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Perry Bellegarde
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Perry Bellegarde
2019-06-18 11:26
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
[Witness spoke in Cree]
[English]
To all the distinguished members of the committee, I'm very happy to be here acknowledging you all as friends and relatives. I also acknowledge the Algonquin peoples for hosting this on their ancestral lands. For me, from our AFN, I'm happy to be here.
I want to share some perspectives. I'm very honoured to speak here on behalf of the Assembly of First Nations regarding Bill C-100. I'll also say a few words about the process to negotiate, ratify and implement the Canada-United States-Mexico agreement.
Trade in resources and goods in this land, I always say, began with us, the indigenous peoples. The participation now in 2019 in international trade should not be seen merely as part of history. Going forward, how do we get more involved?
As self-determining peoples, we have interests and rights respecting today's international trade agreements. We've always said that for far too long we have not seen the benefits from international trade flow to our businesses or to our communities as first nations people. These facts should form a part of legal and political frameworks when Canada explores new free trade agreements. I've always said, from a first nations perspective in Canada, that whenever Canada goes out to negotiate or discuss anything from softwood lumber to trees, anything from potash in southern Saskatchewan, to uranium in the north or any oil, coal, or whatever natural resource it is, indigenous peoples should be involved and should be participating, because there's respect or reference that we still have unextinguished aboriginal title and rights to the land and territory and resources. It's a simple fact. So we need to be involved.
When Canada, through Minister Chrystia Freeland, welcomed me to be on the NAFTA advisory committee, it was very important, because to date, indigenous peoples haven't been involved. We also had indigenous officials working as part of the working group. In the end, we'll say that this work resulted in the most inclusive international trade agreement for indigenous peoples to date. It's not perfect, but to date it's the best that we have in Canada.
With the ratification of the Canada-United States-Mexico agreement, we would take a step to making international trade more aware of and more equitable in its treatment of indigenous peoples, and especially for indigenous women entrepreneurs. We still have more work to do.
We believe the Canada-United States-Mexico agreement is a step in the right direction with the new general exception for indigenous rights with respect to inherent and aboriginal and treaty rights. As well, with specific preferences to carve out procurement benefits and other opportunities for indigenous businesses and service providers, there's also a promise of future co-operation to enhance indigenous businesses. As well, importantly, the investor-state dispute settlement process, which was a threat to indigenous people's rights, will be phased out for Canada. This is the groundwork for positive change.
While the Canada-United States-Mexico agreement is a new example of the difference it makes to engage with indigenous peoples at an early stage, there must be increased opportunities for first nations participation not only in international trade negotiations but also in trade missions.
Canada should extend an official role to first nations in negotiations of all international agreements on trade and investments that impact inherent treaty aboriginal rights. This would better reflect the nation-to-nation relationship and the whole-of-government commitment by Canada to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In addition, the inclusion of first nations leads to better decisions and better outcomes.
With regard to Bill C-100, what I'm recommending to all the committee members here is that there should be in place a non-derogation clause. It's a safe clause, that nothing in this agreement will affect existing aboriginal treaty rights, which are affirmed in section 35 of Canada's Constitution. I'm making that recommendation as well as that it be interpreted and implemented consistent with those rights in section 35. It's good to have it ratified by Canada, the United States and Mexico on one hand, but each nation-state will come back and do some sort of legislation with the implementation. That's the piece we're looking at making the recommendation on. I'm not advising that we open up the agreement; no, leave it the way it is, but move in tandem with the other two countries to get it ratified. We have to be careful to be not too fast and not too slow, because if one of the three countries doesn't get it ratified, the deal is not going to be implemented.
It's not just that international trade and investment agreements can impact our rights, but also how the agreement is implemented through domestic regulatory and policy matters. That has to be looked at. Once the agreement is ratified, we must work together to realize the economic gains and ensure the provisions related to indigenous peoples in international trade agreements are implemented in a manner that brings greater economic equity to first nations peoples.
The first area where indigenous peoples can see the benefits from this agreement is government procurement. Procurement is always a big thing. Everybody says this should be easy, that it's low-hanging fruit. Canada must move from policies and objectives to mandatory requirements for procuring goods and services from first nations businesses. The Assembly of First Nations is ready to work with Canada to make sure we develop legislation together for social procurement that benefits first nations and other indigenous peoples.
The only other thing I'd like to share here before concluding is there are three or four very important bills we want to see passed before this week is up. Bill C-91 on languages, Bill C-92 on child welfare, and two private members' bills, Bill C-262 and Bill C-337, all need to be passed. If in the event the legislature is called back, those should form the priority. But we're hoping and praying that all MPs, all the leadership here on Parliament Hill, will get behind and pass those pieces of legislation as soon as possible.
That's it, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the time.
Francyne Joe
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Francyne Joe
2019-06-13 15:38
Weytk, bonjour and good afternoon.
Thank you for inviting us here today to testify on a very difficult but important topic, the forced and coerced sterilization of indigenous women and girls.
I'm Francyne Joe, a proud member of the Shackan First Nation, just south of Merritt, British Columbia, and president of the Native Women's Association of Canada. I use she and her pronouns.
I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the unceded and unsurrendered traditional territory of the Algonquin people.
Since 1974, NWAC has represented the collective voices of indigenous women, girls and gender diverse people of first nations, on and off reserve, both status and non-status, disenfranchised, Métis and Inuit. By using a gender-based approach to the issues our people face, we are improving the overall well-being of individuals, and through extension, their communities, as our women are the foundations of the families. NWAC has 45 years of expertise conducting culturally relevant, gender-based analysis.
The forced, coerced and involuntary sterilization of indigenous women and girls is an extremely serious violation not only of human rights and medical ethics, but of the reproductive rights of indigenous women and girls. Impairing the reproductive status of indigenous women and girls against their will violates the rights to equality, non-discrimination, physical integrity, health and security, and constitutes an act of genocide and violence against women. This reprehensible procedure is not only an assault on the individual rights of indigenous peoples, but also affects indigenous families, communities and populations, continuing the history of colonization and assimilation in Canada.
Historically, forced sterilization was routinely inflicted on indigenous women in Canada and was permissible by law. This was an attempt by the Canadian government to reduce the population of indigenous peoples in Canada. This sterilization legacy remains intact through the intergenerational impacts of targeted cultural groups, distrust of settler systems and the complex socio-economic and health status of indigenous women. Racism and colonization are deeply rooted in the health care system and are fundamental mechanisms of the sexist and paternalistic health policies.
Combined with the forced assimilation of indigenous children of earlier generations in residential schools and modern-day failures of social services to place indigenous children in the care of indigenous parents in accordance with modern child welfare laws, the coerced sterilization of indigenous women continues to perpetuate mistrust within the health care system.
Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms expressly prohibits discrimination based on sex, race and ethnic origin, and further guarantees the right to life, liberty and security of the person. In 2018, the United Nations Committee Against Torture stated that forced and coerced sterilization is an act of torture. However, this practice continues within a country that holds itself as a champion of human rights.
