THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Monday, May 16, 2022
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met with videoconference this day at 5 p.m. [ET] to examine such issues as may arise from time to time relating to human rights generally; and, in camera, to examine such issues as may arise from time to time relating to human rights generally.
Senator Salma Ataullahjan (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, I am Salma Ataullahjan, senator from Toronto and chair of the committee. Today we are conducting a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights. I would like to introduce members of the committee who are participating in this meeting. I see we have Senator Omidvar, we have Senator Boyer, we have Senator Harder, we have Senator Gerba, and we have been joined by Senator Audette. Welcome. I’m so happy that you are here in person. Welcome to all of you and those viewing these proceedings on senvu.ca.
Today we are continuing a study which began in 2019 on the forced and coerced sterilization of persons in Canada. The committee tabled an interim report on this topic in June 2021, and this is our fourth meeting on this topic in this parliamentary session.
In June 2021, the report underlined the importance of hearing from survivors about their experiences. Today our committee is responding to this recommendation by hearing from women who have agreed to share their stories and their views.
I would like to sincerely thank our witnesses for agreeing to participate in this important study, and I will now introduce our witnesses. We have Ms. Louise Delisle and Ms. Lucy Nickerson. Welcome to both our witnesses and thank you for being with us today. Ms. Delisle, you have the floor.
Louise Delisle, as an individual: Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Louise Delisle, and I’m here with Lucy Nickerson, and we would like to thank you, Madam Chair and committee members, for giving us an opportunity to speak to you today.
I would like to say before I do speak that I don’t speak for anyone but myself in this matter. Even though I know many women in this African-Nova Scotia community have had their human rights violated by sterilization, I feel that my rights were violated in many ways, and I’ll tell you the story of what happened to me from the beginning.
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 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. 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, why my husband and I weren’t getting pregnant. That’s when I was told I had had a partial hysterectomy.
Needless to say, my husband and I separated after that because it was such a traumatic time for me upon learning this. They said there were some things that we could do. We could try and nothing worked, of course. Our marriage was over then.
I became very bitter and wouldn’t talk about this during my life. This is the first time in my life I have talked about the pain from this experience for me. All through my life, and I’m a senior citizen now, this topic was never discussed except during an interview I gave while I was a facilitator for the Black women’s health project called On the Margins for Dalhousie University. That was one of the other times, but I have never really gotten into it.
That event in my life caused me to make a number of very bad decisions. That sterilization caused many mental health issues for me. It caused me to have anxiety. It caused me to go through early menopause. It caused many episodes of depression and not knowing why.
I’m sorry if I’m taking too long. You can let me know. It took many years to come to the place in my life where I could accept this in my life that I would not have another child. I found my daughter after many years, thank God. We come together and we are mother and daughter. I have a beautiful granddaughter. I’m blessed that way.
I know this has happened to many Black women in my community. I speak quite a bit, but I find this one of the hardest things to speak about. I reached out to several women, but they felt it was too hard to talk about. They wouldn’t be able to do it.
I would like to take the time now to say to those women that they are not alone. If there is some way that that could be passed on to them, that would be a great thing.
Many women talked to me during the time I worked for Dalhousie on a project about having a hysterectomy at a younger age and about regretting it. They told me they never knew — the same as me — what would come after. I learned that I could not have any children. Coming from a large family, hearing that was one of the hardest things in my life. That is what I have to say happened to me.
Ms. Nickerson is here with me now. Should we go on to her now? I’m not sure how this works.
The Chair: Yes, thank you. We will go to Ms. Nickerson now, whenever you are ready with your testimony.
Lucy Nickerson, as an individual: I had a hysterectomy when I was very young. I went in for my appendix, or something, and the doctor said, “While we’re in there, we might as well give you a hysterectomy.” He never explained to me what was going to happen to me, and when I come out after the operation, I didn’t feel good. I felt alone, racing with myself. It was an awful experience to go through.
I wanted to go home. I kept asking them to let me go home, but they wouldn’t let me go home. Then they wouldn’t feed me. So I sent for an order at a restaurant and got some food. Then they decided to let me go home. I felt like I was ready for a mental institution. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was racing with myself. I never want to go through that again. That was my experience of it all. I wish they would have told me what I was going to go through. I had another friend who had a hysterectomy and they told her what she was going to go through. All this doctor told me is, “We might as well give you a hysterectomy while we’re in there.” I didn’t know what to expect. It was the most awful experience that I have ever been through. When I think of it, I go through it all over again.
That’s my experience with my hysterectomy.
The Chair: Thank you. Can you tell me how old you were, Ms. Nickerson?
