Status of Women Committee on April 16th, 2024

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome to meeting number 104 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format. Pursuant to the Standing Orders, members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the members and witnesses.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic, and please mute yourself when you are not speaking. For those in the room, your mic will be controlled by the proceedings and verification officer.

All comments should be addressed through the chair. With regard to a speaking list, the committee clerk and I will do the best we can to maintain the speaking order for all members, whether they are participating virtually or in person.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), and the motion adopted by the committee on Monday, November 27, 2023, the committee will resume its study of the implementation of a red dress alert.

I would like to welcome our witnesses. As an individual, we have Lori Campbell, associate vice-president, indigenous engagement, University of Regina. From MKO, we have Sheila North. We also have Dr. Anita Olsen Harper.

You will each have five minutes for opening remarks, followed by a round of questions.

The floor is yours, Ms. Campbell. Please begin.

[Lori Campbell, Associate Vice-President, Indigenous Engagement, University of Regina, As an Individual]

Tansi. Good morning, everyone.

This morning, I will begin in Cree as a way to honour the undeniable strength and perseverance of my ancestors for working so hard to maintain our language and, with it, our culture, our way of life and our beliefs in the interconnectedness and resilience of life.

[Witness spoke in Cree and provided the following text:]

Nanāskom māmawi-ohtāwīmāw mitoni miwāsin kotak kisikaw iwāpā…tamāk Lori Campbell, ni ti si yih kā son mōniyawi-sākahikanihk, kit-see-ah-soht-ta-mah-tow-in, kīwētinohk kisiskāciwan ohci niya māka oskana ka-asasteki sâwanohk ni wī kin Niya 2-Spirit Tastawiyiniwak Nēhiyaw āpihtākosisān iskwew.

[English]

I started off by giving a short thank you to the Creator, because it's so beautiful that we get to see another day, especially when so many of our relatives and ancestors have had that right stolen from them. In fact, recent reports indicate there are well over 4,000 indigenous women, girls and 2-spirit people who have had this right stolen from them in the last few decades, because they were indigenous.

I introduced myself, and I said that my family is from Montreal Lake Cree Nation, Treaty 6 territory, in northern Saskatchewan, but that I live in the south, in Regina. I said that I am a 2-spirit Cree Métis woman.

I am the granddaughter of a residential school survivor, and a child of the sixties scoop generation. One of the things I am most proud of is that, over the course of 25 years, I was able to locate my birth mom and all six of my living siblings, who had been dispersed across several provinces at various young ages.

I have the privilege of holding the position of associate vice-president, indigenous engagement at the University of Regina. However, today I share my statement with you as a proud, unapologetic,

[Witness spoke in Cree and provided the following text:]

Tastawiyiniwak Nēhiyaw āpihtākosisān iskwew,

[English]

despite the systems that have worked to keep me and others like me from holding our heads high and speaking, even though our voices may shake in rooms like this, in spaces that were never meant for us.

I choose to share with you who I am because it tells you where I come from, and it tells you a bit about the lens through which I experience this world. Also, it is relevant to why I am speaking here today about the importance of the red dress alert.

I want to share with you two personal stories.

As I sit here, I am reminded that my auntie, Maria Campbell, once stood in this building nearly 60 years ago, right in the House of Commons, to share testimony about the struggles of indigenous women.

She had hoped the stories she shared might change hearts and minds, and that the rest of Canadians would see indigenous women as mothers, children, aunties and kokums who are loved and valued. She wanted it recognized that the addictions, poverty and violence in our communities are not cultural traits or human deficits but rather symptoms of a people struggling to live through a government-created destruction of their world. My auntie shared the important truth the community had asked her to share, but it fell on deaf ears. Do you know what they reported about her in the paper the next day? It said that a beautiful, young native girl said there were a lot of problems in their communities, and that was it.

They were the problem. There was no recognition of the harm caused by the residential school system, reserve system and welfare system, and no recognition of the systemic racism that allowed indigenous women, girls and 2-spirit community members to be hunted, stolen and murdered.

I mentioned earlier that I am from the sixties scoop. I was taken from my birth mom when I was 14 months old because of violence towards her and me by a non-indigenous man in our home. When mom called the police for help, they took me away, not the white man. She thought it was temporary and that they would bring me back when he left. Instead, they put me in care and adopted me out. It took me 25 years to find her again. My mom had come across many dangerous and violent men in her lifetime. The way she took control of that was to start to make them pay for it. She was a street worker for her entire career. She saw no other options.

