Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number nine 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 continuing its study on indigenous policing and public safety.

I'd like to welcome the witnesses for our first panel.

We have Naiomi Metallic, associate professor and chancellor's chair in aboriginal law and policy, Dalhousie University, by video conference.

We also have, from the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan, Beverly Fullerton, minister of health, mental health and addictions; and Brennan Merasty, minister of self-determination and self-government and justice.

We also have David Lamouche, president of the Métis Settlements General Council.

You'll each have five minutes.

Before I go further, I would like to tell you that we have these handy-dandy cards here that give you guidelines for making sure that there's no feedback for our great interpreters over there. We did a sound check for our persons appearing virtually, so we're all set to go.

We will begin with Naiomi for the first five minutes.

[Naiomi Metallic, Associate Professor and Chancellor's Chair of Aboriginal Law and Policy, Dalhousie University, As an Individual]

Thank you very much. Good afternoon.

Thank you very much for the invitation.

I am glad the committee is undertaking this study, but I also want to express significant frustration at the holdup of any meaningful action on indigenous policing.

In light of all that has come before, including several reports that have touched on indigenous policing, like the Council of Canadian Academies report, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls report and the Viens report, as well as various recent reports on policing by the RCMP more generally, including the Bastarache report and the Mass Casualty Commission report, it's really troubling how little progress there has been on these issues.

First, I'll provide my background. In addition to being a professor, my master's work focused on chronicling the underfunding of essential services to first nations in particular. I have focused on this from the perspective of child welfare, indigenous policing and other areas as well. I've been an expert witness for the MMIWG inquiry, speaking about this issue of chronic underfunding but also framing it as an interjurisdictional neglect issue where both the federal and provincial governments are neglecting their obligations.

I was a member of the CCA report on indigenous policing, and I believe you have one of my committee members, Mylène Jaccoud, appearing before you later; she was also on that committee.

I authored a report on first nations bylaws and their lack of enforcement. That report has now been downloaded over 10,000 times. It looked at the issue of non-enforcement of bylaws by RCMP and other police officers and getting to the root of what the problems were.

I've also been involved in the intervention of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Pekuakamiulnuatsh case, which was about policing in first nations communities and a challenge based on the honour of the Crown. I've been involved in supporting first nations in the Maritimes on justice and the first nations policing program issues.

My key message here is that we need to do things differently. Canadian law has not created safety and order for indigenous peoples; it has been disordering and has resulted in massive overrepresentation in both the criminal justice and child welfare systems.

Of course, there is a link between the harmful effects of substantive criminal and child welfare laws and policing. The status quo has been to impose mainstream policing on indigenous peoples with all its ill consequences. Even where there has been some effort to accommodate, such as through the FNPP, it's woefully inadequate, under-serviced and underfunded, and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has affirmed that.

Space has to made be for indigenous peoples to come up with their own solutions in this area, and this essential service has to be adequately funded.

The first thing I want to do is review some of the key problems and gaps in the FNPP we identified in the CCA report. You may know that it only offers two options: self-administering policing agreements or community tripartite agreements. Only two-thirds of indigenous peoples in Canada have access to the FNPP. That is one thing we found. The remaining 200-plus communities are under policing provided in the province or region. Métis and urban and off-reserve peoples are not eligible for the FNPP. The FNPP has been closed since the 1990s, such that no one is able to get into it. If you're in, you're grandfathered in, but there can be no new communities. In Nova Scotia, where I am, there are eight communities not covered by the FNPP.

Of the 457 participating communities in the FNPP, only a third are policed by self-administered policing agreements, and the rest are through community tripartite agreements, CTAs. They're supposed to be used to enhance services in communities, but we've found they're often used to provide baseline services, and often in ways that are not sufficient given the challenges faced by many indigenous communities.

Initially, there was quite a high number of indigenous police officers who were hired though the FNPP. Those numbers have decreased dramatically over the last 30 or 40 years. CTAs used to be 94% indigenous police officers; they were 25% when we did our study back in 2019—

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Naiomi, thank you very much for that. You're at five minutes. You'll be able to provide more input during the question portion.

[Naiomi Metallic]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Now we'll go to the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan, please.

[Brennan Merasty, Minister of Self Determination and Self Government and Justice, Métis Nation-Saskatchewan]

[Witness spoke in Michif]

[English]

Good afternoon, esteemed members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to address you today on a critical issue affecting Métis people in Saskatchewan.

