INAN Committee Meeting

     I call this meeting to order.

    Welcome to meeting number 12 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs.

    We recognize that we meet on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

    Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Wednesday, September 24, 2025, the committee is continuing its study of indigenous policing and public safety.

    I remind everybody to please be cognizant of our great interpreters here. There are little points on how you can interact with your microphone. Make sure it's on and off—off when you're not speaking. If the earpiece is not in your ear, make sure it's on a little circle on the table.

    Thank you again to our interpreters.

    We're going to have an opportunity to hear some more testimony on this important study.

    The Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario are here.

    We have James Killeen, vice-president, chief of police, United Chiefs and Councils of Manitoulin Anishnaabe Police Service. Welcome.

    We are also joined by Kai Liu, executive director, chief of police, retired, Treaty Three Police Service; and Jeff Skye, chief of police, Anishinabek Police Service.

    Welcome to the three of you. You will have five minutes to present.

    We also have Karen Bell, chief of Garden River First Nation and a police officer as well. She is trying to get online. We've been experiencing some IT issues here on the Hill, so we will be monitoring that. We may have to suspend to allow her to participate.

    From Six Nations Police Service, we have by video conference, Darren Montour, chief of police.

    All three of you will have five minutes. We'll start by hearing your testimony. If we need to suspend for a brief minute to allow Karen to get online, we will. I will start first with Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario.

    Jeff, please begin.

    Thank you Chair.

    My name is Chief Jeff Skye. I am the chief of police of the Anishinabek Police Service, situated out of Garden River First Nation. I am starting my 34th year in first nation policing.

    We are here representing the Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario, also known as IPCO. IPCO was founded in 2019 and represents the nine self-administered first nations police services that operate in the province of Ontario. In total, IPCO member police services serve 85 first nations in Ontario.

     We advocate together for equitable policing for all first nations in Ontario. We also advocate for serious and significant changes to first nations police. Some recent successes include working with our funding partner, Ontario, to provide a provincial pension plan for our members equal to the OPP's. We're part of the Community Safety and Policing Act, 2019, which was co-developed with first nations and allows first nations to opt in to legislated standards for community safety.

    Four years ago, this committee heard about the struggles of first nations policing and how we were asked to do more with less in extremely challenging conditions. The committee also heard about the extensive failures of Canada's first nations and Inuit policing program, FNIPP. In particular, the committee heard about how the FNIPP, which launched in 1991, was built on a promise. That was the promise of equitable policing for first nations comparable to non-first nations communities. The committee also heard how the promise was never fulfilled.

    Since the FNIPP launched, the promise has never been forgotten, but the underlying policy was quite literally disappeared. We call it the phantom policy. Instead, Canada imposes unfair, discriminatory rules through the terms and conditions, which fail first nations people. As my colleague, Kai Liu, will explain in a moment, multiple courts have ruled that these terms and conditions are arbitrary and discriminatory and force first nations to endure restrictive rules that would never apply to non-indigenous people.

    While first nations policing has changed somewhat, there is still significant work to be done. As some examples of the work, some detachments don't even have lockers or change room facilities. Recently, in one of the detachments, through funding, holding cells were built that were made of drywall.

    The biggest challenge affecting first nations is drugs and associated violence. While the drug crisis affects everyone, first nations communities are particularly hard hit, with an influx of drugs and gangs from southern Ontario. People, especially our young, are dying, and we don't have the resources to do anything about it.

    These incidents aren't anomalies. They are increasingly the norm for first nations communities. Gangs target first nation communities because they know there's nobody to stop them. First nations police services have been chronically underfunded, affecting our ability to provide 24-7 policing and keep communities safe. We simply do not have the resources, the funding, the officers or the equipment to tackle this crisis, and it is killing our people, especially the young.

    We are asking you, the committee, to help us encourage Public Safety Canada to help make that happen.

    I want to say meegwetch and thank you for my few minutes, as I'm trying to speed up as quickly as I can. I'd like to hand it over to my colleague, Kai Liu.

     Good afternoon.

    My name is Kai Liu and I'm the executive director of the Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario and former chief of the Treaty Three Police Service.

    I want to highlight two key developments. These are the major court rulings confirming discrimination in Canada's first nations and Inuit policing program and IPCO's own successful legal action.

     In Quebec, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal and the Federal Court of Appeal found that Canada discriminates through FNIPP by refusing to negotiate honourably and by imposing arbitrary terms and conditions.

    In 2024, the Supreme Court went further, ruling that Canada breached the honour of the Crown and describing negotiations with Public Safety Canada as like having “a knife to the throat”. IPCO intervened in that case to share Ontario's experience.

    In 2023, IPCO launched its own human rights complaint and won emergency Federal Court relief after three of our police services had their funding cut off. The Federal Court ordered Canada to maintain funding, suspend discriminatory terms and negotiate in good faith, yet Canada continues to delay our broader complaint.

    We believe these issues can and should be resolved through honourable, good faith engagements without further litigation.

    Thank you.

    Go ahead.

    Good afternoon.

    My name is James Killeen. I'm the chief of police of UCCM Anishnaabe Police Service in the Mnidoo Mnising area of Manitoulin Island. I'm also the vice-president of the Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario. I'm a proud Mohawk from Akwesasne.

    The definition of “essential” is “absolutely necessary” and the definition of an “essential service” is daily services for “preserving life, health, public safety and societal functioning.” Ask yourselves this as you hear those definitions: What part of first nations policing or the communities that we represent do those definitions not entail? The answer is all. We take care of all of those issues.

    I want to speak briefly about what we hope this committee takes away from today.

    First, the problems with the first nations and Inuit policing program are not new. In 2014, the Auditor General found that the program was not accessible, not transparent, failed to meaningfully include first nations in negotiations and urgently needed its terms and conditions updated.

    A decade later, the 2024 Auditor General report found the situation had worsened. Public Safety Canada still had no equitable funding approach, continued to fall short in programs and still has not meaningfully consulted first nations.

    Adding to it is the word “program”. We are not an experiment. The word “program” insinuates that we are here part time. It's been over three decades. It is no longer a program. It's not called the “federal policing program”, the “provincial policing program” or the “municipal policing program”. We should not be a program any longer. We are here to stay.

    Second, despite repeated court rulings directing Canada to fix this, the federal government continues to act as if these decisions do not exist. IPCO's own human rights complaint, which you heard about earlier, has been stalled in procedure. Canada has twice changed the terms and conditions after an injunction, again without any consultation.

    We ask this committee to take what you've heard today and ask Public Safety Canada directly: What is being done to fix this program?

    Third, we are concerned because we've now been told that Canada intends to change the terms yet again. This will happen in January 2026. The reason this is so important is that these new rules would block us from obtaining legal advice to challenge any discriminatory terms and would stop us from carrying over unspent funds. These changes are not just arbitrary; they are discriminatory and they further limit our ability to serve our communities. They are also two of the reasons that kept all three of our services alive when their funding was cut off in January 2023. The ability to have that carry-over gave us the ability for us to sustain our police services.

    Fourth, this program has existed for over 30 years. The courts have ordered an overhaul. First nations have asked for one for decades. We should not have to win another ruling just to be heard. Canada regularly claims the process is complex and that funding is unavailable, yet in 2023, the minister updated the terms and conditions with the stroke of a pen to finally allow funding for basic policing units, such as crime units, drug units and canine units, which are very sorely needed in our communities, so we know change is possible when Canada chooses it.

    Meanwhile in Ontario, the Community Safety and Policing Act now allows first nations to opt in to a framework with mandatory, adequate and culturally responsive policing. That is not true federally. What does that say about Canada and the views of first nations police services?

     James, I'm going to get you to wrap up. You'll be able to provide more during the testimony for the rest of it, please.

    Okay.

     Finally, I want to close with a question.

    In 2023 I attended the federal-provincial-territorial ministers' meeting. At that time we asked if first nations matter. Based on the last two years of delay, silence and avoidance, the answer appears to be no.

    We are asking again here today as the representatives of IPCO and our proud first nation communities: Do we matter? We hope we do.

    Thank you.

     Thank you very much.

    Next is Darren for five minutes, please.

     Thank you.

     First, I'd like to thank you for the invitation to speak on this very important issue.

     My name is Darren Montour. I am the chief of police for the Six Nations Police Service. I was born and raised here on the Six Nations of the Grand River. I am a proud Mohawk and a member of the Wolf Clan.

    I have spent my entire 33 and a half years policing my home community. I am the president of the Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario and also vice-president of the central region for the First Nations Chiefs of Police Association.

     What I'm going to discuss here are the same issues that my predecessors and first nations leadership have been stating since the inception of the first nations and Inuit policing program in 1991.

    Policing in first nations communities has long been shaped by structural inequalities, chronic underfunding and governance models that differ dramatically from those of non-indigenous jurisdictions. These disparities are especially evident in the FNIP program, the primary mechanism through which community police services are funded and delivered to first nations communities.

