Thank you so much for your questions.

The first one, if I understand it, is relating to Canada's reputation worldwide and why it has that reputation.

There are a very significant set of factors here. The large number of entities that are engaged in the extractive industry worldwide are known as transnational corporations, so corporations that are instituted here in Canada but they also conduct work in other countries. When massive human rights violations happen, especially the killing of indigenous people and the gang rapes of indigenous people in other countries, and we try to bring Canada to account, Canada denies any ability to deal with it. They say, “Well, that crime happened in another country. We can't interfere with their sovereignty.” They sit back and don't take responsibility for it, despite the fact that they are Canadian companies. The Canadian companies basically say, “We're in Canada. You can't touch us.”

It leaves primarily indigenous women all around the world without too many options. We have human rights organizations that try to advocate on their behalf. Sometimes they might get settlements, but these settlements are almost always confidential. They're never published, so you don't have an accurate account of just how bad it is. All we know is from the individual evidence that we see on the ground.

It is Canada's failure to actually step up and take responsibility for what Canadians and Canadian companies do around the world that is fearful. Other people in other contexts think Canada is great, but when I go to other countries and I meet with indigenous women, they say, “You're from Canada. You know their companies are the worst; they commit the worst atrocities.” That's not something that Canada should be proud of, and it reflects how they've failed to deal with indigenous women here in Canada.

In terms of what they could do, there are a plethora of things.

The United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women visited Canada and talked to Canadian officials and indigenous women, and was shocked to hear about all of the violent sexual assaults by RCMP officers on indigenous women and little girls. They called on Canada to have a specific review or inquiry into that.

We asked the national inquiry.... We asked Canada to specifically include an investigation of RCMP and other officers in the extractive industry in the sexualized violence against indigenous women and girls, and those two things were specifically left out of the terms of reference. We have to stop economics from trumping human rights.

I think there are a lot of things we can do.

On a go-forward basis, no project happens until it can pass the bare minimum human rights standard that is now incorporated in UNDRIP. UNDRIP is the bare minimum human rights standard. That means that any project that has the risk of sexualized violence for indigenous women and girls does not go ahead unless there are guarantees of protections for these women in all of their forms: sexual exploitations, murders, disappearances, the use of their lands and resources, and failure to respect their rights.

Canada has financial levers. Even where Canada isn't the only authorizer of projects, it can say that a condition of our approval, on say, this multiprovincial project, is all of these guarantees that go to indigenous women and girls to protect them. It could do that. It chooses not to.

The provinces are like the wild west. They're literally a free-for-all. Canada has to step up and show leadership in this regard.