Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you very much. My name is Fay Blaney, and I am the lead matriarch for the Aboriginal Women's Action Network. I'm based out of Campbell River today.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Okay, thank you very much. Briefly, I just want to say that the Aboriginal Women's Action Network has been in existence since 1995. For the past 10-plus years our focus has been on issues of trafficking and prostitution of indigenous women. I think our interest in that was reall

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I couldn't get onto Zoom. It was insane. Anyway, Cherry said to me that incest is the boot camp for prostitution. My second point that I really want to make is that indigenous girls are sexually exploited, and it leads right into being trafficked or prostituted. In my final sec

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll take another minute and just conclude with “Nothing About Us Without Us”. I find that comment very ironic because a lot of different social justice groups are saying this. They want to be included in the decisions that affect their lives. I was saying earlier to my friend

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. She talked about guaranteed livable income under food sovereignly and benefits that came out of the pandemic. Further, women-only detox and addictions treatment are absolutely critical. Here in B.C. we have treatment facilities that are co-ed. I've experienced that and I a

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It came out in the recommendations that I gave. I think that women-only detox and addictions treatment facilities are really critical. I, for one, got right into my addictions when I was a teenager because of the sexual abuse and other forms of abuse, like being orphaned and thos

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think the money comes from male entitlement. In Sweden, they did a massive educational process, with the Nordic model that they developed. An important element of that was education around equality issues for women. The Indian Act is built upon patriarchy, and it's going to

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Hilda, would you like to go first?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Okay. I tied “nothing about us without us” to the funding of autonomous indigenous women's organizations so that we can spread our wings, like I did, in women's centres and in university. Studying women's studies there is where I learned about what happened to me. It becomes so

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I am so sorry. I didn't understand any of that.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Okay.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Okay. I feel like I am repeating myself. I'm sorry. I really believe that we need to begin our capacity development amongst ourselves, as indigenous women, in order to be able to respond to the huge variety of issues that impact us. There is child apprehension. There is male vio

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think it's a really long journey to come out of being sexually trafficked and being in prostitution. We really need a comprehensive and feminist exiting service for indigenous women. Other forms of healing.... I mentioned earlier about women-only detox centres and addiction t

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Definitely Manitoba is ahead of us on that. I'm sure Hilda could speak about the developments that are happening there. In B.C. we have religious—like, Christian—services for women when they want to exit. I'll defer to Hilda on that to talk a bit about what they're doing in Man