    Despite the essential role police services play in community safety and well-being, first nations policing in Canada is not legally recognized as essential service, which both reflects and perpetuates unequal treatment.

    The Auditor General's 2024 report sharply criticized the FNIPP for its systemic failures, including practices that amount to systemic racism in the way services are structured, funded and monitored. That Auditor General's report said that money was left unspent.

     With essential service legislation, this will ensure longevity, sustainability and equality for first nations policing across the country. This has been in discussion since 2021 and seems to have fallen off the priority list.

     Negotiations of new funding agreements are taxing and take up valuable time and resources that could be used towards policing rather than fighting for adequate funding. There is no such thing as meaningful negotiations, as listed in our tripartite agreement. The timeliness of agreement expiry is left for no negotiation availability. There's not enough time to negotiate a new contract when you're told to sign at the end of January or you don't get funding by the start of April of the next fiscal year.

    Being able to have resources and manpower reflective of the population of the communities we police is essential to do the job to the best of our abilities, like those in non-indigenous communities. Recruitment is also a constant hurdle in first nations policing. The IPCO human rights complaint, as executive director Liu spoke of earlier, basically chastises the first nations and Inuit policing program. We also had to take Ontario to court for another human rights complaint for pension equity.

    With these disparities in manpower, equipment and resources, it leads to mental health impacts for our own people. The effects of intergenerational trauma from residential schools are still prevalent in indigenous communities.

    The IPCO mental health review had 27 recommendations to help improve the mental health of the officers, the civilians and the families. Lack of resources, equipment, infrastructure and manpower, and mental health anguish of members, leads to PTSD, burnout and, eventually, resignations of members, which in turn jeopardizes community safety.

    Community policing is important for all our communities. I always say that the epitome of community policing is first nations policing. We are from these communities. We know the culture. We know the language. We know the dynamics. We know the people. We're related to everybody in the community.

    Lastly, the lack of resources and manpower can lead to an influx of organized crime into indigenous communities. Speaking specifically of Six Nations here, the influx of organized crime into the tobacco and cannabis issues in this community leads to turf wars. We have had gang violence. We have had shootings. We have had arsons. Luckily, with our partners in the Ontario Provincial Police, we've been able to start tackling this problem, but this problem continues and will continue until there are changes to the way first nations communities and first nations police services are funded.

    Thank you for your time. Nya:weh.

     Thank you very much to everyone.

    We're going to our first round, which is six minutes for questions and answers.

    First off, for the Conservatives, I have Eric.

    Thanks, Mr. Chair.

    I just want to confirm that Chief Bell is not able to join us.

     Not yet. She hasn't been able to come on. If she does come on in a reasonable amount of time, we'll suspend.

     Okay. Thank you, Chair.

    Thank you to all the witnesses for being here. Most importantly, thank you for your service and for your commitment to keeping communities across our country safe.

    I'm happy to see a good contingent from northern Ontario.

    Mr. Liu, we worked together a lot before. I appreciate all of your work, particularly with Treaty Three.

    We also had Police Chief Gervais here to speak to the committee. It was concerning and frustrating for me to hear a lot of what she brought forward because they're things we have been talking about for many years.

    She spoke of the gaps in service, the difficulty in being able to recruit and the mental toll it has on those who are serving. She said, “No other police service in Canada is asked to compromise so consistently on safety, wellness and sustainability” as first nation police services are.

    The frustration I have is that we're here studying this again. It's an important issue, and I'm happy we're studying it, but I'm frustrated that nothing has moved. I want to know if you can speak a little more to what the real-world consequences are for safety in first nation communities, with the lack of action we see.

    I could summarize it very quickly. Lives depend on change. Lives are affected each and every day that delays occur for meaningful change to the first nations and Inuit policing program.

     I appreciate that.

    We also had some comments from a couple of you—maybe all of you really—about the specialized units. I'm happy there have been some steps forward. Being allowed to have specialized units is obviously an important step in having that discriminatory practice removed, but the resources are a whole other thing. It's one thing to have those conditions removed, but I know that so many units are struggling with resources, particularly when it comes to human trafficking and drugs.

    The drug issue is really impacting communities in northern Ontario.

    Mr. Skye or Mr. Killeen, can you speak to that lack of resources for those units?

     I'll gladly speak.

    All I did in my previous police service was work on organized crime files, wiretaps, major investigations, so I know what it takes to run those units, and we don't have what it takes. Even with the removal of that, you have to remember that our police services are now 30 years behind. It takes an incredible amount of training.

    The smaller the community, the bigger the unit you need. For something such as a drug unit, there's been evidence to show that you need a minimum of five people, for instance, to do surveillance. Right now with the funding we're looking at, they're saying we're possibly getting a unit with three people in it, so it's already underfunded at the start of it.

    The smaller the community, the more you would need. The reason I say that is this. If I were to do surveillance in Toronto right now, I would blend in a lot easier, but to go into a first nation community, I'm telling you that I would be instantly identified. People would be walking up to the car, knocking on the window, asking what I was doing there and who I was with. They would be wondering why I was there. You need bigger units to be able to concentrate a lot better. We need massive amounts of training to get people up to those standards.

     When I joined a drug unit, I had heavy mentoring from people who were already in there. We don't have any of that, so I'm the mentor. I'm the chief of police and I'm mentoring people because of my past experience, which is still valid. I'll tell you that, as the chief of police, I've been out on surveillance, as early as this year, on a major project. That was a joint force operation that was running between Toronto and Sudbury, and it came onto the island.

    We have major gangs around. I don't want to just say the word “gangs”; I'm going to read some of these names to you. Off the top of my head, we have the Chester Le gang, the Driftwood Crips and the Five Point Generalz.

    These aren't people we just think are here. These are confirmed members we work with through the Toronto gun and gang task force, as well as OPP organized crime units, who are able to identify these people. These people are in our communities.

    We have motorcycle gangs: the Hells Angels, the Outlaws and the newly re-formed Satan's Choice.

    We already have full-patch members of Satan's Choice. This is the reason that's such a concern. For those who are not aware, I'm from Sudbury. That's where I was originally a police officer. Sudbury is the only police station in Canada to have been bombed by an organized crime group. That was the Satan's Choice Motorcycle Club back in December 1996. That group has re-formed, and the son of the group's founder is now running it.

    We look at the problems that are coming. This is already in my community. It was not even a month ago we had that. These are major issues we have going on. It's not that we think there are gangs here. There are gangs in our area and they are causing a massive amount of issues, and we do not have the training to bring us up to speed.

     I really appreciate that. I didn't want to cut you off, but I'm short for time.

    You also mentioned some more discriminatory changes being brought forward in January 2026. I know you were pressed for time in your opening remarks. Could you please expand on what those changes are and how they're going to have an impact?

    Sure. In March 2023, when we filed our human rights complaint, our negotiations had just started. They instantly stopped as soon as we filed that human rights complaint, and our funding was cut off. The reason that's so significant is that doesn't happen to federal, provincial or municipal police. I worked for a municipal police service. You were never afraid that if the chief of police, the mayor and council for the city were looking at a deal and if it didn't work that they would cut off funding, but that happened to us.

    What kept us alive were those carry-over monetary funds and the ability for us to hire a lawyer to represent us. We're not lawyers. We're police officers. There are a lot of logistics that go into legal arguments we don't have the expertise on. It doesn't make sense that, on one side, they're able to have 14 lawyers look at an agreement, and on the first nations side for the police service, they don't. Those two conditions they are specifically looking at to change. I look at it as they looked at the two conditions we use to keep us alive, and now they're going to change those conditions.

     Thank you very much for that.

    Continuing on with the testimony, we'll have Jaime for the next six minutes for questions, please.

     Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you for your service, officers, and for coming here to testify today.

    Officers Montour, Skye and Killeen, you talked about the influx of organized crime and gang-related activity because of a lack of resources in your communities.

    Can you tell us a bit about what kind of collaboration you have with the OPP and the RCMP for these major crimes where you need additional resources that are probably not available to most indigenous police programs in Canada?

     I can answer that.

    We actually do have a very good relationship with all policing partners in the province of Ontario, including the RCMP. The problem we have, though, is these are our communities, and we must be funded properly to have our own specialty units. This is where the gap is. When we do need the OPP to come into our communities, we actually have to send a letter of request to the Ontario Provincial Police commissioner to get their specialized units to come into our communities.

    Sometimes that doesn't work. As an example, we don't have canines. Some do but most of us don't. We don't have drug units, etc., etc. The list goes on where we need to be sustained, get some sustainable funding, to continue to hire for that. Right now, even if we do get some funding, there's a ripple effect. If you do start a specialty unit, you're taking frontline officers off the road to be promoted into those units, and it leaves a gap at the front line. This is the problem we've been running into for over three decades.

