Status of Women Committee on Dec. 12th, 2017

[Lois Frank]

All of those points that you mentioned are really quite simple. We just need aboriginal people to be treated as human beings, and if a lot of the training goes into this process, more power to the people who are serving in the criminal justice system. As an example, if murdered and missing indigenous women were called “murdered and missing women in Canada”, we would see things a whole lot differently. But because it's aboriginal, we're not getting what we need to have in these discussions.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Is there anything from Stephanie?

[Stephanie Weasel Child]

With regard to educating legal students, law students, there is a program at the University of Calgary that has students come out to Siksika. Old Sun Community College in Siksika has implemented the Siksika knowledge courses, which are broken up into various topics within Siksika, for example, clans, child.... I can't remember the exact names, but one is based on the treaty; one is based on land claims, one on the clan system, and there is an introductory course that covers all of the topics. There are about 16 courses altogether. There were some law students from the U of C who came out and took a tour. Some of them were actually going to enrol in some of those courses. I don't know if that ever happened—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

We have to wrap up this line of questioning. We can perhaps...after, but we have only a few minutes left.

We have seven minutes for Bernadette Jordan.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to both witnesses for being here today.

Ms. Frank, I'm going to start with you, because you mentioned Gladue, and we've heard a lot about it over the last few weeks that we've been doing this study. We heard last week about the lack of ability for people to access Gladue. How can we, as the federal government, fill those gaps? The people we heard from last week—I believe one was from legal aid—said it's very difficult to get Gladue reports done, that there's a backlog.

Is there something we can do, a concrete action to assist in making sure those reports are done and are able to be used?

[Lois Frank]

I don't think there's uniformity in this country. In B.C. they do Gladue. I have a lot of clients who come from Saskatchewan, and I think there were only four done there in a certain period of time. We've had over 600 in Alberta.

I'm getting quite a few of these reports, and I see a lot of patterns. There needs to be more research as to what's happening with these Gladue reports.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

That's actually a very good point. How do we make sure they're addressed in areas where they're not? If you're getting only four from Saskatchewan, but you know that there are more indigenous women who are being charged or going through the justice system, how do we make sure they have access to those? It was the same in.... I think it was Ontario that the gentleman who presented last week was from. If you have 600 in Alberta, obviously you're doing something that they are not.

How do we make sure they are accessing those reports and making sure they are available?

[Lois Frank]

That's a question I'd pose to this group. We're there. There needs to be a lot more training done. I say “uniformity”, because we represent the clients. We need to have people there who have heart, who have the education, who have the experience. That's hard to get, because in some jurisdictions they want Gladue writers to be employees of the system, and that shouldn't happen.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Is there an outlet, say for example, for you, who writes so many of them, to reach out to people in Ontario or through legal aid or whatever, to offer how you do it? Is there a way for those kinds of conversations to take place?

[Lois Frank]

That would be very interesting, and I'd like to see more of the recommendations that we proposed. Sometimes they're ignored, and we've spent a lot of time putting these together. If you understand the Criminal Code, the justice system, you can provide recommendations, but we're told, “You can't tell judges what to do. You can't give recommendations as to the sentence”, and I don't understand that.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

We also have the problem of mandatory minimums, which tie a judge's hands as well.

[Lois Frank]

I've been doing these for a number of years, and I've never come across a judge who hasn't been receptive. I think that's very positive for people who are involved in the system, but I don't think most native people know about Gladue or the principles of the changes to the Criminal Code.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you.

Ms. Weasel Child, I'm going to ask you a couple of questions about Ashley. I'm going to elaborate a bit more on Ms. Malcolmson's questions, and some of the things you said.

You said you've been advocating for an adult addictions centre on reserve for quite some time. You have one for youth, but not one for adults. Is that correct? Did I understand that properly?

[Stephanie Weasel Child]

Yes.

I haven't been advocating for it, but I know our Siksika health services senior manager has.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

You said at the beginning of your testimony that a number of your band live off reserve. How do we address the problems of addictions and mental health off reserve? It would be great to have the addictions centre on reserve, but you have a lot of people off reserve as well.

[Stephanie Weasel Child]

I think Siksika would have to have access to more funding so they can hire nation members to work off reserve in liaison with our nation members who live in the city. They have access to more services, but some of them don't know how to access them. They need that extra help, somebody in the system to help and guide them, to let them know these services are available to them. I know they advocate for them on reserve for addictions, for counselling, for mental health, but off reserve, because it's such a big system, within the Calgary courts or within Edmonton, they seem to fall through the cracks and don't get access to them.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I know you can only speak to Siksika, but the ability to offer services in remote and rural areas, because a lot of our reserves are in very remote areas, I'm wondering how we overcome those kinds of challenges. I'm looking for any kind of feedback so the federal government can play a role to make sure we are able to deliver services needed in areas outside a concentrated area.

[Stephanie Weasel Child]

I think they would have to advocate and put more dollars into training to go to the high schools on reserve and pull out students who have an interest in working in the justice system and corrections and legal, and advocate for them to get some training. Put in the training dollars, because you can't just say this is necessary. I hope they get it. There has to be a concrete solution, a program offered within these remote communities where they can identify or take five students, bring them to Winnipeg or Saskatoon or Edmonton, train them, and then encourage them to go back to work on their reserve.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Ms. Frank, would you like to comment on that?

[Lois Frank]

I think it's really important. The federal government can only do so much. It has to be the leaders in our community, and I'm hard on our tribal leaders. The federal government can make it mandatory, make it so chiefs and councils can focus on looking after their members and their children, and implement justice programs that work, rather than having something external.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much. We're just wrapping up our second panel.

I would like to thank Lois Frank from the University of Lethbridge as well as the Siksika nation.

I would also like to thank you, Stephanie Weasel Child, for coming and sharing all the information with us.

We're going to end the panel, but we're now going to move on to some committee business, so please, Ms. Frank, feel free to leave as you wish. We do have a few things we need to discuss.

Sheila, I'll pass it over to you.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Chair, and thanks to the witnesses.

I have two things. One is that, on October 28, Correctional Service Canada witnesses said they would table some reports on work they've been doing about administrative segregation and about the amendments they'd been doing to make sure their policies restricted segregation to certain offenders. I just wanted to make sure that hadn't been lost.

The clerk is nodding. Thank you.

The second thing is a request. As we're writing the report on the economic justice study, please, is it possible for us to get the drafts in Word format instead of a PDF so that we can work with them and follow them? Then, for the subsequent drafts, is the analyst able to show tracked changes, which allow us in our committee review to home in a little bit more on what has changed from one version to the next?

[A voice]

Absolutely.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

The clerk is nodding and the analyst is nodding, so thank you very much, Chair.