Push for study of coerced sterilization intensifies on Parliament Hill

OTTAWA — A Commons committee will hear today from senior government officials about the coerced sterilization of women in Canada as MPs face increasing calls for a deeper study of the issue.

NDP health critic Don Davies says he wants to see a close examination of the “profoundly disturbing issue,” adding the country has yet to learn the extent of the problem.

The Commons health committee is to question officials from three federal departments later this afternoon on the issue, but no further meetings on the topic have been scheduled.

Davies and organizations like Amnesty International Canada and Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights have called on the committee to immediately launch a longer and deeper study of sterilization without consent in Canada.

The organizations say involuntary sterilizations are practised nationwide, and not isolated to any one province, where Indigenous women coerced or forced to have their Fallopian tubes clamped or severed after giving birth in hospital.

The groups sent a letter to the committee in November noting that broad media coverage of the issue led to dozens more Indigenous women publicly disclosing they too were coerced into tubal ligation procedures.

The Canadian Press