Status of Women Committee on April 18th, 2024

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much.

Going back, in terms of the timelines and understanding things, especially being part of the consultations and seeing things that still need to be done, we still need timelines. I just feel that there aren't any timelines. Is there a plan to put in specific timelines, even working and negotiating with provinces?

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

What I would be willing to do is to work with you on a timeline. I've been consulting a number of people on this, including you, Ms. Gazan. I would be willing to work with you on developing a timeline, along with some of the partners we work with.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Okay. I will report back to committee about whether I do get a timeline.

Thank you so much, Minister.

I want to say that I don't very often compliment folks across the way, but it has been a real pleasure working with you and the whole committee as well. Everybody on this committee, particularly Krista, is trying to push this through. Again, I want to thank the whole committee for helping to support getting this off the ground.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you so much, MP Gazan.

That concludes our first panel.

On behalf of the committee, I'd like to also thank the minister for his appearance. As a reminder, the officials will be staying on for the second panel.

I will suspend for about two minutes while we do the transition.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

The committee will resume its meeting and the study of the implementation of the red dress alert.

We are back with our witnesses who were with us on the first panel. Welcome back, everyone.

As we did the opening remarks previously, we can just jump into the first round of questions.

MP Roberts, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Before I start, I just want to make it clear that people should not be making assumptions. Karen was a great leader, but we welcome you, Shelby. I don't want you to take this from anyone here at our team. We have worked very collaboratively together. I think making assumptions is the wrong way to go. I just want to set that clear for the record. Welcome, and thank you for being part of the team.

We also want to congratulate Karen. She did a great job.

I want to start with Ms. Gideon. The minister's gone, but I would like your feedback on something.

Bill C-5 passed, receiving royal assent on June 30, 2021. The purpose of the act is to respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's call to action number 80.

I was taught as a child that actions speak louder than words. While this is a lovely sentiment, the action of the Prime Minister on the very first national day spoke volumes. Despite receiving invitations to spend the day with survivors and their families, he opted for a surfing vacation in Tofino. In my opinion, his actions spoke volumes to the importance he placed on reconciliation.

How much damage did his actions cause—

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I have a point of order. I'm just wondering what this has to do with the red dress alert.

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

I'm getting to that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

If you could—

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

Yes.

We've been studying this for, I believe, three years. That was before my time. We know how important it is to protect all women and children, especially with what has been going on with the indigenous population and the missing and murdered indigenous women.

Leah brought this up because it is a concern. We're all women here, and we all want to fight for the same thing.

Doesn't that show disrespect to the indigenous people?

[Valerie Gideon]

Thank you for the question.

I am a first nation woman myself. I'm a member of Gesgapegiag and a mother of two first nation girls. I have been in the federal system now for 16 years, and I worked at the Assembly of First Nations before that. I would say that there has been a significant amount of work and progress with respect to advancing reconciliation in recent years. There has been a significant level of increased investment in programs and services, but there have also been some very significant legislative and policy initiatives that are going to entrench certain aspects of changes.

In that, I'll reference the child and family services legislation, which has now been very much validated and supported by the Supreme Court of Canada in a recent decision. It now recognizes the jurisdiction of indigenous peoples to completely take over, design and manage child and family services, which have been a significant risk factor for indigenous women and girls. It was very much highlighted with respect to the calls for justice.

Another important piece of legislation is the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which also—

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

I'm sorry to cut you off. They only give me so much time.

We've had five meetings and many witnesses. One thing they all say is that they don't feel they're being seen. I want to tell them, for the record, right now: We see you. We hear you. We're listening.

We need to do better. We're not doing better. We, as a committee, need to ensure that the government makes this red dress alert a top priority.

We had Jennifer Jesty from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. I'm not sure if you know her. She was able to get a system in place in a matter of days. We heard her testimony, and it was unbelievable. It wasn't about money or anything. She got it done.

Why is the government taking so long to take action on a very vital situation in which women are going missing?

[Valerie Gideon]

In my experience, when the federal government rushes in to impose a solution on indigenous peoples, it does not work. The reason why the initiative in Cape Breton worked is that it was driven by the grassroots and by the local communities. They designed it. They managed it. They chose the technological provider. They set the parameters. This is what we are trying to emulate at a national level by taking the time to engage with indigenous peoples, which are not homogenous across the country; they are very diverse. That is the richness of the work we are doing to advance reconciliation.

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

Ms. Gideon, I think the issue here, and I don't know if you'll agree with me or not, is that there's so much waste and so much red tape, when we have a system in place that could start immediately to help find these missing indigenous women before they are murdered. How do we do that if we're going to continue to do studies and reports? Enough is enough. We have to stop with the talk, and we have to get it done. I come from the private sector. If my boss came to me and said, “Here's an issue”, I would make sure to act on it right away.

This is serious. We're all women here. We can't continue to lose our women because without us there wouldn't be a world.

