Public Safety Committee on Feb. 8th, 2022

[Stan Tu’Inukuafe]

When I think of the challenges, just because of time I'll try to make it....

It's all at different levels. For one individual, it might be getting them into a school program when they're 13 or 14 years old. To give you a sense, a lot of the individuals I've worked with have been to 10 different elementary schools before they reach grade 9. Think about it—10 different elementary schools before they're 13 or 14 years old. Think of the academic gaps that student has. Once they become involved in the justice system, getting a young person into a school program could be challenging. That's one piece.

Another challenge is employment. Yes, they could be 18 or 19 but never really have had a job, so that could be another challenge for that person.

The challenges depend on the individual, but they affect the education piece, the employment piece and the life skills programming that they need.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

You have another 20 seconds, Mr. Van Popta.

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

I'll cede it, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Zuberi, you have two and a half minutes. The floor is yours.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

I want to thank all the witnesses for being here, and acknowledge that I'm speaking from the island of Montreal, also the traditional meeting space of the Kanyen'kehà:ka nation of Mohawk peoples.

Dr. Henry, you really highlighted—and all the witnesses have done this actually—important aspects around moving from punitive to public health. You were about to expand upon programming. I'll give you about two minutes or less to talk about that, please.

[Robert Henry]

When we look at programs, STR8 UP and OPK with the Bear Clan are examples of the ways in which community partnerships work, working where people are. When we're building programs and moving forward, it needs to be done in a way that is reshaped by the realities of individuals that are actually facing..., and we need to engage in that sort of space. When we're engaging with programs, it has to also be the community itself.

When we focus on just the individuals who are committing the crime and not the environment in which it's being created—this also includes the broader community within this.... If we focus on gangs as being individuals who are searching for belonging, we have to ask why they are searching for a sense of belonging and how we as a community are pushing them for another place to belong.

We need to start reframing the way in which we ask those questions, and I think that's where we get change.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Can you touch upon the hypermasculinity that you were speaking about?

[Robert Henry]

Sure. When we look at this idea of hypermasculinity, this is the way it's connected to street codes and street justice.

When we look at the ways in which violence is being done, in order to protect my face, I create a face. I create a mannerism with which I go out there. My name now becomes Stan. I'm Stan; I'm the tough guy. I get respect and status with this. When violence comes to me I have to look after it myself, but it has to be with violence that's associated with the code of the street. The code of the street says if I get beat up, I have to find balance in order to do that. Once this violence becomes escalated, if I show people that I'm going to go above and beyond the violence that was done unto me, it will give somebody a second thought about doing violence unto me or those around me at the same time.

However, the violence gets transmitted. That person who got violence will look for retribution and will up it. That's why we see low levels of violence. When we look at violence between gangs in particular, there's hardly any violence for a while, then all of a sudden there's this huge escalation that happens right away. It's just one over the other until there is a de-escalation, which is usually a bunch of gang leaders coming together and saying they need to calm it down because it's interfering with their business.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

That's great. Thank you very much.

Ms. Michaud, my calculation is that you have about 75 seconds, but that sounds like a question to me, so go on and ask it.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Henry, if you had a proposal to make to the government to curb illegal gun trafficking and gun crime, what would it be?

[Robert Henry]

That's a huge question. I don't think I can answer it right away in 40 seconds.

It would have to be a multipronged approach, examining what the street economy is, how much money is going to the street economy and how we put money equivalent to what's going to the street economy into a legal economy, so that individuals aren't moving from one place to what some scholars—Venkatesh and Levitt—have called “McJobs”. They're not at this low-level place, but they're actually.... How do we equate this? That's sort of [Technical difficulty—Editor] losing and replacing it with that, so it has to focus on that.

It needs to engage in the idea of reshaping street code and street culture, and building healthy relationships within the communities.

It has to focus on addictions. Again, it's addictions, not just substance use, which is a by-product of the violence and trauma within the streets. It needs to focus on addictions to power and everything else at the same time. It's the behavioural addictions that need to go on.

When we look at violence and guns and everything else, we need to find ways to slow down the trafficking and movement of illegal firearms, and how that works.

I'm not 100% sure within this short amount of time for my question. It is a bigger question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much, Mr. Henry.

Now I will move to Mr. MacGregor. You have a minute and change. You can change the world in a minute. Go for it.

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

Sure thing, Chair.

Dr. Langmann, in your opening statement, you went over a lot of the research you have done regarding the relationship between employment rates and crime occurrences and so on. Very quickly, I'm looking at the case of people who have criminal records and their employability.