The failure of health care practitioners to obtain proper consent perpetuates colonial attitudes where indigenous women and girls are treated as wards of the state, or less than human.
Canada has been aware of this issue for decades. In fact, this issue was brought up in the House of Commons at the very least in 1976, well after most eugenics legislation in the provinces had been repealed. At that time, there were still high levels of sterilization. These procedures were being performed on indigenous people in “Indian hospitals”. As well, there were high levels of sterilization of Inuit women in the north.
Remarkably, Canada did not take action then. There is no excuse for Canada to fail to act now. Immediate action must be taken to recognize and protect indigenous women and girls in a way that centres, respects and appropriately addresses their experiences and their voices.
I would like to take some time to discuss NWAC's recommendations to return birth closer to home and bring about reproductive justice that protects the rights of indigenous peoples.
Too many indigenous women and girls have had to leave their communities to give birth, which in many cases leaves them alone to give birth, far away from their families, communities and culture, increasing their vulnerability to forced and coerced sterilization. We need increased access to culturally safe birthing supports, such as indigenous midwives and doulas, immediately. If indigenous midwives and doulas were present, forced and coerced sterilization would not be happening.
In addition to these supports, which are necessary for prevention, we need to have adequate and appropriate culturally safe and trauma-informed supports and services closer to home to respond to women who have been impacted by forced sterilization and to respond to those who might be re-traumatized by the media attention surrounding recent allegations.
We recommend that the committee speak to the National Aboriginal Council of Midwives, NACM. They have recently released a position statement on forced and coerced sterilization of indigenous peoples.
Our indigenous women and girls deserve what anyone else deserves in the health care system: free, prior and informed consent and the right to have that consent respected and followed.
Therefore, health care providers need to examine how and when they counsel their patients about birth control, particularly when working with indigenous women, given the history of colonialism and the resulting systemic racism within the health care system.
Therefore, we also recommend that health care providers move beyond informed consent to informed choice.
Informed choice is a decision-making process that relies on a full conversation in a non-urgent, non-authoritarian setting. It provides the patient with autonomy and control and places authority on other forms of knowledge, values, lived experiences and relationships of the patient.
Oftentimes, informed consent involves providing the standard information, for example, the description, risks and benefits of a procedure, without recognizing the social context in which decisions are made and the relational autonomy of the patient.
Informed choice is a way of addressing this gap and of shifting from a physician-led to a client-centred conversation. Informed consent is the end goal of the informed choice process.
It is clear that hospitals need to be safer places for indigenous women and girls to attend, as there is clearly a risk for severe human rights abuses against indigenous women and girls.
We recommend developing funding and implementing an accountability mechanism or mechanisms within hospitals to hold practitioners accountable for obtaining consent in these medically unnecessary procedures. These mechanisms require the full co-operation of medical regulatory authorities and must be done with the leadership of indigenous women and their chosen representatives.
Hospitals in Canada need an indigenous ethics and advocacy office in every hospital, equipped with indigenous midwives and indigenous advocates.
This is not only to ensure the availability of traditional healing and equitable access to culturally appropriate service delivery, but it will also help ensure that patients are protected from racism, sexism and harmful stereotypes that are clearly informing the medical staff.
We recommend that both provincial and federal medical regulatory authorities work with indigenous women's organizations and governments to identify and improve on sterilization surgery policies and procedures at a minimum, obtaining and defining free, prior and informed consent and anti-racism in the medical practice.
Furthermore, NWAC recommends that annual reports must be generated from medical regulatory authorities to identity the number of indigenous women sterilized, in order to monitor trends and identify practices regionally and nationally. If troubling trends arise, then investigations must take place. This may be done with the assistance of the indigenous ethics and advocacy offices in hospitals.
We recognize that the final report of the national inquiry is calling for significant milestones and an important step toward identifying the causes of all forms of violence faced by indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA people in Canada.
As forced and coerced sterilization constitutes an act of genocide and violence against indigenous women and girls, we recommend that the 231 calls for justice from the final report of the MMIWG inquiry must be implemented.
Last, the TRC calls to action that the Government of Canada has already committed to must be implemented, specifically the calls to action around health, numbers 19 to 24.
The direction forward, as we see it, is relatively simple. We must end all forms of violence against our women, girls, gender diverse people and communities. This includes forced and coerced sterilization of indigenous women and girls.
Thank you. Merci. Kukwstsétsemc.
View Robert-Falcon Ouellette Profile
Lib. (MB)
Niwakoma cuntik Tansai Nemeaytane Awapantitok.
I'd like to thank each and every one of you for coming to testify here at this committee. I can say personally I'm very moved and very concerned by what I've heard.
I don't think this is the Canada that people really associate with our nation, yet I've heard, laid out by Dr. Stote and also the lawyer for the plaintiffs, the Native Women's Association and also the Michif women's association, some terrible allegations concerning what would constitute genocide. Sterilization was mentioned 23 times in the report, but I don't think we delved enough into it to truly understand.
I was just wondering how many investigations you are aware of that are being conducted by the RCMP right now concerning forced sterilization. Does anyone have an answer?
Dafina Savic
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Dafina Savic
2019-06-11 13:03
Thank you.
First and foremost, I want to thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to present the far-too-often ignored human rights situation of Romani people across the world today, a people whose very existence remains threatened, a people whose human dignity is continuously denied today across the world, a people whose fight remains largely invisible, and on which I will attempt to shed light today through my presentation.
In the Romani language, when greeting people, we say
[Witness spoke in Romani]
[English]
This translates to “I greet you with good will.”
I'm really hopeful that my presence here today will give you the will to take action on the often invisible human rights situation of Roma, which remains largely ignored today across the globe.
Seven years ago I founded a not-for-profit organization called Romanipe, whose main mission is to defend human dignity against human rights violations that Romani people face across the world. Our organization was built on the principle of unity. In that regard, it has worked in collaboration with many groups of people with whom we share suffering and has built collaborations with many different groups who have been victims of genocide. In the spirit of standing in solidarity but also in action with those groups, we also want to acknowledge our solidarity with people who have presented before this committee, namely indigenous peoples as well as the people of Burundi and the Rohingya in Myanmar. We stand with them in solidarity.
Almost 75 years ago today, the remaining 2,998 Romani prisoners of the gypsy family camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau were murdered en masse by the Nazis and their collaborators. According to the latest estimates, at least half a million Roma were killed by Nazis and their collaborators during the Second World War. Unfortunately, this history remains largely ignored, unknown and untaught globally.
Our organization has been fighting for the past eight years for the Canadian government to officially recognize the Romani genocide. On August 2 of last year the Canadian government, via Minister Freeland and Minister Rodriguez, acknowledged the commitment of the government to recognize the Romani genocide. Today we are still waiting for an official act of Parliament to be adopted so that recognition can officially be granted.
Recognition of the Romani genocide is highly important since the human rights situation of Roma and the hatred and racism against Roma remain very normalized forms of racism today given that the history of the Romani people, specifically during the Second World War, remains largely unknown and unrecognized.