Yesterday, I told her I was coming here to speak with you today about the red dress alert. She said that this program is important. There have been so many she personally knew who went missing or have been murdered. “People target us because we are aboriginal,” she told me. She has had a gun pulled on her several times. I asked her if she ever told the police. “No”, she said. “There is no point, because they wouldn't do anything. We had to rely on each other to keep ourselves safe and it's no different today.”

When I finally met my birth mom after years of searching, she quietly told me that she was scared to find me. She was worried I would be angry—strangely, not because of her past addictions or career as a sex worker but because she had made me “an Indian”. I'll ask you to sit with that for a moment. It still tears my heart. She was worried I would be mad at her simply because she brought me into this world with a target on my back—an indigenous, 2-spirit girl child. I made a decision right then and there that I would stand tall and be unapologetically proud of my indigeneity in a way she never had opportunity to.

Recent national statistics reflect that 0.8 per 100,000 non-indigenous women are murdered every year, but that 4.31 per 100,000 indigenous women are murdered during that same time frame. On a large scale like that, it may seem inconsequential, but let's look at it in the context of my home province of Saskatchewan. We're in a province of just over a million people, including approximately 500,000 women. In one year, those statistics translate to the murder of five non-indigenous women and 26 indigenous women. If those numbers were reversed, something would have already been done about it, and I don't mean further studies.

Over the past few years, I've seen good intentions go bad because indigenous leaders, professionals, experts and community members have not been able to lead the work intended to have meaningful impact in their own communities. The red dress alert program must be adequately resourced, and it must be indigenous-led.

The MMIWG inquiry called for justice reform to make systemic changes to ensure the justice system is culturally appropriate, and—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Ms. Campbell, unfortunately, your time is over. You can answer further in the questioning rounds.

Thank you.

Now we'll move to Sheila North.

[Sheila North]

[Witness spoke in Cree and provided the following text:]

Tansi, Sheila North intinkason. Bunibonibee Cree Nation Neena Oahi. Nihminenten uchinow neesta eh pehachimowan oma uysikisken tumam animochikantek. Iskwewuk and Kuhkinow Kitinenminanuk Kukinow tuh minow punihikochik keethtom omatis weenwow.

[Witness provided the following translation:]

Hello, My name is Sheila North, I'm very happy to be here to tell you all what I know about the topic we are talking about, so that our women, our people, may have a better life once again.

[English]

Hi, everyone. My name is Sheila North and I'm from the Bunibonibee Cree Nation in northern Manitoba. In Cree, to also acknowledge my ancestors and to honour our Cree sovereignty, I introduced myself and told you where I am from in Bunibonibee Cree Nation in northern Manitoba.

I'm glad to be here with all of you to share some knowledge and some thoughts on what we're talking about today, the red dress alert.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, committee members.

Thank you, especially, Leah Gazan for bringing us all together in this way and for raising the importance of this red dress alert and for all the championing you have done alongside all of us at the grassroots level.

Also, I thank the Creator for having us today and all the people from these original lands, these ancestral lands, as well as my good friend Dr. Anita Olsen Harper, who is here with me as a support. I have to mention that she's also the wife of my good friend the late Elijah Harper. I'm very honoured that she's here with us today. She has much more reason to be here than I do. She's such a beautiful person and one of our greatest academics in this country.

I also want to acknowledge my parents for having the courage to be good parents even though we've seen the struggles our country has gone through and the struggles that continue for indigenous people. I want to acknowledge all the women and girls, families, allies and supports who have always raised awareness about MMIW and the MMIWG relatives all over our country and North America. I have seen their tireless efforts to bring us to where we are now, able to talk about what we're talking about today.

I also want to tell you a little bit about my perspectives to give you some insight into who I am and where I come from and why I am talking to you about what I am.

I'm a kookum, a grandmother, of one and a mum of two. I come from two large, beautiful Cree families and I'm thankful to have been raised by Gilbert and Sadie North, residential school survivor and day school survivor. I grew up in Bunibonibee until I went to high school as a teen. It was a huge culture shock to go from my reserve to the city, Winnipeg. I almost lost my life a few times on the streets during that time of transition. I consider myself a survivor.