As mentioned earlier, my name is Brennan Merasty. I am the elected regional representative for northern region 3 and the minister for self-government and self-determination and justice for the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan.

As an elected representative of Métis Nation-Saskatchewan, the national government of Saskatchewan's Métis people, it is with honour and a sense of urgency that I stand before you today.

I will start by saying, based on my 25 years of lived experience, that institutional concepts will not heal our people. It is discovering our spirit through identity, culture, values and language that will carry us forward. It will ground us. It will give us the balance that we need in everyday life, and more importantly, a connection with purpose. Then we can say [Witness spoke in Michif].

On August 21, the MN-S government declared a state of emergency on alcohol, drugs, gangs and violence that was devastating Métis communities across Saskatchewan. This decision was not taken lightly. It comes against the backdrop of systemic, long-standing barriers to accessing critical community care, services and support that our community members require to address their mental health and addictions needs.

Without immediate, coordinated action, more lives will be lost and more families will continue to be impacted. This resolution empowers the MN-S government to engage with the province and Canada to provide resources that support community-led initiatives to help address the emergency and establish culturally grounded solutions to curtail addictions and violence in Saskatchewan.

In addition to being caught in a jurisdictional gap, Métis Nation-Saskatchewan is caught in a funding gap that needs to be addressed in order to best support Métis citizens across the province.

With that, I'll pass the floor to my co-witness, our minister for health, mental health and addictions, Minister Beverly Fullerton.

[Beverly Fullerton, Minister of Health, Mental Health and Addictions, Métis Nation-Saskatchewan]

Good afternoon.

As Minister Merasty mentioned, I am the minister of health, mental health and addictions. I am also the elected regional representative for western region 2A of Métis Nation-Saskatchewan.

Despite the jurisdictional and funding gaps, we are responding, developing partnerships with our locals, our municipalities, the province, the RCMP, Saskatchewan Marshals Service and other partners to think outside the box for ways to support our communities as they face multiple crises at the same time.

One component of how we plan to address the state of emergency is to establish a Métis-led community safety officer program in Saskatchewan, also known as a CSO, with Métis Nation as the lead agency. CSO status with the province will provide us with the capabilities to best serve our communities and support our citizens.

This is only one component of how Métis Nation-Saskatchewan is responding to the state of emergency on drugs, gangs and violence in our communities. MN-S provides several programs and services for our citizens and works with other community organizations to best support citizens throughout the province.

Long term, a distinct Métis-led, culturally grounded framework, designed to help our communities facing increased gang activity, drugs and violence, is imperative to ensure that our communities can grow and prosper. Addiction, mental health and community violence do not wait for federal budget cycles or parliamentary studies. They demand urgent action now.

Métis Nation-Saskatchewan has put forward a concrete plan of action and a clear vision for the betterment of our communities. What we need now is for the federal and provincial governments to stand with us, not just with words but with funding, collaboration and urgency.

Marsee. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you very much.

Next we have the Metis Settlements General Council.

Dave, you have five minutes.

[Dave Lamouche, President, Metis Settlements General Council]

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair, and honourable members.

Kinanaskomitinawaw.

Thank you for inviting me, as president of the Metis Settlements General Council, to represent all settlements in Alberta, the only constitutionally recognized Métis land base in Canada.

We are self-governing communities responsible for 1.25 million acres of land and approximately 10,000 people. For nearly a century, we have governed ourselves, built our own institutions and worked to keep one another and our guests safe.

Across our settlements, public safety is in crisis. Between 2022 and 2025 calls for service because of crimes in our areas rose. Behind those crimes are grieving families and vulnerable people exposed to drugs and violence. People are afraid.

We hear the same story in every settlement. The RCMP presence is inconsistent. Local bylaws are ignored. Officers who build trust are transferred away. Response times are too long. Systemic racism remains. Restorative justice needs to be fostered.

If I had to name one thing that would change everything, it's a strong visible police presence. Presence creates understanding, builds respects and turns officers in uniform from strangers to neighbours. Without presence, trust fades. Without trust, safety disappears.

Our settlements have community bylaws to protect families and to remove drug dealers, yet no one is there to enforce them. Our people ask, if these are our laws, why don't they matter? The question echoes what this committee concluded in 2021: the lack of enforcement undermines indigenous self-government and community safety.

Four years later, that gap remains.

