Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
Thank you for inviting me to appear before the committee today.
I am Captain Marie-Hélène Guay, the officer in charge of the Municipal and Indigenous Community Relations Services, at the Sûreté du Québec.
I will introduce the police services offered by the Sûreté du Québec in indigenous communities. I will also tell you about our good practices.
Quebec has 55 indigenous communities, 44 of which are served by the 22 indigenous police forces. The Sûreté du Québec provides services to 11 indigenous communities. Indigenous communities receive the same services as other municipalities and communities served by the Sûreté du Québec. The services provided to indigenous communities are based on the principles of community policing.
It is important to note that seven communities have a public safety committee. The committees help identify issues and determine public safety priorities. They also make recommendations to the band councils in the communities.
As a national police force, the Sûreté du Québec has a role to play in communities that have their own police forces. Its role is essentially to assist the indigenous police forces in a number of ways, such as operations, investigations, specialized services, and administrative or management support.
On average, the Sûreté du Québec receives more than 500 requests for assistance per year. It is important to note that the Sûreté du Québec and the indigenous police forces regularly co-operate on the various operations under way in terms of road safety, investigations, intelligence and surveillance activities.
As for the sharing of responsibilities within the Sûreté du Québec, strategic coordination and partnerships are the responsibility of the indigenous community relations division. The division is composed of 12 indigenous liaison officers, deployed across Quebec by nations. Some of the indigenous liaison officers also work in urban areas. Their role is to develop and maintain ties with elected and non-elected members of the communities, to identify the public safety needs of the communities and to respond to them with tailored solutions or programs, to advise the managers of the Sûreté du Québec and to focus their actions in the indigenous environment and, of course, to act as facilitators during events or operations.
Operational coordination is the responsibility of another unit, the emergency measures unit. This type of coordination takes place during the deployment of special operations, situations or conflicts, and in the assistance provided to indigenous police forces.
It is important to note that services for the 11 indigenous communities we police are provided by the local police stations.
Let me now tell you about the services provided to indigenous people outside communities. As you know, from a cultural safety perspective, many cities have a strong indigenous presence and many of them are served by the Sûreté du Québec. These cities have the services of urban indigenous liaison officers who, along with other members of the Sûreté du Québec, co-operate on a regular basis with the indigenous friendship centres in those cities. The Sûreté also sits on the local urban service accessibility tables for indigenous people.
We are also in the process of creating joint teams called ÉMIPIC, or joint response teams of police officers and community workers. Two of those teams are already in place in our territory.
In the next three years, we also plan to create four other teams. The teams of police officers and community workers are the avenue of choice for responses to people in vulnerable situations.
We also have the joint indigenous community police station (PPCMA) in Val-d'Or. My colleague Captain Durant will tell you about this great initiative.