Moved second reading of Bill S-218, An Act to amend the Department for Women and Gender Equality Act.

She said: Honourable senators, I would like to begin by highlighting why this slight but powerful and timely piece of legislation is so critical. This bill would enshrine the requirement for the Minister for Women and Gender Equality to table a statement that sets out potential effects of the bill on women, and particularly Indigenous women. This gender-based analysis or statement would be a requirement for every future piece of legislation to assess the gender-specific impacts of policies, legislation and programs on women and men. This allows decision makers to consider gender differences.

You will note specific mention within this bill to Indigenous women. I have heard the concern of some in this chamber that this excluded other women of colour, the disability community, et cetera. That is not so. I would like to illustrate the importance of referencing Indigenous women by referring to an analogy from page 151 of Kimberlé Crenshaw’s Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex:

Imagine a basement which contains all people who are disadvantaged on the basis of race, sex, class, sexual preference, age and/or physical ability. These people are stacked — feet standing on shoulders — with those on the bottom being disadvantaged by the full array of factors, up to the very top, where the heads of all those disadvantaged by a singular factor brush up against the ceiling. Their ceiling is actually the floor above which only those who are not disadvantaged in any way reside. In efforts to correct some aspects of domination, those above the ceiling admit from the basement only those who can say that “but for” the ceiling, they too would be in the upper room. A hatch is developed through which those placed immediately below can crawl. Yet this hatch is generally available only to those who — due to the singularity of their burden and their otherwise privileged position relative to those below — are in the position to crawl through. Those who are multiply-burdened are generally left below unless they can somehow pull themselves into the groups that are permitted to squeeze through the hatch.

As parliamentarians, will our efforts facilitate the inclusion only of those who are positioned to squeeze through this hatch or those for whom it can be said that when those at the bottom enter, we all enter? What is the ceiling that, as parliamentarians, we need to pay particular attention to? Would applying a gender-lens analysis affect this ceiling for many? It is important to know, as this ceiling prevents many from getting to the upper room and thereby having the privilege of substantive equality in their lives.

Honourable senators, it is important to ask ourselves why this bill is necessary in the first place. Why do many of our ministers continue to shirk their mandates that require them to apply gender-based analysis to government bills? Why has there been inaction and presumed indifference to the equality of women, highlighted by the fact that the application of this analysis is anything but routine, timely and thorough?

Honourable senators, why do I concentrate particularly on Indigenous women in this bill? Gender-based analysis, as it is currently haphazardly applied, applies to citizens whose history and context are understood by Canadian society — non-Indigenous women who live in settings that normally do not generate further marginalization or interjurisdictional gaps. However, in looking at the bills that we have recently passed, Parliament continues to place marginalized people at a disadvantage socially, politically and economically.

On the ladder of marginalized people who want to get through to the top floor, First Nations women continually place at the very bottom, especially First Nations women who have multiple forms of disadvantage, some tied to legislation which only they toil under, such as the Indian Act. Why is that? Why do people resist the idea of removing the obstacles unique to First Nations women and their descendants? If we move one rung up, does it place First Nations women in a better situation? Or does the inherent intersectionality of these obstacles work in a concerted effort to prevent progress?

If society continues to leave Indigenous women without protection while it protects others through the current gender-based analysis, then what does that say about us as a society, especially after the recent report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls? What is the greatest obstacle for First Nations women? There are many: race, gender, disability, lack of education, unemployability, homelessness, violence in its many forms, loss of self-determination and self-government, loss of identity, lack of safe neighbourhoods, oppression through laws and policies bolstered by the Indian Act. Removal of one or even five of these obstacles would still leave Indigenous women sidelined by society.

These obstacles require political solutions, as they are politically engineered barriers. In the book Residential Schools and Indigenous Peoples: From Genocide via Education to the Possibilities for Processes of Truth, Restitution, Reconciliation, and Reclamation, edited by Stephen James Minton, one of the authors Dr. Natahnee Nuay Winder quotes a poem by Tanaya Winder entitled Extraction, 2018. This resonates with me as it represents a glimpse into the “felt” or emotional experiences of residential school.

Before I was born they tried to silence us,

pierced our tongues with needles then taught

our then-girls-grandmothers how to sew

like machines. Even then, they saw our bodies

as land, full of resources

waiting to be extracted and exploited. . . .

For as long as I can remember, we’ve been stolen:

from reservation to Industrial boarding schools

and today our girls, women, and two-spirit still go missing

and murdered. I could find no word for this.

But yáakwi is to sink or disappear. Where is it we fall?

When did we first start vanishing?

In the same book, Dr. Winder states that:

Residential schools were based on a model for the extraction and assimilation of Indigenous peoples from their communities, families, and traditional territories.

Dr. Winder goes on to say, as stated by an Anishinaabe writer, scholar and activist Leanne Betasamosake Simpson:

….[t]he act of extraction removes all of the relationships that give whatever is being extracted meaning. Extracting is taking. Actually, extracting is stealing – it is taking without consent, without thought, care or even knowledge of the impacts that extraction has on the other living things in that environment. That’s always been a part of colonialism and conquest.

Honourable senators, the challenges facing First Nations women require special attention. Why? I have previously spoken on the effects of residential school based on my first-hand experience and what was extracted from our lives. In the book From Treaty Peoples to Treaty Nation by Greg Poelzer and Ken Coates, the author states:

Consider the exceptionally large number of Aboriginal men incarcerated in the Canadian prison system, and then consider how much of the responsibility for family and community has fallen on the shoulders of wives, partners, daughters, aunts, and grandmothers.

They go on to say:

Women are the bedrock of those communities, even as they bear the brunt of the crises and social pathologies that affect Aboriginal populations. Women provide much strength to Indigenous peoples in Canada; they must play a pivotal role in laying out a strategy for the future.

