Status of Women Committee on Sept. 22nd, 2022

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 28 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women. It is so nice to see witnesses joining us in person again.

Lisa, we are happy to have you at FEWO.

Before we begin, I have been informed that we have resources until 6:15 p.m.

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 a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of June 23. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

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 by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, and please mute yourself when you're not speaking.

For the interpretation for those on Zoom, you have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of “floor”, “English” or “French”. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

I will remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

Members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. Members on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function.

The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can, and we appreciate your patience. I'll be putting up this red card as notice of your one-minute warning, meaning that you have 60 seconds remaining.

I would now like to welcome our witnesses: from the Native Women's Association of Canada, Lisa J. Smith, senior director; from Women of the Métis Nation, Melanie Omeniho, president; from Wa Ni Ska Tan: An Alliance of Hydro-Impacted Communities, Professor Jarvis Brownlie and Associate Professor Ramona Neckoway; and from Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, Kilikvak Kabloona, chief executive officer.

They're online. I know some of the witnesses have a problem with earphones, so if it's the will of the committee, they can send a written submission because the translator cannot do the translation.

You can send the submission to the clerk by tomorrow so that we can do our translation.

We'll go over to Lisa.

Go ahead. You have the floor for five minutes.

[Lisa J. Smith, Senior Director, Governance, International and Parliamentary Relations, Native Women's Association of Canada]

Good afternoon, everyone. I am truly honoured to be here amongst you. I'm told that I'm the first in person since COVID, so I truly am honoured to be here on unceded territory.

My name is Lisa Smith, as the honourable chair mentioned. I'm senior director of governance, international and parliamentary relations. That title is a lot taller than I am, but here we are.

As you know, the Native Women's Association of Canada, NWAC, is highly committed to ending the ongoing genocide of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, MMIWG, and advocating for the implementation of the calls for justice of the national inquiry's final report.

Honourable members and Chair, there is a link between resource extraction and violence against indigenous women, girls, transgender and gender-diverse people, as this honourable committee has identified. Therefore, it is essential to consider women's safety during all stages of resource extraction projects.

Resource extraction projects usually create environments described as “boom towns” and “man camps”, where transient non-indigenous men, who are paid high salaries, come to work on these sites. These sites are reported to have increased rates of sexual violence and human trafficking. Oftentimes, honourable members, when we think of human trafficking, we think that it doesn't take place in this beautiful country we call Canada, but of course it does. These sites are certainly an area where that does occur.

James Anaya, the former United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, investigated Canada in October 2013. I encourage everyone here to read his report. He reported to the Human Rights Council that extractive industries disproportionately impact indigenous peoples, especially indigenous women and girls living near oil, gas and mining operations. It is important to remember that indigenous women's physical, spiritual and cultural relationship with the environment and its resources creates an intimacy. Let's sit there: It creates an intimacy and an invaluable knowledge base for program and policy development.

How did we get here? Colonial expansion is intrinsically linked with resource extraction. However, when Bill C-15, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, received royal assent, advocates breathed a sigh of relief, since this will ensure the minimum human rights of indigenous women, transgender and gender-diverse people will be upheld when Canada's policies and legislation are aligned with that act.

Article 3 of UNDRIP states: “Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination.” This guarantees the right to “freely determine” their political condition and their right to “freely pursue” their form of “economic, social and cultural development”. That is very much engaged in this discussion, so I thank you for having the discussion.

According to James Anaya, one of the most dramatic contradictions that indigenous peoples in Canada face is that so many live in abysmal conditions on traditional territories that are full of valuable and plentiful natural resources. These resources are in many cases targeted for extraction and development by non-indigenous interests.

Truth and Reconciliation Day is coming up on September 30. We must think about that, too, in this discussion. Indigenous languages that it was attempted to have lost or that were lost during residential school abuses are more descriptive than Latin when they describe fauna and flora, so there are nuances there.

NWAC understands that gender-based analysis must be culturally relevant. I do have resources in both official languages that I can provide to the committee. We call it a “CRGBA”, a culturally relevant gender-based analysis.

