Status of Women Committee on April 18th, 2024

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Madeleine Martin]

Honourable members of the committee, I see that there's quorum. I must inform the members that the clerk of the committee can only receive motions for the election of the chair. The clerk cannot receive other types of motions, entertain points of order or participate in debate.

We now proceed to the election of the chair. Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the chair must be a member of the official opposition.

Now I'm ready to receive motions for the chair.

Go ahead, Mrs. Roberts.

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

I nominate Shelby Kramp-Neuman.

[The Clerk]

It has been moved by Mrs. Roberts that Mrs. Kramp-Neuman be elected chair of the committee.

Are there any further motions?

Seeing as there are no further motions, I'll put the question on the motion. It has been moved by Mrs. Roberts that Mrs. Kramp-Neuman be elected as chair of the committee. Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Can I request a recorded division?

[The Clerk]

It has been requested that we move to a recorded vote, so I will proceed to the vote.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 4; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Mrs. Kramp-Neuman, I declare you duly elected chair of the committee. I invite you to take the chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

We will suspend for about two minutes and then we'll carry on with the meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

I call the meeting back to order.

Welcome back to meeting number 105 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

I think it's incumbent on me at this point to acknowledge, thank and give homage to member of Parliament Karen Vecchio for her commitment, compassion, dedication and advocacy on this file.

Thank you, Karen.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

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

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name.

I believe we just have one member on video conference. Click on the microphone icon to activate your mic, and please mute yourself when you're not speaking.

This is familiar to you, MP Lambropoulos.

Although the room is equipped with a powerful audio system, feedback events can occur. These can be extremely harmful to interpreters and cause serious injuries, so be mindful of that. The most common cause of sound feedback is an earpiece worn too close to a microphone. We therefore ask all participants to exercise a high degree of caution when handling the earpieces, especially when your microphone or your neighbours' microphone is turned on. To prevent incidents and safeguard the hearing health of the interpreters, I invite participants to ensure that they speak into the microphone into which their headset is plugged and to avoid manipulating the earbuds by placing them on the table away from the microphone when they are not in use.

All comments should be addressed through the chair. With regard to the speaking list, the committee clerk and I will do the best we can to maintain a consolidated order of speaking 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.

At this point, I would like to welcome our witnesses.

We have with us today the honourable Minister Gary Anandasangaree, Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations. We have, from the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, Valerie Gideon, deputy minister; and Krista Apse, director general of the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls secretariat. From the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, we have Kenza El Bied, director general, policy and outreach directorate, emergency management and programs branch; and Arjun Vinodrai, senior director, policy and programs development, emergency management and programs branch.

You will each have five minutes for your opening remarks followed by rounds of questions.

Minister, at this point, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations]

Kwe kwe. Ullukkut. Tansi. Hello. Bonjour.

Let me begin by acknowledging that we are gathered here on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

I want to thank all of you for your hard work in supporting this initiative.

Thank you all for the work you have done on this important initiative.

I want to acknowledge and congratulate you, Madam Chair, on your appointment.

I also want to take this moment to thank the former chair, Karen Vecchio, for her long-standing commitment to this issue and her hard work during the committee process.

Let me also thank my colleague and friend Leah Gazan from Winnipeg Centre for her incredible advocacy in uniting the House in supporting the establishment of a red dress alert, along with my colleague Pam Damoff. We are indebted to you for your hard work and your resolve to get us here. This work will save lives.

As we all know, budget 2024 included an investment of $1.3 million to continue developing the red dress alert. This is exciting news that will help keep the momentum going.

Every indigenous person who goes missing and is not found is a failure on our part.

I know that there are some people who are frustrated at the pace of implementing the alert. There are some people who say that this can be done overnight. I do not subscribe to that belief. We need to keep the pressure on and move quickly, but we also need to get this right. There are many factors to consider, as you have heard throughout this study. Those include different regional contexts, strained relationships between communities and law enforcement, and jurisdictional considerations.

Moving the dial on this is not an option or a choice; it is a moral imperative. Despite only making up 4% of Canada's population, indigenous women and girls represent 28% of homicides perpetrated against women. An indigenous woman is 12 times more likely to go missing or be murdered than a non-indigenous woman.

Alerting systems in states like California and Washington are helping locate people. The studies show us that the hours after someone goes missing are the most critical time to find them.

In February, I drove the entire Highway of Tears in northern British Columbia. I listened to grassroots organizers on the front lines, like the Tears to Hope Society, who you heard from earlier this week. Alongside a red dress alert, they stressed the importance of resolving this systemic crisis.

At the Denny's where we met, the women told me how important ceremony is to them and how important it is to pass along traditions and languages to the next generation. In 2016, our government called a National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls after years of previous governments' refusals.

This June will mark five years since the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls released its final report—and the calls to justice.

