Status of Women Committee on April 21st, 2016

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

That's excellent.

I do have another question, and I'm not sure whether or not you'll be able to answer this, but hopefully you will to some extent. I recently met with an undercover police officer in my area. One of his concerns had to do with access to information online and how, if a company uses a database in the United States to store its information, that information is not admissible here in Canada. Legally we don't have access to it. Are you familiar with what I'm saying here?

For instance, for Facebook accounts, I'm told that we're not able to access any of that information because it's hosted in the United States. For mobile phones, etc., all of that data is hosted in the United States. That situation makes it incredibly difficult to solve crimes, particularly with regard to trafficking of people and trafficking of drugs, which were his two concerns.

I'm wondering if you can comment on this at all.

[Lori MacDonald]

I don't have any level of expertise on that particular issue. There are information-sharing issues that come into play in countries outside Canada. I don't know about the policing part.

[Supt Shirley Cuillierrier]

Our commissioner has talked a lot about this, and being able to access information. I am stepping out of my realm of expertise, but if in the future you summon someone from the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre, they would certainly have the expertise to answer that type of question.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Would you have the mandate to interrupt online conduct with regard to exploitation that's taking place on the Internet?

[Supt Shirley Cuillierrier]

Now you're starting to get into police methods. Again, it's not my area of expertise. Because it is a specialty, I'm going to defer that question to someone else who's summoned from the RCMP in the future.

[Angela Connidis]

I would say that you're starting to get into the area of people's personal privacy. In any case, when law enforcement officers want to intercept personal communications, they would usually need a warrant or the authority of a court. You'd have to show reasonable grounds for interfering in someone's private information.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Shirley, I think you would be best to comment on this.

Can you explain for us how policing on reserves is managed? Can you explain some of the barriers to policing on reserves and how these barriers might be overcome?

[Supt Shirley Cuillierrier]

The RCMP polices approximately 630 aboriginal communities in Canada, on reserve, off reserve. In my experience, the best way to meet the needs of the citizens of the community is for the RCMP to recruit aboriginal people to be members of the RCMP. Our commissioner has set high targets for recruitment. Currently, 8% of the RCMP staff is aboriginal.

We are careful in choosing the officers that police aboriginal communities. In my experience, having the right officer police communities is key. These officers need to be able to talk about some of the challenges that go beyond policing issues. They are often rooted in social issues that sometimes result in criminal justice issues downstream.

As we're talking about the national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women, I can tell you that we've been hearing a lot of root-cause concerns that have a downstream effect on policing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Ms. Sansoucy, you have seven minutes.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My questions have to do with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The Legal Strategy Coalition on Violence Against Indigenous Women

analyzed a 2014 RCMP report on missing and murdered aboriginal women. The report explains that the estimates of the number of missing and murdered aboriginal women underestimates the extent of the crisis. I'll ask my three questions all at once, and then you can answer.

Can you explain the inaccuracies in identifying the aboriginal victims, in both the RCMP data and in the data regarding police practices? Do you think it's possible that some aboriginal people were identified as being non-aboriginal, which could skew the national homicide inquiry?

Furthermore, what actions have been put in place internally to investigate and prevent allegations of sexual assault against aboriginal woman by members of the RCMP and other police forces?

[Supt Shirley Cuillierrier]

Thank you for your question.

I don't remember when we started to review the data, but I know that our review concluded in 2012, and our first report was published in 2014.

In the beginning, we were able to review the data thanks to an agreement between the RCMP and 299 other police forces. In total, 300 police forces provided data, and we reviewed it. Certainly, at that time, it wasn't clear, in the files, whether the missing or murdered young woman or girl was aboriginal. There was a gap there. In the 2015 report, we were able to review all the files and specify whether individuals were truly aboriginal. That's why there is a difference between the figures in the 2014 and 2015 reports.

With respect to the people who were improperly identified, it's clear that in the past 20 years, Canadian police practices did not require that people be identified based on their membership in a particular group. The data we collected aimed to determine whether these people were female or male, for example. Since our 2014 report, the data from all Canadian police forces identify aboriginal women, whether they are Métis, Inuit, or first nations.

As for the investigation and prevention measures, we ensured that there was better supervision of investigators. We implemented the National Missing Persons Strategy. In addition, we updated our policies regarding investigations of homicides and missing persons.