    I know, myself, in my career, I was with the Anishinabek Police Service, and then I joined the Treaty Three Police Service—that was my treaty area—and then I came back as the chief of police for the Anishinabek Police Service. The unique challenges are no different across the province. They're all the same. Without the commitment of all those hard-working men and women on the front line, things would be drastically worse. Without getting into the 2019 mental health report, there are consequences for that.

    Before I go to Chief Montour, do you think you have enough indigenous police in your current area being trained, or do you think we need an influx of many more? How can we do that?

     We are starting to negotiate for more officers for our police services. We have actually submitted to our funders for those officers through a service delivery model, similar to what the OPP have been doing for its police service. They are now complete and we are having them submitted. We're just waiting for an answer about whether we're actually going to get that increase in officers.

    Where are your officers trained?

     They're trained at the Ontario Police College.

     Can you tell us more about that?

     When we do hiring for our recruitment, we hire specific to our communities, if we can. However, we will hire people who are not from the communities. Recruitment is always a struggle because most of our communities are fairly remote, not close to major cities, although some are. It is always a challenge to recruit. Who's going to join our service when we don't have sustainable funding? I call it part-time funding that comes to an end. Who's going to look at that as a long-term job when your funding runs out? Right now, for the Anishinabek Police Service, our funding will run out on March 31, 2026, with no carry-over.

     How long usually are the agreements that you sign with the federal government? Are they three, five or 10 years?

     Well, in the past few years, the three police services—UCCM, APS and Treaty Three Police Service—are going year to year. This is the first time we've signed a two-year agreement and with an expiry date. Again, that's not conducive to providing proper safety for our community members.

     Would you say five- or 10-year models of transfers for sustainability would increase the number of officers and help you deliver better services?

     No, I disagree with that, because we need funding that never ends. There's no cut-off date and there never should be a cut-off date to policing in any community. That's what we're trying to say. It was almost cut off. If it weren't for the carry-over, we would have had to shut down.

    Chief Montour, do you want to build on that?

    Yes.

    Further to what my colleagues Chief Killeen and Chief Skye said, organized crime is everywhere across this country. We all know that. The opioid crisis is running rampant everywhere, especially in indigenous communities. We also have the influx of gangs incoming from the GTA to Brantford, which is a nearby city just off the Six Nations territory here. We're seeing more and more handguns seized. There's more violence happening.

    With the tobacco trade that's here, we have the organized crime groups putting pressure on residents here in the community. They'll partner with them, take over their land and give them some money basically to keep quiet. With that comes competition with the other businesses here.

    Like I said in my opening statement, we had a very well-known establishment here in the community, the Burger Barn. It came to a turf war situation in which, ultimately, that business was burned to the ground. Luckily, no one was hurt. A few weeks later, there was an arson attempt at the home of the owner of the Burger Barn. Luckily, with our partners in the OPP, and by working with them diligently, we were able to make an arrest in that situation.

    Again, that's all tied to organized crime in the GTA, ultimately, and back into the different cities in the Golden Horseshoe area, because, where we're located, we're in the most populous area of the country. We're an hour from Buffalo and from Toronto, and we're half an hour from Hamilton, so we see the influx of organized crime. Luckily, we partner with our OPP colleagues on a continuous basis, our municipal colleagues.

    My service, along with other services, belong to Criminal Intelligence Service Ontario, which helps us greatly.

     Thank you, Chief. We're going to the next questioner, and there will be more opportunities for you to provide input.

     Sébastien, go ahead for six minutes, please.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

     Meegwetch. Thank you for being here, Chiefs of Police Liu, Skye and Killeen.

    It was a pleasure to meet you a few weeks ago, when you clued me in to a number of difficulties related to your profession. One thing struck me.

    According to Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario, first nations must have the freedom to design and administer their own policing model. However, within the current provincial and federal funding structure, the Ontario Provincial Police continues to provide critical support, including specialized unit reinforcements and major investigative services.

    Should the funding program be adapted to enable first nations police services to develop their own expertise in things like accident reconstruction, homicide investigation and missing persons cases?

    I can respond to that. Very clearly, what we're trying to say here is the first nation policing program needs to sunset and be replaced by federal legislation, or, in Ontario, be under its Community Safety and Policing Act. That's where we want to go, and I think we need to collaborate with Public Safety and Ontario to communicate and work out something for the longevity of policing for our first nation communities.

     I would just add that, when you don't have specialized units, such as traffic reconstruction, it delegitimizes your police service. I'll give you an example. There was a very brutal, terrible accident right in front of one of our band offices. The comments from our community were, “Why are UCCM police not investigating this? Why are the OPP coming in here, to our area?” Then it's, “Well, they're the real police; they're the fake police. They're just here as a show.” That is not true. We have very competent officers. We don't have the units to be able to do that.

    When we talk about drug units, and when we're working with the OPP.... During my first year here as the chief of police, we did an undercover joint force operation with the Ontario Provincial Police. It was very successful, but as soon as that was done, they had their own communities to take care of. We don't get to keep that drug unit. It moves on. When you don't have a concentrated saturation on a certain area of a criminal element, such as drug trafficking or human trafficking, it just perpetuates and comes back, and it comes back three or four times. As soon as that undercover project ended, it created a vacuum and a turf war started. Within one month there was an attempted murder and a murder involving the same group that had originally been fighting with the people we arrested in our undercover project. We do need those units to continually work.

     Also, those specialized units offer lateral movement for your officers and civilian staff within the organization to learn and to grow as professionals and as a police service. It legitimizes your entire police service. We should, at some point, especially after 30-plus years, not have to ask our big brother for help all the time. Although we appreciate everything we get from the OPP and the RCMP, it would be nice for us to do our own major cases.

    Currently, at UCCM there is a missing indigenous woman, Juanita Migwans. I want to say her name here because it's very sad that she has gone missing. We should have carriage of that investigation, but we don't have the detectives to handle major case management. We don't have the numbers, by legislation, to do that, so the OPP have to take carriage of that investigation. However, it should be an indigenous service looking after a missing indigenous woman.

    It has been brought to my attention that there is a crisis with street gangs and organized crime, on the Côte‑Nord in particular. The same thing is happening in my region on the Timiskaming first nation in Notre-Dame-du-Nord.

    Do you feel that organized crime is on the rise in indigenous communities?

    Are you seeing that on the Ontario side? I'm thinking of the Timmins case, for example, which was brought to my attention.

    Can you tell us more about that?

     All northern communities have been completely inundated and infiltrated by organized crime. I have personally spoken to a gang member while I was the chief of police at UCCM, and I asked, “Why are you coming here?” He boldly told me to my face, “I've been here for years. You didn't know about me. I will continue to come here. You do not have the resources to be able to concentrate on me.” They know this, and he told that to me boldly to my face and said, “I'll be back as soon as I get out of jail.”

    That is not something unique to my communities. I worked in Sudbury. We saw the infiltration of gangs starting specifically in 2006 with a major incident that happened in our city at that time with a shooting that had taken place, and we really saw gangs starting to come. It is all over.

    I was part of the Criminal Intelligence Service of Ontario. I was the representative when I was a police officer in Sudbury. We would have meetings, and we would meet with all those officers. They would talk about all of the gang members. We have the same people that I was working on in Sudbury now on Manitoulin Island. Those are also the same gang members that are going up to Thunder Bay, Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie and all of our first nation communities. It is a massive, major problem that has been ignored for too long.

     Meegwetch.

    Thank you very much.

    Next up is Larry Brock for the Conservatives. They have a five-minute round.

     Thank you, Chair.

    Thank you, witnesses, for your attendance. I do want to thank you for your levels of service. Between the four of you, we're talking about probably well over 100 years of community policing and service, so thank you for that.

     I'm hearing a consistent theme from all of you about the rising influence of organized crime in your communities. It's not just native to indigenous communities; it's every community across this country. We also have transnational organized crime coming from Mexico and South America. I don't know if you're seeing that in your communities.

    To your point, Chief Killeen, about the interaction you had with that one individual, they all know you're completely under-resourced, which is an invitation to set up camp in your communities and terrorize communities. I think the bigger, broader question is how, in addition to a lack of resources, we have a lack of teeth in our criminal justice system. When it comes to bail, we have issues about bail, catch and release, that the Liberals have not fixed for 10 straight years. We also have weak, ineffective sentencing guidelines for all major offences. It does not provide any deterrence, does not provide any denunciation and does not provide any incentive for these individuals to choose a different path.

    Chief Montour, welcome. You're part of my community. What would you say with respect to that broader question? Is it an issue?

    Please opine on that and how it can be improved.

     Good afternoon, Mr. Brock. It's good to see you again.

