Public Safety Committee on July 24th, 2020

[Dwayne Zacharie]

I feel that way because it seems like oftentimes we're treated as second-class citizens in the policing realm. There's not a lot of training that's necessarily available for first nation police departments. There's not a lot of advance training that's out there.

For example, in the province of Quebec, first nation policing is considered only a level 1. That's basic police services: You can answer the phone 24 hours a day, and that's it. There are so many first nation services in this province that provide so many other services that we've had to be creative in order to be able to provide that type of service.

Then again, when you look at it, the training institutions are providing training based on research they've done. What happens is that, when we send our officers and they end up coming back to the community, we have to make adjustments so that they're ready to provide the training that they've learned to our community.

For the Kahnawake Peacekeepers, we send all of our officers to the RCMP training academy: Depot Division in Saskatchewan. As far as I'm concerned, that's a great training institution and our officers are excellent, but before we put them out in our community, we also have our own field training program that adjusts the training that they've learned, so that way we're providing true community policing to our territory.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you.

People often say how important indigenous police services are. I agree, they are absolutely essential.

My question is a bit touchy. Earlier, I heard Ms. Michel from Quebec Native Women say that, in some situations, indigenous women who are victims of violence hesitate to file complaints because, in smaller communities, everyone knows everyone. The police officer may be a brother, a cousin or an uncle. So that makes them reluctant to file a complaint.

In such cases, how do they keep from falling into that trap and re-establish the bond of trust between the people and police officers?

[Dwayne Zacharie]

I believe that we have to make changes. I mentioned before, I think, that first nation communities should have their own first nation police service providing services to the community. Having said that, our model is not perfect and we need to make adjustments.

I believe that every first nation police service must work every day to develop trust in their community. You have to walk the walk. You can't just go out there and police based on what you want to do. You have to police based on what the community needs. Every day you have to build that trust.

I know that there is a reluctance sometimes. In that regard, that's where I think partnerships come into play. We have to be able to develop the partnerships with the services that we have in our community, and if we don't have the services, we have to ask ourselves why we don't have these services if they are a necessity.

There are a lot of areas where there are huge gaps, especially in first nation communities and especially when it comes to providing services. The gaps sometimes are immense. We have to figure out a way to bridge those gaps in order to provide the services that people in each of these territories need.

I'm a firm believer that without developing partnerships, it will be very difficult for us to go forward and make these changes that we're all talking about today. We have to be able to recognize that there's privilege in this country, and with that privilege comes power. People have to be willing to relinquish that power in order to make people more equal. In that regard, we'll start to provide people with more services and we'll be able to be more open at seeing what the needs are.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We're going to have to stop it there, Madame Michaud.

Mr. Harris, you have five minutes.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

Thank you to all the witnesses.

I first have a question for Chief Zacharie. Of course, we're 30 years out in first nations policing and we're still talking about making it an essential service. We know it's been undervalued, under-resourced institutionally and underfunded. I think we'll have some recommendations from this committee about that before it's all over.

Could I take advantage of your presence and your experience, both as chief and as the president of the organization? Is there a place for indigenous policing or first nations policing in urban areas? We have large populations in some areas, particularly out west, in Winnipeg, Edmonton and other places. Is there a model that would work in an urban area, either stand-alone or integrated with the local police force?

Has any thought been given to that? Obviously, it's a different type of community, but is that something that you see value in as well?

[Dwayne Zacharie]

Thank you for that question. It's a great question. It's one that I've been asked a number of times.

I believe that the first nation policing model is a model that can be adapted for different situations. Do I think that it's a stand-alone model necessarily in large urban areas? That would have to be evaluated.

I definitely think that many police services could stand to have an integrated unit that would work specifically in certain types of communities, and it would be very similar to the model that we use in first nation policing services. I think that developing the partnership between first nation policing and, for lack of a better term, mainstream policing would help to further that cause.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

I have one question that comes up occasionally. We're talking about making it an essential service. Is civilian oversight an issue, as we see in other police forces? Is that an issue for first nations policing as well?

[Dwayne Zacharie]

I think that first nation policing is one of the most accountable services out there. We have to be accountable to our community every single day. We have civilian oversight already. Here in Kahnawake, we've had civilian oversight for decades. The province is just coming online now with that type of thing. Yes, I think oversight is necessary, and I think we all have to start moving toward that.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

I have a question for Ruth Goba, with the Black Legal Action Centre.

You have a lot of experience as a human rights commissioner as well, and dealing with these issues. You talked about data. Of course, there's another type of data that comes up in these matters, and that has to do with racial profiling and carding. We heard complaints about that still being an issue in Halifax, from a witness yesterday.

Is that issue still alive in terms of police forces in Ontario, in particular? That's your jurisdiction. Is that something you're still concerned about?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You're on mute.

[Ruth Goba]

I'm sorry; I keep putting it on mute so I don't disturb anybody.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You're not alone.