During the Second World War, rhetoric portraying Roma as criminals was used by Nazis and their collaborators to justify the mass murder of at least half a million Romani people. Across European countries today, unfortunately we see that rhetoric being repeated. In many European countries, physical walls have been built to separate Roma from non-Romani citizens. These walls are not at borders but have actually been built within cities to separate Roma from non-Romani citizens. In countries like Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Romani children are disproportionately placed in segregated schools without prior testing based on the idea that Roma are mentally inferior to non-Roma.
This segregation has been documented and condemned by many organizations, such as Amnesty International, the European Roma Rights Centre and many others, which have spoken out and actually called on those countries to take concrete measures to end the segregation of Romani children in those countries. Unfortunately, as reported recently by Amnesty International and many other organizations, the segregation of Roma is still present in almost all of those countries.
As recently as 2012, cases of forced sterilization of Romani women were also documented in countries like Hungary and Slovakia. Governments of those countries have actually acknowledged that this was the case, yet no measures have been taken to actually offer compensation to the women who were forcibly sterilized in those countries.
Just recently, in fact last year, in countries like Ukraine, despite the many warnings of organizations like Amnesty International of the violent attacks inflicted on Romani settlements in Ukraine, a young Romani man was actually killed by members of the far right on the basis of the idea that Roma need to be killed to eliminate so-called gypsy crime.
In Italy, the minister of the interior, Matteo Salvini, recently announced his intention to create a Roma census, a policy that is very reminiscent of the 1933 policies inflicted upon the Jewish population in Italy at the time. This policy gained wide public support and in fact has led to an increase in hate crime against the Romani population in Italy.
Just last year, after the violent killing of three young Romani girls, graffiti throughout Rome praising the deaths of those three girls was actually documented. In fact, some pictures show graffiti saying “three less Roma”. This was just last year.
This month, in fact, in Bulgaria, neo-Nazis have marched threatening Romani villages, chanting anti-Romani slogans and encouraging anti-Romani violence.
In France, a few months ago, as a result of a medieval stereotype, Roma were accused of stealing children. There have been many violent attacks that have left many Romani families, including children, hospitalized. These things were the results of fake news being spread via social media.
Our colleagues in France are part of the only organization that has spoken out against this. Due to their efforts, the government has actually taken action.
There are many, many, many countries. These things took place in just this past month. We're not talking about years ago. We are talking about a few weeks ago that Romani people were actually killed, including in Bulgaria, simply because they were Roma.
I would like to read some of the quotes from the ruling parties in those countries with those marches. “Whoever runs over a gypsy child is acting correctly if he gives no thought to stopping and steps hard on the accelerator.” This is a quote from a political columnist and a founding member of Hungary's governing Fidesz party. “Gypsies to the gas chambers.” “Set them all on fire.” “Bury them alive.” “Stab them in the back.” These were quotes from ethnic Czechs during a demonstration against Roma in the Czech Republic.
Between 2012 and today, we have seen what we call anti-Romani marches. Most of the time these have been organized by the far right but they have also been widely supported by everyday citizens. People march carrying signs with swastikas and often dress up as Hitler and chant anti-Romani slogans.
How has the world reacted to those situations? Unfortunately, it hasn't, because, as I mentioned before, one of the most normalized forms of racism today is actually the violence committed against Roma, which is unfortunately based on the belief that Roma are fundamentally criminals.
How has the Canadian government reacted to this? Unfortunately, in 2012 under the previous government, a lot of Roma were coming to Canada to seek asylum and seek protection from the rise of the neo-Nazi movement. This was just in 2012, when the far right reached its peak. Actually, in a village in Hungary, six Roma were killed, including a six-year-old boy, as a result of these attacks by the far right.
A large number of Roma came to Canada to seek asylum. The response of the government at the time was unfortunately to repeat that rhetoric of criminality, accusing Roma of being bogus refugees undeserving of Canadian protection.
Our organization has asked that you work to address these issues with every single minister since Jason Kenney was minister. He was in fact responsible for the introduction of Bill C-31, under which specific measures were taken to restrict the entrance of Romani asylum seekers, whereby billboards were actually placed in the villages, such as in Hungary, where Roma were known to come from, discouraging Roma asylum seekers from applying to Canada. The policy measures that were taken have proven to be efficient. According to the statistics, Roma acceptance decreased by 90% between 1998 and 2012.
Our organization has actually worked with many families who have been unjustly deported. We are in fact still working with a family that is to face deportation in the next two weeks because Bill C-31 is still in place, and the countries that I have mentioned, where Roma are perceived to be animals and are threatened with being killed, are considered safe by the Canadian government. One of the provisions that we suggested be made to Bill C-31 was that the criteria of what constitutes a safe country be revised and that there be a board of experts deciding under what criteria those countries are safe.
A new government came into place, and Minister Hussen was given the mandate. That was dropped from the mandate of the minister, so those countries are still considered to be safe.
Of course, there is an increase in the acceptance of Roma, especially those from Hungary, in light of the well-documented evidence of persecution of Roma in those countries, yet there are still consequences to that bill, which we have seen from our organization's point of view. In the past three months, we have worked at least on three cases of deportation of Romani families who came here around 2012. There are still consequences to the policies enacted by the Canadian government.
Just to give you a bit of the background of our organization, when we started the organization, our intention was actually to use Canada as a model for Europe, despite Canada having its own human rights issues, in terms of how Europe could do better. Unfortunately, the Canadian government led us to do the opposite of that, because Roma coming from those countries were actually facing discrimination in their countries and were sent back to situations of discrimination, which actually doubled the discrimination of the home countries.
On that, just to give you a concrete example, according to the 1951 refugee convention, which the Canadian government has ratified, a country cannot send people back to situations where they will face persecution, whereas in the case of the Roma, that is exactly what happened. We've worked with many families, especially Romani children, who knew that they were to be refused because of the high refusal rate of refugees whose education was not recognized in countries where they already face segregation. They were sent back to their countries, faced double discrimination and actually had to drop out of school.
I'll end on that note, but I just want to take 30 seconds to make some concrete recommendations, if I may.
Essentially, what we're asking the Canadian government for is to eliminate Bill C-31 or to at least appoint a board of experts to determine what constitutes a safe country; to work with European governments to address the ongoing human rights situation in those countries; and, to officially adopt an act of Parliament. I have drafted a bill that is ready to be presented. It simply needs to be presented by members of Parliament so that the Romani genocide can be recognized. I think the committee's very mission is to prevent future atrocities from happening. That really begins with recognition.
Thank you.
View Robert-Falcon Ouellette Profile
Lib. (MB)
Thank you very much.
[Member spoke in Cree as follows:]
[Member provided the following translation:]
Mr. Speaker, to all my relations, I say hello. I am very proud to be here.
[Translation]
I want to talk about Bill C-91, An Act respecting Indigenous Languages. There will be a new Commissioner of Indigenous Languages.