    Yes, it is a very challenging issue, especially in my community here at Six Nations. I know, Mr. Brock, from your former career as a Crown prosecutor in Brantford, you've seen that on a daily basis, because 99% of the time, in the incidents we're dealing with here, the accused is indigenous as well as the victim. I look at the Gladue factors that come up on sentencing and bail hearings. Don't get me wrong. Gladue does have a place in our legal system, but for those repeat serious dangerous offenders charged with various serious offences—firearms offences, domestic violence offences—they are continually being released and having an ankle monitor put on them. Two or three weeks later, they're cutting it off and then they're into the wind.

    A prime example is the individual who removed his ankle monitor and later murdered and killed Constable Greg Pierzchala in Hagersville, just outside of my community here. That was a very tragic time for the entire community because my officers were responding to that call as well. One of those officers was my nephew.

    Bail reform needs to be drastically improved because continuously we hear the frustrations of those domestic violence victims, those victims of serious assaults saying, “Is this a justice system or is it just a legal system?” To me, change—

     Chief, if I could stop you right there, the Liberal response to the bail crisis has been to introduce Bill C-14, which does not remove entirely the principle of restraint, the principle that requires judges to release individuals at the earliest opportunity on the least restrictive conditions.

     Knowing that Bill C-14 does not address that, what is your position as a police officer?

     To me, with all due respect, that makes no sense because those people charged with those serious offences, like Chief Killeen said, they know the system. They know they're going to get out. With these factors taken into account, even with the Gladue factors for sentencing, where does that outweigh the safety of the public? I've continuously said that, especially with these violent offenders who keep coming back to the community.

    We're also getting violent offenders from other communities, non-indigenous people living here in the territory. We're dealing with them, whether it's a drug execution warrant and they're armed with illegal firearms, handguns that are smuggled in from the U.S..

    There has to be a change because I foresee there's going to be another tragedy—I hate to say that—before something is done.

     Thank you very much.

     Thank you very much.

    Now we have Brendan for five minutes.

    Thank you.

     I want to thank all of you for your service and also for your really important testimony today.

    Chief Liu, I want to start with you. I noticed that you retired in 2023, but here you are, obviously, still as a member of the association and still heavily involved.

    We've heard a lot about the impact of organized crime. I wonder, as you reflect over decades of service, how you would describe where we are today in terms of the challenges you've seen over the decades in community safety in general.

    Before retiring and taking on the executive director position, I served 37 years of policing, of which 33 years were with municipal police services. I started with the Ottawa Police Service and did 22 years, and then became chief of police of the Gananoque Police Service, just outside of Kingston, Ontario. As well, I did seven years with the Cobourg Police Service, an hour outside of Toronto.

    With that 33 years of policing, my understanding of community-based policing was totally changed when I was recruited and asked to go up to Treaty Three Police as their chief of police. I immediately realized that what I was experiencing or witnessing in first nation policing was nothing that I had witnessed in municipal policing.

    If someone were to call 911 sitting where we are today in the city of Ottawa, within four minutes or less a police officer, or a group of police officers, would arrive and respond to that emergency. In Treaty Three, if someone called.... First of all, many of our communities don't have 911, so you would have to call an eight-digit number, but if you were able to get through and called and said there was an active shooter or any other major crime, it could take up to three hours for the police to respond. By that time, a criminal would be able not only to bury the body but to disappear, whereas here in the city of Ottawa, if it took more than seven minutes, I would think there would be an inquest as to why the police took so long.

    The differences of municipal policing and provincial policing to first nations are hard to describe. I would leave an invitation to the committee. I don't know what your plans are, if there is an opportunity to travel into any of these self-administered first nation police services, spend a night and spend a couple of hours and ride in a police car with a police officer. You will see first-hand the significant differences of first nation policing.

     Thank you so much.

    I know you could probably go on for hours, which would be very valuable as well, but I want to take advantage of the remaining time.

    Chief Killeen, you referred to the tragedy of a missing indigenous woman. You named her, and I appreciate that. Are you seeing changes? Since there are over 200 calls for justice from the missing and murdered indigenous women report, there has been action in many of those areas. Are you seeing a difference on the ground since the publication of the report, since the recommendations came out? What are you seeing in terms of actions or gaps in implementation of those calls for justice?

    We have not seen a major impact from that report. The UCCM doesn't even have a human trafficking unit. A lot of the women who end up missing from our communities are being human trafficked. For those who are not aware of what a human-trafficking unit is and the intricacies of those units, when you're dealing with victims of human trafficking, you're dealing with the ultimate in a victim. They are sexually assaulted, financially assaulted and physically assaulted—every kind of assault you can think of—and it goes on for years. When those victims are unable to co-operate—and a lot of them are unable to co-operate—the reason is that they are mentally and physically controlled by their perpetrators.

    I used to run a human-trafficking unit. I was the head of it in Sudbury, and it was a successful human-trafficking unit. It would be very shocking for people to understand, but Sudbury had one of the most successful units. We had, I think, five convictions. It doesn't sound like a lot, but to get someone to come on side and be able to testify.... We had people who would be on side and give their statement, and then they would show up in court, see their perpetrator and turn and run. You can't get upset with that. It's absolutely terrifying. Being the victim of a one-time, one-moment sexual assault is horrific, but it's that one moment, and then they are able to hopefully move on from that.

    A victim of human trafficking is victimized over years. We, in our place, want a human-trafficking unit that concentrates specifically on that. We are aware of a number of women who have gone missing who we would want to be able to concentrate on and to go and work with to convince them to come back to their home communities and to convince them to try to get out of that lifestyle. We would want to be able to give them what they need in order to survive outside of that violent relationship that exists with their trafficker.

    We have not seen a huge increase in those recommendations at the UCCM. I can't speak for the other police services, but I don't think they have specific and concentrated human-trafficking units. It would make a massive difference in our community.

    Thank you very much for that.

    Now we have Sébastien for two and a half minutes.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Mr. Skye, I know you're interested in the issue of mental health, of course. Officer mental health is related to broader issues, including recognition of law enforcement authorities.

    How could recognizing first nations policing as an essential service transform officers' working conditions and lead to positive mental health and public safety outcomes in your communities?

    Keep in mind that this is very important. Since the first nations policing program was started in the early 1990s, there's been little investment in the policing program. I call it a resource deficit over 30 years. Everything that we do affects everything regarding the safety of our communities because the lack of investing—or, I would call it, the purposely not investing—in our policing services and safety in our communities....

     We get what goes on with other services outside of first nations policing—the amount of resources they're given, the funding they're given. We have been studied in almost every category you can think of, and we're the highest in almost everything. When it comes to the effects of mental health not only in our communities but also in the police officers.... They're working extraordinary hours right from the start of their careers, with no end in sight, looking and hoping that someday there will be some adequate resources and investments.

    One day, I'm going to retire soon, but I would like this resource deficit to be fixed—and not over another 30 years but hopefully in five to 10 years, maybe—so that there are some investments. It's very discouraging. The budget that was just passed doesn't mention first nations policing at all. Maybe there will be some mention of it in the spring. It's very difficult. We work with what we have. With our funding shortfalls, we do our best to provide benefits that address mental health. We rely heavily on our culture, our medicines from our communities, because there's no cost. To go to doctors.... It's very difficult to find a doctor right now in a first nation community.

    The challenges are always there. We do the best we can to make it work, but we can't continue to sustain that forever.

    Thank you very much.

     Thank you very much.

    I want to acknowledge the leadership you've shown on this issue by submitting your very interesting report to the committee. Thank you.

    Thank you.

    Now we have William for five minutes.

    Thank you, gentlemen, for appearing before us.

    Quite often when I go around my areas, I get to say I have one of the largest ridings in Alberta. This committee actually has several other guys who have much larger ridings than mine, so we're in a pretty good company here when we say that we represent a large chunk of rural Canada.

    Chief Liu, could you tell me more about response times and funding? You started talking about how response times are much longer. Can you talk to us a little bit about how that shows a difference between rural areas versus cities in terms of funding per capita or per police officer?

    In the Ontario Provincial Police, which also includes rural policing, their funding model is based on response time, the number of calls and the distance, whereas in first nation policing, the number of officers and civilian staff is arbitrary. It is based on an arbitrary number that is given to first nation police services. There is no real study, with the exception of three police services that Public Safety Canada is under a court injunction to negotiate funding with. Those three services are the Treaty Three Police Service, UCCM and the Anishinabek Police Service. Those three services, because their funding cut off, went to the Federal Court. At the Federal Court, Justice Gascon ruled that Public Safety Canada had to continue negotiating in good faith with those three services.

    Right across the country, the numbers are arbitrary. When they're arbitrary, it is not like a municipal service. When I was chief of police of two municipal services, I could come back to the police services board and justify why I needed annual budget increases, and it would be negotiated or discussed with the board. Ultimately, there was legislation that protected the police service and allowed arbitration to occur here in the province of Ontario, whereas that does not occur in first nation policing.

