The committee met at 9:13 a.m.

[D. Routley in the chair.]

D. Routley (Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Doug Routley. I’m the MLA for Nanaimo–North Cowichan and the Chair of the Special Committee on Reforming the Police Act, an all-party committee of the Legislative Assembly.

I would like to begin by acknowledging that I’m joining today’s meeting from the traditional territories of the Malahat First Nation.

I would like to welcome all those who are listening, all participating in this meeting.

Our committee is undertaking a broad inquiry with respect to policing and public safety in B.C. We are taking a phased approach to this work and have been meeting with subject-matter experts, community advocacy organizations, Indigenous communities and others.

We also invite British Columbians to provide written, audio or video submissions. We will review those submissions with a view to inviting individuals and organizations to present to the committee at a later date. Further details on how to participate are available on our website at www.leg.bc.ca/cmt/rpa. The deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. on Friday, April 30.

Today we will be meeting with four Indigenous communities. We will be starting with the Fort Nelson First Nation and the Tahltan Band Council. Each will have 15 minutes to speak. That will be followed by questions and discussion with the committee members. At that time, I will ask members to raise their hands to indicate that they have a question, and we will keep a speaking list.

All audio from our meetings is being broadcast live on our website. A complete transcript will also be posted.

[9:15 a.m.]

I will now ask members of the committee to introduce themselves, beginning with Deputy Chair Davies.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Hi. Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, Sharleen.

Dan Davies, the MLA for Peace River North.

I’m coming from the territory of the Dane-zaa people.

R. Singh: Rachna Singh, the MLA for Surrey–Green Timbers.

I’m joining you from the Coast Salish territories of the Kwantlen, Kwikwetlem and Semiahmoo First Nations.

T. Halford: Trevor Halford, the MLA for Surrey–White Rock.

I’m joining you from the traditional territory of the Semiahmoo First Nations people.

K. Kirkpatrick: I’m Karin Kirkpatrick. I’m the MLA for West Vancouver–Capilano.

I’m joining you from the traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples.

A. Olsen: Good morning. Adam Olsen, the MLA for Saanich North and the Islands.

I’m very happy to be joining you from the Tsartlip village here in W̱SÁNEĆ territory.

G. Begg: Good morning, everyone. I’m Garry Begg. I’m the MLA for Surrey-Guildford.

I’m joining you from the unceded territories of the Kwantlen, Katzie and Semiahmoo First Nations.

D. Routley (Chair): MLA Glumac will be joining us by camera soon, but I think he’s on audio.

R. Glumac: Rick Glumac, the MLA for Port Moody–​Coquitlam.

I am on the traditional territory of the Coast Salish people. Good morning.

D. Routley (Chair): Thanks, everyone.

With that, I’ll hand it to our first guest and ask for introductions. We’ll have the 15 minutes and then questions.

Presentations on Police Act

FORT NELSON FIRST NATION

S. Gale: Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. I’m Sharleen Gale, the Chief of the Fort Nelson First Nation.

I’m speaking from the unceded Treaty 8 territory and standing in my home community of the Fort Nelson First Nation.

I believe that these kinds of processes are very important. So I thank the committee for allowing me to speak today. And just thanking all those who are tuning in and watching the public presentation.

I want to give a little bit of a history regarding the RCMP’s role in my community when we were first developed. In 1933, the Indian Act legally appointed the RCMP to enforce attendance and ensure that kids were going to residential school.

Lucky enough, in 1910…. That’s when we had signed our treaty. The promises in that treaty, for us to live freely and on the land as we formerly had, were honoured until about the 1950s. That’s when a lot of our Elders today, including my mom, were picked up by the Indian agent, notifying their parents that if the kids weren’t ready to be put on the bus, they would never see their kids again.

That was a very hard, hard story and teaching for me to learn as a young adult, into my leadership role within chief and council. I’ve been elected since 2009, going through the truth and reconciliation process with my Elders and my members and creating that understanding and that knowledge of what had actually happened.

For some time, those stories were not being shared. They were deeply being put away into the memories so that our parents could raise strong, proud, self-reliant individuals. It opened up a can of worms and came with a lot of trauma and challenges, not only for the survivors but for us as children and the intergenerational trauma that comes with that.

I just wanted to say…. My mom’s memory is that when she got on that bus, my grandfather held on to the back of the bus for as long as he could, while he bawled his eyes out, because he didn’t know when he would see his kids again.