I'm also a former journalist. I worked in radio and television and on the web as a reporter for about 15 years, for CBC and CTV in Manitoba. I also realized my lifelong dream to be an anchor. I'm very happy about that.

I was also grand chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak from 2015 to 2018.

Most of my work and my life have involved missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. In my role as a communications officer, I created the hashtag #MMIW in 2012 to link conversations, families, advocates and allies together. When I first started working as a journalist and tackling MMIW stories in 2005, I realized then that I was survivor. Over the years since then, I have worked in many capacities to raise awareness of or to advocate for MMIW.

I wanted to drive home the common theme that kept coming up when I talked to families and friends of victims and survivors of MMIWG2S+ and that was the responses by police. Most of my experiences have involved cases handled by the Winnipeg Police Service and the RCMP in Manitoba. The common theme is police attitudes and responses to families and friends who looked to them for help in finding their loved ones. I can say that in all the stories I've ever done for the media and all the stories I have ever heard, police were dismissive, condescending and disrespectful.

In one story, Gail Nepinak was looking for her sister and put posters of her sister in downtown Winnipeg. It took 10 days for the police to respond to her. They didn't respond to her until I did a story on CBC saying she was looking for her. The worst part was that when the police did finally talk to her, they told her that her sister was an adult and she could go wherever she wanted and that maybe she had gone on vacation. That was a big slap in the face for Gail because Tanya had only five dollars in her pocket. She told them that her family couldn't afford to go on vacations.

In another story a young woman from Portage la Prairie, Jennifer Catcheway, went missing from her family. That is just west of Winnipeg. It took many days for the RCMP to talk to her mom, Bernice. When Bernice finally got a hold of the RCMP to report her missing, the police said that Jen was probably on a drunken bender, to wait for her to get home, and that she would be back soon.

Unfortunately, around four months after that incident, a young, beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed woman went missing from the same city, and what do you think the response from the police was at that time? I was working at the CBC at the time. I talked to both mothers on the same day. This beautiful woman deserved a response from the RCMP. They were very respectful. They got a search going, and they got the word out she was missing.

I did ask the RCMP why there were differences in how they talked to both mothers. The RCMP spokesperson at the time was [Inaudible—Editor]. I can still remember her name. She berated me, attacked me and said I was accusing the RCMP of being racist. Both women deserved justice, and both families deserved respect, but that's not what happened. Unfortunately, these are just two examples, and I share them with permission from the two families.

I believe the red dress alert needs oversight by families and grassroots people for it to be effective. Many of the police forces across the country have eroded the trust of many MMIW families and survivors. They are not trusted to do the right thing on their own, and to report on all cases of missing loved ones in a timely and respectful manner.

[Witness spoke in Cree]

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Thank you, Ms. North.

We'll now move over to Dr. Anita Olsen Harper.

[Dr. Anita Olsen Harper, As an Individual]

Good morning.

[Witness spoke in Anishinaawpemowin]

[English]

That means I'm very happy and deeply honoured to be here, and thankful to Sheila that I've been invited.

I'm not going to speak as long as Sheila has, or Lori, but I am here as a support for Sheila.

I would like to make a land acknowledgement. I always turn it more into a people acknowledgement. I am always thankful to our ancestors who left this land, all of it, in a wonderful and pristine condition before the colonizers came over from Europe and other places.

As an academic, I did my Ph.D. on domestic violence in our communities, which is incredibly high. Of course, there's a great correlation between that and missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.

As for the red dress alert, it is nothing for us, without us. As indigenous women, especially on reserve, but indigenous women who also have positions and places in Canadian society, we do the act of participation. We do the act of leadership, which we can also view as an act of reconciliation. It's not so much that we are awaiting the go-ahead for us to take the leadership, we just do it.

I am Anishinabe. I'm from northwestern Ontario and the Lac Seul First Nation. I've done a lot of work in the area of violence against women. I am now with Movember, the moustache people. I work a lot with indigenous male inmates in federal prisons. When I talked to them, I realized they were raised in homes of violence and chaos. We need to get a handle on that, because we're so used to being the bad people, the bad men, and the bad women who are targeted for violence.

Again, the red dress alert should be for grassroots and indigenous women all over in Canada's societies.

Thank you, meegwetch.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Thank you, Dr. Olsen Harper.