I will also say that NWAC has a report that I can provide, the “Indigenous Women and Impact Assessment Final Report”, and a quick guide.

I'll reiterate that NWAC takes guidance from the MMIWG final report. We want to recommend that a CRGBA lens is provided in a meaningful part of the planning, assessment, implementation, management and monitoring of resource development—so throughout the entire process.

I'll stop there, Chair. Again, it's such an honour to be here.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Thank you, Lisa.

Now we'll move to the Wa Ni Ska Tan and Dr. Neckoway.

It's over to you for five minutes.

[Ramona Neckoway, Associate Professor, Wa Ni Ska Tan: An Alliance of Hydro-Impacted Communities]

Hi.

Dr. Brownlie and I have prepared a joint statement, so we're going to tag-team it, if you will allow us. Dr. Brownlie is going to commence the presentation.

[Jarvis Brownlie, Professor, Wa Ni Ska Tan: An Alliance of Hydro-Impacted Communities]

Hello, honourable Chair and committee.

Thank you for including us in this very important process, and thank you for holding this inquiry in response to the national inquiry's call to justice. It's really heartening to see this happening.

We are here representing the Wa Ni Ska Tan Alliance of Hydro-Impacted Communities, which is a group of academics and first nations members who have spent years working collectively to document and call attention to the adverse impacts of hydro projects on Manitoba first nations.

My colleague Dr. Neckoway has worked on hydro-related issues with her own community, Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, and other affected first nations for more than 15 years.

[Ramona Neckoway]

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you as well.

I speak to you today not just as an academic, but as a Cree woman and grandmother who has experienced the effects and impacts of hydro power.

My colleague Dr. Brownlie has worked as part of the Wa Ni Ska Tan community-based research team for the past eight years. We have learned first-hand from many community members about the ongoing effects they have experienced over the past 50 years as a result of hydro power operations on their territories, which affect nearly every aspect of their lives and communities.

[Jarvis Brownlie]

We submitted a brief to this committee in May. In that brief, we offered a short summary of some of the key impacts of hydro power, which commits serious violence against the environment and the waters, despite its image as clean, green energy.

[Ramona Neckoway]

Our languages, the water, the land and our families contain the foundations of social bonds, identity, community strength and resilience. They also anchor us to the past and to the future.

Hydro power, combined with multiple other harms resulting from practices of colonization, has made the practice and transmission of our cultures much more difficult. Ongoing damage to land and water has resulted in great social and cultural harm, yet these types of consequences are not widely known.

[Jarvis Brownlie]

The practice and teaching of indigenous cultures happen out on the land and on the water. These were the sites where ceremony took place and, in many forms, they are where connections were forged with the land and with families.

The disruption of these teachings and practices is itself a form of cultural violence. The cultural, linguistic and spiritual losses that result from hydro power are key factors contributing to other forms of violence within indigenous communities.

[Ramona Neckoway]

A recurring theme we hear from community partners and friends relates to grief and loss that have been suffered, including the loss of culturally meaningful and sacred places that have been destroyed. Life on the land and water was a focal point in the lives of our parents and their parents and so on.

We are hearing concerns related to water and contamination of the waters, and even concerns related to mercury poisoning. Animals have moved away or been drowned in their burrows, and the ability to provide for families has been largely been taken away. Today, many peoples have to travel far away from hydro-affected waters to hunt, trap and fish.

We want to be clear that there is a great deal of strength in our communities, but for many, providing the basics of life for themselves and their families—just ensuring they have water to drink and food to eat—remains an ongoing struggle.

[Jarvis Brownlie]

In recent years, members of several Manitoba first nations have spoken out about the prevalence of violence committed by members of hydro construction crews—in both the past and in recent times—disclosing that many women were sexually assaulted by workers who lived in those temporary hydro construction camps. Four Manitoba first nations have recently called for a public inquiry into these abuses, which were also documented in the 2018 “Regional Cumulative Effects Assessment” report by the Clean Environment Commission. We support this call for inquiries into these abuses.

