Evidence of meeting #5 for Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was indigenous.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Did you hear anything about sentencing?
We heard from a number of people that when there was somebody who was prosecuted for a murder, they got a very light sentence. A number of people said, “He got away with murder.” Did you hear anything like that when you spoke to people in B.C.? They said they were losing faith in the justice system because they thought the sentences weren't appropriate.
Researcher, Women's Rights Division, Human Rights Watch Canada
Not that I can immediately recall. That could be because we were focused really on the investigative phase and not the prosecution. Certainly, I have heard there are still concerns about the sentence that was given to Judge Ramsay in northern B.C. That's the only thing that immediately comes to mind.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Thank you very much.
First, I want to thank the committee again for hearing from the families. I think it really changed a lot. It really is important to hear from them. A couple of the families that we had heard before were unable to come in December. Their story is one of this not being taken seriously, the investigation not being taken seriously, or the disappearance of young women being labelled as inevitable, and they didn't see a search happening, didn't see anybody really looking. I think one of the stepdad's we heard from in October said that they didn't even talk to him, so who did they talk to. I think there was a feeling of breakdown in trust.
What you've described here in terms of your recommendations.... We don't have very much time left in this committee, so we really would love you to tell us what you want to see in our report.
Police accountability obviously you'd like in the report, but that's sort of after the fact.
Obviously, the relationship is broken in these places. What would be your recommendation to repair the relationship? What kinds of things would communities have to do to build back a trusting relationship because of what has happened?
The other piece is we've heard that people aren't out on the Highway of Tears for no reason. Maybe they're fleeing domestic abuse, but we've even heard that some young girls are out there fleeing abuse of foster care. It's not just doctor's appointments. Did you hear anything about foster care?
Also, we would like you to help us by saying what you'd like in the report, and how you would repair the relationship, because that's very much the substance of your report.
Researcher, Women's Rights Division, Human Rights Watch Canada
I have a few quick points.
One is I commend the committee for hearing from the families. I do think that's so important. It would also be wonderful if the committee could hear from some women and girls who have experienced mistreatment by the police. That would be terrific.
On foster care, really quickly, yes that came up repeatedly, in part because of the relationship of foster care to the Judge Ramsay situation and how some of the young girls who were exploited were in foster care. We also heard about disappearances from foster care, including one where the initial reaction of the police was, “Why are you calling us? This is not our business.” In part that was because they were considering this particular child as high risk, where actually their policy says the exact opposite, where if someone is high risk, that's all the more reason to begin investigating immediately, not to sideline it. The approach there was sort of they saw this as one of, “Well, of course she's gone. She's disappeared, but she'll come back,” or whatever.
Researcher, Women's Rights Division, Human Rights Watch Canada
Yes, exactly. It's not that kind of disappearance.
Quickly, for repairing the relationship, I think accountability actually is the first thing, even though it's post.... We started to see there was a glimmer of hope in some of the community leaders' eyes about there being a new Independent investigations office in B.C. It would be interesting to know what they think now that the office has been in operation. That, in and of itself, was starting to restore a little bit of faith that they could have a relationship, because they would know that if something went wrong, officers would be accountable.
I would also suggest greater training on first nations history. That is a component of RCMP training, but we were hearing from service providers who had witnessed or participated in some training, and they said the most effective ones were those held in person where they were able to have dialogues with officers. Sometimes those were voluntary meetings, so they weren't sure they were getting the officers they really needed to reach.
We certainly have further recommendations in our report, but I think this is another point where the national inquiry comes in. That would be an opportunity to build trust with the police.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
The government has put in place a national action plan on trafficking, but you are calling for a national inquiry. You say that a national action plan on violence against women, particularly missing and murdered indigenous women can't be absolutely effective unless there's an inquiry first to find out what happened.
Researcher, Women's Rights Division, Human Rights Watch Canada
Yes, that is our position. We noted that a number of countries raised the issue of the need for a national action plan on this when Canada was reviewed before the Human Rights Council this past spring. Our feeling is that if there is going to be an effective plan, it does need to be informed by a fully inclusive and participatory process that involves all the stakeholders.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Did Australia do that first? They have a national action plan, but did they have a public inquiry?
Researcher, Women's Rights Division, Human Rights Watch Canada
I couldn't tell you. I do not know.
