Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 19th, 2025

[Chief James Killeen]

We have not seen a major impact from that report. The UCCM doesn't even have a human trafficking unit. A lot of the women who end up missing from our communities are being human trafficked. For those who are not aware of what a human-trafficking unit is and the intricacies of those units, when you're dealing with victims of human trafficking, you're dealing with the ultimate in a victim. They are sexually assaulted, financially assaulted and physically assaulted—every kind of assault you can think of—and it goes on for years. When those victims are unable to co-operate—and a lot of them are unable to co-operate—the reason is that they are mentally and physically controlled by their perpetrators.

I used to run a human-trafficking unit. I was the head of it in Sudbury, and it was a successful human-trafficking unit. It would be very shocking for people to understand, but Sudbury had one of the most successful units. We had, I think, five convictions. It doesn't sound like a lot, but to get someone to come on side and be able to testify.... We had people who would be on side and give their statement, and then they would show up in court, see their perpetrator and turn and run. You can't get upset with that. It's absolutely terrifying. Being the victim of a one-time, one-moment sexual assault is horrific, but it's that one moment, and then they are able to hopefully move on from that.

A victim of human trafficking is victimized over years. We, in our place, want a human-trafficking unit that concentrates specifically on that. We are aware of a number of women who have gone missing who we would want to be able to concentrate on and to go and work with to convince them to come back to their home communities and to convince them to try to get out of that lifestyle. We would want to be able to give them what they need in order to survive outside of that violent relationship that exists with their trafficker.

We have not seen a huge increase in those recommendations at the UCCM. I can't speak for the other police services, but I don't think they have specific and concentrated human-trafficking units. It would make a massive difference in our community.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much for that.

Now we have Sébastien for two and a half minutes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Skye, I know you're interested in the issue of mental health, of course. Officer mental health is related to broader issues, including recognition of law enforcement authorities.

How could recognizing first nations policing as an essential service transform officers' working conditions and lead to positive mental health and public safety outcomes in your communities?

[Chief Jeff Skye]

Keep in mind that this is very important. Since the first nations policing program was started in the early 1990s, there's been little investment in the policing program. I call it a resource deficit over 30 years. Everything that we do affects everything regarding the safety of our communities because the lack of investing—or, I would call it, the purposely not investing—in our policing services and safety in our communities....

We get what goes on with other services outside of first nations policing—the amount of resources they're given, the funding they're given. We have been studied in almost every category you can think of, and we're the highest in almost everything. When it comes to the effects of mental health not only in our communities but also in the police officers.... They're working extraordinary hours right from the start of their careers, with no end in sight, looking and hoping that someday there will be some adequate resources and investments.

One day, I'm going to retire soon, but I would like this resource deficit to be fixed—and not over another 30 years but hopefully in five to 10 years, maybe—so that there are some investments. It's very discouraging. The budget that was just passed doesn't mention first nations policing at all. Maybe there will be some mention of it in the spring. It's very difficult. We work with what we have. With our funding shortfalls, we do our best to provide benefits that address mental health. We rely heavily on our culture, our medicines from our communities, because there's no cost. To go to doctors.... It's very difficult to find a doctor right now in a first nation community.

The challenges are always there. We do the best we can to make it work, but we can't continue to sustain that forever.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I want to acknowledge the leadership you've shown on this issue by submitting your very interesting report to the committee. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you.

Now we have William for five minutes.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you, gentlemen, for appearing before us.

Quite often when I go around my areas, I get to say I have one of the largest ridings in Alberta. This committee actually has several other guys who have much larger ridings than mine, so we're in a pretty good company here when we say that we represent a large chunk of rural Canada.

Chief Liu, could you tell me more about response times and funding? You started talking about how response times are much longer. Can you talk to us a little bit about how that shows a difference between rural areas versus cities in terms of funding per capita or per police officer?

[Kai Liu]

In the Ontario Provincial Police, which also includes rural policing, their funding model is based on response time, the number of calls and the distance, whereas in first nation policing, the number of officers and civilian staff is arbitrary. It is based on an arbitrary number that is given to first nation police services. There is no real study, with the exception of three police services that Public Safety Canada is under a court injunction to negotiate funding with. Those three services are the Treaty Three Police Service, UCCM and the Anishinabek Police Service. Those three services, because their funding cut off, went to the Federal Court. At the Federal Court, Justice Gascon ruled that Public Safety Canada had to continue negotiating in good faith with those three services.