We're going to start our first round of questions.

We will start with Michelle, for six minutes.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Meegwetch to our witnesses. We have heard powerful testimony here today as we further study the red dress alert.

There's so much to unpack in what each of you has brought forward. I think the real mission of this study is, as you see in the motion, “an examination of a most effective and efficient manner to operate, administer, and control such alert system;” so it's really about trying to hash out how we ensure that it works. I think those are going to be the critical pieces.

Ms. Campbell, you gave some numbers, and I think numbers are really valuable because when you can see the numbers of what's happening.... I think we have unanimous consent around the table; we all support this red dress alert.

When the red dress alert is implemented, what do those numbers look like? Could you reiterate the numbers of missing or murdered, if you have them handy? If you need a minute, I can go to someone else while you grab them.

[Lori Campbell]

Yes.

[Sheila North]

While you do that, I'm going to go over to Ms. Olsen Harper.

Your testimony is really profound. I think, off-line, when we're having these conversations, this study is about the red dress alert, and it's an intervention, but upstream, on domestic violence, your comments are very well suited for this committee when we look at the status of women.

One of the things I've spoken a lot about is that men who have been incarcerated say that come out worse than when they go in. They don't have access to programming. We've heard testimony in other studies that behaviour is communication. When we understand why somebody is doing what they're doing, it's possible to help them redirect that. I just want to say thank you for saying that because I think we have a lot of work to do.

Now, I'll go back over to Ms. Campbell for those numbers.

[Lori Campbell]

As I said, 0.8 per 100,000 non-indigenous women are murdered every year, but it's 4.31 per 100,000 indigenous women. Then, I just kind of broke it down for what that would be like in Saskatchewan, which would be five non-indigenous compared to 26 indigenous women. In a province the size of Saskatchewan, I would think everybody would be alarmed by those numbers.

I was talking with my mom yesterday about the alerts. As we see, and as MP Gazan has spoken about, 80% of the children for which an Amber alert has been issued have been found. We need a system that isn't optional. The aboriginal alert is kind of optional. People can look at it, but we need a system that is put out there so that everybody sees it, so that those faces are out there and so that we can have that same kind of response. As an academic and a researcher, I would see that we would have many more found safely. We know time is important. Waiting 10 days to start to look is often too late already.

[Sheila North]

I really appreciate those numbers. I think that 80% success rate, when you look at the Amber alert, means 80% of lives. That's why I think it's really important to have that number on the record and how that can transfer.

To Ms. North, I commend you on your hashtag. I think we live in a digital age, and with that comes a double-edged sword. It has not always been the best thing for our children, but it also has the capacity to do that.... With your background in that and being able to get a hashtag that really resonated with folks and is easy to understand, do you see that as part of this red dress alert as well?

[Sheila North]

Again, it still connects us all together. It ties us in some way. It ties us together in a lot of ways. We know that the red dress alert has to have a digital component. MMIW is also very digital, so it has to keep us connected to remind us of what the problems are.

As far as numbers are concerned, I wanted to add that we know officially that NWAC had numbers and the RCMP had numbers. The last official number I ever heard from the RCMP was 1,182 missing and murdered in Canada, and that was quite a few years ago, probably in 2013 or 2012. They haven't updated the numbers, but we know it's probably three or four times more than that, and nobody has been able to get that real number or the true number. It hasn't been worked on; it hasn't been a priority, so that has to be a factor as well.

[Sheila North]

A hundred per cent, I think data is the driving force behind efficiency. If you don't have the numbers, you can't really do that. Those numbers need to be changed, for certain.

The last thing is just ensuring that when we look at this...we've heard “for indigenous, by indigenous” from multiple witnesses. I think that's fair.

In a short amount of time, do any of you have recommendations to put into this report for what that looks like from the federal rollout perspective of how that is implemented and still having a key operator?

Do you see the minister operating this? How do you see it rolling out?

[Sheila North]

I think there are already best practices, probably from the Amber alert and the silver alert.

I think the standards of what it is going to look like should be set way ahead of time, with major involvement from grassroots people and academics like Lori and Dr. Olsen Harper here—people who have gone through it and who know the realities.

I think that, coming up, the standards and what constitutes a red dress alert have to be with grassroots first, and academics and allies, before it even gets there.

When it finally rolls out, I think the mechanics of it will be easier once these systems have been put in place by the people themselves.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Thank you, Ms. North.

