Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Oct. 27th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number seven of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs.

We recognize that we meet on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Wednesday, September 24, the committee is resuming its study of indigenous policing and public safety.

The first witness on our first panel is Chief Leroy Denny.

Welcome, Chief. You have five minutes for your presentation. Then there will be some questions back and forth, where you can get more information out.

Just before we begin, I have a reminder about interpretation devices.

When you're not using your earpiece, make sure it's on your little disc here. There's a sheet here on ways to prevent audio feedback for our great interpreters. Make sure your mic is off to avoid feedback when you are not speaking.

Chi-meegwetch.

Chief, go ahead, please.

[Chief Leroy Denny, Eskasoni First Nation]

[Witness spoke in Mi'kmaq]

[English]

My name is Chief Leroy Denny.

[Witness spoke in Mi'kmaq]

[English]

I'm from Eskasoni First Nation.

[Witness spoke in Mi'kmaq]

[English]

I've been the chief for 16 years and in politics for 20 years.

First and foremost, I apologize. I was having issues with the traffic and with printing at the hotel. Mesge'g.

Today I want to speak on indigenous policing matters in my community of Eskasoni. Eskasoni is the largest Mi'kmaq community in the Atlantic, with almost 5,000 people. Currently, we are under the RCMP. There is a big history of police in Eskasoni, from having auxiliary officers, the RCMP, to having our own police department. They moved into the Unama'ki Tribal Police during the tribal policing era. Then, soon after, that folded and went to the RCMP again, and we had the trilateral agreement with the RCMP and the province from then on.

We've had a majority of Mi'kmaq-speaking officers in my community. We are in a Mi'kmaq-speaking community. My council and I are all Mi'kmaq speakers, and we speak only Mi'kmaq in our meetings. Our council's not happy with the current situation right now in policing. We never signed...with the RCMP; it has been quite a few years now. We feel it's not adequate. We feel that the service we need, as a community, is not working, so we're exploring and doing our own review of what works in policing for our community. Whatever works in our community will work for other communities as well. We're a role model, in any services we provide in our community, for other communities in Nova Scotia.

We have so many issues and concerns. Going back, even in starting...in our RCMP...there was a majority of Mi'kmaq officers, and now we have only two Mi'kmaq-speaking officers, who are about to retire, and two more who are non-speakers. Once they're gone, we're done with Mi'kmaq officers.

I feel that we need Mi'kmaq or indigenous officers in our communities in order to operate. There are too many issues that our people are facing. When we have different officers and they're there only a short time, it's affecting.... They're not doing community policing. They're not culturally sensitive enough to do the policing in our communities because we don't have Mi'kmaq-speaking officers anymore. We're having difficulty with that.

Just recently, our fire chief was arrested. He's a respected individual. He quit drinking 30 years ago. He was arrested because they thought he was drinking and driving and he refused to take a Breathalyzer test. There was an uproar. Our community is very upset about this. We do need changes in our communities, and not just in my community but everywhere.

I have some recommendations that I feel need to be said. Whether it's RCMP, provincial or tribal policing, we feel that the police should have a more sensitive and proactive approach—like a hybrid approach—for our communities.

Our community members are having a hard time entering depot in Regina, for instance, for policing. It's the colonial structure. For many of our officers who go through Regina...they don't teach you enough about indigenous people who are in our communities. They're trained to be police, in general. That's an issue right there, because our officers go there. We talk to a lot of our indigenous officers—the retired officers—and they feel they're not being well-represented and well-educated on indigenous issues, so it's a big issue.

We feel we should be a part of selecting our individuals who go to Regina or any police academy. At this point, we feel that we need more Mi'kmaq-speaking officers—indigenous officers—everywhere. We did it before with the tribal police. The tribal police were a hybrid with the RCMP and the provincial police at the time. They were able to go to Regina and become officers. However, even when they were officers, as Mi'kmaq and indigenous officers they weren't given the opportunity to be high-ranking officers, so there are a lot of issues.

Today we feel we can have tribal police or some sort of hybrid police officers who can work with the RCMP or non-indigenous officers. That's what we need, because there's too much discrimination happening in our own communities when dealing with policing matters. Our council and our community have had enough. We want to be part of the solution.

I'm very thankful to be given the opportunity to speak on this, because we want change. There are dollars being held up right now. There are monies to improve indigenous policing. Let's get to work. Let's get it done. Let's have action.

The first thing is having 15 to 20 officers come to my community and sending them off. We have a lot of people in our community who are well educated—young men and women who are very good people and who graduated from many of our communities. Did you know that our Nova Scotia communities have the highest graduation rate among indigenous people in the country? They have a hard time getting into the RCMP, but they're getting into universities. They're becoming doctors and nurses. We have it all in Eskasoni. We have our own doctors. We have Mi’kmaq-speaking doctors and Mi’kmaq-speaking teachers. It's a majority of them, except for policing. Why is that? What's the problem? Why are indigenous people not getting into policing?

That's the issue we are facing right now. I hope we can get to the bottom of this and make it work—

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you.

[Chief Leroy Denny]

—whether it's an RCMP issue or a provincial police issue. It's a problem right across the country. The people in New Brunswick...mental health checks, for instance. If you go to the news, you see that our people are getting shot for seeking a mental health check. They end up being shot. It happened in our communities...happened to our fire chief, as well.

