Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 13th, 2021

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for appearing at our committee today. I appreciate your testimony.

This 1996 document has really piqued my interest. We'll have to get our hands on that. I'm sure the clerk will be able to dig it up. If we can't do that, then I guess our individual offices will have to work on that as well.

That's unless you have a copy of it, Mr. Falconer.

[Julian Falconer]

Yes. The package, including the 1996 policy, has been sent to Mr. Clerk. We got an acknowledgement. I see in an email that it's been received. It was sent to you today in the last hour and a half.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Then I'm sure it will be in my inbox shortly. I appreciate that.

It's been fascinating to see as we move across the country, starting out on the west coast and now moving to Ontario, that every jurisdiction, every province, is different. Your testimony is proving that again today. It seems interesting that you are well integrated with the provincial system in terms of prosecution. Where I am from, we have an indigenous police service, and yet they're unable to get prosecution to happen. Who is going to pay for that, and where is the jurisdiction, particularly when it comes to band council laws?

I'm wondering if both of you could flesh that out a little bit. How does that work in your area? Are there things like nation or band tribunals or courts that you can appeal to, or is that an option that you would suggest?

I'll start with Mr. Falconer and then go to Mr. Morrison.

[Julian Falconer]

First of all, I want to be clear about the initiative that Chief Morrison has led and that has caught on beyond his territory. That's the idea of these BCRs that combine assertions of inherent jurisdiction in the context of the pandemic but incorporate provincial laws around trespass and the emergency management laws that the Ontario provincial government ordered. These are unique. There is still a struggle to even get them to catch on across NAN territory.

So the integration we're talking about...and the attorney general's agreement, which is part of the material, to prosecute these is brand new. I wouldn't describe us as having been successful. Historically, what's happened is that the pandemic has created that initiative. I think that is incredibly important momentum to say that this is a crisis and we expect you to support us.

I also would observe this. The shock is that it's not just the machinery of government that makes the issue of recognizing indigenous law challenging. Chief Morrison and I were chatting about this. I can tell you that law firms are used to a tool box, the Indian Act tool box. If it's not in the tool box they historically have used, they look at it with suspicion and don't want to help indigenous people go forward. I don't mean to sound like a competitive, nasty guy. I am simply trying to tell you that the challenge comes from all quarters. That Indian Act thinking is ingrained in all of us.

I'll leave Chief Morrison to answer you as well, but I do say that this is new. What we're pushing is pushing because of the pandemic, in part.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

To sum up the thought, if it doesn't say that you can't do it, that's not allowing that you can't do it kind of thing, right?

[Julian Falconer]

That's true, and I should draw something to your attention, because it just came out in February of this year. To be honest, I think it speaks to what Chief Morrison said.

It's a quote from a judgment involving Iskatewizaagegan, so Shoal Lake No. 39 versus Winnipeg. Winnipeg's sole source of drinking water is my client Shoal Lake, since 1913, 100 million gallons a day.

This is what a judge said. It's one paragraph. I promise this won't take long. He recognized the role of indigenous law. I think you will be fascinated by this. It's paragraph 48 of a February judgment, just this February:

The law that governs the relationship between Canada and Aboriginal peoples of Canada is what is now known as Aboriginal law. Indigenous law is not the same as Aboriginal law. Both before and after the arrival of European settlers, the Aboriginal peoples in North America had well-developed civilizations that had legal systems and legal customs. Those discrete legal systems are the source of Indigenous law.

We will make sure we get you that passage, but it's exactly what Chief Morrison was talking about before, and it reflects a Superior Court Judge, Justice Perell, who has gone to the next level. We all have to get there, right?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

I think that's just about time, Arnold.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Pam Damoff, you have five minutes.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

Mr. Falconer, it's nice to see you again. You appeared at the public safety committee when we were studying racism in policing.

Chief Morrison, I want to commend you and the NAN police service for the tremendous work you do. You really are an example for the entire country.

By your description of the challenges you have, I know you have made a case for validating why Minister Blair has been tasked with making policing an essential service, in collaboration with Minister Miller. However, you're right; it's not going to happen overnight.

You're also president of the Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario. This gets complicated in the jurisdiction between federal and provincial. The tripartite agreement, if I'm not mistaken, is 52% federal funding and 48% provincial funding.

We will use Ontario as an example. We need to get Ontario at the table. In your role as president of the police chiefs, are there conversations going on right now with the federal and provincial governments on how we can modernize these agreements?

[Chief Roland Morrison]

Yes. We have ongoing discussions with the IPCO entity. We have ongoing discussions with both levels of government, and we're able to bring forward items of concern and things that we feel are necessary to address.

As an example, right now, with the modernization of policing here in the province of Ontario, Six Nations Police Service and Akwesasne are using a reporting system that I guess is called the Interpol system.

