Uqaqtittiji, I am very pleased to represent Nunavut in supporting Bill S-228.
First, I would like to thank the very strong people, who may or may not be in this room, who are sharing their strength with us today: Jackie, Sylvia, Heather, Germaine, Chasity, Nicole, Lois, Nilak, Susan, Harmony, staff and volunteers. I also thank the MP for Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes, and I thank Senator Boyer for her decades of commitment to this work.
Survivors of the horrific procedure of forced or coerced sterilization against first nations, Inuit and Métis have endured so much, and this is another example of a genocidal policy that has tested our strength.
I thank Senator Boyer for her decades of commitment to this work. I was her student in law school when I first heard about just how deep this issue was across Canada. I thank the Survivors Circle for Reproductive Justice for their years of work.
Finally, I thank the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights, who studied this important issue and tabled a report entitled “The Scars That We Carry: Forced and Coerced Sterilization of Persons in Canada—Part II” in July 2022.
Far too many Canadians are still ignorant as to how Canada treated indigenous peoples. Senator Boyer has worked since around 2017 bringing this to light. At least 12,000 indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people were forcibly or coercively sterilized between 1971 and 2018. This practice is reported as far back as the 1920s. This bill is important because if passed, it would criminalize sterilization procedures in the Criminal Code.
Today, I met Dr. Margot Burnell, president of the Canadian Medical Association. The CMA supports Bill S-228, which would make it clear that performing medical acts without free, prior and informed consent constitutes aggravated assault. The bill would define a sterilization procedure as any intervention that permanently prevents reproduction, regardless of whether it is technically reversible. The offence would be serious and could carry a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.
Unfortunately, sterilization of indigenous women is not a practice of the distant past, as others have said in this room. There are ongoing class action lawsuits representing hundreds of indigenous women who were sterilized without their consent, and reports of forced and coerced hysterectomies and sterilizations performed on Black women, people with disabilities and intersex people.
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights reported:
In Igloolik, 26% of women between the ages of 30 and 50 were sterilized. In Naujaat, formerly known as Repulse Bay, almost 50% of women in the 30 to 50 age group were sterilized. In Gjoa Haven, 31% of women had been sterilized. More than 25% of women in Chesterfield Inlet and Kugaaruk had been sterilized. Those are the only ones that were well documented, but we know that there were a lot more.
I share as well the story of Louise Delisle from the report, “The Scars That We Carry”. Louise shared:
I was very young when I had my daughter. I was 15 years old. My parents were not parents whom I could come to and tell them that I was pregnant, so this was a traumatic time for me in my life, and I told no one. I had to leave school because I began to show, and actually my principal was the one who informed my mother that I was with child.
Because I was so young, I had no idea what this all meant and how to handle this. Of course my daughter was taken away because I was so young, and I was the eldest of seven children living in a very poor home.
I remember her birth. I remember the pain during her birth. I also remember a Black woman being in the room with me as a nursing assistant. I remember, through all the pain, that she got into an argument with the doctor who was delivering my daughter. I remember her voice to this day and the sternness in her voice when she said, “You can’t do that. You need permission to do that.” The doctor said, “Too late. I don’t want to see this girl back here again having kid after kid and going through this and maybe worse. We won’t be in this position again,” he said. I had no idea what he was talking about. I was in labour and I was 15 years old, but what I found out was he had done something that would prevent me from having any more children. This was never discussed with me or my mother, who was my guardian while I was in hospital. It was never discussed.
My mother was not allowed in the room with me when I was giving birth, which was also something traumatic. The hardest thing for me was to come home without my daughter. Because I was 15 years old, like I said, I had to give her away. I couldn’t provide for her.
Whatever the doctor did to me, I was not able to have children again in my life... So when I became 29 I married, and my husband and I wanted to have children. I was not aware what had happened until I was seeing a doctor in a fertility clinic to find out why I wasn’t getting pregnant.... That’s when I was told I had had a partial hysterectomy.
That is the story of Louise Delisle.
We have a responsibility to prevent obstetric violence. We have to make sure we see the link between racism and the forced practice of coerced sterilization in Canada that exists. Much work has been done by Senator Boyer that must be honoured. We must continue to stand with survivors. To all Inuit, first nations and Métis, I say to speak up. Their voices matter. They can help make a difference. They can help make sure that we have a better future.
Having said this, Uqaqtittiji, if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for the following motion that, notwithstanding any standing order or usual practice of the House, Bill S-228, an act to amend the Criminal Code regarding sterilization procedures, be deemed read a second time and referred to a committee of the whole, deemed considered in committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at report stage and deemed read a third time and passed.