Honourable senators, I rise to lend my support to the bill that Senator McCallum is sponsoring, Bill S-209, An Act to amend the Department for Women and Gender Equality Act.

I will explain how it makes good sense to support this bill when understanding the close link between culture and gender for Indigenous women.

This bill is necessary for Canada in seeking a robust and effective policy and, most importantly, if Canadians are serious about reconciliation. Indeed, this is a necessary bill that will protect Indigenous women from the colonial harms they have historically been subjected to.

Bill S-209 would make an analysis of culture and gender, which is inseparable for Indigenous women, a statutory requirement to ensure future governments not neglect this important consideration in studying, debating and passing of legislation.

Gender-based analysis, GBA, is a tool that allows policymakers to align government actions with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Human Rights Act. The Government of Canada has committed to supporting the full implementation of gender-based analysis across federal departments and agencies.

Currently, gender-based analysis is undertaken through the discretion and goodwill of government, which leaves future governments the opportunity to dismiss it if they so choose. Of course, departments working on bills are likely to think about their impact on different populations and would likely consider all risks. However, any GBA practices for reviewing proposed bills within the government are seemingly at the discretion of the government of the day.

We have seen how gender-based analysis shapes how the government identifies and defines problems in its policy responses. In their 2015 report, entitled Implementing Gender-Based Analysis, the Office of the Auditor General evaluated the progress of the work done by the Status of Women Canada and found a number of areas where improvements were required. However, the office remained silent on the question of cultural relevancy, which leaves a significant gap for Indigenous women.

Status of Women Canada did clarify that gender-based analysis should also include the consideration of diversity factors among groups of women and men, such as age, education, language, geography, culture and income. Considerations can also include race, ethnicity, religion and mental or physical disability. This is called GBA+.

Further accounting for the relevancy of culture in recognizing the unique realities of Indigenous women in Bill S-209 is an important step towards implementing a culturally relevant gender-based analysis.

The Native Women’s Association of Canada has been a leader in advocating and implementing a culturally relevant gender-based analysis since 2007. This approach recognizes culturally relevant factors when implementing their analysis.

For example, in the health sector, where I have done much of my work, health research in clinical trials has historically been conducted on Caucasian males, thereby creating a gap, at best, or a failure, at worst, to meet women’s health needs. This placed women at great risk because findings derived from male-oriented clinical trials were considered the gold standard and applied to all women, thereby rendering false and at times dangerous results.

For example, when dealing with heart health, the unique considerations of women’s heart co-morbidities is exacerbated for Indigenous women because of their additional health considerations due to the ill effects of colonialism, such as stress and depression from a loss of identity through the Indian Act and the effects of violence perpetrated against generations of residential school survivors. However, using the tools that Bill S-209 provides would remove or greatly reduce the gaps to obtain a more reality-based understanding of Indigenous women’s lives and their health.

The Native Women’s Association of Canada has provided clear direction for Indigenous roles of women in traditional society that contrast sharply with Canada’s tradition of European concepts. This has made a very different and difficult history for Indigenous women in Canada. In fact, when Europeans arrived in Canada, the common law view of women was that they were chattel; that is, property that was dependant first on their fathers and then their husbands.

The historical and subordinate status of women in European societies is in stark contrast to that of Indigenous women, who commanded the highest respect in their communities as givers of life and keepers of the traditions, practices and customs of their nations. They were revered for their capacity not only to create life but, by extension, the creation of new relationships with the creator. Women made integral decisions about family, property rights and education. An Indigenous woman had considerable political power among her people.

Today, patriarchal and masculine assumptions continue to influence our laws and policies. For instance, as noted, a male-centric vision had a long-lasting negative effect on the health of Indigenous women. Colonial laws and policies were developed in part by targeting the power of Indigenous women as anchors of the family. Feminism and western legal traditions have made some gains in balancing out the injustices, but these conceptions do not entirely reflect Indigenous perspectives. For example, balance in Indigenous society cannot be equated with equality. Rather, balance is understood as respecting the laws and relationships that Indigenous women have as part of Indigenous laws and the ecological order of the universe.

How can a bill such as Bill S-209 assist in creating a more balanced and fair society for all women? Refined legislative tools could, for example, apply a culturally relevant gender-based analysis that takes into account the unique needs of Indigenous women when reviewing things such as environmental legislation that typically produces camps of male workers for resource extraction in rural and remote areas. Senator McCallum shared these thoughts eloquently in her speech.

A culturally relevant gender-based analysis would assess these risks at the legislative drafting and amendment stage and highlight the need to take into account the potential for violence against Indigenous women in these remote areas.

I have spoken in this place about forced and coerced sterilization of Indigenous women. It remains a deep concern of mine. Presently, my office is working on a map of Canada that will highlight the population of Indigenous women who have been forcibly or coerced into sterilization. It will have an overlay of the location of Indian hospitals and tuberculosis sanitoriums to see the correlation between the two. Further maps will highlight and overlay the placement of residential schools, prisons, trafficking corridors, mental health centres and resource camps to better understand any correlations that may exist in relation to the acts of forced sterilization. Maps could also be created and similar overlays used for approximately 5,000 murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls.

These intersections are a few examples of how a culturally relevant, gender-based analysis will help guide us in this most critical step to putting corrective and mitigating policy strategies in place for Indigenous women.

Once these maps are completed, we hope to undertake similar work with other sectors that were noted during the short study undertaken on the topic in the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights. For instance, the study noted how African Nova Scotian women were subjected to unwanted hysterectomies, as were intersex people, people with disabilities and other vulnerable people in Canadian society.

Bill S-209 moves us in the direction of considering the important role culture and gender plays in policymaking and how some Canadians are treated — often unequally.

In a multicultural society like Canada, a culturally relevant analysis can include a number of intersections. In our commitment to reconciliation, we take a first step toward recognizing other cultural realities and the biases that make up the current practices of law and policymaking.

Bill S-209 is a critical and positive step forward in protecting the specific realities of Indigenous women. The government has committed to reconciliation, and this requires a distinctions-based approach to ensure that the unique rights, interests and circumstances of First Nations, Métis and Inuit are acknowledged, affirmed and implemented. Bill S-209 does just that.

Sending Bill S-209 to committee and for eventual passage is an important step for Canada and, indeed, for the future of all Canadians.

Thank you, meegwetch.