Evidence of meeting #13 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was communities.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Ginette Lavack Liberal St. Boniface—St. Vital, MB
Hello, everyone.
You have my sincere thanks for being here today to testify before the committee.
I would first like to address Chief Yellowback.
When it comes to public safety, how do you think self-determination should guide future federal law reform, particularly when it comes to local governance and community decision-making?
Chief, Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs
One of the things for us is that during the COVID pandemic, we had our own first nations indigenous-led governments that addressed the public health and safety of our people. It worked very well, including when we had our wildfire situations in 2024 and 2025.
That's one thing that propelled us to a point where I feel we can administer our own policing service reform. If you give us the legislation to create and administer our own policing forces, we as a people will know how to serve our people and their needs, and will have the understanding, which, I'm told, the RCMP do not possess. We will understand the plight of our people in terms of the systemic issues that we faced in the past, plus identify the root causes that our people are facing, whether it's through the CFS system of the past, or even from Indian residential schools. That's one thing we are advocating for, to create, through self-determination, our own first nation policing forces and services.
Liberal
Ginette Lavack Liberal St. Boniface—St. Vital, MB
Thank you.
What do you think is essential in order to ensure stable multi-year funding that would enable indigenous police services to provide a level of service comparable to what is provided by provincial police forces?
Chief, Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs
Well, I believe we need to have an adequate amount that will add to the infrastructure, the training and the usual human resources needed to address that, based on the population of our indigenous communities, including in remote, isolated communities like ours of Manto Sipi. There needs to be a firm commitment from Canada, including the Province of Manitoba, to work with our indigenous governments in Manitoba—this could be totally across Canada as well—that the policing service is an essential item for our community.
Another thing we are also facing is that when there are serious issues like assaults or domestic issues, they are not being treated in a manner similar to when these issues occur in an urban environment. Sometimes we have to wait two weeks before the RCMP come to our communities to investigate—two weeks. That's not right. That's one of the things we want to change.
Liberal
Ginette Lavack Liberal St. Boniface—St. Vital, MB
Thank you.
Ms. Anderson‑Pyrz, you mentioned the need to have an independent national ombud.
Could you explain what that role involves and how it could improve safety and accountability in indigenous police services?
Chair, National Family and Survivors Circle Inc.
When we're looking at a place for indigenous people to go to share their experiences and for there to be oversight and accountability that can compel governments to respond in a way that addresses the issues that are being presented, and to change the systemic issues that indigenous people are experiencing in really upholding their inherent and human rights, it's really critical that we have an ombudsperson and oversight. Without accountability and oversight, we're going to continue to have the same lived experiences as we're having right now. This is why, especially with the National Family and Survivors Circle, we continually push for call for justice 1.7. That specific call is critical. Regardless of what government is in power and regardless of what their priorities are, we need to have a mechanism that we can utilize to help uphold our inherent and human rights in this country.
Liberal
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for being here for the cause you champion, Ms. Anderson‑Pyrz.
This issue has been taken seriously in Quebec. I imagine you are aware that since September 1, 2021, there has been a law designed to support indigenous families in their efforts to get answers about their child's disappearance or death following admission to a health or social services institution before December 31, 1992. That law authorizes the disclosure of personal information to the families of indigenous children who disappeared or died following admission to an institution.
Three and a half years after the law came into force, we have seen that 121 families have applied to the family support branch of the first nations and Inuit relations secretariat and its partner, the Awacak Association. I would also like to recognize the leadership of Françoise Ruperthouse, general manager of the association. This has shed light on the case of 209 children who disappeared or died following admission to an institution.
Might a law like that be needed in Canada?
Most importantly, should there be more transparency regarding the information in the government's possession about the past of children who disappeared or died, in order to shed light on their cases? It seems very unclear to me.
Chair, National Family and Survivors Circle Inc.
You've asked me a very complex question, but I'll try my best to address it.
It's critical that we have mechanisms that are legislated when it comes to missing persons. Often when an indigenous woman, girl, or two-spirit or gender-diverse person goes missing and the family is seeking the support of policing, they're ignored, or they're the ones on the ground organizing searches to look for their loved ones. Another thing that's very problematic is jurisdictional boundaries when it comes to missing indigenous women. There's a lack of transparency, a lack of sharing of systems and a lack of collaboration of systems. If we look at how we implement all of that, we can be very solutions-focused and address how we can respond more adequately.
In Manitoba, as an example, they're doing a study on the implementation of the red dress alert and how that could really support missing indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit and gender-diverse people. I believe the report is going to be launched tomorrow on how Manitoba would pilot this initiative to be responsive to missing indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit and gender-diverse people. When we see systems being built in response to missing indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit and gender-diverse people, it says to this country that people do care about us and want to work toward collectively ending the genocide of indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit and gender-diverse people.
Conservative
Eric Melillo Conservative Kenora—Kiiwetinoong, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to all the individuals for joining us today.
Mr. Yew, you spoke quite a bit about the collaboration between your organization and law enforcement, as well as between indigenous and non-indigenous police services. Can you speak to how much more robust or how that collaboration could be even easier if indigenous police services were properly resourced and given the recognition they deserve?
