Status of Women Committee on April 26th, 2010

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

Thank you.

The last person in the second round is Ms. Wong.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

And thank you very much for coming to our committee.

I have a question specifically for the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs. I understand you had the family violence prevention program. I just want you to comment further on how successful it has been, on what sorts of expectations you may have, and on whether this program is still around.

[Mary Quinn]

Thank you.

With respect to the program, since 2007 there has been an injection of over $55 million over five years. That funding has allowed for more prevention projects in the communities. As in most areas of social policy, the prevention side is where you want to focus. There are remedies on the other side, but having the problem not occur is the first issue.

I think one of the significant developments in recent years was the funding for five new shelters. Three of these new shelters have been built, and two are expected to open in May.

In terms of results, that's a hard question to answer. The fact that the shelters are being used shows that they're being used. We would rather work on the prevention side to get to the point where we don't have shelters, but the shelters are being used. There are prevention projects in place, and we will soon have the two new shelters coming into operation.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Thank you.

I have another question. I want the RCMP to comment further on the missing aboriginal women and girls, especially in B.C. I come from that province. I understand that there has been some collaboration of efforts, because according to a report, it says that you are making a task force to review cases involving missing and murdered women. Also, besides actively investigating, you are developing best practices related to information sharing, file management, and file coordination. Can you highlight some of the best practices developed so far?

[A/Commr Bob Paulson]

Yes, I can. What we're referring to is the Highway of Tears investigation, along Highway 16 in northern British Columbia. I believe that 13 young women have been found murdered and five are missing. In fact, I investigated one in Smithers when I was a corporal investigator in northern British Columbia.

Each investigation is done generally starting from a missing persons complaint. One of the best practices we've developed is a policy the RCMP has now that requires missing people to be presumed murdered until the investigators can demonstrate a different or alternative explanation. In terms of information sharing and the comparison of crime scene evidence from all those disparate cases, we have used computer programs to link those investigations so that they can make comparisons and share information with other task forces. For example, there is the one in the Lower Mainland in British Columbia with respect to the missing women in the Vancouver area. There is also Project KARE in Alberta.

Those information exchanges and the comparison of evidence and those types of things are the best practices that have come out of that.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Thank you.

Another thing is about healing. I understand that the funding for healing and other aspects has been moved to Health Canada, so I don't know which one of you would be able to comment on the healing part.

[Mary Quinn]

I can tell you as well that the funding for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation wasn't continued in this budget. However, there was funding in the order of $200 million over the next few years for Health Canada, Indian and Northern Affairs, and Service Canada to provide services. These are largely for the people in the resolution health support program. What the foundation was supporting and what the funds are for in terms of the number of participants accessing the settlement agreement...it's the healing related to the people in that process as a result of the residential schools.

In terms of the impact of residential schools and the propensity for family violence or needing parenting skills or the kinds of things people may encounter that send them down another path, there is a fine line between the residential school impact and what healing can assist in. I wouldn't say it's multi-dimensional, but there's a deep recognition of the need to continue healing through the funds that are continuing.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

Thank you so much.

We will have time for a short third round of three minutes each, so we'll start with Ms. Neville.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you very much.

I'm wondering, Madam Chair, if we could please have tabled with the committee the list of projects funded through INAC in their prevention program.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

I think they agreed they will be sending it.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

That's fine. Sorry, I missed that.

[Mary Quinn]

I'm happy to look into that and get back to the committee.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you.

My question is for the RCMP, and I didn't intend to go in this direction.

I have been up in Prince George. I've met with the council. I've met with the families of the missing and murdered aboriginal women, and I appreciate that you were involved in the investigations. I've heard from families that their family members have been found but the perpetrators have not been found.

Can you tell me why, in your opinion, they haven't been and why it has been necessary to set up special task forces? Why has this not been done all along as part of the ongoing investigations? I've met with players in Manitoba on their task force as well.