Now we will go over to Anita.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank all three of our witnesses not just for your testimony today, but for the incredible work you do every single day.

I have a question for each of you. I'm going to start with Ms. Campbell.

First of all, I want to offer you a few moments because I saw that at the end of your speaking time you didn't quite finish your remarks.

Do you want to take some time to do that?

[Lori Campbell]

Absolutely. Thank you for that. I was nearly done, but I had a couple of summary points.

The MMIWG inquiry called for justice reform to make systemic changes to ensure the justice system is culturally appropriate. The creation of a nationwide red dress alert program is a tangible step for the federal government to take to end the ongoing genocide of missing and murdered indigenous women, girls and 2-spirit people.

As MP Gazan has said, response times to reports of missing indigenous women, girls and 2-spirit people are far too slow. A red dress alert, similar to the Amber alert, would make a difference.

What we, as indigenous people, are asking for is fairly simple. It is the same care, attention and respect afforded to the rest of the population.

We believe that we can find solutions and lead the way. I think that's one thing that is often missing. We saw it even in the inquiry, where it wasn't indigenous-led, even though we had indigenous professionals, experts and community members in the room. The oversight by the government was too much to allow it to move ahead the way it needed to.

Thank you.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much for that.

I also note that in your testimony, you referred back 60 years to your aunt's testimony. I just want to say that I think we all share a determination that the outcomes and the actions of the testimony today will actually lead to change. Thank you for that.

We've heard a lot about the impact on women and girls, but not as much about 2-spirit peoples. I just want to give you a moment to talk about the unique realities and ways that 2-spirit peoples would be even more impacted, and whether or not there may be things that need to be done specifically or uniquely for that group of people.

[Lori Campbell]

At the intersection of being 2-spirit, we know how much more significantly queer people are targeted just in the general population. Then within the indigenous community, if you add it onto being a woman and being indigenous, being 2-spirit exponentially causes harm. Our access to resources is exponentially less there, from the policing service and all of those types of things.

I remember working at the youth centre nearly 30 years ago. We had a young, 2-spirit individual who attended. He was murdered in the streets of Regina just for being who he was. Things like that were never reported. That part of it wasn't reported. I think that's where, even as an academic, the statistics and the data are not there.

I think it's partly because people like to erase it as well and not consider it as an issue.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you.

That leads very well into my next question for Ms. North, which is about that invisibility that you spoke about.

You were a journalist, so I would like to get your sense and perspective about publicity.

We know that there is a difference in terms of who is seen and who is mentioned in the media or publicized. Is there a way we can turn that to our favour in a red dress alert? Can we turn that publicity into a good thing and make indigenous women, girls and 2-spirit people less invisible in the public realm?

[Sheila North]

I think the presence of our people, with our faces and our names, has been a long time coming in the media. In 2005, the media was still calling victims prostitutes and street workers who were living precarious lives. We were describing the victims as that. We have come a long way.

Media can't be the only one raising awareness about who's missing and who needs awareness. I think that media does get it right a lot of the time. At the same time, it doesn't do a thorough job. It's left to editorialize a lot of it. Again, coming from the journalist background, I know that there are a lot of good intentions by journalists and the people who decide what gets put on the news.

At the same time, we all have systems that we have learned about. The way we treat indigenous people in our country is a systemic issue that also reaches journalism and the media. We need an Amber alert that distinctly talks about who is missing and needs help right now.

You can probably watch a missing persons report on any newscast across the country. You'll probably find at least one a day, but they get lost now in the system. They get lost because people stop paying attention to the media on these reports. If we can get it on our phones with the same importance as when a child goes missing, or there is a silver alert, then that will be better.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you so much.

That goes to my question to Dr. Olsen Harper. I think you only have 10 seconds. You said there's a stigma like they are bad people. That really struck me.

Can she answer in 10 seconds? No. Maybe she can answer it in the next round.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Sonia Sidhu]

Thank you.

Now we are moving to the Bloc with Andréanne for six minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the three witnesses.

Your testimonies today are just as impressive as your résumés. You have an incredible background that has greatly enriched this study, and I thank you for that. I have some questions for all three of you.

Ms. Campbell, if I understood correctly, in your opening remarks you said that the red dress alert should come with sufficient resources.

Can you tell us more about what those resources would be?