Chief Executive Officer, Turtle Island Private Investigators Inc., As an Individual
In indigenous-led police services, these police officers would be coming from our indigenous communities. The understanding they would have of the communities they're taking care of would be enormous and to the benefit of the communities. When I was a police officer, I could see the immediate connection I had with these communities. To this day, when we're out doing what we're doing right now, we're accepted right away by the communities. That's the bonus of an indigenous-led police force.
Conservative
Eric Melillo Conservative Kenora—Kiiwetinoong, ON
I appreciate that. Thank you very much.
I do have some limited time, so I'd like to follow up on that.
You've spoken a lot about the lack of resources and how challenging it is. I know that the government has made it a priority for themselves to target law-abiding firearms owners and to confiscate firearms from indigenous peoples and from Canadians across the country who have not committed any crimes. The government is putting a lot of resource and effort into that.
Do you agree with that approach of the government, confiscating firearms from law-abiding firearms owners, or do you feel that with the lack of resources, more resources should be put towards actually stopping the crime?
Chief Executive Officer, Turtle Island Private Investigators Inc., As an Individual
Most of this stuff we're dealing with, for my company is.... Let's put it this way: Every household has guns. In northern Saskatchewan, we all hunt for survival.
What kinds of guns are we talking about here? They're high-calibre rifles, semi-automatics—I believe they're referred to as “semi-automatics”—and stuff like that. I have no issue with those being removed. We don't need them.
Conservative
Eric Melillo Conservative Kenora—Kiiwetinoong, ON
How about the SKS? I know it's one that's commonly used for hunting.
Chief Executive Officer, Turtle Island Private Investigators Inc., As an Individual
Yes. We don't use those to hunt. We use normal rifles to go hunting with, with one single shot. Why would we need rifles that can shoot boom, boom and bang, bang and stuff?
Yes, I agree that they should be removed from the streets, these semi-automatic, high-powered rifles, whatever they are. I'm not too familiar with what they're trying to remove, but at the same time, it's like handguns. Why do we need handguns?
November 24th, 2025 / 4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Eric Melillo Conservative Kenora—Kiiwetinoong, ON
I appreciate that.
I think there are a number of firearms—shotguns, the SKS, and a number of long guns—that are used for hunting. It is a concern I've heard, but I take your point, and I appreciate the feedback.
I'd like to move to Chief Yellowback now with the time I have left.
I'm one of your geographical neighbours on the other side of the border, in Ontario. In the communities I serve, we're really seeing an increase in drugs, gang activity and human trafficking, unfortunately, in a lot of the remote fly-in communities.
This is something that has been increasing across northern Ontario. Do you see similar challenges increasing in northern Manitoba as well?
Chief, Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs
Yes, that's what we've been seeing. At the intelligence gatherings that we've seen, it's the same thing we're seeing.
In particular, we have organized crime coming out of Toronto, infiltrating our young people who are 17 and under, flying them to Winnipeg, putting them in high-end hotels and buying them all of that high-brand clothing. Then they use them to smuggle drugs into our community. That's the intel we have been receiving from the RCMP and also in our own intelligence gathering. It's very sad, what we are seeing.
We had one youth who, I was told, was involved in that homicide that I talked about, a few weeks ago. He was charged with that vicious attack on this 33-year-old man. There's that and there's also their involvement in drug trafficking. I was told that they're bootlegging as well.
We see that every day in our community. That's one of the things we need to get more police presence for in our community. That will change this. We need all parliamentarians to change the laws that we face in our communities, including the systemic failures that we see in our communities.
I did make a presentation to this committee in Ottawa last year about the Canada Post amendments. Canada Post is being used to smuggle in drugs. That's one of the things. This sort of illegal contraband is coming in through the mail.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Terry Sheehan
Thank you very much, Chief.
Next is Philip for five minutes, please.
Liberal
Philip Earle Liberal Labrador, NL
Thank you, Chair.
My first question is for Ms. Anderson-Pyrz.
Thank you for your testimony. You spoke very clearly, and I appreciate everything you told us today.
If we would agree that crime is increasing at a rapid pace, especially in indigenous communities, and that safety appears to be regressing—you spoke about the importance of co-development and acknowledging that crime appears to be on the rise—could we, just for a second, imagine that it's a two-lane highway and that as we're combatting crime we want to, in a parallel fashion, co-develop policies for a better result?
Could you talk to us about how you envision that and how you may see that taking place?
Chair, National Family and Survivors Circle Inc.
Absolutely.
When looking at co-development, especially when you're looking at crime, the perpetrators of crime, the reasons behind crime and root causes as well, it's quite complex. I always look at being indigenous and how we build systems from a circular model of care, building all the supports and resources that we need to combat crime but also to heal the perpetrator and heal the victim. It has to come from a circular model of care and ensuring that it's indigenous-led and rooted in indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing. We're working with another system that often doesn't recognize that. How do we get colonial systems to adopt our processes?
To create legislation that supports that is challenging. It's a continuous challenge that we see all the time. If we were able to do that, we would see results on the ground. We would see that impact if we were able to co-develop but also create. Relationships are really important when we're doing co-development. Those respectful and reciprocal relationships are very important. If we could do that collaboratively and have the support and the resources and the long-term sustainable commitment....
Why it's critical to put into policies and legislation is that we shouldn't be on government agendas. These are our lives that we're talking about. We need that safety, security, healing and well-being and to have our human security and our human rights upheld.