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Results: 1 - 15 of 190
View Gary Vidal Profile
CPC (SK)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I too want to thank our witnesses today. I'm not going to pretend to be able to even acknowledge the pain and the suffering that you've experienced in some of your journeys. I can't even imagine that. However, I want to thank you for coming and sharing your journeys with us to help us understand this as parliamentarians and try to move forward in a way that might offer some solutions for the future. I appreciate that.
Over 50% of the survivors of sex trafficking in Canada are indigenous women and girls, even though they make up 4% of the population. This is obviously a huge challenge.
You've referred to a number of things as you've each spoken. We've talked about the child welfare system. We've talked about public policy changes. We've talked about exit strategies. We've talked about a number of different things. What I'm looking for from each of you is just a recommendation that would be very significant from a prevention perspective. I get the challenges exit-wise, but how do we stop it in the first place? What are some really practical things that the Government of Canada could do that would help to prevent young women and ladies from even being put in this place?
I think I'll start with Ms. Gobert because she hasn't had an awful lot of opportunity today, and then each of the other witnesses could take a minute of my time and answer that question if they can.
View Gary Vidal Profile
CPC (SK)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
On Tuesday we heard from Grand Chief Settee from Manitoba. He was talking about some of the rate differences between northern Manitoba and southern Manitoba.
I represent a riding that's in the north half of the province of Saskatchewan and has lots of remote and rural communities.
I'm going to open it up to any of the three of you, but I'm just curious if you would confirm what the grand chief told us about the rates being significantly higher for people from the northern or remote communities than they might be for southern communities. Is that information that you would agree with and back up?
View Gary Vidal Profile
CPC (SK)
I'm sorry. I want to interject here to let you know where I am going. I'll let the other witnesses jump in.
My point in focusing more on northern and remote...was that he also talked about some significant points of critical intervention, where there's an opportunity to intervene or interject at the right points in the journey as a preventative measure. That was more of the stage that I was trying to set.
Do any of you want to come back to this idea of some critical points of intervention that we could learn from, for a longer-term prevention measure, rather than necessarily quantifying? It wasn't my intent to talk about comparisons. It's more to find those points of intervention.
View Gary Vidal Profile
CPC (SK)
I'm going to jump in and pick up on that again, because you led me right down another path that I wanted to ask about. You talk about the very young children who are being exploited and whatnot. Bill C-92 is a move for first nations communities to take over their own child and family services. I'm sure you're very aware of that.
Could you speak to the benefit of children being able to be in the care of their own communities and having a culturally appropriate upbringing, and the impact of that longer term as well? What benefit might that have from a longer-term prevention perspective?
View Gary Vidal Profile
CPC (SK)
Thank you.
I want to pursue a little bit of what I heard from Grand Chief Settee.
Grand Chief, you talked about the rates in northern and remote areas compared to urban centres. As a member of Parliament who serves a very northern and remote riding, I'm very curious to drill into that a little bit. I'm not going to pretend that I understand much of this, so this is an education for me to understand some of the things going on in my own riding. I'm going to assume that northern Manitoba, maybe, is not that different from northern Saskatchewan where I'm from.
If you would take a few minutes and expand on your comments about the rates in northern and remote communities compared to more urban centres....
Also, you talked about the points of critical intervention, and I was really intrigued by your comments there. I want you to flesh that out. I want to give you some time just to talk about that a little bit more, if that's fair.
View Gary Vidal Profile
CPC (SK)
Could I get you to expand on that comment you made about the points of critical intervention? I think you talked about bus stations. You talked about the situations when there are fires or evacuations. You even referenced some cities in my province of Saskatchewan. I think you talked about Saskatoon and Regina. Can I get you to just expand on the points of critical intervention and how we might help there? What are some ideas of ways that we could help at those points of critical intervention?
View Gary Vidal Profile
CPC (SK)
One of the things I've had some conversations with people in northern Saskatchewan about, and one of the results or one of the things we've maybe learned through the pandemic, is the ability to provide services. We're sitting here now in a Zoom meeting, and there are some things we maybe have learned to use to technology for better than we might have in the past: providing medical services and supports to some of the remote communities. Potentially, we've learned some things that might allow us to be better at providing them so that some of those young people don't have to travel to the big urban centres for those.