Colleagues, healing is a continuous process for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples who are doing the hard work to ensure that legislation no longer marginalizes Indigenous peoples, communities and particularly First Nations women, through assimilation and/or extraction.

As senators, we make decisions and amendments to these pieces of legislation that affect Canadians. All of the work we do, in reality, affects Canadians, and using a gender lens while we undertake this duty helps us to consider the full impact of federal bills and initiatives from the perspectives of diverse people and to identify potential challenges at an early stage.

It was through this lens that I saw the negative impacts that resource extraction specifically had on Indigenous women with Bill C-69. We all knew that the impacts of resource extraction did not affect everyone equally and that a certain segment of the population — the Indigenous women — were affected differently. It was our responsibility to know what barriers existed that impeded equality. It was also critical that we didn’t, and don’t, reinforce historical inequities.

With the reference “particularly Indigenous women,” this bill aims to mitigate some of the shortcomings of a single-axis perspective of disadvantage by facilitating the inclusion of those who stand at the intersection of multiple sources of disadvantage, and thereby include the voices which can best articulate the shortcomings and considerations that are relevant to their situation; in this case, First Nations, Métis, Inuit and non-status women.

The First Nations, Métis, Inuit and non-status women have been and remain inordinately affected by the social conditions in which they live because these social conditions were shaped and continue to be shaped directly or indirectly by the Indian Act. The social conditions that affect First Nations, Métis, Inuit and non-status not only include features of individuals and households such as income, educational attainment, family structure, housing and transportation resources, but also features of communities, both on and off reserve, such as the prevalence and depth of poverty, residential and geographic segregation, rates of crime, accessibility of safe places to play and exercise, availability of transportation for jobs that provide a living wage, welfare status, availability of good schools and sources of nutritious food.

As was evident through testimony on Bill C-69, countless resource extraction sites, toxic waste disposal and environmental degradation are situated near Indigenous communities. No other group has had to experience living with ongoing trauma from so many institutions. Martha Cabrera, who works on trauma recovery programs in Nicaragua, describes it best when she refers to her society as multiply wounded, multiply traumatized and multiply grieving after experiencing several decades of conflict. The ongoing collective multiplied trauma and grieving and grieving can be witnessed through the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, children in care, over-incarceration of Indigenous peoples, suicide, sex trafficking, environmental and climate degradation, increased cancers and mental health issues.

Honourable senators, in getting back to the bill itself, the statements generated by this bill would indicate whether or not there are potential effects of the bill on women, and particularly Indigenous women, and if so what those effects are.

This statement would be tabled in the house in which the government bill originated no later than two sitting days after the bill is introduced. Furthermore, this bill would also require a gender-lensed analysis to be undertaken by the minister for all private members’ bills once they are referred to committee within their respective house of Parliament. This stage of committee referral was chosen as a statement trigger for PMB, as it is indicative that a bill is meaningfully progressing through its house. For PMB, the analysis must be tabled in the house of origin no later than 10 sitting days after a bill is introduced.

To close any loopholes, the minister would finally be required to table an additional statement on amendments that are made to a bill, theoretically ensuring that any potential effects on women are identified from first reading to Royal Assent. Of equal importance is the requirement of the minister to publish every statement on the departmental website, making them accessible to all Canadians.

The enhanced responsibility bestowed upon the minister has recent precedent. Specifically, a similar clause is used in section 4.2(1) of the Department of Justice Act, which requires that minister to ascertain whether any of the provisions of new legislation are inconsistent with the purposes and provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That minister is also required to report any such inconsistency to the House of Commons at the first convenient opportunity.

It has previously been insinuated that this Charter Statement would encompass gender analysis for government bills, and this is incorrect. To be clear, Charter Statements do not list all of the possible implications of a bill, that a bill could have on the rights and freedoms described in the Charter. Rather, they focus on only the biggest and most immediately apparent impacts on Charter rights. An analysis under Bill S-219, in contrast, requires that a focus be put on how the proposed legislation impacts women and Indigenous women specifically, which could serve to ensure the rights of all groups, that all groups are not overlooked in broader analyses of proposed legislation. Moreover, since Aboriginal rights are not contained within the Charter, Charter Statements do not outline the impact a bill would have on these rights. Nor would Charter Statements necessarily address equality issues with respect to these rights that could be impacted by a bill.

Colleagues, I would now like to address why this bill does not mention any specific instruments through which to undertake this analysis. The bill does not expressly mention gender-based analysis, the Charter, the Beijing Declaration or any other tool: domestic or international. The reason for that is one of prudence. I wanted to ensure that this bill is protected against change, essentially rendering it future-proof. If a statute were to mention the government’s gender-based analysis and a new or better technique is developed, the statute would need to be amended to keep it current. The bill, in giving discretion to the minister, ensures that analyses undertaken do not fall out of step with trends in policy analysis. The minister will be expected to use the most current and relevant means of undertaking this gender-lensed analysis, whether that be other statutes, legislation, declarations, agreements, treaties and so on.

Any time you give discretion to the minister, there is a risk that a narrow-minded minister could interpret this provision in an under-inclusive way. However, that is where Parliament plays a role in questioning and pressing the minister on their statement if it becomes evident that they only engage in this responsibility in a half-hearted way.

Colleagues, in the 2015 Fall Reports of the Auditor General of Canada under Report 1 — Implementing Gender-Based Analysis, the finding was that:

Overall, we found that in the 20 years since the government committed to applying gender-based analysis (GBA) to its policy decisions, a GBA framework has been implemented in only some federal departments and agencies. In the departments and agencies that have implemented a GBA framework, we found that the analyses performed were not always complete and that the quality of the analyses was not consistent. This finding is similar to our finding in 2009.