Thank you.
Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Dwayne Zacharie. I'm the president of the First Nations Chiefs of Police Association. I'm also chief peacekeeper of the Kahnawake Peacekeepers, just outside of Montreal, on the south shore.
I'd like to start by recognizing the territory that I'm broadcasting from this afternoon. It's the territory of Kahnawà:ke.
The FNCPA comprises 36 self-administered police services across the country. It's made up of 21 services in Quebec, nine in Ontario, one in Manitoba, one in Saskatchewan, three in Alberta and one in British Columbia.
First nation communities across Canada come to the First Nations Chiefs of Police Association asking for change. They're looking for change in their communities. They're looking for policing services that are commensurate with the needs of their communities, services that are effective and that reflect cultural, social, intrinsic diversity. They're looking for accountability.
The First Nations Chiefs of Police Association strives to provide that to these communities, not only the 36 that we represent, but other first nation communities across the country. The mandate of the FNCPA is to serve first nation police services and first nation territories across Canada by facilitating the highest level of professionalism and accountability in police services, all in a manner that reflects the unique cultures, status, social circumstances, traditions and aspirations of first nations people.
In the situation we find ourselves in now, the First Nations Chiefs of Police Association is asking for change. We're looking for equality of police services across the country. We're looking for communities to have equality as well. We're asking for the government to recognize first nation policing as an essential service, no longer as a program, so that no longer do we have to continually justify our existence.
We want parity with other policing services, what I guess you'd call “regular” policing services. We're looking for full and adequate staffing. We're looking for people to look at us and say that first nation policing is on par with other police services. From an FNCPA perspective, we want people to recognize us as the experts in first nation policing.
We live and we work in the communities we serve. For decades, self-administered first nation policing services in this country have been chronically underfunded. First nation officers have been forced to work in conditions that no other officers in any other service have had to work in. Despite all of that, despite the underfunding, despite the lack of good working conditions, first nation police officers have continually provided excellent services to the communities they represent.
The severe underfunding of indigenous policing creates issues across the country. Policing across this country should be uniform, in the sense that everyone is equally safe and secure, not just certain parts of the population. Every day, first nation police services work on building trust in their communities. My feeling is that police services have lost the trust of the public at large, and without trust it's very difficult for policing services to work well and provide those services without the cloud that we're under at this moment.
The FNCPA was extremely happy to hear Minister Blair say that first nation policing services should be made an essential service, that recognition has been long in coming and that we've been overlooked for too long. In a sense, first nation policing has been treated with a benign neglect. The time for change is now.
It's sad to say that most times we end up in these situations and having these discussions when there's a tragedy. But here we are; we need to make a change. Most first nation communities in this country do not have a service that's representative of who they are. Most first nations communities end up with a policing service that's provided to them, and that service doesn't necessarily recognize the needs of the community. It's more of a situation in which the policing service says, “Here's the service; here's what you get.”
In our situation in first nation policing, we work with the community. We provide a service that's commensurate with the needs of the community. In the situation I'm in, all of our officers are from this community. They're invested. They've been working here and living here their entire lives.
We need to make changes. We need to have an opportunity to work with our communities and the communities at large.
I understand that certain aspects of indigenous policing and the model that we use may not be transferrable to conventional policing, but there are definitely aspects of first nation policing models that would work in certain communities. I think now is the time to discuss it. For years and years, for decades, first nation policing has had to be creative about providing services to the communities, and I think that, by and large, we've been extremely successful at that.
We need to work together. We need to be accountable to the communities we work in. We need to try to provide the services that the communities require from us.
The FNCPA participated in this process today because we wanted to offer a hand. We wanted to be part of the solution, going forward. It's time now to work together. We have to develop a partnership. We have to go forward and be positive about things and get to a good place. We have to listen to people in the communities, and from that we'll be able to provide services that the communities need. We don't have to tell them what they need; we have to listen.
Thank you very much.