[9:20 a.m.]

My grandfather and my grandmother had 13 children, and they were all separated within the province of British Columbia. They had no idea where my mother was placed. When the older children were aged out and were able to come home, my grandfather was trying to get the older children to start hitchhiking to go find my mom.

I have an upbringing of living in the city of Prince George. I was born in Fort St. John, but I was always connected in coming home to my community. It’s always been where my heart is.

I’ve been on my own since I was 14 years old. I’ve seen a lot of what can happen to a young Indigenous person if you are not pointed in the correct direction or given that mentorship. This is where I think a lot of the challenges come in with what we’re trying to do here to find solutions, especially when it comes to incarceration and the RCMP. Our people look at it as the ones that took away our children. There’s a very, very deep mistrust that is embedded in our Elders that gets passed on to our people, especially when they’re in situations where they’re getting into the criminal system at such a young age.

I just feel that there are other opportunities for us to work in collaboration with people like yourselves, the B.C. Aboriginal Justice Council and local RCMP on the ground, where these problems exist on a daily basis. There’s nothing worse than a Chief having to turn away a community member because they’re a repeat offender, and the community doesn’t want them in their community at that time because they’re not ready to heal, not ready to take that next step, or they just don’t have the resources or the capacity or the direction to help them get there.

I want to change that in my leadership. One thing that I have been doing is really trying to create that very good relationship between our local detachment, speaking with the staff sergeant when issues arise, and trying to come up with some really good solutions going forward. I have to say that there are always challenges. There are always mishaps, and those happen on both sides, but we need to come to some kind of conclusion where we can work together.

A lot of the work that the B.C. Aboriginal Justice Council has done is very beneficial. They’ve been advocating for what we need, and I would like to see a little bit more capacity and funding happening within our communities. One thing that I find is that we go through these special tripartite agreements with the local detachments, and, half the time, they don’t have the resources or the manpower to fulfil their obligations. We need that to change.

We’ve been promised for over a decade for an RCMP officer to work directly with our community. We’re always split, with his time being 50 percent to another community and 50 percent to our community, when we know how important it is to have Aboriginal representation in both communities — 100 percent within the nation.

One thing that the Fort Nelson First Nation has offered is to have an office within our community. What we’re looking for is more recruitment for Indigenous people to have that opportunity to become officers. Just with the challenges that I told you previously, our Elders are: “Those are the ones that took away our children.”

When I was a teenager, we had an Aboriginal officer within our community. His name was Max, and I remember Max very well. He was very personable. He grew up in an Indigenous community himself. He wasn’t Dene, but he still could relate to us. He understood the importance of just sitting there and listening and understanding the traumas that these people are going through — maybe overcrowding in homes. Some people don’t have safe drinking water. They’re living in horrible housing conditions. Just that understanding that there are more challenges going on within a household.

[9:25 a.m.]

What I would like to see is a new way forward for our people that are incarcerated through more treatment in incarceration, not so much just going to jail. There are programs and things that we could share with you about healing on the land. These could be in remote locations. We would have the same concept.

I think it just really needs to happen where we could share some of our traditions with you and how we can do this in a better way. I was happy to know that we did have the Crown prosecutor come to our community to talk about changing the way people are incarcerated within our communities and how we can find solutions, especially for the young offenders. We can get them back on the right track if we find the right program, but I don’t think putting them in a facility where you have criminals that are just reoffending and not looking to improve their lives is a good place for them.

With that, one thing that I would like see the RCMP doing is utilizing technology and engaging with our nations a little bit better. There is an opportunity to present and do more preventive work, whether it’s addressing matters with CrimeStoppers and how you use that — you know, drugs and those kinds of things that are happening in our territory.

We always find it challenging when you live in a small community, and you know the issues. You know who is dealing drugs; you know who is bootlegging. But then when you call the RCMP and you bring this information forward, it always seems like a standstill. Like, there’s not enough evidence. It just continues, year after year. We’re struggling here to have support to be able to address these issues and work with the RCMP directly.

The other thing that we find very challenging — and obviously, you’ve heard a lot of it throughout the province and through across Canada — is the requirement of a third-party investigation. RCMP members should not be investigating other RCMP detachments. I think we do need a protocol around that.

Looking for reconciliation at the ground level with our people, looking at improving the experience that our people go through within the justice system and having more Aboriginal liaisons and advocates. Just addressing the violence that has happened against our women and sometimes men too.

