Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. Because of the cost restrictions in having to hire their own lawyer to prosecute any of these offences, of my five first nations, I've only had one, and they've only stepped forward to deal with access to the nation, which means banning people they don't want there and put

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. I was raised among first nations people and I know how important family is to first nations. To ban somebody, to remove them from their family and from access to their family living on the nation, is a very severe step to take. It is taken very seriously among first nations

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I would like to see, at the very least, provincial policy and standards for what the restorative justice system will do and can do, and an accounting and auditing for it to show that it is meeting those standards, as well as proper training, assessment and evaluation on a regular

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The province does fund us for a crime prevention worker, who is basically a community liaison. That's a civilian person. We don't need a badge-packing, gun-toting person. They go out, set up our meetings and do a lot of stuff. We put out our monthly newsletter that goes to all th

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We face challenges with all charges. I've had to sit down—especially every two years when we have a new election and we have a new chief and council members—to explain things to them, to explain how the law works. It's not to say we can't do it, but what our challenges are. Onc

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The RCMP are our neighbours in all our non-indigenous communities around us, so we share the highway with three different RCMP detachments. We have a very good working relationship at the frontline level. We have a gentleman's agreement among all the detachment commanders of thos

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. Our police service has primary jurisdiction on five separate first nations within our area. Each of those nations has assigned a police commission member. They have a person on that commission who is not an elected official, who sits on the police commission and has oversigh

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Oh, my goodness, this has been a bone of contention. Funding for the restorative justice program was put under the jurisdiction of the board of chiefs. Unfortunately, the board of chiefs has enough other things to do so and isn't able to oversee it. In the 12 years that we've b

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The gap comes through our policing agreement. It is 52% federal, from the first nation policing program, and 48% from the Alberta Solicitor General. For whatever reason—I have no idea, and they can't explain to us how they arrive at how many police officers we need—a random numb

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm not 100% familiar with that, but what you said makes sense. I do see a lot of bylaws being dealt with through a justice of the peace type of format as opposed to provincial or federal court judges, who are tied up, as we all know, with more serious cases, and more of them. Ho

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  First of all, I don't want to be in Parliament. Second, yes, there are solutions. We always look to why we can't do something; let's find out what we actually can do. It might not be the Cadillac version, but maybe it is something that still moves us forward. A lot of times, p

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Within first nations, they have a right to self-govern, and self-governance should include a justice system. First nations aren't saying that they want to leave Canada, that they want to leave all of this. What they're saying is, “We recognize we have problems within our nations.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The one I'll have deals with all first nations policing. It's basically that in dealing with first nations, we have to remember that they are not all the same. Every first nation has its own issues, and they want to discuss those issues. They don't want somebody else to speak for

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. Yes, in all the years of my first nations policing, this has always been an issue. The band bylaw is looked at basically as the bottom end of the legal system. You start with your Charter of Rights and Freedoms, go through your federal statutes and your provincial st

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Tanisi. Good afternoon. Good morning to everybody. I'm speaking to you from Treaty 8 territory in northwestern Alberta. I'd like to give you a bit of my own history and the history of our police service. I'm about to enter my 43rd year of policing, so I've been around for a