Pursuant to notice of October 1, 2020, moved:

That the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights be authorized to examine and report on the forced and coerced sterilization of persons in Canada, particularly related to Indigenous women, when and if the committee is formed; and

That the committee submit its final report on this study to the Senate no later than December 30, 2021.

She said: Honourable senators, I join you today to speak to my motion that would authorize the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights to conduct a study on the forced and coerced sterilization of persons in Canada.

This study would invite key witnesses and experts to speak about the practice of coercing or forcing a person into an unwanted sterilization. It would also allow for women who have lived this experience to tell us what has happened to them. The aim of this study would be to create a report that would include recommendations and concrete actions to stop this heinous practice.

Some of you may recall that my first speech in the Senate addressed this issue. I spoke about my Aunt Lucy and the trauma she experienced in a tuberculosis sanatorium in Saskatchewan. Although my aunt’s records were destroyed, I suspect she was sterilized when she was a teenager in the institution where she lived for 10 years of her life. She was never able to bear children. She was bedridden and in a body cast for five of those years. So you see, this issue hits close to home for me.

I have spoken to Indigenous mothers who have been forcibly sterilized after giving birth to a baby girl, and that baby girl growing up and also being forcibly sterilized. It’s an inter-generational horror and it continues to this day. The last case of forced sterilization that I know of is as recent as December 2018.

It has been reported in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Nova Scotia, the territories and in Nunavut. We must study this issue and ask experts how we can put safeguards in place to make sure that future generations do not experience this devastating event. I believe this study will be a concrete step toward eradicating it.

The Government of Canada has repeatedly said that it is committed to reconciliation and yet the forced and coerced sterilization of Indigenous women continues to happen. This practice is the legacy of racist and paternalistic attitudes brought on by dehumanizing colonial doctrines.

During the first half of the 20th century, sterilization procedures in Canada were based on eugenics, a pseudoscience geared toward stopping the reproduction of those considered unfit by the state.

This deeply racist and discriminatory theory claimed that any perceived poverty, illness or social problem was caused by a person’s biological traits and that people with disabilities, people of colour, immigrants and Indigenous people fell into a category of people who should be sterilized.

In the 1920s and 1930s, British Columbia and Alberta enacted sexual sterilization legislation that attempted to limit the reproduction of unfit persons and increasingly targeted Indigenous women. However, the practice of sterilizing Indigenous women without their consent was not limited to these two provinces. It’s a national problem that crosses provincial and territorial boundaries.

Evidence indicates that eugenically minded doctors in Ontario and Northern Canada saw Indigenous women as prime targets for sterilization procedures. We also know of instances of unwanted hysterectomies and forced sterilization of African-Canadian women in Nova Scotia.

In other provinces, there was a tendency to sterilize marginalized persons even in the absence of formal legislation. Despite acknowledgements from the government, Indigenous women continue to be coerced or forced to undergo tubal ligation surgery.

In the Forty-second Parliament, the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights conducted a short study and found that forced sterilization in Canada continues. Although the committee’s report was never tabled or made public, one of its recommendations was that the committee continues to study.

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Health also studied forced and coerced sterilization and urged the federal government to support more research and data collection to understand the full scope.

Both these studies found that the extent and frequency remain unknown, and that more research and solutions must be explored. It’s extremely important for the government to do this as forced sterilization continues to be a violation of a person’s fundamental reproductive rights.

Canada is also failing to uphold its international duties and commitments. The right to give birth is protected under multiple international human rights frameworks including the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Canada signed in 1948. Canada has also been a contributing member to numerous international summits and conventions recognizing reproductive rights as fundamental human rights.

The Liberal government made a campaign promise to implement UNDRIP, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the end of 2020. This means that Canada would have an international obligation to ensure that Indigenous women receive health care without discrimination or violence and effectively stopping these sterilizations.

In December 2018, the United Nations Committee Against Torture reviewed the situation in Canada and issued its observations to the government.