We've had enough of this. We're reviewing this as a community. I want to point out here that we have a need for policing within our own communities. A focus on the recruitment and retention of indigenous police officers needs to become a priority for the RCMP, and—

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Chief, we're going to the questions and answers. You'll be able to finish up what you're saying through the questions and answers.

Thank you very much, Chief. That was excellent.

[Chief Leroy Denny]

Wela’lioq.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

The first round is for six minutes.

We're going to the Conservatives with Jamie.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, Chief, for coming out today, and for your passion for this important topic we are discussing. I know you have a lot more to add to this conversation here.

Just a few years ago, the prime minister at the time, Justin Trudeau, announced that first nations policing would become an essential service. A framework was started to get that process rolling.

Were you involved in that process at all, or do you have an update on where those talks are, based on your nation's experience?

[Chief Leroy Denny]

I wasn't involved in the development, but a task force raised issues at the AFN. We were able to address these issues because many chiefs across the country addressed them. I don't believe I was involved. There was a task force in Nova Scotia, along with former RCMP officers within the Mi’kmaq community.

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

As far as you're aware, talks are continuing within the framework to, at some point, make indigenous policing an essential service.

[Chief Leroy Denny]

Indigenous policing in the community should be a priority right across the country. We're still having these issues. The main issue, to me, is this: We have to amalgamate or involve indigenous leadership in policing. If you're going to police our community, you need to have an understanding. You would have to be trained for that. You need to understand the history of our people and the intergenerational trauma people are facing. That's why chiefs across the country are pushing for that. I'm hoping that we can get to the bottom of it soon. What is the hold-up? Is it all the parties? Is it the whole government?

It's time for us to improve policing in indigenous communities. I speak to many of them. They feel there should be a sector for indigenous people in the higher areas. A big example is Kahnawake. They have really good policing over there. The first nations police chiefs of Canada are involved in that. They have courses for all the police officers working within their respective communities who are not indigenous, who are not Mi’kmaq. They get trained. Former RCMP officers were telling me that they don't have training in depot. It's all just Canadian-style colonial structure, and nothing that will allow it to work in our respective indigenous communities.

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

Maybe I could get you to expand on that quickly. I'm running short on time. Your nation did, at one point, have its own police service. Is that correct?

[Chief Leroy Denny]

Yes.

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

I'm assuming there were challenges. We've heard from previous witnesses that indigenous policing is a program, meaning it needs to be renewed every year, whatever the contribution agreement. This leaves very little certainty for the people involved, including the officers, leadership and even the councils on the ground.

[Chief Leroy Denny]

Yes.

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

So you would need to see some sort of structural, long-term funding in order to take the first steps in making this work.

[Chief Leroy Denny]

Yes, definitely.

My brother is a former RCMP officer. He sent me a timeline. I don't know if I can read all of this, but it goes all the way back to the early 1900s. One of our elders, who was a World War II veteran, Roddie Stevens, after the war became an auxiliary officer. From there, we had our own auxiliary, and then we had our police department, and then finally, we had our own Unama’ki Tribal Police for five bands in Cape Breton.

They were sent off to Regina. Twelve of our community members were sent off to Regina. Our leadership at the time picked these people who they felt would be awesome police officers within the community. They spoke Mi'kmaq. They understood the culture. They understood the families. They knew the background of every community member. That's why the Unama’ki Tribal Police worked.

It was very poorly funded. It was set up to fail at the time, but it created many of our Mi’kmaq officers, who retired 20 years later. You went back to the CTA. CTA is a trilateral agreement for policing among the provinces and the feds. That's why the H division was created.

It didn't work. Even the RCMP is still not working. My community is supposed to have 17 members and we only have two Mi’kmaq speakers. One is off right now due to mental health. For a lot of our police officers it's not working because they're just overworked. Many of them are off, so you only have 12 or 13 who are working.

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

Are they overworked?

[Chief Leroy Denny]

They're probably overworked.

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

When you say it's not working and there are challenges with staffing, that type of thing, in terms of what's happening on the ground, the crimes that are being committed, that type of thing that isn't working, is there a tie-in with the justice system at all, the fact that bail seems to be easy to get, there's a small number of people causing crime, being arrested and being let back out on the street over and over again. Is that part of the problem as well?

[Chief Leroy Denny]

It all stems from the community policing. We feel community policing is not there.

You have situations. We're dealing with poverty issues in our communities. We're dealing with people with intergenerational trauma and mental health issues, especially, which are rising. Many people are vulnerable and harmless, yet they end up getting arrested. We have our own court appearances within the community. Large numbers show up over there. They get charged, fined and remanded.

We try to help these people. We try to get them jobs, get them trained, and get them out of that impoverished life. We do our best as the leadership within in the community, and we work with police officers and first responders as well, within the community. They deserve top-notch policing to feel safe in our communities.

We have drug situations. We have 17 officers, but for two positions we use our own-source revenue; these are the drug unit and prevention. We pay our own money to pay for these two positions because the funding is lacking. We're not getting enough from this deal over here, so we need more.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you for that.

[Chief Leroy Denny]

We need more of these dollars for policing within Eskasoni, in our community, but also for other communities—everywhere, really.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you for that.

We're going to move to Jaime, Chief, for six minutes to continue the conversation.

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

[Member spoke in Mi'kmaq]

[English]

Your shirt looks good.