What will be your role in the establishment of that office to protect indigenous languages and to ensure they are used in extremely minority situations across Canada?
Maria Ressa
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Maria Ressa
2019-05-28 8:57
Co-chairmen Zimmer and Collins, I'm still in the same clothes. Good evening from Manila.
As I said early in our morning—your night last night—we here in the Philippines are a cautionary tale for you, an example of how quickly democracy crumbles and is eroded from within and how these information operations can take over the entire ecosystem and transform lies into facts. If you can make people believe that lies are facts, you can control them. Without facts, you don't have truth. Without truth, you don't have trust.
Journalists have long been the gatekeepers for facts. When we come under attack, democracy is under attack. When this situation happens, the voice with the loudest megaphone wins.
The Philippines is a petri dish for social media. As of January 2019, as We Are Social and Hootsuite have said, Filipinos spend the most time online and the most time on social media globally.
Facebook is our Internet, but as I'll show you with some of the data—you should get them handed to you—this is about introducing a virus into our information ecosystem. Over time, that virus lies, masquerading as facts. That virus takes over the body politic and you need to develop a vaccine. That's what we're in search of, and I think we do see a solution.
I've been a journalist for more than 30 years. My book, published in 2011, From Bin Laden to Facebook, looked at how this transformation, this virulent ideology of terrorism, moved from the physical world to the virtual world, and how the al Qaeda-linked group, the Abu Sayyaf here in the Philippines, actually in 2011 used YouTube to try to negotiate ransoms for the people it kidnapped.
I first began looking at social networks in this spread of the virulent ideology. While writing the book, I stumbled on the strategy for Rappler, the start-up that we created in 2012. Using social media and journalism—we embraced it, I drank the Kool-Aid—we built communities of action in a country with weak institutions and endemic corruption. If social networks are your family and friends in the physical world, social media is your family and friends on steroids—no boundaries of time and space.
Understanding information cascades was essential to the growth of Rappler. We were alpha partners of Facebook. We believed and made real social media for social change, and we grew by 100% to 300% year-on-year from the time we were founded in 2012 to 2015. Then, like in the rest of the world, 2016 happened. In May of 2016, President Duterte was elected. A month later, there was Brexit and so on and so on. That was a tipping point for the information operations in our system.
In the Philippines, the weaponization of social media began in July 2016, after President Duterte won—not coincidentally when our brutal drug war began. In a global study with 12 other research groups, we helped define patriotic trolling: online state-sponsored hate meant to pound you into silence, to incite hate against the target and to stifle dissent or criticism. One of the first targets of attack was journalists and newsgroups.
I'm going to quickly show you here the astroturfing that's typical of a three-pronged attack on a target in the Philippines.
The first step is to allege corruption. It doesn't have to be true. Just allege it. If you do it exponentially, it becomes truth. A lie told a million times is truth. Step two, for a woman, if you're a female, you will get attacked sexually. Step three is to lay the groundwork for what you want to happen, whatever that policy is.
In this case, the propaganda machine tried to trend—if you can zoom in here on what I'm showing you, hopefully you'll get this—#ArrestMariaRessa. From there, it went on to jump from the government's creator, the blogger, to a Twitter account that was used in the campaign, so whatever was used in the campaigns then became weaponized. In Tagalog, it says, [Witness spoke in Tagalog], “Call her to the Senate #ArrestMariaRessa.” Then it moves to “I can smell an arrest and possible closure of Rappler.com”. Then finally it moves to the sexual attacks: “Maybe Maria Ressa's dream is to become the ultimate porn star in a gangbang scene”—it is not.
Then finally—and this is a real person who just graduated from college—“Me to the RP government, make sure Maria Ressa gets publicly raped to death when martial law expands to Luzon. It would bring joy in my heart.” #ArrestMariaRessa was an attempt to trend this, to astroturf it. This was in May 2015. My first arrest was in February 2019.
When I was arrested...the methodology is all too familiar. You astroturf on social media, you jump laterally to co-opted traditional media, then repeat and pound top down. In the case of the attack against me and Rappler, it came from President Duterte himself during his state of the nation address in July 2017.
Social media, in 2016, began to lay down the foundation of the legal cases that were filed against us. Starting in January 2018, the government filed 11 cases and investigations against me and Rappler in a 14-month period—roughly a case a month. In about three months, I posted bail eight times. In a five-week period, I was arrested twice and detained once. My only crime is to be a journalist, to speak truth to power, to defend the press freedom that is guaranteed under our constitution.
Here's how it happened. Let me show you.
This is a database that we actually began to put together as a defence. Since we lived on social media, we were able to identify the attacks early on. We found a sock puppet network of 26 fake accounts. As journalists, we then did due diligence to make sure it was fake, and then we went and counted manually. How many accounts could it impact? From 26 fake accounts, they could impact as many as three million.
That became the basis of this database. This is over time, from January 2015 all the way to April 2017. You can basically see the same thing that's happened in the west, which is that there is a fracture line of society, and then, after the drug war began, it was pounded, literally pounded a million times, and it becomes fact. It becomes a solid line.
After this, bayaran—it translates to corrupt—was pounded so frequently that it had 1.7 million comments in a one-month period.
I want to show you the database and the very crude UX that we built for our social media team, because it shows you how the information ecosystem is interrelated. This one shows you the URLs that are controlled, or can be, by Google or YouTube. In the middle rung here, you'll see the Facebook pages that actually spread that URL. Then here, you'll see the average reposting time.
What we did for our team so they could find the difference between information operations and a real person was to actually show, after we published the propaganda series in October 2016.... When it's red, that means it's been reposted more than 10 times. We zoomed in on one account, and you can see that this is actually just the same post reposted over and over again, not just on websites but also on Facebook pages that were used in the campaign, not just that of President Duterte but also that of vice-presidential candidate Bongbong Marcos.
So what do we do? Here's the last thing I want to show you. This is data, which, when you look at it this way, actually doesn't show you much. It's just a list of Facebook pages, and then the weighted degree—in degree, out degree, and then a weighted degree. But, if you put it together, you will see this network. This is the social network that was behind the attack on our vice-president, Leni Robredo, in 2017. I think it's because these same.... It was so organized and it has been sustained. We're talking about almost three years that we've lived through this. The content creators are broken down by demographic. This account—this is where the attack began—takes care of the pseudo-intellectual, the supposed thinking class.
Next is the middle-class content creator in this account, and then we have the mass base account. From there it jumps to traditional media, but the co-opted one is the newspaper and, essentially, the chairman emeritus is the man in charge of international public relations for President Duterte. From there, it connects with state media, and then you close the link on this entire group.
By the way, at that point in time, in 2017, the Philippines and Russia inked a partnership, and we actually had state media employees in Sputnik's offices.
Finally, you close it by taking that mass base account and appointing her to head social media for the presidential palace. It's an incredible ecosystem.
Where does this go and what can we do about it? In the long term, it's education. You've heard from our other three witnesses before me about exactly some of the things that can be done. In the medium term, yes, there is media literacy, but in the short term, frankly, it's only the social media platforms that can do something immediately. We're on the front lines. We need immediate help and immediate solutions.