A little bit more action and presentation when it comes to the murdered and missing women initiatives. We have been trying to get some presentations to create awareness about some of the cases that have been over 30 years. People are still looking for answers. We just feel that in order for us to feel safe in our communities, we need those answers.

I think it’s important to have engagement with Indigenous communities and organizations in a respectful and culturally appropriate manner and to really work alongside with leadership and justice and the surrounding communities. We don’t have to do this in silos. I’m pretty sure that our neighbouring nations in Prophet River and Lower Post, in that area, have the same challenges that we have. How can we work together to address them?

I talked about the healing on the land, sharing traditions and culture. I think that there is something that we can do up in this region to focus on our communities first. If it’s successful, we could maybe open it up to more Indigenous people and people across B.C. I think that the north really does need recognition, support and more funding to be able to work to these initiatives.

I’d just like to thank you for your time today and listening to me speak.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you very much.

At this point, we’ll open up for questions from the members.

[9:30 a.m.]

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Thanks again for this, Sharleen. Thanks for sharing the information and some history and personal experiences as well. Really appreciate it. Very meaningful.

Just a couple of things I wanted to touch on. It sounds like there is a good relationship with the Fort Nelson RCMP detachment, which is good. We have been hearing about the resources piece. I understand that that is a big concern for Fort Nelson First Nation, regarding that the RCMP don’t have the resources.

If you could pick your top one or two things that you see our committee doing when it comes time to talk and make recommendations around the Police Act, what would be a couple of asks that you would personally make in regards to that? If you could answer that.

S. Gale: Just going back to your first comment, I, as a Chief, have a good relationship with the RCMP and the detachment. I share information, where I can, that I think would be helpful for the protection of our region. However, I think that relationship does need to be strengthened within my community and within my community members — a little bit more presentation on just being a regular person and our celebrations and having more interaction not just with our Aboriginal liaison but with the whole detachment.

Also, just being there for us and responding. Sometimes we don’t always get the response. Even though we call them out, they don’t show up. I just want to make sure that you’re very aware that there are still challenges that need to be addressed. We try to work out those challenges, but I just wanted to let you know that.

I think one thing that you guys could support is more capacity and funding at the ground level, like I said, where the issues are happening. Right now my council is going through the budget process, and we are taking this matter very seriously. With the pandemic, we’ve seen a lot of challenges with mental health, increasing crime, people not being able to work. We’ve suffered a downturn in the economy in the last ten years. We’re really working hard to ensure that we have a good justice system in place, where we can deal with our members directly before they’re put into the justice system.

We need support there in our community. Unfortunately, we have to spend nation dollars, and a lot of First Nations don’t have the capacity to do that. We know how important this is.

We need direct funding to our justice building. We’re adding three positions. Just in salaries, benefits and those things, that’s an extra $300,000 that we have to contribute to the justice department this year and the year after. Even if there were a few pilot projects that you guys could support to see if this could be something that could be implemented, and you could see the numbers in crimes reducing, I think that would be helpful.

D. Routley (Chair): I’d like to ask about the training of police officers and what you think could be done to improve outcomes through the training. You mentioned the recruitment of more Indigenous police officers. How do you think the training could change?

S. Gale: Well, I think there needs to be more cultural sensitivity training. I think that when a new member is welcomed to the detachment, the first thing they should do is go through an orientation with the community and the leadership — understand what territory they’re working on, understand the culture, who the people are, understand their history and what they’re currently trying to overcome.

A. Olsen: Thank you, Chief Gale, for your comments today informing our Police Act committee.

[9:35 a.m.]

I’m just wondering if you could speak to the tripartite agreement and the…. It’s something that I’ve heard personally in our territory here but, as well, in varying conversations that I’ve had with Indigenous leaders in our province, just around flexibility, choice and self-determination around policing. Can you maybe speak…? You talked about the tripartite agreement and the delivery of that. How about the flexibility for your community to be able to determine the kind of policing service that would best serve your community?

S. Gale: I think that the tripartite agreements should be honoured. When you sign agreements with another organization, they should be followed.

As I mentioned, having the officer liaison assigned to our community…. For some time it was supposed to being 100 percent, but due to capacity and those kinds of things, it’s always split between us and another community that is roughly about an hour away. That poses challenges, because that person…. We’re really looking forward to them being in our school.

