Tag Archives: Saskatchewan

‘No reason to celebrate’: Canada Day muted as country reckons with dark colonial history

By Steve Scherer

OTTAWA (Reuters) -Multiple cities scrapped Canada Day celebrations on Thursday after the discovery of hundreds of remains of children in unmarked graves at former indigenous schools sparked a reckoning with the country’s colonial past.

Calls to scale back or cancel celebrations snowballed after, beginning in May, almost 1,000 unmarked graves were found at former residential schools in British Columbia and Saskatchewan that were mainly run by the Catholic Church and funded by the government.

Traditionally the holiday is celebrated with backyard barbecues and fireworks much like July 4 in the United States, however this year Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the day would be “a time for reflection.”

A #CancelCanadaDay march was being held in Ottawa, the capital, and Toronto was hosting rallies to honor the victims and survivors of Canada’s residential school system. The schools forcibly separated indigenous children from their families, in what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission called “cultural genocide” in 2015.

“Canada is having a reckoning with its history,” said Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, a University of Toronto sociology professor who studies race, crime and criminal justice.

“I don’t think we can celebrate this country for what it is without recognizing this country for what it isn’t: a utopia and a bastion of equality and freedom and equal opportunity for all members of society,” he said.

Canada’s reputation for tolerance was built on its efforts, starting in the 1970s, to create a multicultural society, but inequalities abound both for indigenous communities and among visible minorities, data show.

In his Canada Day message on Thursday, Trudeau said the discovery of the remains of hundreds of children at former residential schools “have rightfully pressed us to reflect on our country’s historical failures,” and the injustices that still exist for indigenous peoples and many others in Canada.

“This Canada Day, let’s recommit to learning from and listening to each other so we can break down the barriers that divide us, rectify the injustices of our past, and build a more fair and equitable society for everyone.

STARK DISPARITIES

Indigenous people, who make up less than 5% of the population, face higher levels of poverty and violence and shorter life expectancies.

The unemployment rate for visible minorities, who make up more than 20% of the total population, was 11.4% in May compared with 7.0% for whites, according to Statistics Canada. In 2020, the unemployment rate for indigenous people in Ontario was 12.5% compared with 9.5% for non-indigenous people.

Some 30% of visible minorities and indigenous peoples feel treated like outsiders in their own country, according to an Angus Reid Institute poll on diversity and racism published on June 21.

The discovery of the remains and a deadly attack on a Muslim family in June that killed three generations of members has led to soul-searching in Canada about the country’s oft-touted reputation for tolerance. The suspect is accused of murder and domestic terrorism.

Hate crimes against Muslims rose 9% to 181 in 2019, according to the latest data by StatCan. Some 36% of indigenous people and 42% of visible minorities said Canada is a racist country, according to the Angus Reid survey.

A number of Muslim women who wear hijabs have also been attacked in Alberta in recent weeks, while in Quebec a law banning public servants from wearing the hijab is facing legal challenges, and critics have called the measure a form of institutionalized racism.

New Democrat lawmaker Mumilaaq Qaqqaq, who is Inuk, said she felt unsafe in the House of Commons as an indigenous woman, and last month announced she would not be running for re-election.

“I don’t think there’s any reason for celebration (on Canada Day),” Qaqqaq said.

(Reporting by Steve Scherer, additional reporting by Julie Gordon; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

Canada virus hotspot Manitoba flies patients out as infections surge

By Rod Nickel

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) -Canada’s latest COVID-19 hotspot of Manitoba said on Tuesday it was planning to fly additional critically ill patients to other provinces as infections multiply, even as Quebec and British Columbia announced plans to ease restrictions.

A third wave reached Manitoba later than other provinces, and pushed up its rate of daily cases to 233 people per 100,000 during the past week, the highest in Canada and triple the national average, mainly due to spread in the city of Winnipeg.

Manitoba has flown 18 critically ill COVID-19 patients to Ontario hospitals in the past few days, officials said. The provincial government is also talking with Saskatchewan and North Dakota officials about receiving patients, they said in a briefing, without providing a number.

No other province has taken such steps.

The province has scrambled to more than double its intensive care unit capacity by cancelling surgeries and occupying other spaces in hospitals.

“Our hospitals are being stretched to the limits right now,” Chief Provincial Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin said. “There are hundreds of people struggling for their lives.”

A group of doctors urged the Manitoba government to impose a stay-at-home order and close non-essential businesses.

More than 25,000 people have died of COVID-19 in Canada since the pandemic began.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was looking at sending medical staff to Manitoba through the Canadian Red Cross and other support from the Canadian Armed Forces.

Quebec, Canada’s second-most populous province, will continue to ease restrictions and by June 7 all restaurants and gyms will be able to reopen, Premier Francois Legault said.

The Pacific coast province of British Columbia laid out its four-part reopening plan on Tuesday, with some restrictions being lifted immediately and a full reopening anticipated by September, Premier John Horgan said.

Limited indoor and outdoor dining with a maximum of six people, indoor gatherings of up to five people from outside a household and low-intensity fitness classes are now permitted, Horgan said.

The province expects to lift all group limits on indoor dining and reopen casinos and nightclubs with limited capacity on July 1.

Ontario, Canada’s most-populous province, plans to loosen restrictions starting June 14.

