Special Committee on Indigenous Women Committee on June 13th, 2013

[Ruth Proulx]

You bet it is.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

How do you get them?

[Ruth Proulx]

Through advertising, e-mails, technology, and Facebook—any way we can.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

So they just take on this leadership role on their own as a volunteer?

[Ruth Proulx]

Some people naturally take that on. Sometimes you have to say to them that you see something really great in them and you think this training would be fantastic for them. As you know, there are wounded people in your communities who have that natural helping link inside of them, so you just say, “Here, come.” While they're there, they're also healing their own wounds and they're becoming healers themselves.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

You also mentioned that when you don't have funding, you find funding. How do you find funding?

[Ruth Proulx]

We have a woman who works for us who is the brains of finding funding. Jacquie is....

[Jamie Crozier]

Our executive director is really good at writing a funding proposal. She's out there writing them all the time, trying to get whatever she can to sustain any programming we have.

[Ruth Proulx]

Another thing is that Jamie came back from a workshop recently. She told me about the percentage of people who write funding proposals and who actually get one. How many...?

[Jamie Crozier]

Only 17% of those who submit a first-time funding proposal are funded. It's not a huge amount.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Right. Thank you.

You also said that if you decreased the resilience factors, the community would be better. Can you give me some examples?

[Ruth Proulx]

Of increasing resiliency within a community?

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

I think you said if you “decrease”.

[Ruth Proulx]

If you decrease vulnerability and increase resiliency—

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Do you have some examples of that?

[Ruth Proulx]

Of increasing resiliency? Community centres, cultural events, training, and opportunities like education, sports, and cadets—there's a multitude of different things people can join that increase friendships and decrease isolation. There are so many. The list goes on.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I want to say before I move to my next question that you are right when you say we need to be doing something with men as well, so that they can let other men know that it is not right to do what they do. Status of Women has funded a program similar to that with the don't be a bystander program. I really love that program. It's in B.C. It involves the B.C. Lions going to 40 schools. At least it's a start, where they're engaging young boys.

My next question is for the RCMP. I probably don't have a lot of time.

I think you mentioned—I'm not sure who it was—that you implemented some policies in regard to the murdered and missing aboriginal women. Could you elaborate on a couple of the policies that you've implemented since then that would be helping?

[A/Commr Kevin Brosseau]

Yes, certainly we have a national policy to deal with missing persons. Historically, I think, there was a mindset that if someone's not missing for 24 hours, don't call us. That is in fact not the case.

The national policy directs that all missing persons complaints calls are treated as a priority investigation and will be addressed as such, with accountabilities throughout the process, including supervisors and managers in that accounting, which is significant. This means that immediately, no matter what, if a young person lives in a group home or whatever, the disappearance is treated seriously. We get a number of those. Of course, the large majority of them are found very soon or shortly after they were reported missing.

That's I think the key policy piece from a missing persons perspective. That has been rolled out into each division—we call our provinces and territories “divisions”—and localized into policy as well, so that senior officers review and are briefed on every missing persons complaint. When foul play is suspected, the investigative team is mustered immediately, including serious crime and major crime investigators, who of course are very seasoned and have the experience to be able to deal with this. One of the previous witnesses spoke about those critical early hours, and that is absolutely the case in policing.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

Thank you, Ms. Truppe.

Thanks to all of you for being here today. We very much appreciate your perspective and your being here to talk to us about this very important matter.

Again, thank you very much. I declare the meeting adjourned.