Indigenous societies understand water as a living being that must be respected and protected. This understanding of water makes the harm from hydro dams even more painful, dangerous and a form of violence. They also understand women as having a special relationship to water, in part through the water associated with carrying and birthing babies. Because of this, women have a special responsibility to protect water and tend a relationship with it. Canada's exclusion of indigenous women from having a voice in relation to water and water use is another form of cultural violence that also squanders important knowledge and strength that would benefit Canadian society.

We also want to stress that while communities have suffered a lot of harm from hydro dams, they are also communities with a lot of strength. There are concrete steps that can be taken to reduce and partly reverse the damage from hydro power. We'd be happy to talk about that more. These are steps to help communities regain safety, identity, cohesion and, even more importantly, to support their revitalization and the transmission of languages and cultures as the essential foundation for healthy and vibrant communities.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Thank you, Dr. Brownlie and Dr. Neckoway.

Finally, we will go to Kilikvak Kabloona from Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.

You have five minutes.

[Kilikvak Kabloona, Chief Executive Officer, Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My name is Kilikvak Kabloona. I am the chief executive officer for Nunavut Tunngavik. We are responsible for upholding the Nunavut Agreement, a constitutionally protected treaty.

I am joining you virtually from Iqaluit, Nunavut with really slow Internet speed. If I get disconnected, I will try to connect again.

Before I begin, I would like to recognize Savanna Pikuyak, a 22-year-old from Sanirajak who moved to Ottawa earlier this month to attend college in order to become a nurse. She was murdered by her landlord—a man who was on probation after being convicted and sentenced for assaulting his former girlfriend.

Violence against Inuit women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+, including in the resource sector, is a systemic issue based in colonization. The racist and discriminatory legacy of colonization disrupts, undermines and ignores Inuit women's place in society, and diminishes their roles and responsibilities as Inuit. Colonization leaves Inuit women untethered from their identities, families and communities, with patriarchal values informed by colonial standards that replace Inuit values.

From colonization, there is a long history of racialized, gender-based violence perpetrated against Inuit women. Today, in the Nunavut context, Inuit women are being forced to accept low-wage work on a rotational basis at mining camps and to leave their children, for two weeks at a time, with extended family. However, if governments had provided the training guaranteed under article 23 of the Nunavut Agreement, many of these women would be working in their home communities as nurses, teachers or administrators of their local governments.

More specifically, regarding resource development, “Reclaiming Power and Place” found that indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people across Canada have been targets of violence due to their communities being near natural resource industries. The culture of gender-based violence fostered within these camps has been described as one that exacerbates isolation, drug and alcohol abuse, violence, misogyny, hypermasculinity and racism among the men living there, which all contribute to indigenous women and girls being at high risk for experiencing violence.

In Nunavut, there is a lack of information about the connection between resource extraction and human trafficking. Further considerations and research into violence mitigation strategies, as they relate to man camps, are high needs among all communities in proximity to resource extraction.

I was encouraged by budget 2021's funding commitment of $2.2 billion over five years to respond to the tragedy of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. Our territory was devastated 14 days later by Emerald MacDonald's murder in Kugluktuk. I am discouraged by bureaucratic delays in accessing this funding. As far as I am aware, none of the funding announced in budget 2021 has been spent in Nunavut. Funding for one shelter has been committed.

I would be pleased to accept your questions at the appropriate time.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Thank you, Ms. Kabloona. Thank you very much for your time.

We will now start our six-minute rounds. We will start with the CPC.

Michelle Ferreri, I'm going to pass the floor to you for six minutes.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of the guests joining us in person and virtually. I would love to start with Ms. Kabloona.

Ms. Kabloona, I had the privilege to visit your beautiful territory this summer and was in Iqaluit. It is an absolutely outstanding and beautiful place. You have a lot to be proud of. Thank you so much for telling us about the young woman who was murdered by somebody who was obviously known to the police.

Could I just, if I may, clarify something you said? You said the government has an agreement to honour with respect to training. Can you clarify that point?

[Kilikvak Kabloona]

The Government of Canada and the Government of Nunavut have a constitutionally protected treaty with the Inuit of Nunavut called the Nunavut Agreement. Under this agreement, article 23 is about Inuit employment in government to a representative level of 85%. Currently the Government of Nunavut is at approximately 50% Inuit employment, and the Government of Canada is at approximately 30% Inuit employment. Article 23 outlines the steps to achieve representative Inuit employment, including pre-employment training.

