Public Safety committee  I think that if you're looking at reducing violence, you're doing it from a community-based perspective rather than applying a program into a community and telling the community to fit it. That's where we begin to see real change. I agree with Dr. Langmann that when we look at these other programs and the law—the ceasefire program, Roca, and everything else—what we need to do is look at them and their structure, but then localize them to specific issues in the community.

Public Safety committee  That's a huge question. I don't think I can answer it right away in 40 seconds. It would have to be a multipronged approach, examining what the street economy is, how much money is going to the street economy and how we put money equivalent to what's going to the street economy into a legal economy, so that individuals aren't moving from one place to what some scholars—Venkatesh and Levitt—have called “McJobs”.

Public Safety committee  Sure. When we look at this idea of hypermasculinity, this is the way it's connected to street codes and street justice. When we look at the ways in which violence is being done, in order to protect my face, I create a face. I create a mannerism with which I go out there. My name now becomes Stan.

Public Safety committee  When we look at programs, STR8 UP and OPK with the Bear Clan are examples of the ways in which community partnerships work, working where people are. When we're building programs and moving forward, it needs to be done in a way that is reshaped by the realities of individuals that are actually facing..., and we need to engage in that sort of space.

Public Safety committee  If we're actually going to look at.... I just see all of this as reducing violence, and how we reduce this hyperviolence. It's all connected to hypermasculinity. When we look at programs, we need to re-engage with this idea of what it means to be masculine within society. It doesn't mean emasculating individuals, but how do we engage with this toxic hypermasculinity that is favoured within street and prison spaces?

Public Safety committee  First, I think it's a start. One thing we see within the research is that hiring more indigenous police officers without changing the culture of policing itself does not actually make a bit of difference, because they have to frame within that culture. Second, when we start looking at these programs that everybody has been talking about a bit here—Milwaukee and everything else—I think we have to be very cautious when we're saying we have to get programs for these youth.

Public Safety committee  We have to understand that prison really isn't a place for people to go to for addiction issues. It's just not a conduit in the way it's set up; the supports are not set up in that way. We need to understand that if individuals are heading there for those issues, we have to either reframe the way in which we see prisons, how we're working within prisons, and the programming within prisons, or find alternative measures to keep people out of prison.

Public Safety committee  Good afternoon, everybody. First, I just want to say thanks for the opportunity to come to talk to you today about these issues. I am Métis from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and as was stated, I'm an assistant professor in the department of indigenous studies at the University of Saskatchewan here.