Right across the country, the numbers are arbitrary. When they're arbitrary, it is not like a municipal service. When I was chief of police of two municipal services, I could come back to the police services board and justify why I needed annual budget increases, and it would be negotiated or discussed with the board. Ultimately, there was legislation that protected the police service and allowed arbitration to occur here in the province of Ontario, whereas that does not occur in first nation policing.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

In my riding, pretty much all of my area is policed by the RCMP instead of any first nations police.

I'm wondering if you could tell me about the communications between them. Is there co-operation amongst them when they look at trying to get funding for those among the different areas, or is it almost always a one-on-one situation, with each nation begging on their own?

[Kai Liu]

One of the driving factors of the Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario forming in August 2019 was simply the negotiating tactics of Public Safety Canada. They would negotiate with one self-administered police service and then we would be told, “Don't tell the others what you were getting.” We would find out in meetings in the back rooms that one service got more or less than the other. In the province of Ontario, that was the driving factor for the police chiefs to get together. They formed the association and began sharing amongst themselves, which cut into Public Safety Canada's negotiation tactics of dividing and conquering.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you.

Chief Montour, you mentioned the problems with the illegal guns coming through mostly from the U.S. I'm assuming you are saying that the new confiscation scheme is not going to help deal with any of the crimes committed with guns in your area. Can you elaborate on what would help for you?

[Chief Darren Montour]

Really, we wouldn't have the time or the resources to get involved with that buyback program that's being proposed by the current government. Like I said earlier, we're busy trying to keep this community safe with the influx of guns being smuggled across the border. Like my colleague, Chief Skye, who is a hunter, I'm a hunter. We're legal gun owners. I see this time and time again, and I hear it from my friends who are hunters, especially in indigenous communities. That's a way of life for us. Why is the gun owner always the one being penalized? Penalize the bad guys smuggling them. The mandatory minimums for weapons trafficking have been revoked.

I know there's work being done now to enhance the border for fentanyl, but that can also include weapons smuggling, because, like I said earlier, with these gang members coming in from the GTA, we're getting guns coming in that are ghost guns. They're 3-D printed. We're getting guns with the serial numbers scratched off. Before, when we would do a search warrant at a drug house, we'd get a sawed-off shotgun someone used for squirrel hunting a few years prior. Now, it's handguns; it's high-powered automatic guns that are smuggled.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much, Chief.

This draws us toward the end, a little over that timing.

Before we close, I'm exercising the chair's discretion to ask a question in the last spot belonging to the Liberals.

I was listening to this excellent testimony and questions. I've been to the APS badge ceremonies and award ceremonies. They're great. I've seen indigenous officers, and then I've seen non-indigenous officers.

You mentioned they're being trained at the Ontario college. What kind of extra training do the non-indigenous, if any, get there, or what do you do to augment that for your new officer hires?

[Chief Jeff Skye]

We do our best, based on our funding, to provide the best training that is available based on our budget. Most of the training is held by the Ontario Police College. We try to heavily invest as best we can. My service will send as many people as we can to the Ontario Police College just to get the qualifications to investigate major crimes, especially. We do everything we can and focus on our training as best we can to send them across the province, because the Ontario Police College has training across the province of Ontario. Some of the hardship in my communities is getting to Aylmer. We have hosted, in some of our detachment areas, the training provided by the Ontario Police College. I'm so, so happy they're able to come to our communities to do that. I am very grateful for that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much, and thank you for that testimony today. You mentioned a gap in funding, if you will, human resources-wise, but also facility-wise. Would you please provide that gap analysis to our analyst so we can take a look at it as well? I'm sure it's quite lengthy, and we don't have the time to delve into it this evening. Chi-miigwech.

That brings us to the end.

I want to thank everyone online as well as everyone in the room. Again, chi-miigwech.

We will suspend to set up our next panel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Welcome back.

We've had a few technical issues today on the Hill. We continue to deal with those, so we will roll with things. I appreciate the committee's understanding. The interpretation isn't working well. We will not roll unless the interpretation online works for the interpreters here. That's just what we're doing. It's a technical issue.