Ms. Nickerson: Probably 29 or 30; in between there. I only had one child.
The Chair: Thank you for your powerful testimonies and for entrusting us with your stories that need to be told. We will now proceed with questions from the senators. As with our previous practice, I remind each senator that you have five minutes for your question and that includes the answer.
Senator Boyer: I would like to thank you, Ms. Delisle and Ms. Nickerson, for your powerful testimony. By saying what you have and sharing with us, other women will hear. That will give them the bravery to come forward. The more we talk about this horrible practice, the more it needs to be stopped. I thank you for sharing from the bottom of my heart. I know it’s difficult for you both, Ms. Nickerson and Delisle.
What do you think we can do to stop this? You probably both thought many years about the trauma that this has caused. If you could, what would you do to stop this from happening to another African-Nova Scotia woman?
Ms. Nickerson: When you go to the doctor’s, they are going to do what they are going to do. It’s not like saying, “No, I don’t want it done.” You just kind of go there. Half the time they don’t find anything wrong with you. They don’t even explain what is wrong with you.
I’m going to tell you a story that has nothing to do with this. I was very sick when COVID first came out. I was so bad that I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t walk anywhere, and I called down to the medical centre we have here. I said, “There is something wrong with me.” They said, “Well, you can’t come down here.” I said, “Why not?” They said, “Well, we’re not taking strangers in.” So I went to the outpatients department. They weren’t long to run me up to Yarmouth because I had an enlarged heart and fluid around it. That was the first time I was in a hospital and was told that they found something wrong.
This is what we go through, down here.
Senator Boyer: Yes. Perhaps the education aspect could be looked at for women to be more educated to say that they have rights and that they can ask questions.
Ms. Nickerson: Yes.
Senator Boyer: That’s all my questions, Madam Chair. Other people can ask questions.
The Chair: Do any other senators have questions?
Senator Hartling: Thank you to the witnesses. I really appreciate your testimony. It’s very difficult to tell your stories in public and relive them, and I just want you to know that we appreciate that. This should never have happened to either of you or any of the women.
I just wanted to ask Ms. Nickerson a couple of questions, if I could. Do you have to change your headsets?
Ms. Nickerson: No, I’m Lucy.
Senator Hartling: I’m sorry. I meant Louise. I want to speak to the other gal.
Ms. Nickerson: You want to speak to Louise? No problem.
Ms. Delisle: Hello. We’re playing musical chairs, but that’s okay.
Senator Hartling: Sorry. I got confused. Both your names start with an “L.” Thank you very much.
I just wanted to say again how sorry I am this happened to you, and this is like a life of trauma that you relive all the time. I wanted to ask you, when you found your daughter, and you talked to her, was it something you could share with her? How did she react to what you had to tell her about this?
Ms. Delisle: I don’t remember having that conversation with my daughter. I don’t remember until she was going through something similar when she had a hysterectomy as well.
She didn’t live in the Black community. She wasn’t far from us, but she, as well, had one child, and then they told her she had to have a hysterectomy.
But I never had that conversation with Sue. We have never talked about it, because I have not been able to really bring myself until these later years to talk about it myself.
Senator Hartling: It’s certainly difficult to talk about and to find people that can listen and understand.
Do you feel in any way, Ms. Delisle, that this has been affected by your being Black? Has that been a factor, racism?
Ms. Delisle: Yes. Yes.
Senator Hartling: In what way?
Ms. Delisle: Well, I feel that if I hadn’t been Black, that that whole incident when I was 15, and because I come from a large, Black family, that I would not have been treated that way. It would have been discussed, or it would never have happened. That is what I feel. If I had been somebody else, a different culture, a different colour, it would not have happened.
It happened to me, because I feel that there was nobody at that time to speak for me, except for that lady, who just passed away recently, who was in that room and brought it to that doctor’s attention that he was doing something that he should not be doing.
Senator Hartling: I thank you for sharing with us, and, like I said, it should never have happened, and I hope that in the future this won’t happen again.
Ms. Delisle: So do I. So do I.
Senator Hartling: It’s important that you share.
Ms. Delisle: I hear young women saying, “Well, I think I should get a hysterectomy,” or, “I should get my tubes tied.” You don’t want to do that. You don’t ever want to do that.
I don’t know if I mentioned that during that time when we were trying to get pregnant, I went into the hospital for that, and they ended up giving me a full hysterectomy at the time, not just a partial, but a full one. That just threw me into another whole dimension of all this, hormone replacements, and —
Senator Hartling: Wow. Well, I’m sorry. I’ll let my colleagues ask some questions. Thank you very much.