[Ruth Goba]

Absolutely, it is still an issue. At BLAC, as I said, we serve the province and we receive calls from people across the province. We receive calls regularly from people who are experiencing or have experienced racial profiling by police.

Several years ago, when I was sitting as interim chief, the issue of carding was all over the news. There were different names for it: There was “carding”; there was “street check”. There was some legislative reform put in place by the then provincial government. What was unfortunate about it was that, while there was a lot of talk about it, and while there were reforms put in place, on the ground things did not change for the black community.

People were profiled before the terms “street check” and “carding” existed. They have been speaking about it for decades, and they continue to be profiled in the same way. The language doesn't actually change what's happening on the ground, so I would say to you, yes, it continues to be a problem experienced by our community.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

We'll now go to the two-minute round. We'll call it the lightning round, I suppose.

Mr. Morrison, you have two minutes.

[Rob Morrison, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the three witnesses this afternoon.

My question will go to Brian Sauvé. Brian, there are a lot of reports about members of the RCMP raising concerns about a lack of resources, and it's actually getting to be a safety issue. I wonder if you can elaborate on the current situation. How can the NPF resolve some of these issues?

[Brian Sauvé]

Thank you, Mr. Morrison.

Resourcing has been a challenge in the RCMP for the last five years, if not longer, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we really haven't adopted any police resource methodology. When our contracting partners are speaking about a community of 5,000 or 10,000 people, the RCMP won't necessarily have a number: “Service level 1, 2, 3, this is the number of cops that you have.”

If you add in the fact that we've been effectively in a wage freeze since 2017, and add in the Expenditure Restraint Act going back to 2010, we are not the most attractive police employer today. If I were a young guy looking at joining a police service, would I choose Toronto, where I don't have to move and I can have a sustainable family with a spouse who can have a full-time career, or would I choose the RCMP and make considerably less money and possibly have to move around the country?

I think we really need, first, to deal with the compensation issues, and second, to look at our resource methodology. How are we going to deploy our members, into what communities and at what resource levels, in order to sustain those members' careers, not overwork them, allow them to take time off and decompress and use time away from work?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Morrison. We're going to have to leave it there.

Mr. Anandasangaree, you were a generous MP and you're from Scarborough. Do you still want to ask a one-minute question?

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses.

This is directed to Ruth Goba. I know that BLAC has established...doing great work. If there's one thing that the federal government could do, with respect to policing, to change the trajectory and the history, what would that be?

[Ruth Goba]

I think I would call on the federal government to ensure data collection. We really need to know exactly what's happening. There was a recent report from CBC—today, actually, or just this week—that looks at some of the data. It shows that, for the indigenous and black communities, the percentage of people killed by police across the country, for only those two communities, is significantly greater than their percentage of the population as a whole. For all other groups, that number is the reverse. I think we need to know exactly what's happening.

I also think that we need.... I know you asked me for one thing, but the demilitarization is also critical.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

He's also run one minute into about three. My goodness, that's the last time I'm going to give this guy an even break, even if he is from Scarborough.

With that, we'll move on to Mr. Vidal for two minutes, please.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I, too, want to recognize and thank all the witnesses for appearing today. Your testimony is valuable.

Mr. Sauvé, earlier today we had a witness who is a criminologist, Mr. Parent. He talked to us about an issue within the RCMP where they send recruits up into northern communities with very little training, maybe adding to that retention problem that you talked about a little bit earlier. A lot of RCMP members leave very quickly after being appointed; that was the testimony he gave.

There's also another barrier that I noticed in northern Saskatchewan that's created by sending young members into northern, rural and remote communities to gain so-called experience, when they have significant language and cultural differences that they have to overcome and they're there for a short time.

I'm wondering if I can get you to comment on that in the time that I have here.

[Brian Sauvé]

For sure. Thank you.

Obviously, we do send our young members who graduate from Depot all over Canada. Part of this conversation, and part of the conversation I should be having with the commissioner, is how we can improve the ability to deploy our resources to set those members up for success. Those who get into Depot and graduate from Depot are really the best of the best, and we need to ensure that they are being set up for success, within the RCMP and within the communities they go to.

How can we make that better? How can we do that better? We definitely have ongoing conversations about that. Our recruiting and our training modules are definitely something we're open to discussing.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Vidal. I'm sure that, with 30 seconds left, you're not going to be able to formulate another question.

Madame Damoff, you have two minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses.

Chief Zacharie, my question is for you. First, I note that you're chief peacekeeper. I think just the title on its own speaks a lot to the way you treat policing in your nation.

When it comes to the government establishing first nations policing as an essential service, you mentioned training. I'm going to give you this question. You won't have time to answer, but please send us what you can't answer in writing. Should there be consistent specialized training?

With regard to oversight, I know there's been an issue at Six Nations. Do you have any thoughts on how we provide oversight for first nations policing? How do we respect community differences as we establish it? Provinces are the only ones that can certify peace officers. I know there have been issues with bylaws on reserve, especially during COVID, and with enforcement. How can we take all of that into account as we establish first nations policing as an essential service?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have about one minute.