Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 11th, 2021

[Marie-Hélène Guay]

The first ÉMIPIC was created in 2015. It is the joint indigenous community policing station, which Captain Durant just told you about.

We are currently in the process of creating a second team in Sept-Îles, on the north shore. It is a partnership between the Innu community of Takuaikan Uashat Mak Mani-Utenam and the Centre intégré de santé et de services sociaux. This team will operate in the city of Sept-Îles, which is right next to the community of Uashat, and will serve the population of Sept-Îles.

When the protocol was signed, the indigenous police force of Uashat was not able to join the project, particularly because of a staff shortage, but it is supposed to join the project in the coming year.

As for the next four ÉMIPICs that will be created, one is in the town of Maniwaki and Barriere Lake, in the Outaouais. We are currently in the process of drafting a protocol agreement with the Sûreté du Québec, the Centre intégré de santé et de services sociaux and the community of Barriere Lake. What makes this team special is that it is a joint team, as my colleague explained earlier. It is made up of police officers and community workers from the Centre intégré de santé et de service sociaux.

However, we will have a second worker join the team, from the indigenous friendship centres of the communities in question. A person from the indigenous friendship centre will be able to support the people of the community of Barriere Lake or Kitigan Zibi, the two communities located next to the town of Maniwaki.

In addition, a fourth person will join the team as an indigenous liaison officer from the community of Barriere Lake. This person will be designated by the band council of Barriere Lake and will assist with the various resources of the community, the band council, the families of vulnerable people and any organization in downtown Maniwaki.

Over the next three years, a team will be created in Roberval, Lac-Saint-Jean. The municipality has a strong indigenous concentration, with members of the Atikamekw community of Opitciwan, but also of the Innu community of Mashteuiatsh. This team will also be based on local realities. We will work in partnership with the Centre intégré de santé et de services sociaux and with the indigenous friendship centre, but also with an indigenous liaison officer from the Atikamekw community or from the Innu community of Mashteuiatsh.

Our goal is really to respond in a safe and culturally-sensitive way, in line with indigenous values and the indigenous way of life.

The third team will be in Chibougamau, also in the north. The team will be based on the same model as the one for the Maniwaki and Roberval teams, but will also be mindful of local specifics. In Chibougamau, there is a high concentration of people from the communities of Oujé-Bougoumou, Mistissini and Waswanipi, which are all Cree nations. Chibougamau also has Atikamekw from Opitciwan.

Once again, we will use the same resources.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much.

That brings us to Ms. Blaney for six minutes.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks, all of you, for your testimony today. It's been incredibly informative.

I will start with you, Chief Cox.

I'm just trying to understand. When you talked about the services that you deliver, I think I heard you say that there was a four-hour window when you don't have anyone on duty, just folks who are on call.

Can you explain where that gap is? Is it a tripartite agreement? Where is that gap? It seems like a fairly significant gap, and of course the example you gave us of somebody being in harm's way and the ambulance workers not being able to get in there to help was just tragic. Could you just explain where that gap is?

[Chief Dale Cox]

The gap comes through our policing agreement. It is 52% federal, from the first nation policing program, and 48% from the Alberta Solicitor General.

For whatever reason—I have no idea, and they can't explain to us how they arrive at how many police officers we need—a random number is set, and that is what we are given. It isn't tied to our crime stats, which are now based on crime severity. Our crime severity in my area is four times higher than the federal level and three times higher than the provincial levels.

What that means is not that we have a dangerous place but that these investigations that we take on are very complex and are going to take a lot of hours of work and a lot of dedication from police officers in following through from one end to the other to do the right type of investigation. For whatever reason, we don't have that.

Our agreement talks about a negotiation period. During this year, we'll enter into our eighth amendment to our agreement, which has been a one-year extension of the agreement. In the 13 years that I've been here, there has never been negotiation between the police commission, the board of chiefs and the police service with the funding partners, federal or provincial, to discuss any of the areas of the agreement, an agreement that we usually get at the 11th hour, when we are told to sign it or else we won't have funding for the next year and our police service will be dissolved.

Those are the areas, and the board of chiefs has said that enough is enough. This year when they came to me with the agreement, we stipulated to them that we would sign the amendment in order to keep the police service and the safety for our communities in place, but we requested that the federal government—the first nation policing program—give us a commitment to seriously meet and negotiate a long-term agreement before the end of the second fiscal quarter.

I have a letter from them. I don't know to what extent that will come to be. I presented it to the chiefs. They said it was fine, but they really don't believe anything will come of it. They think it was done just to make us happy and get us to sign the agreement.