Ms. Delisle: You’re very welcome.
The Chair: Before I move to the next witness, please, you said that they gave you a full hysterectomy. What was their reasoning for that?
Ms. Delisle: They said there was a growth, that I had a growth, a large growth that was benign. They gave me the hysterectomy, because they didn’t know whether it was benign or not. When I was 29, trying to get pregnant, that’s when that happened.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Omidvar: My question can be for either or both of our witnesses. First of all, I want to say thank you very much for stepping forward and sharing your stories. It is difficult to revisit a painful past, like both of you have, but we are here to make sure it does not happen again. Thank you very much, when we are thinking of our daughters and our sisters going forward who deserve to be mothers. Thank you, on their behalf.
My question is that clearly you both have, with very good reason, very little confidence in the health care system, based on how you were treated. Yet the health care system is a feature of your lives, I’m sure.
Ms. Delisle: Yes.
Senator Omidvar: Do you feel safe going into hospitals or into medical treatment? If not, what would make you feel safer?
Ms. Delisle: Well, I do now, because I have a doctor of colour, a doctor that looks like me. But I didn’t. When I went to a doctor, I didn’t believe what they were telling me, partly because of what happened to me, and because I felt they didn’t understand me or how to treat me. I had no confidence that they really wanted to help me. That was my problem with the health care system.
I do have confidence now, because I now have a doctor who is of African descent and who takes time to listen to me and understands, as a woman of age, what I have gone through and what I’m going through. I have to say now I’m very lucky.
But I didn’t go to the doctor much when I was younger after that experience. I just didn’t go. When I was ill, I didn’t go.
Senator Omidvar: Thank you so much. I am relieved that some of your faith in our medical system is restored.
If I may make a connection between your comments and our report, do you think it is important for Canada to have more doctors of colour, Black doctors, Indigenous doctors and, in particular, specialists in maternal health?
Ms. Delisle: Yes, I certainly do. I certainly do.
I think if that was the case, if we had more doctors in the African-Nova Scotian community or the Black community anywhere, is what I’m trying to say, when you’re talking to somebody that can relate to certain feelings that you are having or the emotional stuff behind certain things like racism and discrimination, and — believe it or not, it does make you ill. If you’re used to being treated that way, it causes all kinds of health issues with you, and doctors that understand that are needed more, if that makes sense. It does to me, but I hope it does to you as well.
But, yes, if we had more doctors of colour, I think the health of many African-Nova Scotians would be better.
Senator Omidvar: Thank you so much, Ms. Delisle.
Ms. Delisle: Thank you.
Senator Harder: Thank you, Ms. Delisle and Ms. Nickerson for your testimony.
I want to pursue a bit more about what Senator Omidvar has been discussing with respect to the medical profession, and I certainly understand, Ms. Delisle, your comments with respect to seeing more doctors and health care professionals that, quote/unquote, look like a patient. Surely, it is also important that all medical practitioners have a better understanding of what you went through.
My original question was going to be how do you cope with the anger that you must feel, but, surely, putting that anger to good use would be trying to come up with how we can prevent this from happening, and how do we tell the story that is your story but, sadly, also the story of many more women across Canada and get positive change from those stories? That change has to come to the medical profession, the health care providers more generally. What do you feel about that?
Ms. Delisle: My first response is I did not respond well to the incident of sterilization because I didn’t understand what was happening to me, and I became very — disoriented is not the word I’m looking for, but I didn’t live my best life until I was much older and began to understand why I was having the issues that I had. The medical system did not help me mentally. There was no one there for me that I could communicate with about how I was feeling as a Black woman and not being able to have children and going through menopause at a young age and all the emotions behind that. There was no one and nothing set up or in place to help me, physically or mentally, deal with all that stress.
That is something that needs to be in place. Number one, these kinds of things have to stop happening. This is a traumatic thing that many Black women have gone through but will not talk about, like me. They deal with it in ways that are detrimental to themselves and their community.
Senator Harder: Did the health study that you participated in at Dalhousie lead to any recommendations for the health care sector?
Ms. Delisle: The part that I played in that study was to do the interviews with women, talking about the health of Black woman living in this rural community. Very little came from that study. Lots of interviews, every Black woman in this part of the province was interviewed, but the only dissemination from that project was something that was — I produced a play about all this stuff because I do write a bit. I produced a play and showed it to several communities, and that was one way to disseminate the information that we had gathered about what was affecting the Black women in the Black community.
Nothing was done with that rich resource of information. It probably still sits on a shelf somewhere at Dalhousie University.
Senator Harder: Well, perhaps our report can highlight that study. Thank you very much.
