Honourable senators, today I speak to the motion that I introduced on November 19, 2020. This motion would authorize the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights to conduct a study on the forced sterilization of Indigenous women in Canada.

I will briefly revisit some of the key points I made in November and bring the stories of the women who have been sterilized without consent into this chamber. The stories of these women must be heard, and their experiences and wisdom must inform our actions.

This horrific practice has affected many generations of Indigenous women and girls. This issue is not one of the past. Tragically, it continues to happen at this very moment, with cases being reported publicly as recently as 2018.

This epidemic is not limited to Indigenous women and girls. We have also heard stories from Black women, people with disabilities and intersex individuals who have been sterilized without consent.

The study I propose would allow the committee to hear testimony from expert witnesses who have experienced this practice first-hand. The diversity of their voices will allow the committee to develop practical recommendations and take concrete actions that will end this heinous practice.

Despite the government acknowledging and pledging to stop this practice, Indigenous women today continue to be forced to undergo tubal ligation surgery. Both the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights and the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health found that more research and data collection are needed in order to understand the full scope of this problem so definitive action can be taken.

These committees are not the only ones calling for further investigations. In December 2018, the United Nations Committee Against Torture urged Canada to conduct an impartial investigation into all allegations and to adopt legislative and policy measures to prevent this practice. Over two years have passed since the UN committee’s recommendations were made, and the government has failed to launch an investigation.

I will tell you now about the women living through this nightmare, and how Canada is failing them.

The law firm Semaganis Worme Lombard is leading a class-action lawsuit in Saskatchewan on the forced and coerced sterilization of over 100 Indigenous women. This class action brought to light shocking stories of women being told they could not see their newborn babies until they were sterilized, of women giving birth and being harassed to fill out consent forms during or immediately after labour and of women being flagged at the hospital and asked whether they wanted more children without realizing their answers would determine if they were to be sterilized. These are horrifying stories about surgery without consent, and they are not isolated.

Senators, some of these women want to share their experiences with you. While these stories may be shocking for some, to those of us who know and have experienced racism in Canada’s health care system, these stories sound all too familiar. These survivors want you to know what happened to them and we all must listen.

S.A.T. is a Cree woman who, after giving birth to her sixth child, was presented with a consent form for her sterilization. Upon reading this form, she heard her husband exclaim, and I quote, “I am not — [blank blank] — signing that.” She was wheeled into the operating room under protest. She tried to wheel herself away and escape, but the doctor wheeled her right back in. She repeatedly cried out, “I don’t want this” through tears as the nurses held her and administered an epidural. While she was in the operating room, she kept asking the doctor if it was done yet. He reported, “Yes. Cut, tied and burnt. There is nothing getting through that.”

When S.A.T. was recently asked what she thought about the study, she said:

Forced sterilization has traumatized countless Indigenous women across this country. I live with the trauma every day and I have a great fear and distrust of the health care system. The federal government and the Health Authorities need to finally be accountable for what they have done. The next steps are to protect future generations.

In a further example, another Indigenous woman reported:

During my spontaneous delivery, I recall being asked if I wanted my tubes tied due to a cancellation in the surgeon’s schedule. I was in labour for two days before going to the hospital. It is well recognized how sleep deprivation creates incapacity and that life-changing decisions should not be made while in that state. Yet, within two hours of giving birth, I was in the operating room theatre getting sterilized.

These disturbing experiences point to the critical importance of establishing major safeguards for sterilization procedures and speak directly to the need for greater accountability and consistency when it comes to establishing freely given, prior and informed consent to a life-altering procedure.

Only those who have experienced the sharp cut of systemic racism and, in this case, the physical act of the slicing, cutting or burning of the fallopian tubes can inform and guide what must be done. Without their lived experience and voice, we risk repeating past mistakes and developing solutions that just won’t work.

In conclusion, I have one more story I would like to leave you with. An Anishinaabe woman told me about her forced sterilization when she was only 18 years old.

How can I fight these people who have already deemed my life unworthy, and what is more, they have deemed my unborn baby unworthy. So much so that they backed me into a corner and deemed my right to bear life as unworthy. They cut me down and, what’s more, they cut any chance of me ever having the God-given right to further bear life. This system became my judge, jury and executioner. What’s worse, they became that to my unborn child as well.

Since I became a senator, my office has become a clearing house for sterilized women seeking help and guidance. I have been vocal about the forced and coerced sterilization of these women, and every time someone learns about it, they are rightly shocked and horrified. My office has worked with grassroots organizations, medical and health communities, national and international human rights groups, law societies and universities to spread awareness. Many of the people I have met and talked with can’t believe this is still happening in 2021.

I know many of you in this very chamber were, and are, deeply disturbed to hear about this practice and the fact that it is still happening. I have dedicated much of my professional life to righting this horrific injustice, and now I need your help.

Colleagues, there is a time to learn, a time to feel and a time to act. I hope you will support my motion to have this issue studied at the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights. Our children and grandchildren’s children are counting on us to take action. Meegwetch. Marsee. Thank you.