Many officers want to serve but high turnover, limited resources and lack of Metis Settlements-specific training make meaningful presence impossible. At our July 2025 policing workshop with the RCMP, Alberta sheriffs and Lakeshore Regional Police, we identified four priorities.

The first is local control and accountability: develop a Metis Settlements police service model with our RCMP and the Alberta sheriff partners with MSGC and settlement representation.

The second is stability and cultural competence: require multi-year postings, stay in the community longer and have Metis Settlements-specific training in history, culture and language for officers serving in our communities.

The third is joint training and operational capacity: partner with other police services on integrated community safety teams and shared training to raise standards for all.

The fourth is equitable investment: recognize Metis Settlement policing as an essential service, funded sustainably, not through one-time studies or short-term projects.

Presence is prevention. When officers are visible, crime drops, families feel safer and communities begin to trust again. When communities feel safe, they grow. Safety and community economic development are inseparable: businesses stay open longer, visitors come to see our culture and our lakes, and investment follows stability. Right now, that stability is what's missing. In some settlements, we haven't seen our assigned officer in months. That absence tells our people that safety is conditional and crime can flourish unchecked.

The Metis Settlements have proven we can govern our lands, deliver services and build institutions that work. Now we need Canada's and Alberta's partnership to do the same for policing.

We ask the Government of Canada to work with Alberta and MSGC to co-design a Metis-Settlements-led policing framework with a presence in each community, with central coordination and support; to fund training and operational capacity beginning in 2026; to clarify enforcement authority so RCMP and sheriffs can uphold settlement bylaws during transition; and to ensure Metis Settlements policing is recognized, respected and resourced as part of Canada's public safety system.

Policing is about more than enforcement. It's about belonging, dignity and trust.

Presence builds trust, trust builds safety and safety builds opportunity. Let's move from reports to results so that the next time this committee meets on indigenous policing, it can point to the Metis Settlements as proof that we finally got it right.

Thank you. Kinanaskomitinawaw.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

Thank you.

We will now go to the question and answer round for six minutes.

Jamie.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for appearing on this very important topic.

President Lamouche, maybe I'll start with you. You talked about your community being in crisis. You mentioned that there are issues with gangs, and that violent crime is on the rise. You mentioned a few other things in your opening remarks.

With regard to the ongoing crisis, is it a new batch of criminals that keeps coming to your land? Is it the same people reoffending over and over again after being released on bail? Paint me a picture here, please.

[Dave Lamouche]

Times have changed recently. There's more and more of a gang presence in the community. They're recruiting children and youth. They're using children for mules. In fact, we have a stat in our community where an eight-year-old took some drugs to school. They were trying to push drugs to students there.

That's just one part. We see more and more violence against elders and more and more violence against youth and women as well. We see trap houses. It's just rampant. It's crazy. I mean, it's something that you would see on TV. Now we're seeing it at home.

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

Would it be fair to say that, in your opinion, the ability for police to do their jobs properly in terms of arresting an individual—the fact that they may not get out on bail automatically and that if they are eventually convicted they might actually see some jail time—could be a piece as well as what you're talking about?

[Dave Lamouche]

Yes. It's police presence and enforcement. Repeat offenders need to be incarcerated. It's always the same bad actors. It's like a revolving door. We need that stopped. Something has to change. I think the system needs to change.

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

I'll turn now to the two ministers from Saskatchewan. I don't know who wants to answer, but I noticed that both of you were nodding your head during that question and answer.

The floor is yours.

[Brennan Merasty]

Thank you, Vice-Chair and committee.

For me, with 25 years of lived experience, enforcement and restriction and being backed into the corner didn't do me any good. It caused push-back. It caused anger. It caused more damage than anything.

In northern Saskatchewan, you see the violent crime rates. You see the drugs and the addictions all running rampant. Suicide rates are higher in the north than they are in the south. Why? It's because our people need to be nurtured to do something different.

Again, institutional concepts don't work. Residential schools didn't work for our people. They don't work. Jail systems don't work. People are still doing drugs. They're still part of the drug trade when they are incarcerated.

Instead of coming to enforce us and back us into corners, reach out. Nurture us. Walk with us to do something different. That's what we need to do. That's what changed my life after 25 years of lived experience with drugs and addiction. It's not institutional concepts, ladies and gentlemen. It's doing something different. The cycle continues if you keep incarcerating our people.

