That's a really important question. This is the kind of thing you're seeing in the missing and murdered indigenous women inquiry as well. There's real overlap. As I mentioned, it's many of the same women whom you see in the criminal justice system who have been missing and murdered.
There is significant evidence now, however, about the extent to which indigenous communities and indigenous women are both over- and under-policed. When we talk about discrimination in policing, what we're talking about is the reality that certain communities are under more surveillance, especially if you're in an urban centre. I lived in Winnipeg for 15 years, and in certain areas of the city where there are many indigenous people, there's lots of policing.
There is also lots of evidence that when indigenous women on reserve or even in urban centres call the police for help, they are more likely to be charged themselves, in a “dual charge” or countercharge situation, when they are calling in a situation of abuse.
Now, obviously there are some cases in which those charges are appropriate; I'm not saying they're never appropriate. These are, however, the issues that you see: indigenous women are more likely to be charged in those situations; they're more likely to get a higher charge; and we see that because of the lack of actual protection from police, they sometimes don't even want to call the police, and so they'll take matters into their own hands. We see that too in cases involving indigenous women.
I know that some police forces are engaged in various kinds of training—I don't think it's the case that it is not going on—but certainly there's much more work to do to build trust in order for women to feel they are safe in those situations. There's certainly much more work to do there.