    In my riding, pretty much all of my area is policed by the RCMP instead of any first nations police.

     I'm wondering if you could tell me about the communications between them. Is there co-operation amongst them when they look at trying to get funding for those among the different areas, or is it almost always a one-on-one situation, with each nation begging on their own?

     One of the driving factors of the Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario forming in August 2019 was simply the negotiating tactics of Public Safety Canada. They would negotiate with one self-administered police service and then we would be told, “Don't tell the others what you were getting.” We would find out in meetings in the back rooms that one service got more or less than the other. In the province of Ontario, that was the driving factor for the police chiefs to get together. They formed the association and began sharing amongst themselves, which cut into Public Safety Canada's negotiation tactics of dividing and conquering.

    Thank you.

    Chief Montour, you mentioned the problems with the illegal guns coming through mostly from the U.S. I'm assuming you are saying that the new confiscation scheme is not going to help deal with any of the crimes committed with guns in your area. Can you elaborate on what would help for you?

     Really, we wouldn't have the time or the resources to get involved with that buyback program that's being proposed by the current government. Like I said earlier, we're busy trying to keep this community safe with the influx of guns being smuggled across the border. Like my colleague, Chief Skye, who is a hunter, I'm a hunter. We're legal gun owners. I see this time and time again, and I hear it from my friends who are hunters, especially in indigenous communities. That's a way of life for us. Why is the gun owner always the one being penalized? Penalize the bad guys smuggling them. The mandatory minimums for weapons trafficking have been revoked.

    I know there's work being done now to enhance the border for fentanyl, but that can also include weapons smuggling, because, like I said earlier, with these gang members coming in from the GTA, we're getting guns coming in that are ghost guns. They're 3-D printed. We're getting guns with the serial numbers scratched off. Before, when we would do a search warrant at a drug house, we'd get a sawed-off shotgun someone used for squirrel hunting a few years prior. Now, it's handguns; it's high-powered automatic guns that are smuggled.

    Thank you very much, Chief.

    This draws us toward the end, a little over that timing.

    Before we close, I'm exercising the chair's discretion to ask a question in the last spot belonging to the Liberals.

    I was listening to this excellent testimony and questions. I've been to the APS badge ceremonies and award ceremonies. They're great. I've seen indigenous officers, and then I've seen non-indigenous officers.

    You mentioned they're being trained at the Ontario college. What kind of extra training do the non-indigenous, if any, get there, or what do you do to augment that for your new officer hires?

     We do our best, based on our funding, to provide the best training that is available based on our budget. Most of the training is held by the Ontario Police College. We try to heavily invest as best we can. My service will send as many people as we can to the Ontario Police College just to get the qualifications to investigate major crimes, especially. We do everything we can and focus on our training as best we can to send them across the province, because the Ontario Police College has training across the province of Ontario. Some of the hardship in my communities is getting to Aylmer. We have hosted, in some of our detachment areas, the training provided by the Ontario Police College. I'm so, so happy they're able to come to our communities to do that. I am very grateful for that.

    Thank you very much, and thank you for that testimony today. You mentioned a gap in funding, if you will, human resources-wise, but also facility-wise. Would you please provide that gap analysis to our analyst so we can take a look at it as well? I'm sure it's quite lengthy, and we don't have the time to delve into it this evening. Chi-miigwech.

    That brings us to the end.

    I want to thank everyone online as well as everyone in the room. Again, chi-miigwech.

    We will suspend to set up our next panel.

     Welcome back.

    We've had a few technical issues today on the Hill. We continue to deal with those, so we will roll with things. I appreciate the committee's understanding. The interpretation isn't working well. We will not roll unless the interpretation online works for the interpreters here. That's just what we're doing. It's a technical issue.

    We have with us, in person, David Chartrand, president, national government of the Red River Métis, from the Manitoba Métis Federation.

    Welcome, David. You have five minutes, and then we'll go to the people online.

    If the interpretation isn't working, unfortunately, we cannot hear that testimony and we'll have to jig that.

    Go ahead, David.

    Thank you very much, Terry.

     Let me start off by saying good evening to all at the INAN committee. Thank you for inviting me to appear today to discuss indigenous policing from the Red River Métis perspective. It is a privilege to speak on an issue that is so critical to the safety and sovereignty of our communities.

    For generations, our people have upheld our own system of governance, justice and collective responsibility. As Louis Riel, the father of Manitoba, said:

     We have long known how to protect our families through community-driven laws that govern our people and enforce consequences. The Prairies were not the Wild West. We had our own form of policing rooted in respect and infused with our cultural values. Public safety has been at the top of our mind for over 200 years, and our efforts to be included are not new. It is a continuation of a long legacy. Despite this, we are never included in Canada's strategy to reform indigenous policing, yet our villages have the exact same challenges as our first nation relatives. However, we have fewer services and resources and often none at all in our villages. For us, this gap deeply impacts our communities.

    We currently lack a consistent presence that collaborates with local service providers, provides mental health and addictions support and has the ability and means to prevent harm, before it happens, through de-escalation and trauma response. Instead, we have responders who come into our community only when there are emergencies and do not have a strong sense of who we are, as they are from one detachment—I'm talking the RCMP—that was given the impossible task of serving 10 communities. This is a reactive approach focused on responding to emergencies, rather than a proactive approach that focuses on preventing emergencies and making our seniors, elders and our other vulnerable citizens feel safe in their own community. It is not the fault of the police. This is a system we have been forced into.

     These issues are further worsened by the need for bail reform and the revolving door of repeat offenders returning to our community. This is why we look forward to the passing of Bill C-14.

    For too long, the safety of our nation has relied on systems that were not designed for us and do not understand our realities, histories and unique approach to community safety. Our people deserve policing that reflects our language, families and values. They also deserve a strategy that will help prevent harm before it happens, one in which they feel safe, their rights are upheld and they can trust those who are serving in their communities.

    Through our Red River Métis justice strategy and the recently published indigenous justice strategy process, we have emphasized the dire need for Red River Métis-specific public safety in our villages. Though these strategies did not go far enough, they need to be used as a starting point.

    This is my recommendation to this committee. There must be a Red River Métis-specific indigenous policing plan. There are hundreds of villages, and there is no commitment to a Red River Métis-specific plan. There is no strategy or commitment to permanent change but, rather, the illusion of inclusion. They ask us to sit on boards and receive bulletins rather than driving real reform.

    This would require long-term, stable and flexible funding, as well as commitments from all jurisdictions to collaborate and implement a new pathway for Red River Métis policing. We know this is a complex endeavour, but it is one we are ready for. We already have our own laws. We have the Métis laws of the harvest and, in the near future, we'll have our own child and family services laws as well as other laws that will follow. However, instead of being able to properly enforce them, we will need to rely on existing colonial entities to enforce our laws. This is not self-government in action. This denies us from truly reaching our potential.

    We owe it to our ancestors to follow their lead. We also owe it to our future generations to ensure that our families grow up in a safe community that understands, respects and cares for them. In order for progressive change to reach an ultimate objective, it will take an inclusionary platform in which we are not looking in through the window but are meaningful partners.

     Thank you very much, President Chartrand.

    We're still testing the folks online, and we're still waiting for them to get a green light from our interpreters.

    We do have Chief Officer Deborah Doss-Cody from the Stl'atl'imx Tribal Police Service.

    Thank you very much for your patience. Please go ahead.

     Good evening, everyone.

    [Witness spoke in St’at’imcets and provided the following translation:]

    Hello everyone. My name is “Dee” Deborah Doss-Cody. Malee is my Indigenous name. I am from the community of Xaxli'p, from the St’at’imc Nation territory. My parents are “Tuffy” Nels Doss and Debbie Mitchell from Xaxlip. My grandmothers are Bertha Bob and Maudie James-Sheep from Xaxli'p. My grandfathers are Pete Louie Bob and Phillip Doss from Xaxli'p.

    [English]

    I am Deborah Doss-Cody. I am from Fountain of Lillooet of the Stl'atl'imx territory. I just introduced my parents and grandparents to you so that if I have any relatives in your community, you will know who they are, and you will know my bloodline. That is a traditional way of introduction in the Stl'atl'imx territory. I am coming to you today from T'it'q'et, Lillooet, British Columbia. I serve with the Stl'atl'imx Tribal Police Service. I have been a police officer for 36 years and a chief of police for 13 years.

     I am here to discuss the Stl'atl'imx Tribal Police Service, the complexities and the challenges in relation to funding, and to discuss what is going on with the Stl'atl'imx Tribal Police Service and with indigenous policing.