We're not a one-size-fits-all. What happens is, if everybody recalls, three years ago the federal government came up with extra positions for first nation policing. That was rolled out. Out of those extra positions, we got two, which brought us up to 13 or 15 members. Because of the 48%, we were not in a position to fund it. Three years ago, those positions were announced and given to us. I finally received the funding for them last January that allowed me to hire those two extra members. It has been a year and a half, nearly two years, from when the funding was announced until we actually were able to hire the bodies to put on the street, and they're in training right now.

There's a disconnect there. It has to be understood that it's not one size fits all. Just because you have this much money, the idea isn't just to randomly put it out so it goes equally to everybody. What has to be looked at is where the need is, and the need has to address, first of all, public safety, and then officer safety. Once those two are addressed, let's look at the other programs that we can put out there, but those are the first two that we need.

We are a public service. That means service to the public, but if we don't have those numbers, we can't give it. It has cost me members. I've burnt out my members. In the last year and a half, the RCMP has recruited six of my officers away from me because my officers were worn out. They never got time off. If they went home on their time off, they were called back to work on one of these calls or to back up that single member who was working. They just said their family life wasn't there and they were worn out. They said they would go work for somebody else so that when they're off duty, they're off duty.

I can fix my situation. Give me four more policemen and I can solve all my problems. That's $800,000 a year, and then I can solve my problems and put 24-hour policing, plus extra programs, into my police service.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I'm from B.C., and one of the things that the RCMP in my riding has challenges with is enforcing various statutes and regulations, and of course the bylaws or laws in first nations communities.

Do you guys face similar challenges?

[Chief Dale Cox]

We face challenges with all charges. I've had to sit down—especially every two years when we have a new election and we have a new chief and council members—to explain things to them, to explain how the law works. It's not to say we can't do it, but what our challenges are.

Once they get a grasp on that, then it's about how we work together to get where we need to go. Where we need to go doesn't necessarily mean enforcement and charging people. It means getting resolution.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thanks, Chief Cox.

That brings us to time. We'll go now to the five-minute round of questions.

Mr. Schmale, please go ahead.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Witnesses, thank you very much for your testimony here today.

I'll pick up with Chief Cox, if I could.

Chief, where does your police service overlap with that of any provincial service—maybe the RCMP in Alberta—or that kind of thing?

[Chief Dale Cox]

The RCMP are our neighbours in all our non-indigenous communities around us, so we share the highway with three different RCMP detachments. We have a very good working relationship at the frontline level. We have a gentleman's agreement among all the detachment commanders of those three detachments and my police service. We're all on the same radio system, and when there is a call for emergency service and somebody's life is in danger, it doesn't matter what colour the stripe is on your uniform: That police officer will get there and preserve safety until the police service of jurisdiction gets there. We work very well together in those areas.

However, in my first nation area, the first nations come to me. They're very much aware if the RCMP comes into their nations. It's from a history of not good relationships with the RCMP that they come to me. I'll get a phone call at my office, asking “Why are the RCMP on our nation?” Then we'll explain where it is.

The RCMP understand that first nations have said they want their own police service, so that's who should be there. They want it resourced so that it can do all the jobs, but right now I have to call on the RCMP for specialized services, in some cases for homicides.

I had a fatal hit and run. It took eight hours for the RCMP to get here. Those are areas that we need to expand on, but on the front line, the day-to-day work, our officers and the RCMP back each other up and support each other as best we can.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Okay. If I could, let's talk about the relationship you have with the first nations.

Do you have a local police board with representation from the communities?

[Chief Dale Cox]

Yes. Our police service has primary jurisdiction on five separate first nations within our area. Each of those nations has assigned a police commission member. They have a person on that commission who is not an elected official, who sits on the police commission and has oversight and governance of our police service to follow the agreement, meet the Alberta Police Act and the Alberta policing standards, and hold the chief of police to account to make sure those things are being done.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Is your department, or any in the surrounding area, using any restorative justice initiatives in your practice?

[Chief Dale Cox]

Oh, my goodness, this has been a bone of contention.

Funding for the restorative justice program was put under the jurisdiction of the board of chiefs. Unfortunately, the board of chiefs has enough other things to do so and isn't able to oversee it. In the 12 years that we've been here, we've been through nine different restorative justice directors. All of it has failed, and it comes from a lack of understanding of what the restorative justice process is about and having skilled and qualified people to fill those roles.

From the policing side, we've led that charge to try to get it up there because it is a valuable asset and is going to help us resolve matters much more quickly and keep indigenous people out of the corrections system, but we need the justice side to be on it. It's part of the justice system. It's not part of the police system. I would like to see the justice system step up in the province, or even federally, and give proper training and proper direction to these people and then screen them to do the job that we need to do.

Our police officers and our communities are screaming for this service, and we can't get it.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I like what you said about the root causes and fixing it and helping those communities.

