Evidence of meeting #68 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
As a result of the work so far, has there been progress in developing resources and strategies to reduce the incidence of violence?
Chief Commissioner, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
I will start with work that has been done by others. There are strategies and programs in place in indigenous communities across Canada that work very well in reducing violence, and we're able to give them a national showcase for the work they have done.
As for our work, we have started on our public education line of informing and educating the public, particularly through school programs, about violence against indigenous women and girls. We are hoping that education of the public will be one strategy that will help to reduce violence against indigenous women and girls. Before we make our final recommendations, however, we have to hear a lot more evidence.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
In regard to your mandate, how are you building diverse cultural, linguistic, and spiritual traditions of indigenous peoples into how the commission operates?
Chief Commissioner, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
It's hard to answer this quickly, because the cultural and spiritual aspects of indigenous life are woven into everything we do every day in the communities. We want to be respectful of local protocols and ceremonies wherever we go and incorporate those into the work we do on the ground in communities. I think the most important thing to remember at all times is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. There is great diversity across Canada. There is no such thing as pan-indigeneity; that's a myth. We work with that principle in mind.
Liberal
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Thank you.
I want to go back to some of the logistics, which you have indicated have created significant challenges. I think your budget was $53 million. In round figures, how much of that budget has been spent? Have you any idea?
Chief Commissioner, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
I can give you percentages. By the end of the last fiscal year, we had spent about 8% of our budget. By the end of this fiscal year, we expect that we will have spent about 75% of our budget. Of course, we don't have a full calendar year for the next fiscal year.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Okay. From what you're indicating, if you do approach for an extension, given those figures, you're also going to have to approach for additional dollars.
My next question is for Commissioner Audette. Do you have computers and shared drives that are working?
Commissioner, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
This is my response: sometimes yes, sometimes no. It's very technical. My understanding is that for protection and security, if you make one mistake, your computer crashes or stops, or suddenly the Internet doesn't work anymore through your computer, or because we have three different computers from three different departments, they don't connect.
My hope is that soon we will have a platform where all of us can share drives. It has been a year now, so I'm anxious to have it.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
I know you indicated that you have people across the country. Is there a home base anywhere out of which the majority of your staff are working, or is it truly a distribution? How many leases for office space do you have, or is it remote?
Chief Commissioner, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
We have a real mix of office spaces and home bases for our employees. We have five offices across Canada—Vancouver, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Ottawa, and Quebec City—but we have staff all across Canada working out of their homes, from Whitehorse to Iqaluit, to Halifax, and everywhere in between.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
With the time I have left, for the people who are either intimately involved in terms of what's happening or just the general public who would have seen articles, 150 people signed a letter saying they were very concerned about what you were doing. They might have read the Maclean's article that said this is really off the rails.
I'm going to give you the rest of the time to perhaps share why they should not be alarmed, or why they should be alarmed, in terms of what's happening.
Commissioner, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
This was never going to be easy. We're talking about hundreds of years of this dynamic. I look up at that painting of the Fathers of Confederation. It was an issue then; it was an issue 150 years before then. It can't go smoothly. There is no way to say this goes smoothly. We're not examining buildings. We're examining lives. We're examining the systemic reaction to this situation, the systemic causes of this tragedy.
You're also dealing with not one incident, but thousands of incidents, not only of disappearances and murders but violence. This is about violence more broadly.
However, we're listening and we're trying to adapt our process to make sure there are varied options and different spaces where people can share. They can share their experiences with us privately, in artistic expression, in letters, or in an open forum to the rest of the country. It is going to be difficult. I want to just raise my hands for the families who have fought for this and who want it, and who want to be heard and want to share.
We are trying our best. We are trying to do our best in a way that respects cultures, languages, the land, and the people who invite us in.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk
That was very nice.
The questioning now moves for a couple of minutes to MP Mike Bossio.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Once again, I would really like to commend all of you for the outstanding testimony that you provided us today, and also the incredible sacrifices that you're all making to carry out this really important work. It's very moving, the work that you're doing, and we just can't express our gratitude for that enough.
I want to go back to the interim report because I think it's really important that people understand what the intent is of this interim report, that it's not a final report, that it's not a report that's a foregone conclusion to the final report. Can you give us a sense of the different resources that have been brought to bear in creating this report and, therefore, are going to be represented within the report? How does that reflect the intent of this interim report?
Chief Commissioner, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
The member has properly characterized an interim report, and I'm thankful for that. Our interim report really is a progress report on what we've done so far. It's really going to showcase the work that our research has done in analyzing those reports and those recommendations. It's also going to highlight some of the testimony, and other issues that we've dealt with as we've been doing our work. Without getting into too much of the detail in our interim report, it's going to be research-based and a progress report.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Is it also going to reflect some of the forensic work that your forensic team has also been carrying out, or is it too soon to bring that to bear yet?
Chief Commissioner, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
It's too soon to bring in the forensic analysis.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk
Thank you, MP Mike Bossio.
Thank you to all of you for coming out and sharing your experience to date. Obviously, everyone around this table and in Parliament is very interested in following your footsteps across the country. We wish you well.
Meegwetch. Thank you for coming.
We're now going to suspend and move into an in-camera session after a five-minute break.
[Proceedings continue in camera]