Rappler is one of three fact-checking partners of Facebook in the Philippines, and we do take that responsibility seriously. We don't look at the content alone. Once we check to make sure that it is a lie, we look at the network that spreads the lie. The first step is to stop a new virus from entering the ecosystem. It is whack-a-mole if you look only at the content, but when you begin to look at the networks that spread it, then you have something that you can pull out.
Antares Guadalupe Vázquez Alatorre
View Antares Guadalupe Vázquez Alatorre Profile
Hon. Antares Guadalupe Vázquez Alatorre
2019-05-28 9:50
Thank you. I am going to speak in Spanish, if you'll allow me.
[Delegate spoke in Spanish, interpreted as follows:]
In Mexico, our present president recently participated three times in elections. Every single time he was censored in the traditional media to the point that, thanks to the social networks, we were able to communicate among citizens. This enabled democratization, so there was greater participation in Mexico in recent times.
However, we also have to face another question that has to do with the bots, as we call them—that is to say robots—so that we can diffuse trends in Twitter, Facebook, and so on that are trying now to undermine our regime. There are authors in Mexico that talk about the fourth-generation war that has to do with the diffusion in social networks.
Last weekend, we had a situation where one individual, who was part of the president's cabinet, left his post. On Twitter we started seeing that the president would name and appoint a corrupt person for the environment. They then started saying that the president was corrupt, because he wanted to appoint someone who was corrupt. That was never the idea. Yesterday, he appointed another person. Even though this was made clear, nothing happened.
How can we face this type of situation of democracy and anti-democracy that is favoured on social networks? Of course, it allows people to participate, but we also see the generation of these trends.
There's another topic that has to do with what Maria Ressa has suffered. This sexting issue for a woman is something that has to do with the international sphere, because we've known of many cases where we go to all these national entities and there's nothing to do, because essentially there is no legislation. At the same time, this transcends borders. What we have to do is go to Google. Google becomes something of a tribunal, an international court. It's very difficult to get rid of these images. We've seen suicides. We've seen people that have done terrible things because of this. What can we do at an international level? How can we work together, men and women, for this to end once and for all?
Thank you.
Carolina Hidalgo Herrera
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Carolina Hidalgo Herrera
2019-05-28 10:03
[Delegate spoke in Spanish, interpreted as follows:]
I'd like to share two things with you that we've been doing in Parliament in Costa Rica, and also the presidency of the republic, to take care of these effects.
Recently the president of the country spoke against a group of trolls whom she was able identify because they were disseminating fake news. As a result we have created mechanisms of double check, truth hashtag trends about fake news. We have also created a hashtag to check the information that is broadcast, #LetThemNotLieToYou. It is rather a movement of checking the information on civil society for those who want to have the truth.
This has, in a way, softened things, but we have the debate, indeed, whether the possibility of creating these rules implies limiting freedom of expression. Social movement has had a greater effect than the debate in Parliament. I wanted to share that since the president was the one speaking about it. This has been very important in disseminating information.
David V. Wright
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David V. Wright
2019-05-16 10:07
Good morning, distinguished members of the committee.
My name is David Wright and I am presenting this morning on behalf of the Gwich'in Tribal Council.
Grand Chief Bobbie Jo Greenland-Morgan sends her regrets but sincerely thanks you for the invitation and welcomes this opportunity to provide input on Bill C-88. I should add that I also regret being unable to attend in person. If there are any technical difficulties during my submission, feel free to stop me while we sort those out.
By way of background, I was formerly in-house legal counsel with the Gwich'in Tribal Council and am currently assisting on this particular matter. I intend to be very brief with my remarks, recognizing the time constraints, but I welcome any questions you may have as we proceed.
I'll begin with a few short contextual, informational points about the Gwich'in before moving on to three succinct points about Bill C-88.
As many of you would know, the Gwich'in are North America's northernmost first nations people. Since time immemorial, the Gwich'in have occupied traditional territories across what is today Yukon, Northwest Territories and Alaska. In 1921, the chiefs and headmen of Gwich'in, Fort McPherson and Tsiigehtchic—what was formerly known as Arctic Red River—signed Treaty 11 with representatives of the Crown. In 1992, the Gwich'in signed the Gwich'in Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement with Canada and the Government of Northwest Territories.
The Gwich'in Tribal Council, which I'll refer to today as the GTC, was established in 1992 to represent the Gwich'in in regard to implementation of the land claim agreement and protection of Gwich'in rights and interests in the Mackenzie Delta region and beyond. Since signing the land claim agreement, the GTC and the four community-level land claim organizations—typically referred to as designated Gwich'in organizations or DGOs—have been working extremely hard to implement the land claim.
Similar to the Tlicho and the Sahtu, the Gwich'in have a treaty right to co-management. This includes requirements in chapter 24 of the land claim that establish the Gwich'in Land and Water Board.
With respect to Bill C-88 specifically, the GTC is present today to voice its support for swift passage of this bill. I'll make three specific points, all in relation to part 1 of the bill, which is the part dealing with the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act.
The first point is that passage of Bill C-88 in a timely manner has great importance in terms of Crown-indigenous relations and reconciliation. Your review of Bill C-88 is taking place within this broader context of implementation of land claim agreements.
Your review of Bill C-88 and its implementation context is part of what has not been a smooth or straightforward journey for any of the treaty parties. Canada has lost the trust of indigenous groups at many turns. There are, of course, numerous examples of this, unfortunately, but certainly a clear case in point is the problematic changes that Bill C-15 attempted to bring in. I am speaking, of course, about the creation of the super-board and the associated elimination of the land and water boards of the Gwich'in, Tlicho and Sahtu.
As you know, the current government committed to eliminating these problematic Bill C-15 changes. This is an extremely important commitment made by Canada to the indigenous communities of the Northwest Territories. It represents an important step towards restoring trust. Indeed, the consultation process on Bill C-88 has actually helped restore some of the trust between Canada and the GTC. That trust would be eroded by any further delay, or at worst, failure to pass this bill in a timely manner.
As an aside, a significant amount of consultation on this bill has already taken place, as I am sure representatives from Canada will tell you this morning. Away from that government-to-government negotiation, the GTC and the board of directors of the GTC have been working hard to review and deliberate on the changes proposed in this bill.
The second point is that while the GTC will leave it to the Tlicho this afternoon to discuss the litigation and the court injunction barring implementation of the super-board, the GTC reiterates that it was very pleased with the result obtained by the Tlicho in court. The GTC sees passage of Bill C-88 as a critical next step.
If Bill C-88 is not passed, not only will Canada not have fulfilled its commitment to Northwest Territories indigenous communities, but these communities will be forced back into time-consuming, expensive, acrimonious litigation, all adversely affecting that treaty relationship and the broader reconciliation project. Further, this would generate regulatory uncertainty that benefits no one, as the architecture for project reviews in the Mackenzie Valley would then remain fluid.