[Valerie Gideon]

We have multiple bosses; we don't have one boss. We have many different indigenous representatives and service delivery organizations that have a lot to say about this issue and about how they will see it succeed. We do need to provide forums for them to bring forward those recommendations to us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you very much.

MP Lambropoulos, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

First of all, congratulations to you on this new role. I really wish you the best in the role.

I also want to say a big thank you to Karen Vecchio, who was an incredible chair for over six years on this committee. She led a very collaborative committee where all parties worked together in order to advance the cause of women in so many different ways. I really hope that we can continue that great work.

It doesn't say anything about you, Shelby; I don't know what's in store. I'm hoping that the removal of Karen as chair wasn't symbolic, but she was one of the members in the Conservative Party who cared more than anyone about women and girls, so I am sad to see her taken away from the committee.

Having said that, I have nothing against you. I actually like you, and I'm really hoping we can work together collaboratively.

On this important study, thank you to our witnesses for being here and for doing what they can to advance this cause. It's obviously a very important cause. We've heard from many indigenous women across the country on this study so far. We've heard what a red dress alert should look like. It should be led by indigenous women, and the decision-making table should include indigenous women. I've heard from you today that this is the case, that our indigenous partners are the ones who are taking the lead here and that we're consulting with as many as possible. That's great to hear.

One of the main concerns that we've spoken about at various meetings, so far, is the fact that police need to be involved in a red dress alert and in this situation. We've heard mixed reviews because there are some indigenous women who don't want police involvement because of the lack of trust that exists between indigenous communities and the police in different parts of the country.

We've also heard from different indigenous women that police are required because they do have the tools necessary to be able to help in these situations. In the calls for justice, it is specifically mentioned that there should be policies that are national in scope, so there should be police departments across the country that are following the same policies and the same guidelines in order to make sure that cases are taken seriously when it comes to missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.

Can you speak to that in terms of any work being done on that front? I'm thinking Public Safety, most likely, would be able to answer this question. Is any work being done to standardize protocols to work with police chiefs across the country to make sure there is something being done in this regard?

[Kenza El Bied]

Thank you for the question. It's going to be an awkward response, because I'm responsible for emergency management. When we're talking about policing, it is under another umbrella within Public Safety, and unfortunately they are not part of this table at this stage.

I hear your point. I hear your concerns, and your point is very valid. We can take it back to our colleagues, and then we can follow up with a written response on that front, on what Public Safety is doing in that part of the work.

[Valerie Gideon]

I can maybe just add that there has been an increased amount of work that Public Safety has done through new investments with respect to establishing trilateral agreements with communities with respect to policing, as well as increasing the number of self-administered police services among first nations and Inuit. There have been 93 new and ongoing projects in that regard, as well as investments in police infrastructure. I think this is improving relationships over time. More needs to be done, for sure, but it is a very important priority of a number of first nations.

If we can potentially look at some of these self-administered police agreements that exist in some jurisdictions, start in regions that have those types of relationships and actually bring that forward to chiefs of police across the country, I'm sure there would be openness to look at the types of protocols and the relationship building that's happened.

Krista also talked about Washington, where they have a navigator, a steward or someone who can advocate within the context with police services directly, to have a bit of an interlocutor role and to enable a safer and more transparent environment. I think it is about transparency as well, with respect to what's happening in police services when these alerts are issued.

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

Can anyone tell me if there have been any conversations with provinces and territories with regard to this?

Of course, when they're self-governed, it's great. That's obviously a great step, but of course, most police services are of a provincial jurisdiction. Are there conversations with provinces in order to keep them up to date with what's going on and with what the requests are? Are there any conversations of that nature going on?

[Krista Apse]

The bottom line is yes. Those conversations are going on. The minister mentioned the national indigenous provincial, federal and territorial round table that happened at the beginning of February. The whole first day was dedicated to technical discussions around the red dress alert. Not only provinces and territories, but also indigenous partners were very active in those discussions. The minister described that there were several ministers present from the provinces and territories, or deputies. If not present in person, they were participating virtually.

We regularly interact, as officials, with all the provinces and territories as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you.

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

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Ms. Larouche, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the officials for being with us today.

We realize how truly unanimous opinion around the table is and we are very happy to have them here, to try to move forward on this issue.

We have hit a dead end, and I am trying to see how we can manage to unravel the knot or get out of this dead end. As was said earlier, on the one hand, this project has to be carried out by and for indigenous people, but on the other hand, there does have to be help from police services.

As the minister himself said, the main factor in the hold-up is the lack of trust on the part of the communities. How can that be remedied?

Apart from all that, what are you doing to ensure that the indigenous communities regain their trust in the police services, so that the alerts are representative of the needs and requests of the communities and they can call on the police services?

What efforts are being made to rebuild this relationship of trust between police services and the communities, to unravel the knot? It seems that this is where the hold-up is.