Evidence of meeting #8 for Public Safety and National Security in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was police.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:55 p.m.
Liberal
5:55 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Thank you very much, Chair.
Mr. Bourbonniere, I have two questions that I want to focus on, but first I want to thank you for what you do. The work done by you and by groups like yours across the country has always intrigued me. In all my years of policing, it's something I always supported.
With your background in front-line service to the community, I'm sure you have many success stories of people from marginalized communities who have embraced the opportunities they were provided with and have turned their lives around. You told us of one during your opening remarks, and I thank you for that.
In all those circumstances, from your experience, are there any common themes or experiences or opportunities that you can explain to the committee that are consistent and necessary to the success of the individuals you're trying to reach on the street?
6 p.m.
Community Activist, Ogijiita Pimatiswin Kinamatawin
Thank you for the opportunity to answer that.
It's mentorship. It's wraparound support. Young people come to us from street life, from prison, from gangs. They've been used and abused in those settings, and they're tired, but they don't feel encouraged that they can make it in a system that they feel has always looked down on them. Just having people with lived experience wrap around them and support them and believe in them until they can believe in themselves is what's been working. We call it “lateral empathy”.
Lateral empathy and lateral kindness are the opposite of lateral violence. Lateral violence is a phenomenon that occurs when those in an oppressed group will sometimes turn on one another. We're changing that narrative to where it's the people who are helping one another.
There is no panacea. There is no government or church or treatment centre that will rescue anyone. It's the community. They look after each other. Out of that, we've had incredible success stories.
6 p.m.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Thank you very much for those comments.
You're from Winnipeg and you've walked the streets of Winnipeg, so you will have seen this. It's something that surprised me about 18 months ago, when I was there.
We know the mental health crisis we're facing in this country. We know that the police interactions in mental health crises are increasing as well. Quite frankly, responding to mental health-type calls has been a challenge for policing for decades. Today, with our massive and increased levels of illegal drug use and higher rates of addiction, there are more and more requests for help. Usually the police, in many circumstances, are the only ones who can and do respond. The police have some training, but that's not really their role and expertise.
My time in Winnipeg was short, but from working with the police there and listening to them, I know that many times they have hundreds of high-risk calls backed up because all of their cars, dozens of cars, their first-line responders, are tied up with individuals who are experiencing a mental health crisis and need assistance. They can't leave them at the health facility where they take them, so all of their cars are tied up.
You see this first-hand every single day. Quite frankly, with the meth issues you're experiencing there in Winnipeg, I've never seen a community that has as much of a mental health, drug addiction and crime combination. From your experience, sir, can you help me understand what you think is going to work better? You talk about communities helping each other and people in the community helping people in the community, but we all have to work together. From your experience, how do we properly deal with some of the mental health challenges you're experiencing in Winnipeg, as we are across this country, for a law enforcement response—
6 p.m.
Conservative
6 p.m.
Community Activist, Ogijiita Pimatiswin Kinamatawin
We need to invite the police to step down at the front end and at the back end of that whole process. Unofficially and informally, we receive calls from the community to do wellness checks that the police never even know about. I and the people I work with will knock on any door in any neighbourhood in Winnipeg, and we have. That's the front end. I think we're okay to take care of the front end. If we need police, we'll call.
The back end is having police tied up in the hospitals, in the emergency rooms, and I think that could be better served by mental health workers doing that role as well.
Thank you.
6 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Mr. Bourbonniere. That is a very succinct answer to a difficult question.
Mr. Lightbound, you have the final five minutes, please.
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
Joël Lightbound Liberal Louis-Hébert, QC
Ms. Maynard and Mr. Bourbonniere, thank you for your opening statements and your contributions to the committee's study.
I have two questions for Ms. Maynard.
Given all of your work in this area, what would you say are the biggest gaps when it comes to access to race-based data to effectively target systemic racism in policing?
This week, three police officers in Repentigny, Quebec, were found guilty by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The city of Repentigny had to pay $35,000 to a Black teacher who was racially profiled and stopped by police. A week ago, the city of Longueuil was ordered to pay $10,000 in damages for racial profiling. Two of its police officers were also ordered to pay damages.
How do you view the role of human rights commissions and similar tribunals in situations like these? The institutions can be hard for people to access, but they can provide an additional layer of accountability, don't you think?
6:05 p.m.
Author, As an Individual
Thank you.
I hope that I understand your first question correctly. You're asking what the biggest barriers are in addressing racial profiling in policing. Is that correct?
6:05 p.m.
Author, As an Individual
It's the data. Okay. Thank you. Yes, I'm happy to answer that.
It's ridiculous in a Canadian context that we are so rarely offered the ability to have what should be publicly accessible data when it comes to race-based incidents. We often have to rely on access to information or special reports such as those that have been done by the Toronto Star. Very recently in Montreal, a report was published. Up until then, one of the only statistics that we had was accidentally leaked to the press by the police, but it was actually not supposed to be published. We have an ongoing secrecy that makes it much more difficult.
However, I also would argue that having access to data still does not stand in for change. In the United States, for example, you have publicly accessible data, but if you don't do something to actually address the racism, you're just documenting it better. I'd highlight both that it's important and that's it's also not enough.
With regard to the second strategy and the way human rights offices work, I do think that these are one of the important places where people are able to, in some instances, get justice. Of course, if we look to the Quebec human rights commission, we know that people are waiting years and years to get access to this trial, and it is quite narrow in terms of who really has access to it. As far as oversight goes, as much as these organizations do important work, it's vastly not enough for the number of people who are regularly experiencing police harassment and police violence. As an example, when we looked to one study that came out in Montreal in 2008, we saw that over 40% of black youth in just one neighbourhood had been stopped by the police that year.
If we look to this as the vastly expansive harm that it is across our society that's happening so regularly, human rights organizations do important work and are not given enough power or funding to really intervene. Anyway, it doesn't do any.... It only provides compensation afterwards for an injustice that never should have occurred in the first place. Again, it doesn't get to the heart of preventing police killings, police violence, etc.
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, colleagues and witnesses, for helping the chair manage the clock. We are almost 40 minutes past where we should be, but thank you regardless.
Again, on behalf of the committee, I want to say to both Ms. Maynard and Mr. Bourbonniere that they've contributed mightily to this study and provided us with some very thoughtful comments, for which I am quite grateful.
With that, colleagues, I'm going to adjourn the meeting, but I will reach out to those on the subcommittee to talk about how to manage our time going forward.
Again, thank you.
6:10 p.m.
Community Activist, Ogijiita Pimatiswin Kinamatawin
Could I have 10 seconds?
6:10 p.m.
Community Activist, Ogijiita Pimatiswin Kinamatawin
I just want to thank Ms. Maynard. It's been an honour to share the platform with her. I learned so much from her.
We need to listen to the research. Just like with COVID, we need to listen to the science, so thank you very much. Thank you to all of you for what you do.