Do you have any thoughts on what we can proactively attempt with the Parole Board of Canada? A lot of people who have criminal records find it very hard to reintegrate into society. If they are demonstrating a willingness to try to reintegrate, do you have any thoughts on that?

[Dr. Caillin Langmann]

To answer that in a few seconds is hard.

The main thing I've seen directly, and I want to echo exactly what Dr. Henry is saying, is people discharged to the community from prison with significant drug addiction and mental health issues, with no care facilitated after their discharge. They come to the emergency department. This is an emergency for them, and I can give them appointments only three or four months later. That's utterly ridiculous. You cannot expect someone to hold down a job if they are suffering from significant psychiatric or addiction issues. That's number one.

As Dr. Henry said—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

You have five seconds, please, Dr. Langmann.

Okay. I don't blame you. You can't get into that complexity in five seconds, and I'm so sorry we don't have more time.

There will be two more questions. The first will come from Mr. Lloyd, who has two and a half minutes.

Mr. Lloyd, are you there?

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

I don't have any questions. I thought maybe one of my colleagues would take that. Raquel?

We're already over time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Yes, but we had an agreement that, to be fair to the roster, we would go a few minutes over time, so it's your slot.

Ms. Dancho, do you want to take it?

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Yes. I would like to give some of the floor over to Dr. Langmann to talk a bit more about Operation Ceasefire. I think this is a model in the United States that this committee should be looking at for best practices about how we divert youth going into gangs.

Dr. Langmann, could you illuminate us a little more on your knowledge of Operation Ceasefire and its successes?

[Dr. Caillin Langmann]

Operation Ceasefire is one of the older programs. Like I said before, the police went to the gang leaders and tried to get agreements among them all. As Dr. Henry said, when they meet, they can sometimes solve some of the issues. They got agreements to cease the violence, and they warned them that if they continued to do violent activities, there would be significant crackdowns. There was a significant benefit from that.

There was no benefit in terms of the supply-side issue. There was no benefit in the actions of targeting traffickers, banning certain firearms or working on trying to trace firearms. It's extremely difficult.

One issue that Dr. Henry spoke about was the hypermasculinity. That's a definitive factor. I just reviewed a paper which described a lot of the young men as carrying firearms in order to present that image of being masculine: “Don't mess with me. I have a gun.” Then, their friends are carrying them too. Perhaps we can start working in that area.

In that study they worked on changing the attitudes towards violence and handling their anger, as well as behavioural therapy and other methods. They did see a reduction in the carrying of firearms. Unfortunately it was over a short period of time, so we don't know if this was sustained, but certainly those are the areas we need to move in.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you very much, Dr. Langmann.

Again, thank you to all the witnesses for your hard work. It sounds like there's a lot that the witnesses shared in common today from all different sides of the spectrum. I think that's very promising for our report and our research, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you.

The last question, for two and a half minutes, goes to Mr. Noormohamed.

The floor is yours, sir. Go ahead.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I'll try to keep my question brief. I really just wanted to dig in to so much of the value that we've heard of in terms of mentoring programs, in terms of support for youth and in terms of training and creating safe environments for young people to thrive in.

Dr. Henry, could you spend whatever time is left sharing with us your perspective on the importance of making sure we are making the right investments in those types of interventions at the same time as we're thinking about the public safety elements? How do we ensure that the human safety elements are top of mind?

[Robert Henry]

I think that if you're looking at reducing violence, you're doing it from a community-based perspective rather than applying a program into a community and telling the community to fit it. That's where we begin to see real change. I agree with Dr. Langmann that when we look at these other programs and the law—the ceasefire program, Roca, and everything else—what we need to do is look at them and their structure, but then localize them to specific issues in the community. Before, we saw five-gold-star programs being implemented into communities, and the community having to fit them. Those models do not work.

I will refer to OPK and STR8 UP as programs that work from the grassroots up, where it takes long-term commitment for the change to happen. Again, these are very underfunded programs; they're not seen as five-gold-star programs because they haven't been evaluated within those spaces.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I suspect that's all the time I have, so I'm going to say thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you all very much for agreeing to go a few minutes over the scheduled time. I think it was worth it because of the valuable insights that we have heard from these witnesses, whom I would like to thank on your behalf. We understand how stressful and how tough your work is, whether you're researching it out on the streets, or through your own observations from all of those experiences. On behalf of the committee, and of the House of Commons, thank you very much.

Colleagues, do I have an agreement to adjourn the meeting?

Seeing agreement, this meeting is adjourned.