We have with us, in person, David Chartrand, president, national government of the Red River Métis, from the Manitoba Métis Federation.

Welcome, David. You have five minutes, and then we'll go to the people online.

If the interpretation isn't working, unfortunately, we cannot hear that testimony and we'll have to jig that.

Go ahead, David.

[David Chartrand, President, National Government of the Red River Métis, Manitoba Métis Federation]

Thank you very much, Terry.

Let me start off by saying good evening to all at the INAN committee. Thank you for inviting me to appear today to discuss indigenous policing from the Red River Métis perspective. It is a privilege to speak on an issue that is so critical to the safety and sovereignty of our communities.

For generations, our people have upheld our own system of governance, justice and collective responsibility. As Louis Riel, the father of Manitoba, said:

When the Government of Canada presented itself at our doors it found us at peace. It found that the Métis people of the North-West could not only live well without it...but that it had a government of its own, free, peaceful, well-functioning, contributing to the work of civilization.... It was a government with an organized constitution, whose jurisdiction was all the more legitimate and worthy of respect, because it was exercised over a country that belonged to it.

We have long known how to protect our families through community-driven laws that govern our people and enforce consequences. The Prairies were not the Wild West. We had our own form of policing rooted in respect and infused with our cultural values. Public safety has been at the top of our mind for over 200 years, and our efforts to be included are not new. It is a continuation of a long legacy. Despite this, we are never included in Canada's strategy to reform indigenous policing, yet our villages have the exact same challenges as our first nation relatives. However, we have fewer services and resources and often none at all in our villages. For us, this gap deeply impacts our communities.

We currently lack a consistent presence that collaborates with local service providers, provides mental health and addictions support and has the ability and means to prevent harm, before it happens, through de-escalation and trauma response. Instead, we have responders who come into our community only when there are emergencies and do not have a strong sense of who we are, as they are from one detachment—I'm talking the RCMP—that was given the impossible task of serving 10 communities. This is a reactive approach focused on responding to emergencies, rather than a proactive approach that focuses on preventing emergencies and making our seniors, elders and our other vulnerable citizens feel safe in their own community. It is not the fault of the police. This is a system we have been forced into.

These issues are further worsened by the need for bail reform and the revolving door of repeat offenders returning to our community. This is why we look forward to the passing of Bill C-14.

For too long, the safety of our nation has relied on systems that were not designed for us and do not understand our realities, histories and unique approach to community safety. Our people deserve policing that reflects our language, families and values. They also deserve a strategy that will help prevent harm before it happens, one in which they feel safe, their rights are upheld and they can trust those who are serving in their communities.

Through our Red River Métis justice strategy and the recently published indigenous justice strategy process, we have emphasized the dire need for Red River Métis-specific public safety in our villages. Though these strategies did not go far enough, they need to be used as a starting point.

This is my recommendation to this committee. There must be a Red River Métis-specific indigenous policing plan. There are hundreds of villages, and there is no commitment to a Red River Métis-specific plan. There is no strategy or commitment to permanent change but, rather, the illusion of inclusion. They ask us to sit on boards and receive bulletins rather than driving real reform.

This would require long-term, stable and flexible funding, as well as commitments from all jurisdictions to collaborate and implement a new pathway for Red River Métis policing. We know this is a complex endeavour, but it is one we are ready for. We already have our own laws. We have the Métis laws of the harvest and, in the near future, we'll have our own child and family services laws as well as other laws that will follow. However, instead of being able to properly enforce them, we will need to rely on existing colonial entities to enforce our laws. This is not self-government in action. This denies us from truly reaching our potential.

We owe it to our ancestors to follow their lead. We also owe it to our future generations to ensure that our families grow up in a safe community that understands, respects and cares for them. In order for progressive change to reach an ultimate objective, it will take an inclusionary platform in which we are not looking in through the window but are meaningful partners.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much, President Chartrand.

We're still testing the folks online, and we're still waiting for them to get a green light from our interpreters.

We do have Chief Officer Deborah Doss-Cody from the Stl'atl'imx Tribal Police Service.

Thank you very much for your patience. Please go ahead.

[Chief Deborah Doss-Cody, Chief Officer, Stl'atl'imx Tribal Police Service]

Good evening, everyone.