Ms. Delisle: That would be wonderful. Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Thank you for your testimony, Ms. Delisle. It was very touching. I am also African and I know how important fertility and the ability to have children are. Being deprived of that at 15 years of age is so — I cannot imagine what that does. There are already repercussions. We can see that it prevented you from continuing to be in a relationship.
You have been active in this area with Black communities for years and are telling us that you can now have Black specialists, so that is reassuring.
What do you think can be done to stop that practice, and how can we ensure to have more diversity in the profession, more Black people who can help people like you work through these difficulties?
[English]
Ms. Delisle: Number one, that’s an awesome question and I have an answer for that. I would like to see the government help young Black students who want to become medical people, doctors and psychiatrists and any kind of health specialist or nurses. We’re poor. In this community, we are very poor. I think that we need to have more funding for these children that want to be educated in those fields. The government needs to really think about where they can best use educational funds, and I would say that the universities that are going to produce the doctors that are Black and encourage Black students that they have a way to get through, because they can go so far, but financially, most Black people in my community couldn’t send their children to become a doctor. It’s just not something that you could do unless you have a wealthy relative somewhere.
That’s what the government can do. That’s what the government should be looking at when they’re looking at the health care system. We are becoming such a diverse nation, and communities are becoming very diverse. We need doctors that will relate to our culture. If we pick youth that are capable and want to do that and support them financially to get them through, then we have those people in place that understand our health systems and how we become better and not be sick, how we become healthy.
Senator Gerba: Thank you.
Ms. Delisle: But that’s not happening. We have scholarships and whatnot, that students can probably identify, but to get to the end of that you have to be rich.
Senator Gerba: Thank you.
Ms. Delisle: That would be my solution, to put more money into African Nova Scotians and natives and whatever. Like I said, we’re becoming communities of different nationalities all living together, and sometimes it’s hard for a doctor to understand why a Black person is the way they are or feels the way they do or is sick because of.
When you think about what Black communities have been exposed to, living in a Black community you’re exposed to many environmental issues as well, which causes a lot of health issues.
Senator Gerba: Thank you.
Ms. Delisle: So funding for education.
Senator Gerba: Thank you so much.
Ms. Delisle: You’re very welcome.
The Chair: Before I go to Senator Boyer, Ms. Delisle, I’d like to ask you this: You spoke about being very angry, and then there was a change. What brought about that change?
Ms. Delisle: I think it was a mentor of mine who actually saw something in me. Her name was Elizabeth Cromwell. She was from this community, a Black lady. She saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. She had known me from the time I went through that. She was a social worker who helped me to find my child. What changed me is bringing my child back into my life, my one and only child, and getting to meet my granddaughter. It totally changed me.
Senator Boyer: Thank you, Ms. Delisle, for your testimony. I know it’s difficult, but what you have shared with us will have a positive ripple effect.
Ms. Delisle: Thank you.
Senator Boyer: My question for you is this: How widespread do you think this has been within the African-Nova Scotian community, and is it still happening?
Ms. Delisle: When Senator Wanda Thomas Bernard reached out to me and asked if I would speak today, I thought back to the research I had done with the women in my community, and I thought back to one family where every woman in that family had had a hysterectomy at an early age. When you look into this community, the majority of women have been sterilized. Some have had three children, some have had more, but the majority of them have had a hysterectomy at some point.
I don’t know if that answers your question, but it is quite prevalent where I live, in this community.
Senator Boyer: It’s shocking.
Ms. Delisle: Yes, it is.
Senator Boyer: You had some good solutions, and those will be included in our report as well. Thank you so much.
Ms. Delisle: Thank you very much.
The Chair: We talk about Nova Scotia, but I’m sure this is happening in other parts of Canada, too. In fact, as I was listening to your story, it took me back to when I was very new to Canada. I had just had my daughter, and I had a young Black babysitter who took some time off. She came to me and said that she had had a hysterectomy. I was shocked, and I asked why. She said, “Well, the doctor gave me some reason and explanation and felt I should have it.” Now I keep thinking of her. I was so new that I didn’t know this was done. Where I come from, no doctor would do that.
Ms. Delisle: Well, it happened here. It happened in this community, and Dalhousie University has the tapes to prove it. All these interviews were taped. I don’t know why something hadn’t been done then.
I don’t know if, since that project, this is still a practice. I can’t say. I hope it isn’t. I hope, but I don’t see very many babies in this community.
The Chair: Do you feel it’s still happening?
