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.
Chief Commissioner, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
Madam Chair, when we ask for an extension.... At this point in time it's premature to say whether we'll have to ask for more funding, because this involves a rigorous analysis as I'm sure you can understand.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
You talked about the forensic investigating, and I think that is a very important feature. I saw that your legal team is a very large team. Are they the ones responsible for this forensic investigating, in your org chart on your website? If not, who is?
Chief Commissioner, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
The legal team is overseeing the operation of the forensic review team, but the forensic review team is made up of individuals such as crown counsel, defence counsel, forensic interview experts. We're trying to arm-wrestle an elder to sit on that committee as well, plus some other people. I hope I haven't missed them.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk
Thank you.
All right, questioning now goes to MP Georgina Jolibois.
NDP
Georgina Jolibois NDP Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
[Member speaks in Dene]
Good morning. Thank you for being here. I represent the riding of Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River. I speak my first language Dene and I greeted you in Dene and thanked you for being here.
I'm going to get right to the point.
Chief Buller, I had the opportunity to meet some of your staff over the summer and I've been really busy over the summer meeting families in my riding and from across the province. I do have concerns about your report because it's contradicting what's happening on the ground. The biggest piece is about families getting through registrations, the amount of registrations that are occurring, community meetings, and the actual hearings that will occur across Canada. Families can't afford to get to these hearings and to get to these areas.
Are you offloading responsibilities to community-based organizations, and RCMP, as well as municipalities and reserves and tribal councils across Canada?
Chief Commissioner, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
I'll try to answer that quickly and clearly. Our community outreach teams go into communities in advance to prepare families and survivors to give evidence later on at a hearing in that same community. That's very important outreach work. We want families to be registered in advance—
NDP
Georgina Jolibois NDP Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
That's not the question that was asked. I asked about offloading responsibilities to ensure that these hearings, registrations, and community meetings are occurring.
Chief Commissioner, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
The answer is no. We are not offloading these responsibilities. These are clearly our responsibilities and we take them very seriously and do a lot of work in that regard.
NDP
Georgina Jolibois NDP Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
Have you clearly communicated with the province, territories, municipalities, reserves, and tribal councils about their responsibilities, about what your asks of them are? Based on the experiences that I have had on the ground there seems to be a lot of offloading that is occurring right now.
Chief Commissioner, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
Madam Chair, I'm not entirely clear what's meant by offloading, but I can reassure—
NDP
Georgina Jolibois NDP Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
Expecting these very organizations, provinces, and municipalities to do the legwork for registration and identifying families. In my riding this summer before I met with your staff, I learned from your staff that there were only four families registered in my riding who could fit the category of participating. That is a huge concern, the amount of registrations that have to occur to register, because we have more than four missing and murdered women in the north.
From my conversations with the RCMP and various organizations, I believe the expectations were not clearly laid out by the inquiry. That's what I mean by offloading. Again, I want Chief Buller to answer the question.
Chief Commissioner, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
We go into each community with a plan. We form partnerships with organizations, governments, individuals, grassroots organizations to help carry out that plan because they want to help.
NDP
Georgina Jolibois NDP Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
How have you made sure that is clearly stated, because, again, my experiences have shown that local governments, local responsibilities, are expected to do more without the resources. Your organization has the resources to do so, but not at the local level. I'm looking for more answers than what you're giving.
Chief Commissioner, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
I'll give you some other examples. I'm happy to do that. The important thing to remember is that we work in partnerships with communities one on one.
NDP
Georgina Jolibois NDP Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
My experience is that this is not clear based on the feedback I'm getting.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Madam Chair, can the member please have the respect to allow Commissioner Buller to answer the question. She's posed the same question over and over, but she has not given the commissioner the opportunity to actually answer it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk
MPs have the right to take this questioning. But I'd ask the member to allow the response to be completed and then we do have time for you to ask additional questions. Thank you.
Chief Commissioner, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Our community outreach is planned. In each community we look forward to building partnerships, because communities want to partner with us. We're mindful of their limited resources. We also are mindful of the fact that, in many communities, there are people who want to speak to us and want to register, and we want to make that as simple as possible for them. It is important that families register with us, and I can say as of earlier this week we're up to 735 people registered. The first step in registering with us is to make sure that the proper health supports are in place for those families and those survivors of violence, so that when they do come forward and speak to us they have those proper supports in place.
Yes, registering is important—
NDP
Georgina Jolibois NDP Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK
I'm sorry to interject. Are you familiar with rural, remote areas, and the lives of families living in the north with no services and no access to services?
How can you speak such words when on the ground I know of families for whom even the cost of getting to register, the cost of attending a community meeting, the cost of non-selected families getting to the actual hearings...? We're talking about missing and murdered aboriginal women. We know that these things you speak of aren't happening on the ground, based on my experiences. Can you answer that, please?
Commissioner, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I will answer these extremely important questions.
First, we commissioners come from different regions. Some of us and some of our employees come from very remote regions. We are going through this as individuals and as a group.
Next, the national inquiry must work with the provinces to some extent, while maintaining its independence. The provinces have received funding from the federal government specifically to work with families and survivors. The national inquiry must investigate, do extensive research, and make recommendations. That is the first thing.
The second issue is knowing how to reach the families. Partnership with the communities is extremely important. If your community would like a visit from people from the national inquiry, I can guarantee they will go see you, because it is important to reach out to remote communities.
Liberal
William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Meegwetch. Thank you very much for being here.
The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls is tremendously important to the entire country, but especially to the Pontiac. My fellow Algonquin citizens are very well informed about your inquiry. The families and friends of Maisy Odjick and Shannon Alexander are still looking for answers.
I never forget that. I am very grateful to you for coming to tell us what is happening and what progress you have made.
I would like to talk about cooperation, in particular as regards your dealings with the Sûreté du Québec police force. My colleague talked about the RCMP, but I would like to know how you would describe your cooperation with the Sûreté du Québec.
Commissioner, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
From the outset, when the Quebec team was created precisely for linguistic reasons—it is the only government that operates solely in French—the lawyers on that team began a dialogue with the Sûreté du Québec. That was from December until now. There is very good cooperation. Several thousand files have been transferred to USB keys so we can do the necessary analyses.
Certain cooperative efforts might be more difficult than others for files that are still open, which is to be expected. Our lawyers are constantly in discussions.
My colleagues and I have been pleased with the openness shown by the Sûreté du Québec thus far.
Liberal
William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC
I would like some more details about this.
Among the files that you need, how many have you been unable to receive owing to issues related to their transfer?