    On some of the challenges we face, you have heard about being deemed an essential service, which the Stl'atl'imx Tribal Police Service or any other stand-alone tribal police service has not been deemed. Not being deemed an essential service creates doubt, and being deemed an essential service would remove that doubt for our officers and their future. It makes it very challenging when you get a funding agreement, and after five or 10 years, there is no job security. It creates problems. It creates challenges for recruiting and retention.

    In 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told first nations chiefs that the government would introduce legislation to make policing in their communities an essential service. He said, “We will accelerate work on first nations policing, including legislating it as an essential service, while expanding the number of communities served and supporting community safety and well-being projects.” No timeline was given. It is now November 19, 2025, and stand-alone indigenous police services are still not deemed an essential service.

    In March 2020, we had the COVID pandemic. The World Health Organization declared the pandemic, which ended on May 5, 2023. During the pandemic, liquor stores in British Columbia were deemed essential due to their critical role in providing cannabis and alcohol to the public. They were deemed essential to support the public and to ensure that the public would have access to these things. We are a police service that provides public safety. We have not been deemed essential, yet we can deem liquor and cannabis essential to a province when there's a pandemic.

    There are issues that are unique to STPS retention. In British Columbia, the Surrey Police Service and the Vancouver Police Department present stiff recruiting competition, including signing bonuses and reimbursement of moving costs. With the Surrey Police Service, experienced constables can receive up to $25,000 as a signing bonus. Members who lateral in to Surrey could receive up to $20,000 for a signing bonus. There's also a $10,000 signing bonus for other experienced frontline constables and $15,000 for qualified cybercrime investigators. There are more opportunities for a greater variety of work experience, such as promotion and a better lifestyle. An example is unfettered time off.

    STPS members are constantly on call and are forced to work large amounts of overtime due to lack of resources. Currently, the STPS has 14 officers, and four of them are off for various reasons, whether it's a WorkSafeBC issue or for injury. We do have an MOU with the RCMP who provide backup service. However, that MOU is still in progress, and their resources are stretched thin as well.

     There's a reliance on each other for backup. This unfettered time and the on call leads to low morale and high stress levels because our officers are not dealing with calls for service in relation to barking dogs. We're dealing with sex assaults and domestic violence. We're dealing with files that are serious in nature.

    STPS members are highly sought after and are heavily recruited. They meet the same policing standards as any other municipal police officer in the province of British Columbia. They receive their training at the Justice Institute British Columbia, which is the same as for any other municipal officer.

    We currently have a long-term, 10-year funding agreement, but this does not permit for flexible adjustments despite our quick-changing environment.

    Thank you very much. You'll be able to speak some more through the questioning, but we're at the five-minute mark.

    We're going to go from you, Deborah, to Sandra and have Sandra's mic tested.

    Thank you.

    Thank you very much.

    Sandra, could you say a few words for interpretation, please.

     Good afternoon. I'm hoping this is okay for interpretation.

     Keep talking.

     Do you want me to start my presentation?

     Sure. Say a few words, please.

    Honourable Chairperson and committee members, I'm grateful for the opportunity to meet with you today. The name “Ganawenima'Anaanig” means “we all take care of them”. We are—

     I'm sorry, Sandra. The interpreters are giving me the thumbs down. They can't hear you, so I apologize.

    We will get a brief from you or make an arrangement at another time.

    Thank you.

     Thank you.

     We're going to questions.

    William, you have six minutes, please.

     Thank you.

    I'll start with Ms. Doss-Cody.

    I don't think I need to hear a whole lot more from you because you were very good on what you were determining we need to change so that you're deemed to be an essential service. During the pandemic I found it rather interesting that an accountant doing taxes was deemed an essential service, probably because they wanted to collect the taxes. It does not always make sense as to what is deemed an essential service. In my opinion, you definitely should be, so that is something we definitely need to take forward as a recommendation.

    I'll go to you now, Mr. Chartrand.

    In our previous panel, I made a comment that this committee has a lot of rural members. We probably have half a dozen of the largest rural ridings in the country.

    You were talking about how the funding is not necessarily the same in the rural areas and it's affecting the rural areas because they're not on par. Could you expand on that?

    I guess I could have gone to Ms. Doss-Cody on that as well, but you can start, Mr. Chartrand.

     I'll use the community I come from, Duck Bay, Manitoba. It's in northern Manitoba, towards the centre in the north. We are beside Pine Creek reserve, which is two or three miles away. They have community policing. They have programs and services. We have nothing. Camperville is another Métis village and the reserve is between us. There are two big Métis villages. However, we have no services. The police we have who protect or attempt to deal with some peace in the community come from about 45 or 50 miles away. That's where they're positioned, in Winnipegosis.

    Can I get you to focus on how the funding is affecting it?

    That's what I'm trying to lead to. In order for you to understand it, I have to lead you there.

    Okay.

     When you look at the process.... As I said, the Winnipegosis police cover about 10 reserves and Métis communities, so they're fully spread out. They're only there to pick up people when action happens in the community. There's no funding balance between us and next door to the reserve. We don't have any policing. We pay taxes like you and everybody else, but we don't have the services there to align or work with us to make sure that it's dealt with in the community or effected and quickly reacted to in the community.

    We're starting to see a greater approach of gangs and drug dealers coming into the villages and communities. We know who they are. We talk to the RCMP. I even personally phone the RCMP at times and say, “Look, this house is the one that's selling drugs.” They say that they can't do anything unless we can prove to them that they're selling drugs. They want us to go with a camera and catch them in a picture or something to prove they're selling drugs. That puts some people in harm's way, by the way.

    Again, we're trying to figure out how we find that balance, but if there is no approach to investing in our communities to have policing or community police forces.... We used to have constables. I'm talking about 30 years ago. They disappeared. We used to have them. They made a big difference because they were right in the village and they knew everybody. They could go to your house. If there was something happening and people were having a problem—say there was a party going on—the constable could go to that house and calm everybody down because they knew him and he knew the people. However, we don't have that, so we get more crime, more reaction and then more harm. It really costs us, overall, as taxpayers, a lot more money because now you have to pick them up and take them to jail. By that time, harm has started in that village or community, and it lingers on to family clans now.

    You're talking about the limited resources that you have. Can you elaborate on how the buyback scheme is going to affect your communities and your area with regard to the illegal gun issue?

     First, it will protect the issue of our rifles and our shotguns to hunt and harvest. We don't believe that you need weapons used in wars and so forth, those types of military guns. We don't support handguns of any nature either. However, we will protect our rifles and our shotguns. We need those in order to continue existing in the way we do.

    Our families have seen that there's a higher rate of gangs using more guns. It's also getting more dangerous for police because we have Métis police officers who are part of the RCMP or part of municipal policing programs. Clearly, at the end of the day, guns do make a more dangerous situation. For example, in Manitoba, on the Sagkeeng reserve, there was someone shot by the RCMP. He had a knife, so he was killed. By the time they took him in, it was too late.

    When you look overall, guns are something that we are very cautious of. We watch very carefully. However, we also will protect our rights to our rifles and our shotguns in order to keep feeding our families through our cultural ways of harvesting.

    Thank you very much. That brings us to the six minutes.

    Now we have Ginette for six minutes, please.

     President Chartrand, thank you so much for being here. Long time no see.

    Yes. Thank you.

    Thank you so much for your testimony. It's good to have you here on the committee.

    Can you share with us what the MMF's current collaboration is with municipal and provincial policing services to help address community safety?

     We do have a dialogue with the RCMP. I get an update on my phone, personally, on any incident that happens in my communities. It's after the fact: so-and-so was arrested and so forth and was injured, etc. That helps in some ways, because I can deal with the family before it storms out into some issue, but it's only that.

    We used to have a liaison officer from the RCMP who was located in our building. That's now gone, because they say they're short of HR in their own department. That leaves us with a vacancy in having more connectivity with the RCMP. We do have a good relationship directly with the chief of police, whether it's municipal and at the same time with the RCMP. It's good for having the ability to talk to each other, but there's no plan.

     There is no plan, and I think that's the question this committee should be asking itself. Even if you were to give advice or direction, you look at the institutions we have today. Indigenous people in this country are 5% of the population and we make up over 30% in the federal institutions, while women make up over 50% in the women's jails in this country, but there's no data. You're not collecting data of the Red River Métis anywhere. How do you know who you're dealing with?

    In your own picture, when I come walking into this room, you, as the INAN committee, have the Inuit configuration, you have the Métis infinity and you have the totem pole for the first nations. You describe three different indigenous peoples, but you do not deal with three different indigenous peoples. You use the word “indigenous”. There's a difference among all three of us. There's a complete difference in service providers and in the reaction of how we govern, how we operate and how we have relationships with the policing.

    It's important, I think, this question you need to ask yourselves. How do you collect data to give anybody the proper recommendations on how to address this issue? It is a serious issue. It's costing everybody a lot of money, and it's causing a lot of harm. We need to figure out how we compile it. I can't just be sitting at a meeting with the chief of police and talking about matters but seeing nothing change. Nothing is changing. We need to make change if we're going to make a difference.