You just mentioned one about the justice system. How else would you fix this?

You said there are some problems. How would you fix that?

[Chief Dale Cox]

I would like to see, at the very least, provincial policy and standards for what the restorative justice system will do and can do, and an accounting and auditing for it to show that it is meeting those standards, as well as proper training, assessment and evaluation on a regular basis of the people who are there, and possibly even building to credentials for people to fill a restorative justice position.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I know you just mentioned that resources are tight, as they are. If you have time, can you talk about whether you are using a community liaison officer, or if you had funding, would you use that?

You said with $800,000 you could solve some problems. Would it include a community liaison officer, if you don't already have one?

[Chief Dale Cox]

The province does fund us for a crime prevention worker, who is basically a community liaison. That's a civilian person. We don't need a badge-packing, gun-toting person. They go out, set up our meetings and do a lot of stuff. We put out our monthly newsletter that goes to all the nations, and it talks about what's going on. In our newsletter, we've just started adding our new cadets who are in training, to introduce them.

We also need the community mobilization hub program rolled out. We're going to prevent crime instead of solve it, and that's where we should be going.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thanks very much.

Ms. Zann, you have five minutes.

[Lenore Zann, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you so much for the testimony so far. This has been extremely interesting.

I do have a question for the SQ regarding the Viens commission.

In September of 2019, the Viens commission released its final report. The commission was formed in reaction to allegations from 10 indigenous women of abuse by Sûreté de Québec police officers assigned to Val-d'Or between 2002 and 2015. That commission's report was put forward with 142 calls for action.

Could witnesses please provide the committee with a progress report on implementation of the Viens commission's recommendations? For example, has there been a review of the ethics complaint process?

My next question is with regard to call for action number 37, which asks that a mixed intervention patrol—police officers and community workers—be set up for vulnerable persons, both in urban environments and in first nations and Inuit communities. Could you please give us an update on how that is going?

Anybody from the SQ can answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Ms. Guay, would you like to answer the question?

[Marie-Hélène Guay]

Yes, we have focused our efforts on the joint patrol teams of workers and police officers, as I mentioned earlier.

Over the next three years, four new teams will be deployed to respond to these vulnerable people who are in need or who need to be referred to the appropriate resources. The joint indigenous community policing station was also established with the same idea in mind. Captain Durant may be able to give you more details on the responses in Val-d'Or.

[Robert Durant]

That is exactly the model we are advocating. Right now, we have police officers and community workers at the PPCMA and they patrol together in the vehicles. Not only do we have community workers, but we also have patrol officers from other indigenous communities, including the Anishinaabe policewoman from Pikogan. The policewoman was able to patrol in her own uniform, not that of the Sûreté du Québec, in one of our vehicles, a minivan that is not identified with the Sûreté du Québec colours. This vehicle is really assigned to the ÉMIPIC for PPCMA responses.

That is the model we in the PPCMA use in the streets of Val-d'Or. We also respond periodically in certain communities to support their patrol officers in case of need. For example, we have gone to the communities of Kitcisakik and Pikogan on several occasions to lend a hand during responses and to share our knowledge and police practices.

[Marie-Hélène Guay]

One of the major recommendations of the Viens Commission was to educate our police officers on indigenous realities. We have therefore established an ongoing program of training.

As soon as they join the Sûreté du Québec, new recruits must follow a five-step training program. This training is part of their onboarding process at the Sûreté du Québec.

The first step consists of a meeting with people from my unit, who give them a presentation on the indigenous communities. It must be said that not all officers have had the opportunity to work with first nations peoples. So this is the first step in introducing them to indigenous culture.

The second step is an online training on indigenous realities. It is mandatory for all new recruits and all members of the Sûreté du Québec, police officers or civilians.

The third step is when the recruits arrive at the police station where they are assigned. They are then immersed on site, in a nearby indigenous community. The liaison officer from my office meets the recruits and takes them in a patrol vehicle. The officer introduces the recruits to the key players in the community—the band council members, the people from the clinics, the social workers or anyone else. The goal of this exercise is once again to help the recruits become very familiar with the indigenous realities, which will help them to respond in a more culturally safe manner.

This is followed by two days of more technical training on cultural safety and a number of first nations concepts. The residential school part of the training lasts one day. On the second day, a worker from a community comes to talk about their reality and the way they perceive police services in order to help our recruits understand how to improve their practice.

The last step includes more specific training depending on where the officer is stationed. For example, it could be about the realities of indigenous women. We are in the process of developing that training, which will be launched across the Sûreté du Québec. We are also working on implementing training on the indigenous realities in urban areas. We have been focusing more and more on this in recent years.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

I'll have to stop you there. I'm sorry about that. We're over time.

[Lenore Zann, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you.

Thank you.