We need to change. We need to do it differently. That is thinking outside the box. At the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan justice ministry we've made a submission for approximately $15 million to have community safety officers, because we want them to come into the community. Again, it's not to enforce. It's to help walk beside our people, to nurture us to do something different.

[Beverly Fullerton]

Having lived experience and being at these tables knowing that what works for me might not work for the next person beside me, we do see that there is a big change in the gang activity and the drugs. The drugs that have now increased so badly, like the crystal meth and the fentanyl, are drugs that weren't as prominent as they were five years ago. We see the increase in addiction, the displacement of our families, our people being incarcerated and the overrepresentation. We know that there are cycles that are not being broken, so being Métis, when we go into incarceration or into these systems, we are always known as the forgotten people. We lack the programs and services specific to our Métis. We are all over the province; we're not just one small community in Saskatchewan.

How are we addressing the needs specifically to that person and not just putting them in a box and checking the box, saying they're a lost cause? I've heard, “Oh, they're too far gone.” We have the tools to work with our communities to meet them where they're at, walk along with them and change those cycles. We have so many moms who deserve that opportunity.

I don't believe continuing with the overrepresentation in incarceration is going to fix anything.

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

You mentioned you saw the sudden spike five years ago. I should point out that Bill C-75, a piece of Liberal legislation that allowed bail to become almost automatic for those being arrested, passed in 2019, so right around the time it filtered through the system and took effect would be around the same time that you're pointing out there was a spike in gang and drug activity.

[Beverly Fullerton]

Absolutely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Sheehan]

That's your six minutes. Thank you.

Next we have Jaime for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to direct my first questions to Professor Metallic. She was talking about how we need to create space for more indigenous police officers. She had noted, before she ran out of time, that the indigenous police force, especially Mi'kmaq police enforcing Mi'kmaq communities, in her words, has decreased dramatically over the past 20 years. We've had other witnesses who have said the same thing.

I'm wondering if you could speak to how we can fix that problem. I note that you went to the indigenous Blacks and Mi'kmaq initiative program out of Dalhousie that ensures a certain number of spots for law school are for Mi'kmaq, indigenous and Black people.

Do we need a similar program with the federal RCMP to ensure that there are mandatory spots for indigenous people?

[Naiomi Metallic]

I think there need to be options on the table more than just CTAs and self-administered policing. There should be peacekeepers and special constables. It's the right to self-determination, so it should be solutions that work for communities based on what they're looking for. I think that has to be a big part of it.

Funding is a massive issue that has been raised by the other panellists, but there's the continuing underfunding of programs, so that's a huge issue. Coming to the RCMP and some of the things that need to happen there, there's a long history of distrust of the RCMP. They can't be the only option, but, of course, in some cases they're going to be the default.

To come back to your question, the recruitment and retention of indigenous police officers needs to be a real priority for the RCMP. I also think there are other policy issues that should be addressed that have been consistent barriers, and they've been named by various reports, including the requirement to serve anywhere in the RCMP and the requirement to only serve somewhere for three years. Those don't work for indigenous police officers. It's a disincentive to choose to serve in that case. There really should be priority given to placing indigenous officers within indigenous communities and not imposing that time limit so that they can only serve for three years. That also prevents non-indigenous officers from gaining the cultural competency they so desperately need in order to serve in these communities.

Yes, to answer your question, those are big priority areas, but we should be looking at not just the RCMP but also at self-determination.

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

Can you go further along that train of thought? If it's not just the RCMP, what kinds of targets should we be setting? We're relying on experts to give us recommendations at this committee to make to the federal government.

What numbers are we looking at nationally that we need to start setting a target for? Are we looking at 100 or 200 trained indigenous officers? What do you think is the proper number that we should be aiming for over the next four years?

[Naiomi Metallic]

I'm afraid I don't have those numbers on hand in terms of what they were in 2019 when we looked at them.

However, I will say that RCMP are part of the solution, but we should also be looking at having special constables, peace officers and officers. I see that a previous person mentioned safety officers. We need to look at that as part of that answer as well.

Yes, there need to be far more RCMP officers. I'm sorry. I don't have specific numbers, but it has to be a significant increase. When they went from 86 to 59 and self-administered, and 94 to 25, that speaks to some of those numbers. I can take a look and see if I can find that number in the book here.

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

Just thinking outside the box, I hear a lot about recruitment and retention, but I've also heard a lot about trying to figure out ways outside of the RCMP. Do you think indigenous people or first nations people should have their own institutions that are graduating policemen who are trained through them?