    For the committee members, in most of our villages off reserve—someone asked the question but he's left now—in rural Manitoba, there are no sports at schools anymore. The baseball diamonds are empty. All of the basketball...you have the odd kid playing once in a while. There is nothing happening in the communities. Where's the proactiveness of the youth and the opportunity to keep them busy so that they don't get into crime?

    Gangs are taking advantage of this. We have to figure out how we stop that, but you can't make a decision if you don't know who you're dealing with. You do not keep data on us. You just use the word “indigenous”. If you start keeping data, then you can at least recommend to any government, whether it's your government or a sitting government that's going to be in play, how to spend taxpayers' money on how to make change.

     You could evaluate how the change would measure itself, because you'd know what you're spending it on and how. If you just plank it out to indigenous people, you can never properly measure it and see if taxpayer money is being spent wisely. Is there a good return? Is it making change? That's something that really bothers us a lot, because nobody seems to collect this data to tell us how we work on it.

     Expanding on that a bit further, the collection of data helps to inform and to develop strategies and those kinds of things. Do you have experience with or ideas on models of co-operation or co-development that could exist or that do exist and that you would want to bring in to ensure that, working with the Métis government and the federal government, this could be co-developed?

     Well, clearly, there are programs that Canada was running. UPIP is the acronym for it, urban programs for indigenous populations, and it was sports and recreation investments of proactiveness. That program has been cut now. We're wondering where it's at. We're pushing Canada to see where it's at. We understand that it will be expanded for one year. We don't know what's after that.

    That program makes change. That's a particular program where you have collaboration. It's where the federal government, which has jurisdiction with indigenous people, is actually investing in something proactive in the villages and communities. That's the only thing they have. They have nothing else. I know that you can't tell provincial schools what to do because the provinces run the schools, but if you don't have anything proactive in a school that will have kids busy and involved in something proactive, where they can gain pride, self-esteem and have a better outlook for the future, you're not going to make that change.

    From our perspective, we believe in sitting down with the police, with the ministers and coming up with a collaboration, but it has to be distinct based. You cannot be indigenous.... That's the only way you're going to measure whether I'm a failure as a leader, whether I'm not doing justice with the resources I'm managing or whether the investment we're doing is not working and we need to change it, stop it and go in a different direction. There's no way you're going to make change unless you go distinct based.

     Thank you very much. I think I'm kind of wrapping up the time.

     Thank you very much.

    Mr. Lemire, you have six minutes.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Mr. Chartrand, I'm very pleased to see you here, particularly given this week's “celebration” of the 140th anniversary of Louis Riel's death by hanging. It's an interesting context we find ourselves in. We're talking about indigenous policing, about different approaches to law enforcement and about how the colonial system has imposed its own laws and its own regime, especially on the Métis. This has had a huge impact on your community, your development and your nation.

    Do current federal programs accurately reflect, in your view, the distinct legal recognition of the Métis nation? Are Métis communities still treated as an afterthought in funding models designed primarily for first nations and Inuit? The first nations and Inuit policing program does not even include the word “Métis”. Why?

    Clearly there's a different distinction in how it's treated. Canada continues to avoid that the Métis or Red River Métis are section 35 rights holders in this country and have rights. Canada still tries to avoid its responsibilities, so it treats us differently. It does not want to have a direct collaboration of recognition of responsibility.

    We're then pushed back to the provinces and the provinces push us back to Canada. Both of them take our taxes, but they still push us back and forth. Who is supposed to be working with us?

    When you start looking, I think, in the overall context of.... In just my personal experience, I worked for the Department of Justice in Manitoba for 10 years. I was a probation officer for four years and I was director of the courts for six years. When we looked at the opportunity for change, I'm talking now 28 years that I've been the president; I left the Department of Justice in 1996. Even then, change was being talked about—change of the future—distinctively for the Métis, Inuit and first nations.

    At that time, I developed a court model along with some other judges. We wrote a court model that would make it more community-based, where decisions would be made in the community because that's how our laws worked. That's how we maintain peace in our communities. It's because our families were in control. Our oldest is always the boss in our Métis culture. The grandparents are the boss. When they pass on, the parents are the boss. When they pass on, the oldest is the boss. That keeps the family responsibility intact. When you affect another family, the two family heads would talk to try to find peace.

     What happens in the colonial system is the Crown becomes the victim and acts on behalf of the victim. The victim is never there, so the Crown then represents the victim. What the Crown in the colonial system forgets is that those two people who interacted in the justice system are going to go back to the same village. Those two family clans are going to still scrap when they get back home to get their own justice. Now you solved nothing. You just maybe gave somebody probation or gave somebody some offence or punishment in some form, but you didn't solve the problem.

    From our perspective, our laws and our way of managing our affairs worked so well. One time years ago, I had a justice conference and I asked my elder how they had so much peace. We never locked up anything. Our bikes were outside or we left stuff outside overnight and never had to lock up nothing. Today, you have to lock up everything. You can't even go to the store unless you lock your house. In our villages, that was never the way.

    This exterior of policies and driven processes that are coming to our community on how we run ourselves has really broken our system. We have to figure out how we bring it back to our ways.

    Right now, we have no methodology for any distinct-based approach by the provincial governments, by the RCMP or the municipal policing, nor do we have anything from Canada. There is no distinct-based approach for how we're going to tackle this issue together.

    I forgot to ask you to kindly keep your answers brief because I have a lot of questions for you, but thank you for that answer. As I understand it, relying on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police prevents the Manitoba Métis Federation from implementing its own culturally based security and law enforcement model.

    You signed partnership agreements with the RCMP to improve relations and create liaison positions. Do these agreements result in real changes, or are they limited by financial or jurisdictional constraints?

     I'll try to keep it very short.

    Yes, the changes are so small. They do occur. All it does is give us a direct collaboration to maybe speak of an issue that may have occurred in the community.

    The liaison position that's appointed in our offices is gone now, but when it was there, we had no say or dialogue with that person because he had to report directly to the head of his department in the RCMP. Yes, they rented offices from us or the state—we gave them free offices, by the way, because they had no money—but there was no real collaboration, so it didn't make change. It was good for image. We enjoyed it and we respected it, but it made no change.

    Many justice and prevention programs receive short-term, very unpredictable federal funding.

    In your opinion, which long-term, unconditional funding model would best respect Métis autonomy while ensuring the stability of culturally appropriate Métis justice services?

     Give a short answer, please.

    Well, the interpretation came late. There was nothing there. Again, I do apologize. I don't speak French. I speak Saulteaux, my second language.

    Clearly, the answer is that, if there was a direct investment—and I think that's why it's so vital—it could be measured. Is it working? Is it not working? If you do pan-aboriginal kind of approaches, we will never be able to measure whether it's a success or not. There is no program, no design by Canada or the provinces to deal with Métis villages, none.

     Thank you.

    We have MP Billy Morin for five minutes, please.

    Thank you, Chair.

    I want to go to Chief Doss-Cody.

    Chief, I think you said you have 36 years of service. Is that correct?

     That's correct.

     As a chief of police and in all your years of service, for you, your staff and the people you serve, is it fair to say that the expectation as a police officer and a protector of the community is that, to protect people in any tough situation, you are expected to give your life and your service?

    Yes, we're here to serve and protect, like any other municipal or RCMP federal police service. We have the same training, and if anything happens, then we're the ones who attend any calls that come in, regardless of what they are. Our officers are investigating anything from assisting the general public to firearms complaints, sex assaults or domestic calls—things of that nature. We investigate them from start to finish.

    The only thing we do not do is if there is, say, a homicide, or something that requires specialized services. We then call out to the RCMP to come in and assist for those specialized services. We assist them by obtaining statements and assisting with the investigation, but we do not hold that investigative file.

     Thank you for that answer, Chief.

    The RCMP is an essential service. Essentially, they do not have to wait for funding and things of that nature. We talked about the stresses to the other police forces, in terms of sustainability and everything. They're also expected to put their lives on the line for the services they do. What does it say about the value of your life and your officers' lives when you do not get the same funding and supports as other police forces?

     To us, it indicates that we are less than...that we are not as important. It doesn't even make sense. I cannot make sense of that at all in 2025.

     It's tough to hear, Chief. I hate to disappoint you even further, but we had the public safety minister here, who's also the CIRNAC minister. He gave no commitment to make the service essential going forward, but rest assured, I still hope, through all the testimony and your testimony today, that this can be changed in the years to come. Let's not stop fighting the good fight.

    Thank you for your testimony today.

    Thank you.

    President Chartrand, I want to acknowledge Louis Riel Day, which was a few short days ago, and welcome you to Ottawa. I hope it's been a great week of celebrations for you and your community.