[A/Commr Bob Paulson]

First I'll answer why I think the offenders haven't been caught yet. It's somewhat speculative on my part, but when a lot of these crimes are sexually motivated...and a lot of these crimes have no background connection between the victim and the perpetrator; they're what we refer to as “stranger-to-stranger killings”. When that is the case, that is perhaps one of the most difficult, if not very challenging, cases to solve. You require aggressive forensic work and aggressive, innovative thinking about catching the person as he does what he does. It's a very challenging set of facts.

In terms of why it took so long to create a task force, I think--

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Why was it necessary to create a task force to address this overarching issue? We're calling for a national inquiry.

Why hasn't it been done over the years? It was 580--

[A/Commr Bob Paulson]

It has been done in many respects.

In the case I spoke of, it was the murder in Smithers of Ramona Wilson. I remember--

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

That's who I'm speaking of. I met with her family.

[A/Commr Bob Paulson]

I remember it as if it were yesterday. She was a missing person for months, and she was found in a remote area by the airport with hardly any forensic evidence to pursue.

It's very difficult. In those days we worked on that very aggressively. We had the regional major crimes section come in, and as the regional major crimes section, we had contact with all the other homicides: Alishia Germaine, Nicole Hoar--I can remember all of these people's names because we worked it as a collective series of offences.

Did we call ourselves a task force and give ourselves a name? No, but we worked it very aggressively. When you realize that the scope of the challenge in all of these cases requires the focused delivery of intense resources, I think that's a good thing.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

I've met with Mrs. Wilson and her sister.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

You're out of time.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Okay.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

Mr. Calandra, and again, it's just three minutes. It's a short question and answer.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Yes. Three minutes is not a lot.

I don't have the perspective of a rural, remote northern guy, so I'm just going to ask you to describe for me, from the policing perspective, what one of these communities looks like. How many people are in it? How many officers would you have patrolling in a community like that? If I went there, what would I see? What kinds of job opportunities are there? What does one of these remote communities look like?

[A/Commr Bob Paulson]

I'll give you maybe a 15-second description of Smithers, and then perhaps I'll ask my colleague to give you a description of another area he policed in northern Saskatchewan.

Smithers is a fairly good-sized town. It's a logging community. It's policed by approximately 20 officers, with support staff and so on, but supported by a regional infrastructure of a regional office, a district office. The community is a beautiful community, with a lot of tourist areas mixed in with a lot of logging.

Maybe Russ can describe a community in northern Saskatchewan.

[C/Supt Russ Mirasty, Director General, National Aboriginal Policing Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

It's a difficult question to answer in that our communities are so diverse.

First of all, I'll start from where I come from. I am first nations and I come from a community called Lac La Ronge, which is more central Saskatchewan, but it used to be the end of the road, quite frankly.

In that community it's fairly mixed, meaning there are about 2,500 non-aboriginal and about 3,000 first nations people. It's a fairly modern community in that it's the centre of government for northern Saskatchewan. There are a lot of services that are provided to both the non-aboriginal and first nations people.

There isn't a lot of local industry. There is mining in the area where people do get jobs. There are obviously the government jobs and the support jobs that arise out of that. There is some tourism. There was logging until probably about four years ago. So really, in terms of an economic base, there is very little. It's almost self-supporting in terms of government services.

If we go a little bit further north from La Ronge--and you don't have to go very far north--a related community is Stanley Mission, which is actually part of the Lac La Ronge Indian Band, of which I am a member. It's a community of about 2,500 first nations people and probably 100 non-first nations or non-aboriginal people.

There is no industry there; there is some tourism. There are still people who practise a traditional way of living, living off the land by trapping and fishing, but that's diminishing very rapidly as well. They do take advantage, again, of the mining industry that's in close proximity, so more and more people are employed there.

The people who are successful and come back to the community have done so through education. There are many local teachers who have gone off to Saskatoon or Regina to get their education degrees and come back to teach the children.