Hon. Mohamed-Iqbal Ravalia: Honourable senators, I thank the minister for being here today. September has been officially recognized as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Awareness Month by the Government of Canada since 2020. Addressing this disorder is one of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action. Specifically, Call to Action No. 33 states:

We call upon the federal, provincial, and territorial governments to recognize as a high priority the need to address and prevent Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), and to develop, in collaboration with Aboriginal people, FASD preventive programs that can be delivered in a culturally appropriate manner.

I recognize that several investments have been made with respect to the program and to help support First Nations and Inuit communities in preventing FASD births and to enhance the quality of life for those affected by this disorder.

Can you please speak to the strategies that have been taken to best maximize these investments? How are these investments being evaluated? Thank you.

Hon. Marc Miller, P.C., M.P., Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations: Clearly, when we talk about health transformation in Indigenous communities, addressing specifically fetal alcohol syndrome is one that Indigenous communities have been advocating for for a long, long time. This is something that goes through a number of the elements and a number of the reforms that Minister Hajdu is tasked with, particularly introducing health-based legislation that is distinctions-based, to allow communities to deal with what is specific to them and what plagues them, in developing and addressing the devastating effects of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder which, in turn, to refer to the conversation we had before, fuel incarceration rates.

This is not something that you can sort out with a single bill introduced in Parliament. It’s something that requires that health transformation which is yet to be effected. For that, we need provincial buy-in as well, in addressing these from a harms-based perspective, not waving books at people when they show up at a medical institution for help. It deals with a lot of the issues around systemic racism in the health care system.

These are elements that the Government of Canada cannot tackle alone. It’s something that will need the full participation of provinces and territories. I do thank you for asking the question.