Bill C-88 is a step toward certainty in the Mackenzie Valley, and that is a step that should be taken at this time in the view of the GTC.
Third, and finally, for members of the committee interested in reforms that are not included in Bill C-88 in its present form, the GTC would respectfully submit that now is not the time to pursue such changes. Rather, now is the time to pass the important changes in Bill C-88, particularly part 1, so that the Northwest Territories modern treaty partners can move forward beyond the threat of the super-board and the toxicity of litigation.
However, members of the committee will, no doubt, be heartened to recall that an opportunity for further review of the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act is in the offing. As I believe you've heard from members of this committee, and other witnesses, further review of the MVRMA is coming as part of the five-year post-devolution review of the legislation, and a previously announced broader review of the legislation.
For example, if members are interested in including explicit reference to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, that could be part of this forthcoming review. Similarly, the review will likely take place at a time when there's finally certainty with respect to changes that may come through the proposed impact assessment act, for the regime in southern Canada. For example, changes with respect to timelines, factors to consider in an assessment and decision-making parameters could all be part of that later review.
As such, it will make sense to revisit the MVRMA at a later time, to ensure, perhaps, proper alignment between northern and southern project assessment regimes.
All this is to say that there is this release valve, or parking lot, if you will, that exists right now for ideas that go beyond the current version of Bill C-88. Discussion about potential inclusion of those ideas in the bill is, respectfully, inappropriate at this time and would be better directed towards this future process, which we expect will be a process in which indigenous communities will fully collaborate.
Those are the prepared submissions of the GTC today, but I'm more than happy to discuss any of this during the question and answer period. I would note that if any questions are particularly technical or political in nature, I may refrain from answering, but will respond at a later time, after we are able to discuss with the GTC leadership and technical staff.
Thank you.
[Witness spoke in Dene as follows:]
Mahsi cho.
[Dene text translated as follows:]
Thank you.
View Robert-Falcon Ouellette Profile
Lib. (MB)
[Member spoke in Cree as follows:]
[Cree text translated as follows:]
Madam Chair, to all my relations, I say hello. I am very proud to be here.
[English]
I just have a few questions actually.
Monsieur Watson, you mentioned you see things differently and you also mentioned they see their future differently, see themselves differently. Who are you referring to “they” exactly?
View Robert-Falcon Ouellette Profile
Lib. (MB)
Thank you very much.
[Member spoke in Cree as follows:]
[Cree text translated as follows:]
Madam Chair, to all my relations, I say hello. I am very proud to be here.
[English]
Thank you very much, Josh, Jocelyn and Pamela.
Josh, with the number of children you saw in care, were they all receiving the appropriate services? Do we need to try something different?
Jerry Daniels
View Jerry Daniels Profile
Jerry Daniels
2019-05-14 11:39
Good morning. Thank you, members of the committee, for allowing me some time to speak on a very important matter that affects our children, our families, our communities and the nation.
My name is Jerry Daniels. I'm the grand chief for the Southern Chiefs' Organization: 34 first nations in southern Manitoba, primarily the Anishinabe and Dakota peoples; 90,000 citizens in total.
[Witness spoke in Ojibwe as follows:]
Ogimaamakwad ndizhinikaaz Binesii ndoodem.
[Ojibwe text translated as follows:]
Leading cloud is my name, Thunderbird is my clan.
[English]
My relatives, I am happy to come and join you and to speak about a legislative act that I know is being discussed in great detail about how it can impact the quality of life of our children, how it can create opportunity. We're talking about a system that has had very detrimental effects on many of our children and our families, and has caused great harm over a great number of years. Some have even characterized it as a continuation of the residential school era.
First nations have the inherent right to self-determination and self-government. We have laws, customs and have entered into treaty. First nations have our own ways of caring for our children. What I will share with you as well is that I'm actually a member of the people who have gone through the CFS system. As a young person I was in group homes and I struggled as a young person. My family moved around a lot and I ended up there. However, in my experience I was able to meet many elders and many good people who were a part of the system and helped me to become who I am and helped me to establish some values. In fact, the first sweat lodge that I went to was through the CFS system. It was at the Selkirk Healing Centre in Manitoba.
First nations have our own ways of keeping our families and communities strong and intact. However, our laws, institutions and system have been impacted by the Canadian legal system, specifically the CFS Act.
We have been focused on supporting community-driven solutions. Since I've been in office, which is a little over two years, I have tried to focus on what's working in Manitoba. My focus shifted to the Sandy Bay First Nation where we've seen changes in the number of children who were in care. They brought down the number of children by using more practical techniques in working with families. They worked with families and with the extended family and they found other means to ensure the best interests of the child...which didn't result in the apprehension or the break-up of the family. That's where I'd like to focus, and I think that's where the priorities need to be when we think of CFS.
We have a CFS liaison at the Southern Chiefs' Organization. We are actually the primary authority for CFS in southern Manitoba. We make the board appointments to the southern authority, which is the regulatory body for all of the agencies in southern Manitoba. We have been collaborating with them over the last couple of years very intensely to ensure that the regulations are reflecting community needs and that they're supportive of what needs to happen on the ground.
We have a lot of challenges, but I don't think the challenges are insurmountable. I think we're quite capable of ensuring that families are reunited and that the best interests of the child are established, as well as the cultural values and traditions of our people, which enable our children to have a strong foundation in their identity.
I want to talk about how we really need federal intervention when it comes to CFS. We've had a great deal of trouble working with the province on finding common ground when it comes to the customary care. The Southern Chiefs' Organization supported it. I steer, with the province...and we work with them and we agreed in principle what customary care would be, which is community laws, community direction.
That would drive priorities and regulations and how children would be supported or how we would deal with a situation that isn't in the interests of the child.
It has been our focus over the last couple of years. What we are starting to see is that there is a change from where we had thought it would be—where the customary care would be really done with the community and the family—to now almost like an agency-driven personal care plan, which you can already do through the current legislation.
When I look at the proposed legislation when we're talking about substantive equality and the best interests of the child, I think that these are good things. I don't think that we're ever going to get it totally right. I think that the practicality of any legislation on the ground is subject to the people who are implementing it and subject to the interpretation of those people in the communities and throughout the region.
People in the communities care. They're not there to kidnap our children. They're there to protect our children and to do the best job that they can. I truly believe that. I don't think that people in CFS agencies, the workers, are there to do anything other than that, so if they are given the ability to direct funding towards helping families and ensuring there is a plan and that families are supported, you're going to see better outcomes.
That is why I support Bill C-92. It is really about being able to give first nations the jurisdiction, to not allow interference in that jurisdiction and to support it. Like others who are here and who have just presented at this committee, and like others, I'm sure, who have been here, I have concerns about funding: that it may not be enough for the governance side, that it may not be enough for the service delivery side.
