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.