Thank you.
First of all, I want to thank the committee for giving me this opportunity to speak against the red dress alert system.
My name, as you know, is Lorraine Augustine. I'm the chief and president of the Native Council of Nova Scotia, which represents the off-reserve and the non-status in the province. We will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the organization in September.
I don't have speaking notes to pass out. I don't normally speak from a speech, but I did make some notes.
One thing that concerns me with the red dress alert is who's going to administer it. When it comes to an alert like this, it really needs to be about the women. I can't stress this enough. When it comes to government policy, government legislation or anything that's going on, it always seems to be about organizations or it always seems to be about the so-called “section 35 rights holders”.
If we really look at the Constitution, section 35 talks nothing about rights. It just talks about who an aboriginal person is within Canada.
I have to reiterate the fact that it's our indigenous women who need to be protected. I'm telling you that you have a long road ahead of you when it comes to developing this red dress alert.
Who's going to administer it? I believe it should be the indigenous people.
Is it going to be put off by a time frame? There have to be specific guidelines issued in order to implement this.
When it comes to the RCMP or the policing, I can almost guarantee you that a lot of the women will not call. They're afraid. Our women have been taken by policemen and murdered and raped. That's the reality.
When we're going to develop any kind of alert system, we have to really be sure who is going to be administering this. From my perspective, it needs to be the indigenous organizations. If it's going to be the policing, then they have to have indigenous women or indigenous employees to administer this.
In terms of the system you're talking about, is there going to be a time frame?
Specific guidelines need to be developed. Are we going to wait 24 hours or 48 hours? Our women could be lying in a ditch by then. We need to be very cognizant of the time and the guidelines on who and when to report on the missing and murdered.
In terms of the red dress system and the public helping our indigenous women, that's going to take some time. As a matter of fact, it's going to take a lot of time. When it comes to our indigenous women, as opposed to a non-indigenous woman who is missing or murdered.... They're right on it. When it comes to our indigenous women, sometimes they just shrug their shoulders and say, “It's just another Indian.” It's going to take a lot of work in order for us to be out there.
Is the alert system going to be similar to the Amber alert? Is it going to be immediate? Who is going to be allowed to report that?
I...envy the work you're going to be doing because it's going to be a long road to get this system up and running properly.
Keep in mind that it's not about organizations. It's not about the national organizations out there or the women's.... It's our women. We need to include our women. We have to include our indigenous women and protect them.
There has to be more than just the red alert system. We have to look at prevention. The system, to start...prevention is really important as well.
I guess I've been given the signal, so I'll stop for now.