The agreement was signed in 1993, and it was expected that training would occur in our communities in all government-related fields of teaching, nursing, accounting and law and that Inuit would take the positions within our communities. That training has not occurred.

In 2015 there was a settlement between the Government of Canada and Nunavut Tunngavik for failures to train Inuit for government positions. We are still concerned with the slow pace of this training and, as a result, Inuit women often have no choice but to accept low-paying work on a rotational basis at camps such as mining camps.

Thank you.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you so much for that answer.

Has there been any reason given to you as to why this training hasn't been provided? Also, has there been any discussion in terms of including Inuit in how they can be a part of the hiring process and be trained?

[Kilikvak Kabloona]

Currently, the government is stating that the timelines and the targets are not enforceable, so there is no way forward to training. It's just an open-ended commitment. We challenged that and expect that pre-employment training plans and targets would be put into force. Of course, they would need to be adapted based on new information and address new challenges. We'd like to see new campus facilities built. We'd like to see more training programs in our communities, day cares for our students to attend training and a number of initiatives under article 23. There is some interest in both governments for a pre-employment training strategy, but we would like to see more progress on that.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you so much, Ms. Kabloona.

I know I'm probably running out of time, so I just want to say into the record that you would like to see some accountability on follow-through and that this training needs to happen so that these young women can make the wages they need to get out of poverty cycles. The government obviously needs to be following through on what they're saying and doing what they say, not just writing the words.

[Kilikvak Kabloona]

Yes, that is correct.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Thank you, Michelle.

Now we will pass it over to Anita Vandenbeld.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Before I begin, I'd like to honour Savanna Pikuyak, who came to study in my riding and was murdered in my riding. All she wanted to do was study nursing, and she was new to Ottawa. It clearly shows that we have to do more.

Thank you very much, Ms. Kabloona, for bringing that up, and also sympathies to her community and her family.

I want to start my questions with Ms. Smith. You mentioned CRGBA, and, if I'm not mistaken, I think it's the first time that term has been mentioned in this committee. It's culturally relevant gender-based analysis. I think it would be of interest to all of us if you could perhaps elaborate a little bit on that.

[Lisa J. Smith]

I think having a gender-based analysis that's culturally relevant for indigenous women, girls and gender-diverse people has to be trauma informed. We don't want to perpetuate colonial attitudes in our gender-based analysis. We have to safeguard our policies so that those colonial attitudes aren't enriched by our policies, even though there is a gender-based analysis.

Our report says that the CRGBA “considers the historical and current issues faced by Indigenous women, including the impacts that colonization and intergenerational trauma have caused”. We go on to talk about “a risk of perpetuating further marginalization, oppression [and] violence against indigenous women”, as I mentioned.

If it's helpful to the committee, I can certainly send this report in both official languages.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Yes, I think we would very much appreciate that.

The other thing you alluded to, and it's something we see quite often both internationally and here in Canada, is this concept of “rich land, poor people”. One thing we've heard in this study is that even if women are finding jobs in the resource extraction sector, it's often low-paying and very precarious work. They're not in the leadership positions. They're not the CEOs, the executives or the board. Even if they get to those board positions, there's a toxic culture that pushes them back out.

I wonder if you could suggest what we do to make sure that the women are also benefiting from the tremendous wealth that the land and the resources provide.

[Lisa J. Smith]

Thank you again for that question. It's very well put.

I think it goes back to really understanding and having space for indigenous women leadership. That's is so important.

On climate action.... I kind of went off my notes and talked about indigenous languages and the nuances we've lost. I would say, too, that indigenous leadership and indigenous knowledge in general can really help in terms of climate action and all our interactions with the land and water because there is that specialized knowledge there that we hold, especially as indigenous women.

It's creating a space for truly understanding that and then applying it. It's okay to study that connection, but we must ensure that it's implemented and given high regard in terms of the entire process of resource extraction.

It is something I feel very passionate about. I'm happy to submit further to the committee on that as well.