National Post (National Edition)
CANADA RAPPED OVER FORCED STERILIZATION
‘Stain’ on all of us, says NDP MP of critical report
OTTAWA • Human-rights organizations and the federal NDP demanded on Friday that the Liberal government act on a report by the UN Committee Against Torture detailing the “extensive forced or coerced sterilization” of Indigenous women and girls in Canada.
The Geneva-based committee said Canada must ensure all such allegations are impartially investigated and that those responsible are held to account. The state needs to take legislative and policy measures to stop women from being sterilized against their will, the United Nations said.
The report confirms Canada is torturing Indigenous women through forced sterilization, NDP MP Rachel Blaney said in the House of Commons.
“Do the Liberals not understand that this is a stain on our country, a stain on every one of us in this House?” she said during question period. “Why are the Liberals tolerating forced sterilization of Indigenous women?”
Before the report’s release, Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould’s office said the government is taking a “public-health approach” to the issue, though the government believes everyone must receive culturally safe health services no matter where they live.
Wilson-Raybould’s parliamentary secretary Arif Virani reiterated that message as he answered Blaney’s question.
“The coerced sterilization of Indigenous women is a serious violation of human rights and it is completely unacceptable,” he said.
The minister’s office has pointed to provisions within the criminal code meant to forbid “a range of criminal behaviour” that would cover forced sterilizations, including aggravated assault.
Outside the Commons, Amnesty International Canada’s gender-rights campaigner Jackie Hansen insisted that the federal government needs to do things more concrete than condemning it when women have their ability to have children taken away.
“I think what everyone wants to see is this practice ended,” she told a news conference on Parliament Hill. “What we want to see is a firm commitment from government to demonstrate how that is going to happen.”
Hansen’s organization has called on the federal government to appoint a special representative to hear from Indigenous women coerced into being sterilized to learn what justice would look like for survivors.
The UN committee’s report speaks to the lack of action to address the issue, Hansen added.
“We really look forward to Canada’s response to how it is going to implement the strong recommendations issued by the committee against torture,” she said. “It is clear that there is stigma, there is shame around this issue and very difficult for women to come forward and report what has happened to them.” Indigenous women and girls deserve the same level of respect as anyone else when they receive medical services, said Native Women’s Association President Francyne Joe.
“To engage in an invasive, medically unnecessary surgery without one’s free, full and informed consent is a very serious violation of a person’s right to bodily integrity,” she said. “The Canadian medical profession must respect consent and the Canadian government must defend consent.”
A proposed class-action lawsuit led by lawyer Alisa Lombard and her firm Maurice Law is also underway, targeting the Saskatoon Health Authority, the Saskatchewan government, the federal government and a handful of medical professionals as defendants.
More women have disclosed their experience with coerced sterilization as media coverage on the issue has continued, Hansen said.
About 100 women have now come forward to report they have been forcibly sterilized, Lombard said — a jump of 40 women since The Canadian Press published a story in November detailing a push from Ontario Sen. Yvonne Boyer to study the issue nationally.
A SERIOUS VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS.