Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 24th, 2025

[Lyle Herman]

Yes. When I say “repeat offenders”, I guess it's the severity of the crimes they're repeating. I have this one individual who racked up almost 30 charges. As I say this, it's a very select few causing the problems. When that one particular individual was flown out because a citizen took matters into his own hands and then the other one left the community for a few days, the crime rate of repeats dropped.

The RCMP officers know who it is and we as community members know, but at some point, how many charges do they have to rack up to get to there? I used to sleep well. Now, for every little sound I hear, I have to constantly get up to check it. Having an alarm system just isn't adequate. I had two houses that I watched over for the summer. I even had to sleep there. I had dogs there, which helped a bit. I'm saying that in each community we don't all have good neighbours who will take care of one another. We have busy lives and whatnot. That's what I mean.

I don't know what kind of law they have to break. These are the repeat offenders I'm talking about. Are B and Es not severe enough? I don't know.

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

You also mentioned the fact that a lot of your communities are remote or isolated, and when there's a crisis, when seconds count and help is minutes or hours away, you mentioned the ability to reasonably protect their homes and themselves from any potential intruder, rather than what was mentioned in the news not too long ago in Toronto, where basically it was just leave your car keys at the door along with a glass of milk and some cookies for the criminals as they come in.

Maybe you can quickly expand on that. I might cut you off, because I have about a minute and I have to deal with some housekeeping.

[Lyle Herman]

Yes, there was a thought about that too. Of course, you never leave your belongings in the vehicle, but now criminals are breaking in anyway, so it's better to just leave your vehicle unlocked, so that when they open the door and look around, they'll see there's nothing there and will leave it alone.

We are hurting, because we have our vehicles smashed. Now they're drilling holes in our gas tanks. One individual stole a truck. Then the law says he was being charged, but it was for theft under $5,000. It was a brand new truck that was stolen. How is that under $5,000?

At this point I don't know what to do anymore. I have thought to myself that if I have to bear arms if somebody's trying to get into my home, then I'm going to do whatever I can. I don't want to, but I want to protect my own family.

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

Thank you, Mayor. I have to jump in, not that I want to cut you off, but because I think we're getting into something.

I just want to talk about my notice of motion.

It's some quick housekeeping, witnesses. We should be in and out of here really quickly.

This has to do with the study we're on. I believe it meets the criteria, Chair. I'll read it quickly. Maybe we can have a vote and get back to the round of questioning. I move:

That, in relation to the committee’s ongoing study on Indigenous Policing and Public Safety, and noting the release of the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report entitled “Overview of First Nations and Inuit police funding and spending” on Tuesday, November 25, 2025, the Parliamentary Budget Officer be invited to answer questions on Wednesday, November 26, 2025 for a minimum of one hour.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much. Is there any discussion?

(Motion agreed to)

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Our next questioner is Jaime.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso—Antigonish, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for their testimony. Being from a Mi'kmaq community, I know that difficult challenges brought the need for this study forward.

Chief North, I hear you loud and clear when you say that we need officers who speak our own languages to make our community safer. We've heard that from a lot of witnesses.

Mayor Herman, the discussion around how many break-ins have happened in these small communities without a significant police presence has been noted as well.

Chief Tsannie, I think you've expressed in real terms what we've been hearing when we're talking about some of the discussion points around RCMP enforcing our community, which is, “Why are they in our community if they don't want to work with us?”

The things we've heard thus far in this study as we come to a conclusion is that, when the RCMP are enforcing in the community, the community doesn't feel like the RCMP are working collaboratively with the leadership to get to solutions. Then, when we hear from indigenous police models, we hear that they're so underfunded that they're not able to provide the same services. We're stuck in this conundrum of how we create something with the indigenous police officers who we need enforcing in our communities with the capacity and resources that the RCMP have.

I'm wondering if there isn't a hybrid model that we could start looking at. How can our first nations community members police themselves with the capacity of the RCMP? I wonder if you have any solutions or recommendations that will help us when we make recommendations on the study on how to move forward to protect our communities.

Chief Tsannie, perhaps you could start and then maybe Sheila could comment.

[Vice-Chief Joseph Tsannie]

I do want to share that community safety is very important. When we found out about the stabbings in James Smith, we were already in discussions with public safety way before those events. When those stabbings happened, we needed to come up with options other than policing. I know that in a lot of our communities, when things go wrong, we point to the police. We'll say that the RCMP, the police service, are the ones that aren't doing this or that. We've done that. We've knocked on those doors, and we've made those complaints.

If you guys recall, there was a guy in Halifax who dressed up as an RCMP officer in an RCMP vehicle and went on a shooting rampage. It didn't have a good outcome. After that, I think there was a hearing. I found out that there was a community safety initiative in Halifax. There's an association right across Canada where they talk about good practices. How do we make our communities safe? What are some of the best practices that other communities are doing that we can implement in some of our communities? I reached out to the organization. There's REACH Edmonton.

Recently we found out about funding that's available for communities. It's about prevention before things happen. That is equally as important as policing. We brought them together. There was no indigenous model showing how to work with our communities. We are developing that model. The problem now is funding. Again, it's funding. We have a model. It's there, but how can we implement something in our communities when there's no backup in terms of finding out how to do that? The idea is there; the prevention piece is there. When you break the law, you deal with policing, but prevention is equally as important as policing in our community.

I believe it's a hybrid. I believe we have solutions. We have a model in terms of how to address some of these challenges in our first nations communities, but we need some backup to roll it out and to introduce it to a lot of our indigenous communities.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso—Antigonish, NS]

Sheila, do you want to chime in?

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Give a very quick response, please, as we're at the end.

[Sheila North]

Yes, absolutely.

I won't repeat everything that Vice-Chief Tsannie said, but I do agree that there should be an indigenous police force. We have enough retired former police members who could help in the development. The nations and the first nations leadership need to be involved, and even young people need to be involved in developing this system. Of course, that also means the funding needs to be there.

There's always competition for funding with the RCMP, the provincial police forces and even the safety officers, but we know that the safety officers, police and the style of indigenous policing that we have right now, like the TIPI we heard about earlier and first nations peacekeepers, work because they know our community. They know the languages and the struggles and they know the history.

Right now, there is a very targeted attack on first nations because we are vulnerable. We don't have the same security. We heard about airports not having the same security and about a massive amount of drugs coming into our nations. To me, this is foreign interference. This is definitely a description of that, because people are getting hurt. People are getting recruited, as we heard from Chief Yellowback earlier. People are being targeted through social media as well.

We are prime subjects for criminal organizations that are definitely being seen and felt in our communities, and that needs to stop with an increased presence of indigenous policing in our country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much.

Sébastien, it's over to you for two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am going to ask a brief question before moving my motion, which has been tabled.

Chief Herman, if I understood your remarks correctly, you think that a police force, whether indigenous or non-indigenous, must enforce the law if a crime has been committed, regardless of where, whether on an indigenous reserve or not.

Is that what you think?

Is there legislation that would prevent an indigenous police force from enforcing the law outside a reserve right now or would prevent the RCMP or another non-indigenous police force from enforcing the law on indigenous land?

[Lyle Herman]

Yes, regardless of whether they're indigenous, laws need to be enforced, but not only laws that exist. Laws also need to change to enforce and strengthen certain laws and make sure justice is also being done. As we heard earlier, it's not just about the current laws that I talked about but other laws that do exist and need to be strengthened.

There was a question earlier about the hazy part of certain laws. As I said, how many times does someone break into homes, before...? Someone who has over 20 charges of breaking and entering is still living on the streets, and that's causing tens of thousands in damages.

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

Thank you.

Following discussions with all parties, I am going to move a motion. Following a discussion with Mr. Battiste, in particular, I have taken the liberty of adding one little thing so the objective is clearly understood. I have added the word “recognized” before the words “Indigenous communities” and “Indigenous nations”.

The motion reads:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertake a study on issues related to recognized Indigenous communities that do not have a land base or reserve status, as well as those of recognized Indigenous nations that do not have a modern treaty; that the study examine how federal authorities can recognize and expedite processes of implementation; that the committee allocate at least four (4) meetings to this study; and that it report its findings and recommendations to the House.

As agreed, this would be the subject of the next study.

I think Mr. Battiste's concern is important. I don't want to examine the case of appropriators of indigenous identity or people who want to be recognized as indigenous in this study. However, there are many indigenous communities that do not have reserve status. Since the 1960s, communities have been able to achieve that status only in exceptional cases. We are concerned about this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

That's in order.

Is there discussion from anyone?

Jaime, go ahead.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso—Antigonish, NS]

I think there's been a little bit of discussion on this.

Regarding what I think Sébastien has stated, I would like to amend the motion on the fly to state that we look at the federally recognized indigenous communities, because there might be many communities out there that claim to be indigenous or claim that they don't have a land base. I want it to be very specific to the ones that are integral to his riding and his province and to really have that specific focus, especially on the first nations in his communities, because, as we know, there are now Inuit reserves or Métis reserves, and they have a different structure.

That would be my recommendation. There was some conversation about it. I hope that's okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

For clarity, you wanted to add “federally” before the word “recognized”, so it would be “federally recognized”.

Is that an acceptable friendly amendment?

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you.

Is there any further discussion?

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

Are we voting on the amendment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Yes, it's a friendly amendment.

(Amendment agreed to)

(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Now we go to Bob, please.

You have up to five minutes.