Public Safety Committee on July 23rd, 2020

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

Thank you.

This is a quick question for Chief Picard and Chief Bill. I don't think it needs a difficult or long answer.

In your opinion, is the RCMP too Ottawa-centric? Are they disconnected from the reality of the differing local communities across the country?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Be very brief, please.

[Chief Doris Bill]

Yes, I would think so. In the north, it's a bit different because the RCMP is the only law enforcement around. A lot of times some of the remote communities are left unpoliced. They don't have any officers. They don't have any police they can rely on. The community safety initiatives like this are where I see that these kinds of programs can help to offset that.

One of the things with the RCMP in terms of its policies.... I really feel that being stationed in the community for three years and then having to leave.... People get used to some of these officers. We just get them to a point where we would like to keep them, and then they leave and—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Okay, I'm going to have to.... I apologize for cutting you off. Mr. Vidal has picked up on the Jack Harris technique of asking a very important question with about 10 seconds left and then leaving the chair to cut off people, which makes me extremely popular.

With that, I'm looking for Mr. Sikand.

You have three minutes, please. This is three minutes.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. McCaffrey.

First of all, I want to thank you for your service. I also want to pick up on something that you said: that the police force was chronically underfunded or had difficulty accessing resources. I want to ask how the availability of financial resources affects the police forces in first nations and Inuit communities in terms of human resources, police facility services, and health and safety.

[Chief Terry McCaffrey]

Absolutely. The biggest area, obviously, is human resources. More officers provide more safety. This provides more safety and security for our communities, which ultimately, as we're all aware, is a human right. Currently, our indigenous communities across Canada do not receive the same safety and security that the rest of Canadians do.

I would say that the biggest shortfall when we're talking about funding is exactly that. It's human resourcing. Some of it is based on the factor of “pop per cop”, population per officer being allotted for a different area. There are different factors that need to be considered in indigenous communities, like the fact that most of our communities are considered at the highest crime severity index. This means that we are dealing with much higher types of crime, which provides for more specialty-type work.

We are developing situations in our detachment where we're creating crime units and we're not funded for those, where I need to create a domestic violence coordinator and we're not funded for that. It's “Here are your program dollars; figure out how to make it work.”

The reason our services make it work is that we love our community.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you.

With whatever time I have left—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have one minute.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Ms. Bill, I represent a riding in the GTA. I am wondering how you would implement your program in a metropolis.

[Chief Doris Bill]

Much like we did here. We started by having a conversation in the community, really building strong partnerships with the City of Whitehorse, the RCMP and any enforcement agency that had a connection to our community. We reached out to them and really worked on those relationships. We've made some progress. We still have a ways to go; I'm not going to say that everything is perfect. You do it by building strong relationships, and you go from there.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Sikand.

Mr. Uppal, you have three minutes, please.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Thank you.

Thank you, witnesses, for bringing forth some very important testimony.

I will start with Mr. McCaffrey.

What strategies should be developed to attract and recruit more young aboriginals and first nations into the RCMP? I know you touched on this, but I think it's very important that we move forward with this.

[Chief Terry McCaffrey]

I think what a lot of this boils down to is removing barriers. There are a number of barriers, especially in our indigenous police services, that we have been allowed to remove so that we can attract more, recruit more and be more successful in getting our recruits to the training environments.

That being said, if we're looking to hire for a northern Ontario community, just the fact of their being able to get testing—to come out from their community and have to go to, say, Thunder Bay, for example, to get some testing done—could be an enormous barrier for somebody who could potentially be a lifelong, 30-year officer who would serve your community well. That being said, if I can just quickly touch on anything, it's at that recruiting level that we need to remove barriers.

Some other things, too, like the psychological examinations that are being done, are systemically flawed. Some questions are in there that will put you on the wrong side of the curve immediately, like “Do you see spirits?” I've heard that question. Well, indigenous people will attend ceremonies, and this is a firm belief. Immediately it's systemically flawed in some of those areas. They need to be looked at in a complete reform to allow for our people to be hired.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Thank you.

Now, with all of your experience, have you been approached by the RCMP to give advice, or do you know other people who have been?

[Chief Terry McCaffrey]

No, I have not been approached personally from a professional standpoint at this point. I have extended my services, like I am today, to the commander in Manitoba. As well, I have informal colleagues with the RCMP to share some of these ideas with, as well as the CACP. I also sit on the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police's policing with indigenous peoples committee.

There are avenues, and discussions are taking place at those levels.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Uppal.

Madame Damoff, you have three minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses.

In three minutes, I don't have time to ask you all the questions I'd like to ask, but I would like all of you to give some thoughts and maybe provide those in writing.

How do we ensure that we get enough women applying to be officers in first nations policing so that we don't make the mistakes of other police services where women are under-represented? If you can give that some thought, and if all three of you have thoughts on that, could you provide those to me?

Chief Bill, what you're doing in community is a model that I've heard about. It's a real pleasure and honour to meet you. I commend you for what you're doing.

We've talked a lot about investing more in police. Your model relies on community safety officers. I'm wondering, are police really the right people to be responding to mental health calls, to be responding to some of these things? Should we be putting more into policing, or should we be putting more into services and individuals who can work in communities to deal with mental health issues and other social issues, as opposed to sending the police to those calls?

[Chief Doris Bill]

I think the CSO program is designed to bridge that gap between the RCMP and the police. The police can't spend a whole lot of time when someone is suicidal or has a mental health breakdown, whereas our CSOs can stay with the individual, ensure that the individual gets the necessary help they need, and stay with that individual for whatever amount of time is required. It's incredibly important.

In terms of the resources, we're funded by the federal government, Yukon government and a bit of our own. We find that it doesn't quite fit anywhere under any particular program because it's not an enforcement body. That's the difficulty we've had. I've always said that government needs to put more resources towards community-based initiatives like this.

The RCMP has its role. They have the crime reduction unit here, which is very effective. That unit goes after drug dealers who are trafficking, drug dealers specifically, not vulnerable people. That should be the RCMP's role in the community. We can take care of those nuisance calls. We can take care of our people when they have mental health issues and stuff. In many cases, the CSOs help to de-escalate those types of situations.

Sometimes people are under incredible stress. When they see CSOs, they calm down immediately. They've saved a number of young women from really unsafe situations. I think they're the eyes and ears of the community, and that's what communities need.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Madame Michaud, you have a minute and a half.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Picard.

While I don't want to question the idea of indigenous communities being responsible for safety, I would like to know whether, in your opinion, a real problem with training, awareness or ignorance of indigenous culture exists at the core, and as a result, approaches have always been out of touch with indigenous peoples' realities.

[Chief Ghislain Picard]

A report submitted to the City of Montreal earlier this year indicates that the level of sensitivity to indigenous realities may indeed be clearly insufficient. We spoke to the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, who ended up stating that systemic racism and assimilation existed on the Montreal police force. We spoke with Ms. Plante just a few days ago.

I feel this situation shows that there is a huge gap between our communities and the police forces concerned, whether municipal or provincial. So there is a lot of catching up to do. As the chief of police told us a little earlier, for awareness purposes, we will need tailored programs.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Madame Michaud.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Harris, you have the final minute and a half.

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

I'd like to ask a question of Chief Picard with regard to Quebec. I asked about the OPP relationship with the indigenous police forces that he's involved with. Is there a similar relationship between the Sûreté du Québec and tribal or indigenous police forces in Quebec? Does that relationship work well, or is there work to be done that you think should be undertaken as part of a new type of relationship?