Ms. Delisle: I can count on my hand. I know of three babies in this community. Two of them are from one family. And there are a lot of young women in this community. Unless they’re taking very good care of themselves and don’t want to get pregnant, but I don’t know. I can’t answer that. I wish I could. That may be something I should find out.
The Chair: To me, this speaks to the relationship that certain communities have with their health care providers. How do we empower these communities to say no? It’s very hard, because we have so much trust in our doctors and we feel that they’re looking out for us. But listening to these stories makes me wonder. How do we empower women to speak up and have a relationship with their health care providers?
I know that you’re doing this, and because Senator Boyer proposed this study, we’re hearing these stories. These stories will go far and wide. They will make women realize that they should be asking questions and saying no. They do have the ability to say no.
Ms. Delisle: But this goes back, senator, to who we are as a people. As African-Nova Scotian women, we never had a voice. Many of us feel that we still don’t have a voice. To speak up about yourself is just something our culture doesn’t do.
We need more strong Black women coming back into the community, talking to the community and letting people know: Let it out, tell it. If you have something to say, then say it. It’s okay. For generations, we were not allowed to speak. In rural communities, and especially in this community, we’re descendants of the Black Loyalists, who were slaves. That mentality stays with us from generation to generation, and many things are passed on. To speak about what’s happening to you is still something that women are not doing today.
The Chair: Thank you. As a racialized woman, I see that in my community too; the women will not speak up.
Senator Omidvar: Thank you again, Ms. Delisle. As important as stories are — and we will hopefully get these stories told far and wide — it is also important to gather evidence. In April, we heard from Professor Etowa about the difficulty of collecting appropriate data and evidence, on an ongoing basis, to paint the full picture and to follow a trend line.
In the report, would you welcome a recommendation on data collection to that effect?
Ms. Delisle: I most certainly would. I worked Josephine Etowa on the Black Women’s Health Program. The more information we receive from women, the more we realize things we can do to help.
We’re currently conducting a health project with Dalhousie and McMaster universities on environmental racism and the high rates of cancer in our community. More in-depth research projects dealing with women’s health are needed in these Black communities.
Women need to feel empowered by other women. Women need to take the lead in these research projects. We can sit down at this table, like Ms. Nickerson and I do, and talk, like my neighbours and I do. We talk at this table. This is where the information has to come from. It has to come from women, who need to speak it to the women who can properly gather the data and disseminate it.
Senator Omidvar: Thank you so much.
Ms. Delisle: You’re very welcome.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: A number of governments are still denying systemic racism. Do you, as a leader in Nova Scotia’s Black community, believe that this is a specific case of systemic racism?
[English]
Ms. Delisle: Oh, most definitely. What better way to end our race than to sterilize women? It’s one of the most heinous racial crimes there is.
This is what I feel, and I’m quite sure that in the right setting most Black women will tell you the same thing. If they hadn’t been Black, if they looked like somebody else, if their family didn’t have a certain last name, they would still be having children.
Yes, systemic racism, racism, discrimination — it touches all those heinous crimes.
Senator Gerba: How can we stop it?
Ms. Delisle: How do you stop racism? The only way to stop it is to address it. When it happens, it has to be addressed immediately, no matter whether it’s systemic racism, environmental racism or discrimination. It needs to be addressed immediately and not left. It needs to be done in a way that educates people on the effects of these things and how it harms not only the Black community but the community as a whole, because when you try to cripple one aspect of the community, you’re not doing the whole community any good. That’s what racism and systemic racism do. That’s what I believe.
Senator Gerba: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I think on ending racism, we need a holistic approach. I think the most important conversations are the ones that I have at the family dinner table.
I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone as we conclude today’s meeting. To our two witnesses, a special thank you. Your stories and views will definitely assist us when we write our report.
Senators, our next meeting will be on Monday, May 30. Are there any objections that we now proceed in camera to consider a draft report and to discuss a draft budget? Seeing none, we will suspend for a few minutes so we will proceed in camera. This concludes the broadcast portion of our meeting.
Ms. Delisle: Thank you very much for having us.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
(The committee continued in camera.)
(The committee resumed in public.)
The Chair: — the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights. Are there any objections to the following motion:
That the budget applications for travel to Vancouver and Edmonton for public hearings and fact-finding visits and for travel to Quebec City and Toronto for public hearings and fact-finding visits for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023, be approved for submission to the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration.
Activity one, public hearings and fact-finding in Vancouver and Edmonton, $166,058. Activity two, public hearings and fact-finding in Quebec City and Toronto, $147,560, for a total of $313,618.
Should we consider the motion passed? Hearing no objections, it is agreed.
If there is no further business, then I declare this meeting adjourned.
(The committee adjourned.)