Status of Women Committee on April 11th, 2024

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

I appreciate that.

I want to get to another question.

We've heard a lot about the human trafficking. When we travelled last year and went to Sault Ste. Marie, the police force there was in tune with it and basically posted in the airports pictures of individuals who went missing. How do you deal with it?

[Cst Darrell Rivers]

We had a grant for human trafficking. We had two conferences. We focused on frontline workers, on providing them with information on how to identify key signs where young boys or girls were being trafficked. We also had a presentation series throughout the summer where we invited, again, frontline workers from the child welfare agencies and school boards to presentations by our detectives in human trafficking to help them identify signs and to come up with help and resources for them to address those issues.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Would you say that the community is helpful when it comes to identifying these situations? One of the things that we spoke about earlier in the health committee is that it's torture. It's not abuse; it's torture. Would you agree with that?

[Cst Darrell Rivers]

Clee?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Answer very quickly. Give more of a yes-or-no answer.

[Det Clee Lieverse]

Absolutely, it's long-sustained destruction of that person.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

We're now going to move it over for the next five minutes to Emmanuella.

Emmanuella, you have the floor.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank both of our witnesses for being here to answer some questions today.

My first question is this: Do all police forces have an indigenous liaison officer?

[Cst Darrell Rivers]

They do not.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Would you recommend that all police forces have an indigenous liaison officer?

[Cst Darrell Rivers]

Yes, I would.

Here's another one of the goals of the conference that we have coming up. If certain services do not have a dedicated indigenous liaison officer, I ask for a community response officer who can fulfill that role. We provide them with the information that they can take back to their service. They can then review whether they have capacity to have an office like this in their service.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you.

I also was a little bit disappointed to hear that you guys are not necessarily knowledgeable about the calls for justice. However, I do hear in your testimony that there have been actions taken in order to ensure a good relationship with the communities with which you're working. I commend you for that, if it is the truth. Of course, we're only listening to you, and we don't really have stats to back it, but I do hear you and I appreciate that.

Given your experience, Mr. Rivers, what protocols have been or should be implemented to ensure that the response of law enforcement is culturally appropriate? What are the specific things that you've done and that you would give as a recommendation to other police forces who can do the same in order to better their response and to better their relationship with communities?

[Cst Darrell Rivers]

I believe what we do here in Sudbury can be used all across the province with other services. Every single new recruit who comes through this office gets cultural awareness training, which is focused on knowledge that they can use in certain situations at calls for service.

We continue the training with our officers every year. We're in the creation of a knowledge bundle video series. We're creating a video of 45 minutes to an hour on one topic that all members can access. Each year it will be on a different topic. We're in the process of editing the first one in that series, which was on residential schools.

In terms of programs, we get a lot of officers volunteering their time to participate in the moose program, the MKWA program. We just finished a new lacrosse program. There is a version of lacrosse that's played in the Great Lakes region. We brought in culture and history knowledge-keepers for that.

I think there's a lot of opportunity—

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Call for justice 9.5 states:

We call upon all police services for the standardization of protocols for policies and practices that ensure that all cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people are thoroughly investigated.

I'm wondering who exactly would be responsible if this were to be standardized. Who would be responsible to make that happen? Who would that command come from?

[Cst Darrell Rivers]

We do have a dedicated equity, diversity and inclusion sergeant. In partnership with this office, we identify any gaps and try to address them as best we can.

As far as missing persons protocols and policies are concerned, Detective Lieverse is our most knowledgeable person on that.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

I'm wondering whether it's the province who's responsible or the Government of Canada. Who exactly would be the one to give you the instruction if they were to standardize a certain protocol?

[Det Clee Lieverse]

As policing is covered by the province, that's where a standardized protocol would have to be based. If you wanted all the services in Ontario, it would have to be Ontario. I don't see how a federal mandate would work.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you.

I think my time is up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

I'll now pass it over to Andréanne.

Andréanne, you have two and a half minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm going to continue along the same lines as my fellow members. How do you see the red dress alert in terms of the spirit of reconciliation when you are not more aware of the calls to action? How do you see this connection, which absolutely must be made? We must aim for a nation-to-nation reconciliation and dialogue, but if you haven't read the calls to action, that seems a bit difficult.

[Det Clee Lieverse]

To say that we don't know about the calls to justice...while I don't know the specific numbers—when she referenced 9.1 to 9.11, I can't cite those—we as a service, and I as an individual police officer, are deeply committed to building those relationships, and I have been throughout my history as a police officer.

I don't know if you want to expand on that, Darrell.

[Cst Darrell Rivers]

Again, when I said that, that was me personally and not we as a service. We do work very hard to address all concerns within the city of Greater Sudbury, and we strongly utilize our indigenous advisory committee. When issues or concerns from the community are raised, we address them as they come in.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I want to come back to the question I asked during my last turn, one I did not get an answer to.

You explained the relationships you have with certain leaders of indigenous communities, but have you also looked at what happens, for example, in California or in other American states with these alerts in place, to try to take their experience into account?

There are also other civil society organizations working on the issue of human trafficking that could be helpful, such as the #NotInMyCity initiative.

[Det Clee Lieverse]

I don't want to interrupt, but we're not getting any translation—or at least I'm not.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Andréanne, can you speak in French to see whether we can get the English or French?