    Indigenous nations, as some of my colleagues have mentioned, include Métis, obviously. In Manitoba, there have been some high-profile aspects of disappointments and tragedies when it comes to indigenous women, missing and murdered women. Of course, that would include Métis women as well.

    Can you discuss some of the successes over the last couple of years and also some of the areas for improvement from the police services and the governments when it comes to protecting indigenous women and girls in Manitoba, including Métis women?

    First, on your question earlier for the chief of police, there used to be a program, which I encourage you to look up. It was called the constable B program. That was the position in which they used indigenous officers, but paid them less and treated them less well. They're called constable Bs. They're on reserve in some Métis villages. That was the whole program many, many years ago. Too bad they killed it.

    Going to the question you asked, there's clearly a lot more that has to be done when it comes to missing and murdered indigenous women and LGBT+2 communities, because even we, our own government, put up $1 million of our own money for that—not Canada's money, not provincial money, our own hard-earned money. We put $1 million up to assist all indigenous women, first nations, Inuit and Métis. If they're missing, then we'll put up a reward of $10,000 to help find them. It's not that simple too, though it sounds easy, because you need to have a collaboration with the police and because when we put up the reward, they get a ton of calls. They have to have someone manning the phones.

    You have to give the police credit in some ways. They've done a lot in achieving or finding results. I know that in Winnipeg, in Manitoba, the RCMP and Winnipeg police have found or achieved a lot of the end results and closed files. You have to give the police credit for that.

    However, there were also, I think, a lot of times when racism kicked in because the person was poor or maybe seen working in the streets. They're not given the same kind of respect when they're missing. That's where you see the serial killers and others who are taking advantage of that.

    Again, from our perspective, I know they can state long and hard that they're short officers, but at the end of the day, we know we have to do our part. That's why I said we put up our own $1 million. So far, we've had first nation and Métis women who are still missing, but we have put up rewards. We'll keep on doing the program ourselves. I wasn't going to wait for the government.

    Thank you very much for that. I very much appreciate that.

    Next is Brendan for five minutes.

     Thank you very much to both of you for being here.

    Chief Officer Doss-Cody, I'll start with you.

     I don't think you had a chance to finish what you were going to say, including recommendations. You did refer to the previous promise by Prime Minister Trudeau to introduce indigenous policing as an essential service. I presume you were going to come back to that. If you have a finishing recommendation that you want to leave us with, feel free to do so.

    I also want to get a quick picture of what, in Stl'atl'imx Nation and other nations in your region, community safety looks like. Whether it's through your policing service or through collaborative services, how are you addressing community safety? Are there gaps or are you seeing challenges there?

    Yes, there are definitely challenges. We currently expanded our agreement to 10 years. However, due to the funding and the way it is, one of the things in relation to the funding agreements is that it's not a negotiation. It is a case of, “This is what we allot.” There's never any real.... It's not based on population. It's not based on stats. Like, what is it? There's never any real methodology or system that we're told is how it's going to roll out. That's one of the things that needs to be clarified in relation to these funding agreements, namely, what is it? Is it based on population? Is it based on crime stats? I say this because if you look at indigenous policing in our communities, oftentimes with the crime statistics you will see that in British Columbia, we had the second highest Criminal Code stats in the province. We cover 22,000 square kilometres of territory, 10 communities, and we have 10 officers.

    We do have a good working relationship with the RCMP and are currently working on an MOU, which needs to be updated. We did implement a municipal pension plan, which I understand a lot of other police services across the country do not have. It was definitely a challenge for us, but we did implement that. Has it helped us with recruiting and retention? I'd say it's fifty-fifty. One of the things I would like to state regarding the funding model, whether it's based on the crime severity index or on indigenous populations or other stats, such as the size of the territory, or the files that come in—

     I'm going to leave it there, so I have a couple of minutes left, but feel free to send anything in writing, including, of course, your notes, if there's anything else that you'd like the committee to take away and inform our recommendations.

    Thank you.

    President Chartrand, I was interested in that, in your opening remarks, you specifically mentioned Bill C‑14, which, of course, is currently being debated in the House. Recognizing not just your role as president but also your background in justice, we were having a conversation before the meeting started.

    Are you seeing that this is going to be important in addressing, at the federal level, some of the gaps in bail reform and other measures to address repeat offences in particular?

    For sure. We've seen a change in the drugs that are in our communities. Not only are drugs like crack, cocaine and cannabis and the rest moving into the communities, which are then used by people, but they've gone now to prescription drugs, Tylenol 3 and so forth. They're taking from our elders. They're going to our elders' homes, breaking into the elders' homes and taking those pills.

    You used to hear stories of people having parties, and everybody brought 12 or 24 beers. Today they come in with bags of pills and throw them into a bowl, and they all just grab from there. Those are prescription pills. They are not drugs of some sort being made. Those are causing great harm, and those same people who are breaking in are going to jail. They're picked up later. They find out who it is. They're out the next day. Then they're threatening the elders now, and the elders are too scared to become a witness, too scared to tell on them. It's causing us harm because justice, maybe a long time ago, was going and visiting that young person's house and telling him that he'd better not go to the elder's house again or else we'd take care of him. Those days are gone. We can't touch them. We can't do our own policing ourselves with our own hard lines.

    Clearly today the revolving door is causing issues. It's unfortunate, but the sad part is a reverse position you have to be scared of because, if you look at who's in the jails, it shows that indigenous people make up the highest number in this country. They're the ones that are going to be more interactive with the bail reform necessities.

    Studies have shown that non-indigenous people were able to get bail faster because they had parents who were working, parents who had resources and parents who could buy good lawyers. When you start looking at all of that data and information, there's still has to be a process where people can't just walk in and walk out. That's why, when I wrote that court model years ago along with judges, it was where we would have the community control and adjudicate the matter in their village.

     You would know if Tommy was the one acting up. Now the defence lawyer goes into the courtroom and says, “Oh, Tommy's looking for work every day. He's doing this.” We know Tommy's at home sleeping and that he's drunk on the weekends. Don't come to a court and lie to us. The judge doesn't see that, but if you're doing it in the community, the community sees it. They'll say, “Don't lie to us. Tommy was drunk the other day. We saw him.”

    Thank you.

    Don't give us any excuses here.

    Those systems were truly remarkable and made a big difference, but that's gone now. We need to figure out how we take it back.

    Thank you very much, President Chartrand.

    That brings us to our last questioner.

     Sébastien, you have two and a half minutes, please.

    Thank you.

    Mr. Chartrand, I think all the witnesses we've heard from during this study agree that legislation should recognize all essential services.

    Do you think it's important that the Métis have distinct representation in this legislation? I would also like to add that budget 2025 does not provide any dedicated funding for first nations policing.

    You recently signed an agreement for a modern treaty. We are certainly all eager for this treaty to be tabled in the House of Commons so that we can study it here in committee.

    Will it include elements recognizing the importance of culturally appropriate justice services by and for Métis?

     The best way I can answer that question is by saying I agree with you 100%. I hope the federal government will look at ensuring that, in order for the Red River Métis to have justice, we too need supports. We need policing. We'll fight the fight of equal salaries later. At least we would have some safety and protection in our communities as a necessity. Our treaty is coming before you. It should be in Parliament in a couple of weeks and then hit this committee. I look forward to that. That's 155 years in the making. We've been waiting 155 years. We're very patient people.

    I thank the committee for what you're doing, but clearly, at the end of the day, we have to take this thing seriously. There are more gangs, more people in trouble and more people hurting, and we need to find ways to protect them. Right now, the system is overcome with too much. We have to find a way. How do we balance this? We cannot continue. The police can't do anything. The police are only reacting. That's all they're doing, just reacting. There are no more plans for how we find relationships. That's why to be the constable who's speaking there.... I guarantee that constable and the rest of her force has a relationship with their community, their members and their families. They know each other, and they will be able to react.

    We have outsiders who come and adjudicate our matters, and they're only coming on emergency calls. The only time they're coming into our towns is to pick up people or charge people; that's it. They're not seen as friends. It's not seen as a relationship. They're seen as somebody they do not trust and somebody they do not have a relationship with. I still try to promote the policing to our community. We have to trust them. We have to work with them. They're there to protect our safety. On the other hand, our people have a lot of mistrust because there are a lot of bad stories out there. There are things that have happened to us and have been done to us that are not well established.

    Again, I agree with you 100%, Sébastien. What I wish is that this committee will send a message to Canada that there has to be a Métis-specific Red River policing program in this country.

    My understanding, though, is that, in the short and medium terms, you expect nothing from the federal government in the way of independent services.

    I think my time is up, because the chair is looking at me.

    Thank you for being here.

    Thank you very much.

    Thank you very much.

    Thank you very much, Chief Doss-Cody and President Chartrand, for your testimony today.

    With the consent of the committee, I would propose adjournment.

    We are adjourned.