Public Safety Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2022

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

Just keep talking. If there is a problem, it will be with the interpretation, Ms. Whiskeyjack.

[Nicole Whiskeyjack]

Good morning. My name is Nicole Whiskeyjack. I live in Pendleton, Oregon, in the United States. I come to you today with the lived experience of everything that is being talked about today.

I grew up with lots of trauma in my life. My mom died when I was 14. My dad passed away when I was 16. I have three younger brothers, and I had to raise those boys to be who they are today.

I was basically manipulated by a high-profile gang member when I was 18 years old, got pregnant with a child, had the child, was involved with so many different experiences that I had never before experienced in my life—drug dealing, gangs, violence, shootings, all of the stuff that's being talked about.

When I was 18—obviously, my parents had passed away—I had no guidance and had never experienced being an adult, basically having to be a parent to my younger siblings. I experienced everything that's been going on and what the whole conversation is about today. During that time, I committed lots of offences, went to jail as a first-time offender, ended up in prison and got a five-year sentence, but that doesn't define who I am today.

This is a topic that's really tough for me because nobody ever sees the lived experience. People talk about their story and share it with these types of people who are wanting to listen, so I really appreciate all the work that has been done by everybody, and all the ears that are listening, because most of the time all the indigenous children's complaints and all the help they need falls on deaf ears, and nobody ever listens.

The topic always comes back to why indigenous children are doing this. Why is this happening to indigenous children? Why is this? But it all goes back to—piggybacking off what Marlene said—residential school. A lot of indigenous children don't have the trust of the police service anywhere in their community because they know that the police service came and took their parents away, took them to a residential school. They never saw them again. It's all of that stuff.

How do you build that trust between indigenous children, indigenous communities and indigenous people if that's the relationship you have built and you have had since the sixties scoop, since residential schools? All of those children have had a lot of trauma in their lives, historical trauma, and nobody has ever been there to help them deal with it or to give them the tools they need to deal with it.

Nobody has been there to build the relationships with them that need to be built, whether it's in school, in health care, in federal government, in social workers or in child care. It's always, let's take these children away. Let's put them in foster care. Let's strip them. Let's cut their hair. Let's teach them all the stuff they don't know about or never grew up learning. Let's take their cultural identity away. All of that stuff has been done to these children. Then they lose their identity, who they are and where they come from. How are they going to make a life for themselves?

Then these gangs come in, pick these kids up, build those relationships with them, make them feel safe, and then guns come into play: “We will give you this gun; this is your protection.” Then they feel safe. They have a relationship, and they have protection. Most of the time, that's what indigenous children want—a relationship, protection and trust, somebody they can trust and build a relationship with.

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

Ms. Whiskeyjack, I hate to interrupt you, but I only have a minute left and I wanted to ask you a question about incarceration because you said you had been to prison.

I had the Library of Parliament do an amazing study on the mother-child program. In 2011, 48% of the kids in foster care had moms in prison, so that connection with the kids was broken.

How critical is it to deal with the number of indigenous women going to prison, the indigenous kids in foster care, and the link between that and their getting involved in gangs, guns, drugs and everything else?

[Nicole Whiskeyjack]

As I said, when I went to prison I was 20 years old. Actually, I was 21, because when I first got incarcerated I was in the Edmonton Remand Centre. It's kind of a crazy story, because it was my first offence ever in my life. I never had any gang involvement, drugs involvement, nothing like that. For the first offence in my life, I was in the remand centre for a whole slew of charges, all the charges that come with being involved in gangs, high-profile gangs, and guns, a whole slew of charges. Finally, I was not able to be released on a promise to appear or be released from a justice of the peace.

Finally, I was incarcerated in the Edmonton Remand Centre. I was five months pregnant with my first daughter. She's now 15 years old.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

It's a fascinating story and it deserves a lot more time, which, unfortunately, we don't have. I hope there will be other occasions for us to hear more from you, Ms. Whiskeyjack, because these life experiences are absolutely vital.

Thank you very much for sharing yours with us now, and I'm sorry we don't have more time.

Ms. Michaud, you have a six-minute slot in this round. The floor is now yours.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for your testimony, Ms. Whiskeyjack. It is really very moving.

I have more than one question and we have a number of interesting witnesses with us. But I am going to give you time to continue what you were saying. Take all the time you need.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Ms. Whiskeyjack, this is an opportunity for you to continue. Please, go ahead.

[Nicole Whiskeyjack]

While I was incarcerated, the first thing that happened.... I was five months pregnant with my daughter, and eventually I was sentenced. While I was pregnant and incarcerated, the goal of the police service and everybody around me was to apprehend my baby as soon as she was born. Because I was smart about everything, I had everything in place so that when my daughter was born, she would go home with my family, and my family only.

Today, she lives with me, obviously, because I got her back when I was released from the penitentiary. She was there to pick me up with the people in my family who looked after her. Just for that.... There was no system set up so that she would go with family. It was immediately children services: “Let's take her away; let's get her. She's a gang member's child, a gang member's baby; let's get her and take her away.”

There was no system in place. There were no resources for anybody to come to visit me while I was incarcerated to ask what I wanted for my unborn child and where I wanted my child to go. There was nothing like that. It was my own smarts that gave me the intuition that said I do not want my daughter to be involved in children services; I do not want my daughter to be in foster care; I do not want my daughter to be stripped of all her cultural identity.

That's what I did. I set it up so that my younger brother would take her home from the hospital when she was born, and that's what happened.

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

It was your impression that you did not have access to the resources you needed and that you were not well supported. Do you see any improvement today? We have witnesses here representing organizations that are really helping the community. Do you find that things have changed? Do you feel that the government should invest more in the area?