In order to look at what MAG is doing in terms of its court systems, police services have to be on the records management system called Niche. Everything is flowing through Niche. However, Six Nations and Akwesasne will not be able to have this modernization for their service, because, like Julian said earlier, it's, “Here's your cheque. This is what you're getting for your agreement.” To modernize, it's going to cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The problem is—

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

There's no money for them to do it.

[Chief Roland Morrison]

Exactly. Their budgets are set.

Here in the province of Ontario, the provincial government has been very, very co-operative in terms of making sure that we have access to the financial resources to make these changes. The discussions with Ontario have been very positive.

I would love to say that—

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Some of that was because you were so adamant, though. You had people die in custody because you didn't have a proper place to put them.

If you hadn't sort of drawn a line in the sand—and Mr. Falconer described it earlier—you wouldn't be in the position you were.... You basically said you were not going to have this happen to your citizens any longer, right?

[Chief Roland Morrison]

Yes.

When you look at the death of Ricardo Wesley and Jamie Goodwin in Kashechewan in 2006, if we didn't have that happen, if we didn't have that tragedy, what improvements would have occurred in the Nishnawbe Aski Nation for policing?

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

What a horrible situation to be in, though, that two people had to die in order to make change.

I know my colleague, Dr. Powlowski, wants to ask a question, because the NAN is very near and dear to his heart.

Marcus, I'm going to turn it over to you.

Thank you, Chief Morrison and Mr. Falconer.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Falconer and Chief Morrison, you talked to the limitations in the services that the Nishnawbe Aski Police Service have because of the restrictions in the terms and conditions under the first nations policing program.

You also mentioned there's an upcoming amendment to, I guess, the Ontario Police Services Act which would allow you to become a police force like other police forces. Would this get rid of these limitations which are preventing you from accessing the same level of service as the Thunder Bay Police Service? Is this the solution for you guys?

[Chief Roland Morrison]

Yes, absolutely. There are adequacy standards under the legislation, within the province of Ontario, so if we don't meet the standards, there is an avenue for us to make an application to receive funding to bring us up to the standard.

That is why, when you look at the legislation here in Ontario, which we've been told is going to be ready in January 2022, we are going to be making a submission to opt in under the legislation, so we can get the resources to have a proper police service that delivers all the service requirements for the Nishnawbe Aski Nation people, because they deserve it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you.

The Ontario Police Services Act calls for adequate and effective policing.

We'll now go to Madam Bérubé for two and a half minutes.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We're talking about the budget. The government proposed $860 million over five years and $145 million thereafter.

Are you satisfied with the budget?

Will it address some of the financial problems you were talking about earlier?

[Chief Roland Morrison]

When you have money set aside for first nations policing, and you look at all the policing services across Canada, we have to compete with the respective indigenous services for this money. When you look at the province of Ontario and here in northwestern Ontario, you have the Lac Seul Police Service. It is an 11 member police service. The distribution of money is not going to be fair. It should be fair. It should ensure that each police service has the same service delivery to ensure that it's meeting the needs of its people.

As grateful as we are for the money, when we look at legislation, we should be able to have this money within our police service to deliver programs, and that should come through the legislation. Yet, when you look at what's being provided, we are still having to compete with each other in a divisive manner to access funding.

Today, I informed the NAN chiefs—we have a call every two weeks—about the particulars of this funding that was announced, and that communities need to access programming as well to basically secure themselves, to have security programs for their communities to supplement and assist policing.

It shouldn't be that way, but that's what communities have to do. They have peacekeepers, because we don't have adequate funding to employ a lot of officers in many of our communities.

This is a great budget. It's going to improve our communities; however, it needs to be sustainable. When you look at it, it's only for five years, and then what?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thanks, Chief.

The final intervention will be from Ms. Blaney.

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

Thank you, Chair.

My question is for Chief Morrison.

You talked about the impacts on the reality of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, because of the lack of funding. I just can't help but tie that in with the limited resources you have for victim services. I'm wondering if you can talk about that, and the cultural responsiveness that you must have versus an outside police force.

[Chief Roland Morrison]

When you look at our police service and you look at the Nishnawbe Aski Nation territory in our northwest area, we have the Ojibway culture. In our more centralized area north of Thunder Bay and in between James Bay, we have the Oji-Cree culture. Then you have the Muskego Cree on the east coast of James Bay. These are different cultures, different values and traditions.

What we did with the survivor assistance support program was we looked at getting people who are from our communities, who speak the languages and who can work with our victims. We advertised for social workers. Because of the trauma that they're already facing, do they want to continue to speak to a police officer? What we did was creative. We looked at employing social workers to work directly with our victims.

Unfortunately, as beneficial as.... We were happy to get the funding, but that funding that we had was only for one year, so we have a program for one year to help our victims, and then we're going to have to reapply. It's sad. It's a sad state when that has to happen, especially when you look at the recommendations coming out of the inquiry and the commitment to ensure there is service delivery to meet the needs, yet for a police service servicing 34 communities, we got funding for three people for a population of nearly 40,000. It's not hitting the mark. That's way off.

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

After a year, it's not going to be fixed, I would assume.