Fort Nelson First Nation is a bigger community, a more advanced community. We have a licensed daycare, and it goes from six months. We also have a private school, Chalo School. It goes from K-4 to grade 12. And we’re opened up to the public. We work along with school district 81.

We have a health and wellness centre. Our health and wellness centre is fully staffed. We have capital works, who look after the water, the emergency services, the roadways, making sure we’re paving our roads, those kinds of things.

Right now we’re ramping up our justice department. We also have our lands office, where we’re implementing our guardianship program and trying to work with the CEOs on many issues.

What we’re looking for is more enforcement and more collaboration, working with the leadership, sharing information, sharing information with other First Nation communities when it comes to criminal activity, creating more synergies and maybe task forces that are meaningful and getting results. I haven’t seen a mega–drug bust in the north for some time.

I am under the understanding that Fort Nelson is a recruitment place, a place where we get young, inspiring officers that are gaining their experience. Well, right now we need people with experience within our territory, addressing these issues now. We just want to see results. That’s what we want to see. We want to see results.

We don’t want to be working in silos. Obviously, people that are on task force have to go through maybe a criminal record check. They have to make sure they’re certified, go through some training, maybe, and keep that information at a higher level. But we do need some kind of avenue to be able to work with the RCMP directly and share information in our communities and also receive information.

A. Olsen: If I may, just one follow-up, just to that final point that you made, Chief Gale, with respect to the personnel that actually are deployed to your community. Is there any flexibility within the tripartite agreement for your community to be able to provide direction as to the personnel that are deployed into your community? Or is it a situation that, once you sign that agreement, it is decisions that are made elsewhere?

S. Gale: I would like to say that any time I have issues, I could make a phone call. That’s obviously something that the liaison will have to talk to a supervisor about to get support.

I feel like they could be strengthened and more meaningful. They’re pretty basic. “We’re going to do some drinking-and-driving checkpoints. We’re going to do a couple of community presentations in your community and show up to your Aboriginal Days.” I think that they can be a little bit stronger and working directly with the director of justice within our nations.

[9:40 a.m.]

We do have a change-out in leadership based on election codes. Some people are two years, some people are three, and some people are four, so I think that relationship at the department level is really important and, obviously, the introduction of the new council every term. But just to keep the work going, it does need to be at the administrative level.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you.

R. Singh: Thank you so much, Chief. It’s so good to hear from you. Really, I could feel the pain that you were going through, talking about the intergenerational trauma. Thank you so much for sharing that with us.

You talk about the stuff that is working — the collaboration that you have with the police — especially coming from a smaller community, and we know that smaller communities have their own challenges. You have mentioned a little bit, but we’d really like to know the challenges at this time and what needs to be done to fill those challenges.

S. Gale: Okay. One thing that we do want is we want an in-house RCMP within our community. We have the office space. We’re willing to provide it. We want somebody to just be there — that our members can come in and talk about their issues or maybe provide information. More like a community presence, just there within our community.

Sometimes they don’t necessarily have to be in uniform. Maybe we can find something that’s a little bit more comfortable for them to wear within our communities, so we can invite them into spaces. They feel not like enforcement to our people but they are still doing their role.

We have to find ways that we include more of the detachment into these circles, because those are the ones that are enforcing the law and incarcerating our people. There needs to be a relationship there and understanding of our culture and our history.

Maybe we’re lucky. I said that this is more like a training centre. I might be corrected on that, but my understanding is we do get young, inspiring RCMP officers. I mean, they have their challenges too, especially with COVID. One of my main concerns is protecting those front-line workers, which I highly believe are the RCMP officers. It’s really hard for us to expect them to do their jobs without the proper vaccination and those things in COVID times.

They have to protect themselves and their families too, so I think that needs to be addressed, because COVID is not going away. We have new variants in our communities. It frustrates me to see that they’re not being protected. I think that needs to be addressed. It’s a challenge.

One thing I just want to see is another avenue for us to deal with for these young offenders who are getting involved in these crimes. They’re getting involved in drugs — gaining addictions at a very young age. We need more mentorship. We need more support and capacity right in our communities. We can’t do this in urban centres and in Victoria. We need to do it in the northern communities where these challenges are happening.

R. Singh: Thank you so much.

Just one more follow up, Chair.

We have heard from a number of stakeholders. You also mentioned that there should be more representation of the Indigenous communities within the police.