Gangs are heavily involved in firearms trafficking, but, in my opinion, it's not simply a question of investing in policing. It is possible to work on prevention and community support. I would like to know what you think about it.

[Nicole Whiskeyjack]

I think the most important thing is to have people like me, who.... When I got out of prison, I completely changed my whole life around. I disconnected myself from all those people. As I said, my daughter is 15 years old now. Obviously, we moved to the United States five years ago. She has never had any direct contact with her biological father. I'm sorry to say it, but he's probably still in jail up there somewhere, living the same old gang life, distributing guns and drugs and violence. I guarantee that nothing's changed with him, because he's done it his whole life. I haven't talked to him in 20 years.

I would say, have people like me, who have lived experience, who have changed their life around, present to people and let them know. Let people like me help bring light to the real issues that are happening. I know that when I talk to people, and I tell them....

My daughter goes to Pendleton High School. She's an honour student. She just got an award yesterday for being the best for first semester in advanced leadership. I guarantee you that if she did a presentation at her school and said, “I was born while my mom was incarcerated”, nobody would believe her. They would think she was lying.

People like me have the lived experience and know what it's like. We've experienced those systems. I think if those systems were really talked about on a lived experience basis, it would bring more light to the end of the tunnel on what really needs to be done and what work needs to be done. When you're incarcerated, you're basically forgotten about. You have free room and board. Nobody cares about you. Nobody needs to worry about you, or they think they don't need to worry about you, because you're incarcerated. Really, it's the federal government that puts money into that, to feed those people, to clothe those people, and to give those people a place to sleep.

Oftentimes, for some people who are living on the streets in that kind of life, that's why they get caught up with gangs and violence and drugs. A lot of times, that's their safe way out. They think, “If I commit a crime and I end up in jail, I have a place to sleep. I have a place to eat. I don't have to worry about this.” Some people do those things because then they are finally able to focus on themselves and get the help and the resources they need. Sometimes that's a way for them to get off the drugs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much. I'm glad we had an opportunity to hear from you more fully.

Thank you, Ms. Michaud, for allowing that to happen.

Now I will turn to Minister...Mr. MacGregor. “Minister” MacGregor...? Well, look, you never know. This is a very unpredictable business we're in. But this morning you're Mr. MacGregor, and you have six minutes in this round to pose your questions or your commentary.

The floor is yours.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just quickly, with respect to the motion I gave notice of in the first hour, I think I did hear some committee members express some interest in maybe discussing it. I do think this is a very pertinent issue with how the GoFundMe model operates and the anonymity of donors, especially foreign sources.

I'm just wondering if there's unanimous consent from committee members to maybe hive off five minutes at the end of today's meeting to have a discussion and vote on the motion. If it is the will of the committee, I'm willing to cede the remainder of my time to give us that space to do so. I don't want any discussion at this point. I just hope I can find unanimous consent to have five minutes at the end of this committee meeting to have an actual vote on that motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Is there unanimous consent?

I see that there is unanimous consent.

We can defer the discussion to the end of the meeting for five minutes. That's only a few minutes from now, because we are now moving within about 15 minutes of the hour.

Mr. MacGregor, you have given up time, but you haven't used all your time.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

In the interest of giving us that time, Mr. Chair, I will cede the remainder of my question time to give us that space at the end.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Okay.

We're now at a point where we have to make a couple of decisions about how we're going to use the 10 minutes remaining. We have another round of questions. Maybe we should begin with the top of that round and ask members to cut their time in half so that we can accommodate as many as we can.

Mr. Van Popta, you are first on the list. Can you do it in two and a half minutes? We'll find out. The floor is yours.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Yes, I can do it in two and a half minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I have a question for Kevin Walker, but perhaps Mr. Bourbonniere can also jump in. You told us that the urban indigenous population in Winnipeg is very large. I don't really have a sense of how large that is, so maybe you could tell us. In relation to that, do you see any value in indigenous policing in an urban setting such as Winnipeg?

[Kevin Walker]

I'll let my colleague Mitch Bourbonniere speak on this. He hasn't had a chance to speak, so I'd like to get his views on that.

[Mitch Bourbonniere]

Thank you, Kevin.

The population in Winnipeg in terms of folks who declare their indigeneity would be between 15% and 25% of Winnipeggers. As Kevin mentioned, in the inner city and in the north end, that's much higher.

We would always welcome more safety and peacekeeping done by indigenous people in our community, and Bear Clan is doing it already. In terms of women-led, Mama Bear Clan in North Point Douglas is also a model and a sister organization to Kevin's organization, so that's happening as well.

Thank you.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

We've heard quite a bit about indigenous policing and the value of that, but in an urban setting, what does that look like? Are there enough resources being put into that?

[Mitch Bourbonniere]

I think it's happening, I think Kevin's program and Mama Bear Clan are doing it. It's not policing per se, but it is peacekeeping and it is community-led, women-led. We've taken guns off the street as well in our program, OPK Manitoba. With more support, we can continue to do these kinds of things and maybe shift the police budget away from mental health and wellness checks, missing people and non-criminal matters and allow the police to shift their budget towards smuggling and gun dealing.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you.

Do you have any specific recommendations for that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

You have five seconds, please.

[Mitch Bourbonniere]

Just shift some of what the police are doing over to community organizations like Mama Bear Clan, OPK and Bear Clan.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you.

We will go to Mr. Noormohamed for two and a half minutes.

Sir, are you ready?

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I am ready. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Whiskeyjack, your testimony today is pretty profound and pretty remarkable for all of us, I think. You've changed your whole life. For all of us, I think, there's a lot of learning there. If you were to reflect now on some of what you've heard today, what would you tell us is important in terms of creating the conditions necessary for young people to leave behind the gang life? From your perspective, how important is it to make sure that we get these weapons that are being used by gangs off the streets?