Executive Director, Women's Rights Division, Human Rights Watch Canada
Australia has had a number of processes that have attempted to understand better the relationship between indigenous people, including women and girls, and law enforcement. There have been a number of processes over the past decade. It's debatable whether they've been successful. There's a sense that there has been some level of trust restored in law enforcement. In Australia it wasn't just the police who were implicated in abuse.
Probably most people would acknowledge that in order to have an effective national action plan that has targeted recommendations that are going to address the issues, it is important first to understand exactly what the issues are and how the community defines those issues. That's why we've recommended that this process be inclusive and participatory, so that there is a range of stakeholders, including the RCMP, so that we can fully understand how these issues are seen and what a national action plan needs to address.
NDP
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for being here.
In 2011, I was part of the status of women committee here on Parliament Hill. We undertook a study on violence against aboriginal women. We wrote a report. It was presented to Parliament. I don't know whether you're familiar with it.
During the course of that process, I did a little bit of my own investigation in order to inform myself. When I started my research, I discovered that more than 120,000 reports had been done on that issue.
First, have you used any of those reports to inform yourselves? I'm sorry that I haven't had a chance to read your report, but has that been part of what you have done to inform yourself? What more can we learn when we have 120,000 reports?
I note that you said you've spoken directly with 50 indigenous women and girls, and specifically about their experiences with police officers. I note that we have had—just from counting them right now, because I didn't remember how many there were—more than 100 witnesses with the committee investigation. We also spent $120,000 criss-crossing the country meeting with aboriginal women, going to the communities, and speaking with aboriginal women in their homes.
I guess the reason I'm puzzled about another report is that in the witness statements we had from the families when we met with them on December 9, Bernadette Smith from Winnipeg said:
I just want to say thank you for listening and inviting us here. I really hope that you take what we're saying, what we're sharing, and you put it into something, but not into a report. I'm tired of reports. I'm sorry. It's report after report that sits on a shelf somewhere. I want tangible action. I want something to come out of this that you're going to take and you're going to actually put into place so that we're not increasing these numbers.
If we have 120,000 reports, another inquiry means 120,001 reports.
Where does that lead us? Why isn't it that we want to get to action? We want to change the direction of these things. We want to stop the violence against aboriginal women and to put in place concrete measures that will help these communities move forward.
We listened to a witness back in November who identified that domestic violence was so much a part of what they were experiencing, and that the time had come when it was no longer acceptable. She talked about uncles raping nieces. My question to her was, when was that acceptable?
If that's what we're going to put into another report, how does that help us move forward and get out of this terrible situation in which we find these women and children?
Researcher, Women's Rights Division, Human Rights Watch Canada
Your question is one that's on a lot of people's minds, including a lot of people in B.C., as they've just financed the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry. They're wondering what more would come from a national inquiry.
We don't need just another study. We do need something that will lead to concrete action. I think the value of an independent national inquiry is that it would be politically independent.
Beyond that, the success of the inquiry certainly would depend on how fully it allowed for the inclusion and participation of the families of indigenous women and—
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Are you telling me that out of 120,000 reports that are already done...? These have not been done by government; these have been undertaken by independent organizations, some of them individuals, some of them research projects that have been done for universities. Is another report going to satisfy moving forward?
In your report you've said, “Many of the killings and disappearances were between the 1960s and the 1990s, but 39 percent occurred after 2000.” That means that 61% of them occurred before 2000. Was there ever a request for a national inquiry when it was the fact that 61% of these had been done before?
We have all of these reports sitting on shelves, and nothing is being done with them.
Researcher, Women's Rights Division, Human Rights Watch Canada
I can't say whether there was a request at the time that happened. Those numbers, I should note, are from the Native Women's Association of Canada, and their data collection stopped in 2010 when their funding ran out. It may well be that more cases have happened since then. The numbers could be greater and the balance between what happened in the last—
Researcher, Women's Rights Division, Human Rights Watch Canada
I understand, but—
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
That's from your report, so those numbers are as current as they come right now.
Researcher, Women's Rights Division, Human Rights Watch Canada
I'm not disputing that's it's what in our report, but what I'm saying is that the numbers are incomplete. That's because the data collection was unable to be continued. They did not get further funding for data collection, and police forces across Canada don't collect comprehensive ethnicity data on victims, so we don't know what the balance is between lives lost from 1960 to 2000 and from 2000 onward.
