Hundreds of Manitoba women sterilized against their will: senator

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This article was published 14/07/2022 (1190 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — An Ontario senator claims hundreds of women in northern Manitoba have been forcibly sterilized.

Sen. Yvonne Boyer made that statement Thursday, as her colleagues on the Senate human rights committee called for forced and coerced sterilization to be made a criminal offence. The senator said roughly 12,000 women, who are mostly Indigenous, have reported being made infertile without their consent.

“I was in northern Manitoba, speaking about my experience in doing the external review,” she said on Parliament Hill.

“Afterwards, there were people lined up all the way out the door to come and talk to me. Over half of those women had been sterilized against their will,” she said.

Boyer would not name the community involved, but said likely more than 100 women in that community had said they were sterilized against their will.

“This happens all over when I go speak, because people will come forward and say, ‘Well it happened to me, and I haven’t told anybody… since it happened 20 years ago.’” ”

The Senate committee concluded that forced and coerced sterilizations persist in Canada, and those subjected to it deserve an apology and compensation.

The senators say the “horrific practice” disproportionately affects vulnerable and marginalized groups, including Black and racialized women and people with disabilities.

In 2019, two Indigenous women filed a lawsuit as part of a proposed class action, claiming they were sterilized against their will at Manitoba hospitals.

No statement of defence has been filed.

One woman said she was sterilized in a Brandon hospital in 1985, following the birth of her fourth child. Another said she was sterilized in a Winnipeg hospital in 2018, after her second child was born.

Both alleged the procedures were done “without free, proper and informed consent.”

On Thursday, lawyer Alisa Lombard said the issue is under-reported, but there are many more Manitoba victims.

“I have directly spoken with dozens of women in Manitoba who report having been forcibly sterilized,” she wrote in an email. “I am confident that there are hundreds, if not thousands.”

On Thursday, Manitoba Health declined to comment, as the issue is before the court, as did the Winnipeg and northern health authorities.

Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, which represents most northern First Nations, said it would reach out to Boyer for more information about her claims.

“I send condolences to all those who have been subjected to such a devastating practice,” wrote Grand Chief Garrison Settee.

He said women have raised the practice in the past during healing circles, which are confidential. Settee added that MKO has not been approached by women or communities in recent years to advocate on the issue.

“Women from MKO First Nations have had extensive involvement with the child welfare system, the justice system, tuberculosis sanatoriums, health care systems, residential schools, and other provincially/federally regulated systems,” he wrote.

“It is a sad reality that when they are involved within these colonial systems, our women and girls may have faced coercion to be sterilized.”

The Senate report is a followup to its 2019 study, which chalked up the practice to racism.

“On top of the trauma of undergoing the procedure itself, witnesses describe long-term health and psychological effects, including depression, anxiety and loss of trust in the medical system,” Boyer said.

Thursday’s report notes that Canada has a history of forced and coerced sterilization through laws and government policies that sought to reduce births in Indigenous and Black communities, as well as people living in poverty or with disabilities.

Boyer said the finding that struck her the most was the effect of sterilization on entire communities and future generations.

“Forced sterilization disrupts and breaks the natural laws that Indigenous Peoples have followed since time immemorial,” she said.

Boyer introduced a bill in the Senate last month that would make it a criminal offence to sterilize someone without their consent.

Boyer said that despite provinces stating that the practice has stopped, forced sterilizations persist, and a bill would make sure that medical workers stop and think before acting.

— With files from The Canadian Press

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca