Public Safety committee  Well, dä`nnch'e, and good afternoon, I guess, where you are. Thank you for the invitation to be a part of this very important conversation. I look forward to sharing information about my community, the Kwanlin Dün First Nation, or KDFN, and summarizing a collaborative, communit

Public Safety committee  I totally agree. Our CSOs are not an enforcement body. That is the difference between our community safety officer program and the RCMP. When we did a survey among our citizens, we asked them the question, “Do you want the CSOs to have enforcement powers?” They said loud and cl

Public Safety committee  As for Kwanlin Dün, I don't think that recruitment so far has been a huge problem. People needed to know and to understand what the CSOs were and how they would operate. In terms of retention, it's still too early for us to really think about that. The program actually helps the

Public Safety committee  Yes, I would think so. In the north, it's a bit different because the RCMP is the only law enforcement around. A lot of times some of the remote communities are left unpoliced. They don't have any officers. They don't have any police they can rely on. The community safety initiat

Public Safety committee  Much like we did here. We started by having a conversation in the community, really building strong partnerships with the City of Whitehorse, the RCMP and any enforcement agency that had a connection to our community. We reached out to them and really worked on those relationship

Public Safety committee  I think the CSO program is designed to bridge that gap between the RCMP and the police. The police can't spend a whole lot of time when someone is suicidal or has a mental health breakdown, whereas our CSOs can stay with the individual, ensure that the individual gets the necessa

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Good morning, everyone, and thank you for the invitation to be part of this important conversation. I hope you are all well. My name is Doris Bill and I am chief of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation. We are a self-governing first nation, an urban first nation. Our traditional territo

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. We developed the program after the murders of several people in our community. That really plunged our community into a crisis, and we realized and understood that we needed something a lot more. The circumstances I described were that people were fee

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It starts by building those partnerships and really creating space for the program. For example, our traditional territory spreads throughout the city, and we talked with and sat down with the City of Whitehorse. We created an intergovernmental forum and we meet formally with t

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Okay.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's okay.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Well, the CSOs don't have enforcement power—

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm sorry. This is better. I was drinking coffee. The CSOs don't have enforcement power. When we surveyed our citizens recently, they didn't want them to have enforcement power. It was interesting. I think that otherwise that trust would dissipate.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We do. What happens with us, because we're right in the city of Whitehorse and we're a small community, is that the RCMP do respond very quickly to those kinds of incidents. However, the CSOs work alongside the RCMP. For instance, if a murder or something of that nature happens

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, and they ensure.... When the RCMP go, there's often a gap between the services, between the community and the RCMP. For instance, let's say a woman is sexually assaulted. The CSOs would ensure that they would get the services they need, the culturally relevant services they