Thank you.

The Liard Aboriginal Women's Society has made our submission to the standing committee, and we have a bunch of reference documents that we've sent along.

What I want to impart to the committee is that indigenous women and girls are reluctant to report violence to police, especially in the territory. There's significant violence that goes on with respect to the extractive resource industries in the Yukon. The National Inquiry into MMIWG and the May 2022 report from the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action provided evidence of RCMP misogyny, racism and sexualized violence against indigenous women, and we feel the effects, certainly, of that in the territory.

For as long as resource extraction industries have claimed unceded territories of our peoples, indigenous nations have resisted the unsustainable colonial state and the extractive industry practices enforced by the RCMP of land theft, dispossession and violence against women.

We thank the committee for undertaking a study on the national crisis of gender-based violence and femicide and present recommendations for action and consideration.

Kaska Dena, our matriarchal society composed of Tsíyōnéʼ Dena and Mésgâ Dena, which are wolf clan and crow clan respectively, and LAWS, as we're known, uphold the Kaska Dena traditional law of Dene Ā’Nezen, which is to care for our lands and waters as our relations.

We reject the unjust free entry mining regime that allows anyone to put up stakes to act over indigenous lands without the free, prior and informed consent of Kaska rights holders. This regime has resulted in significant harms to women and caused environmental, social, cultural, economic and spiritual damage in Dene Kēyeh, which are our Kaska Dena unceded territories. The 25-square-kilometre abandoned Faro lead-zinc mine site is one such example of this destruction. Contamination reaches far beyond the mine site.

LAWS opposes the violence against indigenous women and girls and the environmental damage that accompany colonial resource development practices. We want to heal the scars on our women and our lands.

We have a number of reports that we have tabled, which you will see in the notes. What I do want to say is that we've done studies, we've been on the ground and we know the damage that is done by these industries. So that you understand, in numbers, between 2014 and 2021, there were seven femicides in the Yukon, six of which were indigenous women.

Indigenous women represent 86% of the victims of femicide in the Yukon during that time period. That is also the highest rate of femicide against indigenous women in Canada. In Kaska country, this is particularly important, because Kaska Dena women represent more than 50% of all missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in the Yukon.

Our work has been around demonstrating how the mining industry's colonial ethic of exploitation degrades ways that indigenous and racialized women mine workers are treated in male-dominated workplaces, in camp living conditions and in our communities. We talk a lot in the studies that we've submitted to you about workplace health and sexualized assault safety regulations within the camps, but also within our communities. Reporting is particularly problematic, because our women are afraid to go to the RCMP or to the authorities, and we want to do more to keep our women safe in our communities.

I'll ask that you refer to the document provided to review the submissions, but I have some recommendations for action as well.

We want to ask the standing committee to recognize that the use of euphemistic terms like “development” and “resource development” that imply growth, progress and positive change fail to account for the reality of the colonial projects in Canada. Indigenous peoples are displaced in order to steal lands and resources for the economic, political and social benefit of private corporations, settlers and the state: provincial, territorial and federal governments. The historic settler colonial practices of extracting furs, forests, fish, minerals and other resources have enacted violence on indigenous peoples; devalued our social, cultural and political roles, particularly of indigenous women in our communities; and harmed the physical environment, plant and animal habitat, and human existence. These practices continue. This violence must stop.

LAWS respectfully asks the Standing Committee on the Status of Women to take the following recommended actions.

First, with regard to financial resources, advocate all-party support to provide adequate government funding for long-term sustainable core funding for indigenous women's organizations; funding for the creation of industry-wide and enforceable policies informed by women with lived experience, particularly in the extractive resource industry, and for women's advocacy NGOs to respect indigenous sovereignty and the safety of indigenous women and girls; and funding for more research studies, per the “Reclaiming Power and Place” report.

With regard to the second area, accountability, ensure that Canada complies with its obligations to respect, protect and fulfill women's equality rights and the human rights of indigenous peoples under domestic and international law through its UN universal periodic review and sustainable development goals reports as well as law and policy reform, and use GBA+ policy analysis to fund indigenous women's participation and include indigenous women in decision-making roles for environmental and socio-economic assessment reviews of extractive industry proposals.

The third area is implementation. For the TRC, the “Reclaiming Power and Place” report, the calls for justice, the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry and the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the government needs to ensure that this work is adequately funded in order for our communities to work towards implementing recommendations, calls to justice and calls to action.

Finally, with regard to reconciliation and restoration, the cost for implementing recommendations for justice and reconciliation and for the restoration of lands alienated from indigenous peoples should be covered by government and industry, which have reaped and continued to reap the profits from extractive resource industry projects.

The Liard Aboriginal Women’s Society is a non-governmental organization. We've been around for 25 years. We know the lay of the land, and we're really here today to encourage you to take action to help us end violence in our own communities and to help us ensure that future generations aren't fighting the same fight in another 25 years from now.

Sógá sénlá'.

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