The 231 calls to justice require investments in shelters, community safety, culture, housing and infrastructure. We are making progress in all these areas. Budget 2024 was another example of that, but I say this all the time: The calls to justice are not a checklist. They require urgent, sustained action and commitment from all parties. They're long-term, structural changes that help us undo the legacy of colonialism. This work is critical and it will not happen overnight.

Eventually, the hope is to get to a place where we no longer need the red dress alert, or, in other words, we build a future where indigenous people are safe. The government will be a partner in that journey.

I thank everyone who has contributed to this process in informing the path forward. Your work is invaluable.

Meegwetch. Qujannamiik. Marsi. Merci.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you, Minister.

I'll now give the floor to the Department of Public Safety for five minutes.

[Kenza El Bied, Director General, Policy and Outreach Directorate, Emergency Management and Programs Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Thank you, Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to speak to you today.

Before I get started, I would like first to acknowledge that we are gathering today on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

In my role within public safety, I'm responsible for working with other federal departments and agencies, provinces and territories, national indigenous organizations and other stakeholders to advance and integrate a policy approach to all aspects of emergency management.

I want to begin by saying that I share your deep concerns that indigenous women, girls, two spirit and gender diverse persons continue to be at greater risk of abduction, homicide and other forms of violence.

I commend the work you are undertaking through this study.

To support your committee's work, I would like to speak about the national public alerting system, its governance and Public Safety Canada's role.

The national public alerting system provides federal, provincial and territorial emergency management organizations with the standard alerting capability to warn of imminent and unfolding threats to life. Like all emergency management functions in Canada, public alerting is a collaborative initiative between federal, provincial and territorial governments, as well as industry partners.

The governance of this system is complex. There is no overarching governing body. There are many players involved in this system.

First, individual governments determine who, within their jurisdiction, may issue alerts through the system on matters related to their responsibility. These designated authorities decide when to issue an emergency alert, the alert type, the message content and geographical areas affected.

Second, Pelmorex Corp. operates the system that validates and disseminates emergency alerts. Pelmorex is supported by a multiple stakeholder governance council, which provides direction and advice on technical priorities.

Finally, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission sets out the regulatory framework for the mandatory distribution of alerts.

With regard to the role of my department, we support the national public alerting system primarily in two ways. First, we support the coordination of activities of federal alerting partners with those of the provinces and territories. Second, we support collaborative work with provinces and territories to advance shared priorities for this system.

One of our key policy interests for this work is advancing a common approach to emergency communications, including the adoption of standards and best practices. With regard to federal-provincial-territorial collaboration, SOREM—made up of federal, provincial and territorial senior officials responsible for emergency management—is the primary forum where this occurs.

SOREM is made up of the heads of provincial and territorial emergency management organizations and the assistant deputy minister of the emergency management and programs branch of Public Safety Canada. SOREM is the steward of guidelines for the consistent presentation of alerts through the system, including the common look and feel guidance, the Canadian profile of the common alerting protocol and the broadcast immediate events list. These guidelines aim to ensure emergency public alerts are easily recognizable anywhere in Canada.

I want to conclude my remarks by emphasizing that Public Safety Canada is committed to collaborating with all public-alerting stakeholders to improve the effectiveness and continuity of emergency alerting in Canada.

With regard to exploring new uses of the system, I would note that SOREM has recently facilitated revisions to these guidelines to support a test by Quebec to evaluate the use of the system to distribute a silver alert.

In the context of your discussions, my team at Public Safety Canada has been supporting our colleagues at Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada in its red dress alert engagement. We have been providing subject matter expertise and considerations on the potential to use the national public alerting system for such an alert.

We look forward to continued collaboration with provinces and territories, including supporting Crown-Indigenous Relations' engagement at SOREM, as their work continues.

I'm pleased to take any questions. Thank you for this opportunity.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Madam Chair, a point of order.

When acronyms are used, it is not clear for the francophones who rely on interpretation. I don't know whether Ms. Larouche is wondering the same thing, but can someone tell me what the SOREM is, exactly, before we can ask questions?

Thank you in advance.

[Kenza El Bied]

I said SOREM. It's the senior officials.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Can you give me the name in French, please?

[Kenza El Bied]

Yes, I'm sorry. Give me two seconds so I can check.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Ms. Damoff, go ahead on the same point of order.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I think it would be helpful, even in English, if you said what SOREM stands for. I know it's an acronym, but what do all of those letters stand for?

[Kenza El Bied]

The “S” in SOREM is for “senior”. It's the senior official representatives.

I'm so sorry. I thought I said it at the beginning.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

That's okay. If you could attempt to say it in English and in French that would be helpful.

[Kenza El Bied]

Yes, for sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you.

[Kenza El Bied]

I have it in French.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

I have just been sent it.

Thank you.

[Kenza El Bied]

I'm really sorry. That is something we should always do.