Do you think that's fair: to actually think there's maybe some opportunity to improve those services with what we've learned in the last year?
View Gary Vidal Profile
CPC (SK)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for being here today. As you know, we always appreciate your time.
Minister, you know that I'm all about talking about about outcomes and results and some of those kinds of things. We've had this conversation before.
I have a couple of quick questions up front. I will ask you to be brief in your answers so that I can get to the substance of another couple of questions after that.
You department has committed $43.7 million over five years “to co-develop a legislative framework” for first nations policing that recognizes first nations policing as “an essential service”. We recently completed a study on exactly that. When we had officials from four different departments at committee, not a single one of those people could actually define what “policing as an essential service” was. Would it frustrate you that nobody from the department actually had a definition of what we're aiming for?
View Gary Vidal Profile
CPC (SK)
Thank you, Minister. I want to keep going. I'm going to run out of time. Sorry.
View Gary Vidal Profile
CPC (SK)
I'm sorry. I have so much that I want to do here quickly.
You spoke about child and family services. I think you referenced a couple of first nations that have completed that journey or are moving down that journey of taking over their responsibilities. I've asked you this question before, and maybe that is a simple answer.
Are there so far just two first nations that have indicated their desire to do that? Just where are we at in that process? Based on some of the events of the last few weeks here, I think it's so very important that we deal with some of the current issues as well, and having first nations control of some of their child and family services is important. I'm just wondering how fast that is happening.
If you could briefly respond, I want to get into one more detailed question, if I could.
View Gary Vidal Profile
CPC (SK)
Thank you.
I have probably one final question. COVID-19 magnified the realities of some of the jurisdictional quagmires around indigenous people in urban settings. You and I have had the conversation many times about friendship centres and the funding. It took some time to kind of make it through the community support funding process for the urban indigenous folks. Friendship centres offer a variety of services that are as diverse as the communities they serve. I know that friendship centres are looking for a longer-term commitment so that they can plan for their future, invest in infrastructure, make sure they have commitments to programs that are ongoing, and make good, efficient decisions.
Is there anything going on with any of the budget work or the estimate work that would provide that long-term commitment for friendship centres that serve urban indigenous people?
View Gary Vidal Profile
CPC (SK)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to start by thanking all our witnesses today for your excellent testimony. It's going to help us as we formulate some recommendations that will come out in our report on this study.
I'm going to start with Chief Bill this morning.
Chief Bill, I don't know if you remember, but I had the privilege of participating in the public safety committee meetings last summer when you were there. I remember some of your testimony then very specifically. I want to follow up a little bit on what we talked about last July and also some of your comments today.
First of all, you spoke last summer of your community safety plan and specifically the community safety officer program. Again today, you spoke of it very highly. You were elected in 2014. You identified an issue. You listened to people and you started to act. You created some pretty significant partnerships, by the sound of it. One of the outcomes was this community safety officer program, which you said consisted of four full-time and two part-time members by 2016.
I want you to share a little bit more. It sounds like, potentially, a real solution to the issue. I experienced this myself as the mayor of a small city. I know the first nation next to my community has begun that journey as well. It seems like an option to create some really significant solutions. Could you expand a little bit on the journey from 2014 to 2016 and how you got to the place where you enacted that CSO program?
View Gary Vidal Profile
CPC (SK)
Thank you. By participating here and sharing your experience, you can help many others, so I'm going to encourage you to keep speaking.
The chair is going to cut me off very soon, so I'm going to ask a very quick question.
We've talked a lot about jurisdictional challenges as we talk about building relationships and finding solutions. You seem to have found your way through some of that with the partnerships with the territory and the federal government and your own self-governing urban first nation. Can you quickly talk about some of the key things you learned about overcoming the jurisdictional issue and building those partnerships with the many people you talked about?
View Gary Vidal Profile
CPC (SK)
Actually, Mr. Chair, I'm going to cede my time to Mr. Schmale so that he can follow up on some of the questions he had in the first round, if that's all right with you.
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