In terms of prevention, we organized a number of media campaigns, using posters and television ads. We worked a lot with the five national aboriginal organizations, including the Assembly of First Nations and the Native Women's Association of Canada. The objective is to develop tools that can be used in the future, for example, in training RCMP officers. That said, when I work on something, I like to share it with other police forces.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Do I have time remaining, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Yes, you have three minutes.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Okay.

The Association of Alberta Sexual Assault Services notes that sexual assault has a very low reporting rate and that 97% of assaults are apparently never reported to the police.

Has the RCMP looked at why women who are victims of assault do not report to the police?

What changes or reforms do you think could be made to improve these statistics? Have you looked at why the reporting rate is still so low?

[Supt Shirley Cuillierrier]

It all depends on the crime.

Take the case of a victim of sexual assault. Sometimes, it is a matter of support available. Some people are truly afraid of talking about what happened. In some cases, the victims want to talk to the police but do not want to go to court. That's an important decision to make. Sometimes, there's a lack of trust. People may not even know where to go or who to talk to. I gave the example of a victim who might confide in a teacher or a friend.

That said, we hope that people report these crimes to the police, since it's important to do so and these are very serious crimes.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

People who work in homes for domestic violence victims note that, in the early stages, the victim has so little self-esteem that, I assume, she ends up accepting the situation she's in.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Are you done?

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Yes, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Okay.

We'll go to my colleague Ms. Sahota.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you for being here. I'm going to switch the conversation over a bit to the human trafficking that you have referred to in your report.

You talk about vulnerability and certain demographics—women and young girls who are marginalized or socially ostracized. I want to get more details of who these people are. Who do you find is marginalized? Where in Canada are we finding the most vulnerable young women?

I'd like more of your thoughts about how we can go further into the prevention approach: prevention, protection, prosecution, and partnerships. What does this look like? What exactly is this model? How do you prevent these crimes from happening to these particular young women and who are they?

[Angela Connidis]

I don't have a lot of specific statistics for you, but in general we find an overrepresentation of indigenous women involved in the human trafficking trade. It's not an international issue. It can be very much domestic. You are also getting women who are involved with drugs and addictions. They are your other vulnerable group. Immigrant women can also be a vulnerable group.

With respect to the immigrant women, there are mechanisms in place to provide them some protection for reporting. What often happens is that immigrant women will be afraid to report because they may lose their status, or maybe they don't have their status. Maybe they've been sucked into this trade and all their status papers have been taken away.

Also, there are protections for immigrant women who do report sexual exploitation or human trafficking in particular. As well, I believe that when police forces identify areas where they think human trafficking is happening, they will alert some of the victim supports around that by saying that they will be breaking up this ring and they will need those services.

It would usually be the more vulnerable in society, those with drug addictions or in poverty and particularly aboriginal women, who are overrepresented in trafficking victims.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you.

Does anyone have anything to add?

[Supt Shirley Cuillierrier]

What I could add is that in 2014 the RCMP undertook a report on project safekeeping, which is available to the public. I would be happy to share it with the committee. It focused on domestic human trafficking.

There are some points in it that are actually quite helpful in terms of understanding, but my biggest observation of human trafficking is that it is probably very close to sexual assault in being the most under-reported crime in this country. It's very underground. It's one that people have a hard time wrapping their heads around in terms of what the crime actually is. We struggle to get people to come forward and talk about this being a crime.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

You were mentioning that for immigrant populations or indigenous populations you are helping women come forward. How do you go about doing that?

How do they know where they can seek these services if somebody has taken their papers away or is holding a threat of that sort, or when it's linked to cyber-bullying? We have seen some of that. People's pictures or other things that they would not want to be released are held against them, and they're lured into the trafficking trade because of these things. How do you prevent that? To me, that's really—

[Angela Connidis]

For raising awareness, that's an excellent question, because how do you reach them if they're being hidden away?

Part of it is through the victim services. Provinces generally operate the victim services and they will do outreach. They will try to identify people who they feel are vulnerable and raise awareness that way. Federally, we have a national office for victims, with a toll-free line. Victims can call. We can refer them to services.

It is a challenge to raise the awareness that if they report we will have some safety features for them.