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg; additional reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa and Moira Warburton in Toronto; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Cynthia Osterman)

Dozens of indigenous women forcibly sterilized in Canada, U.N. committee hears

People take part in a smudging ceremony organised by the First Nations Indigenous Warriors and the American Indian Movement on the Cote First Nation, near the town of Kamsack, Saskatchewan, Canada, August 6, 2017. Smudging is a common practice among some indigenous peoples in North America and is believed to cleanse a person or place of negative energy. REUTERS/Zachary Prong

By Chris Arsenault

TORONTO (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Dozens of indigenous women were forcibly sterilized by Canadian health authorities, including as recently as in 2017, said the lawyer leading a class-action lawsuit against the government.

Alisa Lombard was speaking on Thursday after appearing in Geneva at the U.N. Committee against Torture during hearings into Canada’s human rights record.

More than 90 indigenous women in the western province of Saskatchewan contacted lawyers to join the lawsuit over forced sterilization, said Lombard of Maurice Law, the indigenous-run firm spearheading the case.

“This practice needs to stop,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding that she knew of cases in 2009, 2011 and 2017.

“If it happened then and nothing was done to prevent it, I don’t see why it wouldn’t be happening now,” Lombard said.

A government spokeswoman said officials were still gathering information on the issue, and could not say with certainty that the practice had stopped.

The U.N. committee will publish its findings on December 7.

“This class action is there to stop it (forced sterilization), punish it and prosecute it,” Lombard said of the suit, which was filed last year.

Health experts and human rights campaigners said the forced sterilizations, which the United Nations considers a form of torture, are symptomatic of the discrimination and abuse that Canada’s indigenous women face.

The government does not deny coerced sterilizations took place. However, a spokeswoman for the minister of indigenous services told the Thomson Reuters Foundation she could not comment on allegations in the lawsuit as the matter was before the courts.

‘SERIOUS VIOLATION’

Earlier this week, minister of indigenous services Jane Philpott told lawmakers the “coerced sterilisation of some indigenous women by medical professionals is a serious violation of human rights”.

“We know that indigenous patients can face systemic barriers in accessing medical services, including discrimination and racism,” Philpott said.

It remained unclear how many indigenous women were forcibly sterilized in Saskatchewan or elsewhere in Canada, said Alex Neve, secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada, who also testified at the U.N. committee hearings.

“It is impossible not to conclude that this arises from a context of deeply entrenched racism and colonialism. This is tied up with stereotypes of indigenous women as being incapable mothers,” he said.

Indigenous people comprise about 5 percent of Canada’s 36.5 million people and are disproportionately affected by poverty. Nearly half live in western provinces such as Saskatchewan, according to government census data.

During his testimony, Neve called on the government to appoint an independent investigator – ideally an indigenous woman, he said – to conduct a review to determine the scale of the problem and recommend solutions.

“Under international law, it is very clear forced sterilization is torture,” Neve said.

DECADES-LONG PRACTICE

The lawsuit, which Lombard said could go to trial in 2019, names the Saskatchewan government, provincial hospitals, several doctors and national authorities. It is seeking C$7 million ($5.3 million) per plaintiff.

Forced or coerced sterilization – which is defined as sterilizing women without their proper, informed consent – began in Canada in the 1930s and continued until at least 2017, the suit states.

The lawsuit cites a woman with the initials M.R.L.P. as the lead plaintiff. It said the Saskatchewan resident was sterilized without proper, informed consent immediately after her second child was delivered by emergency cesarean section in September 2008.

Health professionals suggested she undergo a tubal ligation – a surgical procedure in which a woman’s fallopian tubes are blocked, tied or cut – when she was “particularly vulnerable”: in labor and about to undergo emergency surgery.

“Her written consent was sought by health professionals moments before emergency surgery was affirmed, contemporaneously with the administration of opioids, and while she was incapacitated by the pain associated with active labor,” the statement of claim said.

When she later sought to have the procedure reversed, health professionals told her she would be unlikely to fall pregnant. Her relationship with her then-partner ended due to her sterility, the suit said.

“Canada and the province were aware of these policies and practice and their disproportionate impacts on vulnerable Aboriginal women, historically and currently, and have done nothing to prevent them,” the statement of claim said.

Canada’s universal healthcare is largely funded by the national government and provided by provincial authorities.

The lawsuit said coerced sterilizations were an example of cruel and unusual punishment, which is illegal under the country’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The provincial health ministry told the Thomson Reuters Foundation it had launched an independent review last year after indigenous women came forward saying they had been pressured into having tubal ligations after giving birth.

It changed its policies after that review, a ministry spokeswoman said.

“It (the government) now requires that a woman must have had a documented discussion with her healthcare provider before coming into hospital,” she said in emailed comments.

“Otherwise, a tubal ligation would not be provided during the patient’s post-partum experience … Our priority is to engage, understand and better serve the health needs of all indigenous residents of Saskatchewan.”

The provincial ministry said it was implementing cultural training for all maternal services staff and was working with indigenous leaders and elders to improve the consent process and healthcare in general.

The spokeswoman could not comment on specific claims made in court documents as litigation is ongoing.

Marcia Anderson, a professor of health sciences at Canada’s University of Manitoba, said it was difficult to hold healthcare providers to account as the country did not gather data on health-quality performance by race.

“There is very little (even no) ability to monitor the expression of racism in the healthcare system,” Anderson said by email.

“Racism is as present in healthcare as it is in our broader society, but it is acted out in different ways.”

(Reporting by Chris Arsenault; Editing by Robert Carmichael and Zoe Tabary. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories.)