[Witness spoke in St’at’imcets and provided the following translation:]

Hello everyone. My name is “Dee” Deborah Doss-Cody. Malee is my Indigenous name. I am from the community of Xaxli'p, from the St’at’imc Nation territory. My parents are “Tuffy” Nels Doss and Debbie Mitchell from Xaxlip. My grandmothers are Bertha Bob and Maudie James-Sheep from Xaxli'p. My grandfathers are Pete Louie Bob and Phillip Doss from Xaxli'p.

[English]

I am Deborah Doss-Cody. I am from Fountain of Lillooet of the Stl'atl'imx territory. I just introduced my parents and grandparents to you so that if I have any relatives in your community, you will know who they are, and you will know my bloodline. That is a traditional way of introduction in the Stl'atl'imx territory. I am coming to you today from T'it'q'et, Lillooet, British Columbia. I serve with the Stl'atl'imx Tribal Police Service. I have been a police officer for 36 years and a chief of police for 13 years.

I am here to discuss the Stl'atl'imx Tribal Police Service, the complexities and the challenges in relation to funding, and to discuss what is going on with the Stl'atl'imx Tribal Police Service and with indigenous policing.

On some of the challenges we face, you have heard about being deemed an essential service, which the Stl'atl'imx Tribal Police Service or any other stand-alone tribal police service has not been deemed. Not being deemed an essential service creates doubt, and being deemed an essential service would remove that doubt for our officers and their future. It makes it very challenging when you get a funding agreement, and after five or 10 years, there is no job security. It creates problems. It creates challenges for recruiting and retention.

In 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told first nations chiefs that the government would introduce legislation to make policing in their communities an essential service. He said, “We will accelerate work on first nations policing, including legislating it as an essential service, while expanding the number of communities served and supporting community safety and well-being projects.” No timeline was given. It is now November 19, 2025, and stand-alone indigenous police services are still not deemed an essential service.

In March 2020, we had the COVID pandemic. The World Health Organization declared the pandemic, which ended on May 5, 2023. During the pandemic, liquor stores in British Columbia were deemed essential due to their critical role in providing cannabis and alcohol to the public. They were deemed essential to support the public and to ensure that the public would have access to these things. We are a police service that provides public safety. We have not been deemed essential, yet we can deem liquor and cannabis essential to a province when there's a pandemic.

There are issues that are unique to STPS retention. In British Columbia, the Surrey Police Service and the Vancouver Police Department present stiff recruiting competition, including signing bonuses and reimbursement of moving costs. With the Surrey Police Service, experienced constables can receive up to $25,000 as a signing bonus. Members who lateral in to Surrey could receive up to $20,000 for a signing bonus. There's also a $10,000 signing bonus for other experienced frontline constables and $15,000 for qualified cybercrime investigators. There are more opportunities for a greater variety of work experience, such as promotion and a better lifestyle. An example is unfettered time off.

STPS members are constantly on call and are forced to work large amounts of overtime due to lack of resources. Currently, the STPS has 14 officers, and four of them are off for various reasons, whether it's a WorkSafeBC issue or for injury. We do have an MOU with the RCMP who provide backup service. However, that MOU is still in progress, and their resources are stretched thin as well.

There's a reliance on each other for backup. This unfettered time and the on call leads to low morale and high stress levels because our officers are not dealing with calls for service in relation to barking dogs. We're dealing with sex assaults and domestic violence. We're dealing with files that are serious in nature.

STPS members are highly sought after and are heavily recruited. They meet the same policing standards as any other municipal police officer in the province of British Columbia. They receive their training at the Justice Institute British Columbia, which is the same as for any other municipal officer.

We currently have a long-term, 10-year funding agreement, but this does not permit for flexible adjustments despite our quick-changing environment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much. You'll be able to speak some more through the questioning, but we're at the five-minute mark.

We're going to go from you, Deborah, to Sandra and have Sandra's mic tested.

[Chief Deborah Doss-Cody]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much.

Sandra, could you say a few words for interpretation, please.

[Sandra DeLaronde, Project Lead, Gi-Ganawenima'Anaanig #231 Implementation Committee (Manitoba)]

Good afternoon. I'm hoping this is okay for interpretation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Keep talking.