My hope is that the substantive equality provision will reflect that and that it will translate into enough funding so that we get it right. The fact that Manitoba has such a high number of children.... It is ground zero for CFS. We have to be given an opportunity to take direct control of CFS, and it needs to be funded properly. We are prepared to do that. We've been doing that. We've been working with CFS directors. We've been connecting them with our community leadership. We've been including our women and our grandmothers in the process. That is the approach that we're taking, so it's my hope that people continue to work to move the agenda forward, to focus on supporting families and the community. If we can allow for them to take the lead on this, I think you're going to see child and family services, child welfare, delivered much more effectively in the community and supported much more effectively.
It's time for government, really, to get out of the way and to allow for that. They're going to make mistakes the same way government has been making mistakes for the last hundred years, and they're going to continue to make mistakes. However, we learn and we adjust, and we continue to build off knowledge from those situations.
That's our argument. We do not think that Bill C-92 is going to be the end-all for CFS. We think that it's going to be an interim measure. Like any other act that is passed through this Parliament, it's going to have to be changed and adjusted through the experience that's lived on the ground.
That's what I'm here to communicate to you. I hope that this bill is moved forward so that we can get on with supporting the development of laws at a community and regional level, and focus on what substantive equality really means and how that's actually going to look through the comprehensive negotiated agreements that are going to have to take place after the bill is passed. Those are going to include community members. They're going to include people in the community. They're going to include regional bodies.
That is going to be the final agreement in the interim, once again. It's an agreement, but it's still a wait and see, because you have to see the impacts. The quality of life of those people who are ending up in jails, who are ending up on the street, is going to improve, because you're going to have a community-driven strategy. That is the most important part of this bill.
Meegwetch.
Lyle Thomas
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Lyle Thomas
2019-05-14 12:33
Thank you. Good morning.
[Witness spoke in Secwepemctsin]
[English]
I'm a member of the Neskonlith Indian Band, but I reside with my wife, who is from the Kamloops Secwépemc. We have five children and one grandson. I work for the Secwépemc Child and Family Services Agency. My title with the agency is “cultural worker”. We are caregivers for the agency, and currently we have two little girls who are part of our family.
I'm honoured and thankful that, on behalf of the agency, I can share a small part of the thoughts on the new Bill C-92. However, before I get started, I'd like to recognize that these proceedings are taking place on the unceded territory of the Algonquin people. I would like to thank them for allowing me the chance to share what my feelings and thoughts are for the children and families who we serve.
After reading Bill C-92, the first thing that I thought was this: How does it affect the families and the culture of those families as a whole? Yes, Bill C-92 focuses on the child or children who have a chance to be placed with extended family or with members within their community. However, what is most important is how it keeps the family connected.
For children, their main want is to be with their parents. With these thoughts and feeling of reconnecting, this needs to go beyond the children and should involve their parents. It should allow them to grow together and to learn and reconnect. This love will always be between a child and a parent as a group, and they will find their roots in remembering who they are.
It is exciting to see that the government, with the introduction of Bill C-92, is recognizing how important it is for individuals to be grounded and to have a place and a sense of identity. However, there are also times to remember that these children may be in a different nation or territory learning their ways and traditions. There may be something from the past of the parents that has made them move to another nation, that has made them move away to protect the children they love from their own nation, their own reserve, their own people. For the interests of the children, they may be placed with caregivers from those host nations who treat and love that child like their own. They have a connection with the family, but most of all, they teach the child in their home with the same values, the same love and the same respect that all nations have.
Bill C-92 may be as strong as the language in the assurances in the old law that families will be afforded the opportunity to remain connected throughout any interaction with child and welfare services.
I'd like to thank you for allowing me a brief time to speak. Now I'd like to pass it on to my colleague.
Bernie Charlie
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Bernie Charlie
2019-05-14 12:36
Good morning.
[Witness spoke in Wet'suwet'en as follows:]
Hadih so’endzin? Siy Bernie Charlie sjutnee.
[Wet'suwet'en text translated as follows:]
Hello how are you? My name is Bernie Charlie.
[English]
I introduced myself to you in my Carrier language.
My name is Bernie Charlie. I am a proud Carrier matriarch in training. I am the youngest child of nine of my mother, Dil-za Dza-kiy, Violet Charlie, who holds this hereditary chief name that she acquired through the traditional governance system of my people called the bah'lats also known commonly as the potlatch.
I want to acknowledge my late father, Ben Charlie Sr., who has crossed over to the spirit world to watch over us with our ancestors.
In our bah'lats, we have four clans: the Jihl tse yu, which is the frog clan; Likh ji bu, the bear clan; Gilhanten, the caribou clan; and.... Sorry, I can't read my own typing.
Anyway, I sit with the Likh ji bu, the bear clan of my people, and my late father belonged to Gilhanten, the caribou clan. In our bah'lats, children are born into the clan of their mothers. Before contact, it was the matriarchs, the mothers, the grandmothers and the extended family who were the decision-makers for the people in relation to the political, social and economic governance of the communities. The bah'lats are still very much alive in our nation. My community of origin, which is the Lake Babine nation, is statistically the third largest band in B.C.
I want to acknowledge the unceded ancestral homelands of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, where I have the privilege to work, to live and to play. I am very fortunate that I have a surrogate family in this beautiful territory of the Secwépemc people. I have an entire network of surrogate parents and extended family who I find comfort in when I need support in my life.
I am the mother of two beautiful children and a surrogate mother to several others who refer to me as a guide, a mentor and a protector for them. I am also a kyé7e, a grandmother to one beautiful biological baby girl and to several others who refer to me as their grandmother in our cultural customs.
As the youngest child in the family of my siblings, my siblings would say that I was the spoiled one. However, I do recall that the multiple cousins who lived with us through many of my formative years were often fed first, given new linen and often bought new clothes as opposed to the recycled clothes that I recall I was able to choose from first. I did not realize at that time that they were foster children and that they were given to our family because they were abused or neglected in their own homes down the street on our reserve.
My recollections of my childhood include living in a government-subsidized, four-bedroom CMHC house that was filled to the brim with multiple generations, including my aged deaf and blind xpé7e, my grandfather, my parents, my siblings and my cousins. At one point in time, there were 13 people living in our four-bedroom home. My parents ensured that we were always fed, that we were clean, and that we were sent to the local Catholic school for our education. When my older siblings completed elementary school, they were sent away to the Catholic boarding high school, which was almost 300 kilometres away from us.
I needed to share with you this small bit of my history and how it relates to this pre-study on Bill C-92.
My work on the front lines as a resource social worker with Secwépemc Child and Family Services Agency has given me some excellent first-hand experience in sharing some of what I have learned. I take a completely relational approach from the perspective of a C6 delegated social worker, which simply means that I have the authority and the obligation to remove a child from an unsafe environment.
I made some notes of potential considerations, and I will just review them according to how they appear in the document.
In regard to the principle of the best interests of the child, historically children were raised in communal family systems where the extended family group all assumed the responsibility of caring for children: parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents and others in the community.
Currently, under the provincial legislation, the focus is primarily on the individual child. This has been the practice in child welfare. Due to the high numbers of indigenous children in care, it is proven that this process is not working.
