thank you, Madam Senator.

My next question is for Kimberley Zinck at NRCan.

As a parliamentary secretary in the last parliament, I worked closely with NRCan and was just amazed at the number of indigenous staff involved with NRCan. I want to ask you to expand, Kimberley, on what NRCan has done as a department to look at the implementation of UNDRIP, especially when you look at the original documents that include several articles on indigenous women. How is the work that you've done helping to ensure that it is expanded across the country here in the natural resources sector?

[Kimberley Zinck]

Thank you very much for the question.

There's so much that's being done within the organization to promote diversity and inclusion, particularly in terms of hiring and making sure that indigenous voices are represented at our own tables.

I spoke in my opening remarks about the change that we made as an organization by merging the major projects management office with indigenous affairs and reconciliation. By doing that, we are bringing that indigenous perspective to everything we do. We are organizing ourselves to work with partners across the federal family to deliver on UNDRIP and on the federal pathways.

We have an indigenous employee network, for example, and we have folks in the organization who are responsible for equity, diversity and inclusion. That's just the internal-facing work that we're doing, and it's not only within one sector of the department, but across all sectors.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you for that answer.

I'd like to ask one last question.

Mrs. Brazeau, thank you for the work you do. Indigenous friendship centres, both in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada, are so important.

Could you tell us more about the phenomenon of the many fly‑in, fly‑out trips to work at the resource development sites?

I'd also like to hear about your experience with the agreements negotiated with the communities on impacts and benefits. Do you have any experience with that? The natural resources sector sometimes negotiates with indigenous boards, some of which are entirely male. Do you have any experience or recommendations on how to enrich the negotiations on the benefits that are given to communities?