Include Indigenous in recovery plans

The recent federal throne speech stated the obvious: Women have been especially hard hit by the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic. To ensure that women do not see their place in public life whittled away as we try to rebuild, the federal government proposes new, targeted social supports. In particular, a national child care program is on offer.

But the recent death of Joyce Echaquan, an Indigenous woman who videotaped her own abuse by hospital workers in Quebec, prompts the question: What if you are a woman who cannot trust the state to care for you or your family? What if your understanding of government “support” includes unjust child removal, medical negligence, “starlight tours” — the constant twin threats of racism and sexism in innumerable forms?

Indigenous women (who, incidentally, engage in entrepreneurship at roughly twice the rate of other Canadian women) live with the burden of systemic oppression every day. If this truly is a feminist government committed to “building back better,” the COVID-19 recovery plan for women must be radically intersectional.

To begin with, the proposed national child care plan must reflect the government's commitment to Indigenous jurisdiction over Indigenous child and family services. Indigenous women's organizations must be full partners in its development. Common decency and common sense demand it.

Hayley Sherman, Ottawa