In moving forward, the focus needs to be on the family unit: the family and the extended family that cares for and provides for children. What is best for families and communities will always be best for children.
With regard to the best interests of the indigenous child, may I suggest the wording in subclause 10(1) read, “The best interests of the family must be the primary consideration”.
Another theme is capacity, building the foundation for children to be home and stay home in times of crisis, investing in rebuilding what was lost. This lends itself to communities coming back to life and caring for families naturally.
Among other factors to be considered, with regard to the child's cultural, linguistic, religious and spiritual upbringing and heritage, or lack thereof, segments of the urban population, specifically in B.C., have seen that due to multiple factors such as—
Judy Wilson
View Judy Wilson Profile
Judy Wilson
2019-05-14 12:45
Thank you.
[Witness spoke in Secwepemctsin]
[English]
I'm acknowledging and honouring the unceded lands and the peoples of the Algonquin territory, where these proceedings are taking place.
I'm from the Secwépemc Nation, one of the largest nations in the interior of British Columbia. I am a member of executive of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. We've been working towards the implementation, exercise and recognition of our inherent title and treaty rights. The union has been involved in advocacy work and efforts with the provincial government and the federal government to recognize and affirm our inherent jurisdiction over our children, for many decades.
It's important that the work of advancing the policy and legislation for our children is a priority of our B.C. first nations, and for the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. I'm also a member of the First Nations Leadership Council in B.C. We're made up of the First Nations Summit, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs and the B.C. Assembly of First Nations. Our three organizations work together, and bring respective political mandates to build a strong collective and unified voice in British Columbia. One of those issues has always been the children and youth.
It started in 2002, with the Tsawwassen Accord—it will all be in our brief we submitted to you—and also in the leadership accord developed in 2005. We've been working toward these outcomes and changes for our children. Bill C-92 does offer practical and meaningful progress that aligns with our work here in B.C.
It is the utmost importance in critical timing this legislation is presenting. Even though we've done some provincial changes to the legislation out here, with respect to children and family, we find that we're still stuck in a lot of the old models. The only thing we were able to do was delegated agencies for many years. Really, the delegated agencies were supposed to be a transition to full jurisdiction for our nations.
We have been stuck in that process. We need to carry on with that work, into the affirmation and recognition of our inherent title rights, especially with our children. We have to change, because indigenous children across Canada are overrepresented in the system. The first contact with the settlers and colonial laws impacted our families, and broke down our families, through residential schools. It's documented in all the different commissions and hearings that have happened in Canada.
We need to make that change. Our families are fractured, and we need to bring them back together, for that meaningful change in the lives of the children—to be able to bring them home.
In our community, we recently brought 20 children home, but it was a lot of effort and fight to do that. We held an honouring and recognition for our children. Our nation also held one, about a month ago, in Vancouver, where many families were reunited with their children. That's only the start of the work. There needs to be a lot more work in bringing up our children, and truly connecting them with who they are, in their lands, their families and their communities. We have to have that meaningful change for our children and families.
One of the core purposes of this legislation must be to implement the United Nations declaration. It's truly a framework for reconciliation, and it was recommended by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Yet, the provisions in the bill, under clause 8, do not reference the United Nations declaration as the context for the reconciliation in child welfare. It's only referenced in the preamble, but not in the critically important and substantive clause 8, on purpose and principles. That needs to change in this legislation.
I also emphasize this because the United Nations declaration reflects the minimum standards of the survival and dignity of our indigenous people. It sets out the minimum standards of human rights. It's an important provision that needs to be emphasized in the implementation of Bill C-92, once it becomes legislation. Article 22 focuses on the importance of respecting the rights of girls and women and ensuring they do not experience discrimination. For this reason, I urge you to consider an amendment to clause 8 of Bill C-92, adding paragraph (c), as follows, “To implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People as a progressive framework for the resolution of human rights issues impacting children, youth, and families.”
One of the other things I wanted to note is that this is a historic and transformational moment for Canada and for indigenous people across Canada. We cannot let this moment pass. If we went back in time to the residential school policy legislation changes, for example, had we made that change, how many families would not have had to go through that whole residential school experience? We're saying that with this child and family legislation, we have an opportunity to make these changes, stop the number of children going into care and reunify them with their community and their family.
There must be that meaningful change, because there are more children in care now through this child welfare system than at the height of the residential schools. It's continuing to grow. Former minister Philpott mentioned that this was a humanitarian crisis, which it very much is, so we can't sit by idly and let this go. We have to keep pressing forward on these changes that are to come. We've been doing it in the courts. We've been doing it in other avenues, but now we have the opportunity through legislation.
It's been about four years now since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its final report urging Canada to deal with the residential schools and the child welfare system, and to support languages. We're on that threshold, and we need to be able to carry on with this work and not let another year pass by.
Bill C-92 provides a means by which we can begin to action some of these calls. I think the core...the families, the communities and our legal systems are really important. Since the time it was established, that colonial law, as I mentioned, severed that connection. It was meant to assimilate our people into the system, and the result was the removal of our children and the disruption of our family systems.
The other part of this is the funding piece. Bill C-92 must include the funding. We can't rely just on the coordination agreements that dictate the resources for this rebuilding. Because of the colonial impact, it's important that Canada also attach the funding to this process so that we don't have to rely on, as Bernie mentioned earlier, the western view of the best interests of the child. It's really important to rely on the collective interests of not just the child, but the families as well. They were trying to stop the transmission of our culture, our ceremonies, our language and our laws, but in a reverse way we can turn that around so that we're empowering the children, the families and the communities for healing and for rebuilding. It's really important to rebuild our families, our communities, our nations.
Our Secwépemc Nation is doing a lot of that work in our child and family jurisdiction. It's called Stsmémelt. We've been working with the Secwépemc Child and Family Services and the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council in rebuilding that. It's a lot of work, and it does need to be resourced.
This approach didn't survive, because our people had resilience and have survived it. I stand before you today despite the damage that the colonial laws caused. We're going to continue to rebuild our people and our children, our families. Canada has an obligation to right these wrongs that impacted so many of our families and children across Canada. We really need to bring our children home so they can be raised in our communities by our own people and know that they can connect with their communities and their language and their laws.
I wanted to touch on one other area. I acknowledge and support a lot of the nations that have issues with this legislation, because each nation has a right to self-determination under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, article 3. If they wish to enact their own laws, they just need the recognition, whether it's their treaty recognition or their inherent recognition; they have the free choice to do that themselves. This legislation must find a way to respect that, or again, it will be a colonial path, and we don't want to go down that path.
We want to be able to respect those nations that make their own decisions for their nations and do not rely on Canada's laws to do that. It's their choice if they don't want to recognize the bill. We have a mandate here in B.C. Our chiefs have already identified the mandate to work with this bill, Bill C-92. It's federal legislation. It provides affirmation to our inherent children's rights that exist and does not rely on these colonial laws.
We will submit our brief. Again, thank you for the time to discuss these issues with you. I look forward to the questions you may have.
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>|
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