We have heard a lot about the mistrust that the communities have, especially with the RCMP. How do you think…? It is going to be very challenging, I know that. It is not an easy task. How do we overcome that mistrust? Also, going forward, if we want to have more people getting into the police services, how to make it that way?

S. Gale: I think you need to look at your current model. That model could be really scary for an Indigenous person. They might apply for the program, start going through it and then drop out. I don’t know what your rate is on that or how many people actually apply.

I feel that we need to look at a new system. Obviously, there are things that they need to go through, whether it’s the training aspect, the physical training aspect. But then how do we tie that down back to the land?

[9:45 a.m.]

Maybe with that recruitment process, there’s actually some kind of a program where you do have officers on — I guess it’s not a probation. But it’s when they do their….

R. Singh: Internship? More like when they are interns at the end of their training?

S. Gale: Yeah. When they do their practicum or part of their training, there’s a component there where you’re working alongside maybe an Aboriginal liaison officer. They spend time with them in the community that they’re going to be going to, meeting with leadership, meeting the community, coming to celebrations.

There needs to be some cultural sensitivity training added to that. You shouldn’t just be going from the colonial training process right out to the world and deployed into some community. You don’t know who the people are or where they’re from, so I think there needs to be some of that built into the programming.

And more recruitment in our communities, talking about what this program is. It should be part of a mandatory tripart where the detachment staff sergeant is coming to our communities, talking about the program and how it could work for our members to apply.

G. Begg: Just a comment. I want to commend the Chief for her sort of global approach to this. I very much appreciate your willingness to involve yourself and your community. I think if anyone is lucky, it’s the Fort Nelson Indian Band, to have you as a leader. It was great. Again, I was impressed with your ability to get the big picture and see all of the issues and offer us some solutions.

S. Gale: I really appreciate it. Like I said, there are obviously challenges that we have locally, but those are things that we’re trying to work out person to person. And we’ll continue to do that. There’s nothing I want more than to ensure that we have a system in place that works for our members, especially the young ones.

For myself, it could have been an easy road just to turn into some of the challenges that I was facing as a young 14-year-old. I don’t want to see that happen to any of our members. I want to find solutions, moving forward, so that they can be living healthy lives and contributing to our members’ future generations. It’s just really important to me that we work towards solutions to address these issues, because they’re so complex.

First Nations are dealing with many different scenarios with the RCMP, so it’s easy to be angry, and it’s easy to be frustrated. But I’m a very optimistic person, where I feel like we can overcome these things.

B.C. has adopted UNDRIP. We got the B.C. Aboriginal Justice Council. We got the leadership council of British Columbia looking after us and advocating for us. I think that as Chiefs and councils and members, we just need that local support on the ground, and we can do this in collaboration with the government of B.C. and people like yourself.

G. Begg: Well, sometimes — just to complete the loop here — the best example is a good example. You’re a good example of someone who has become a role model in your community and is now leading. So keep up the great work.

S. Gale: Thank you. It can be challenging, because this is just one component. We’ve got several other issues that we’ve got to deal with.

I appreciate your time. Thank you for having me.

[Dene K’e was spoken.]

D. Routley (Chair): I think we still have one more question here from MLA Halford.

T. Halford: It won’t be a question; it’ll just be a comment. I’ll be very brief and quick.

I just want to say thank you. That was a very empowering, vulnerable comment you made, and I really took that to heart. So thank you for taking the time and having the courage to share your story and your family’s story.

Where I am — I live in White Rock — my kids don’t hear stories like that. It’s important that people like you that have the courage to tell those stories are doing so. I just wanted to say, actually very much, thank you.

[9:50 a.m.]

S. Gale: Well thank you, Trevor. It’s a reality. At 14, I could have been out on the streets. I could have been a drug addict. I could have been so many things. I was lucky that I always had the support and guidance of my Elders and that connection with my community. That’s what I feel saved me, by leaving the city and moving home to Fort Nelson.

I’m proud of my people for all the challenges we have overcome over time. We are striving to ensure that future generations have those opportunities and that we all have the opportunity to live good lives and to contribute to our society.

D. Routley (Chair): Thanks very much for helping the committee today. We’re very, very grateful for your presence here. The members have shared our appreciation of your openness and willingness.

On that note, going forward, if the committee has other questions, I hope we could send them to you. Then also, I would invite you, if you have any other thoughts that you’d like to contribute to us, to contribute by any means you like. We have a lot of different portals to do that. In the meantime, I’d just thank you very much for your time, your energy and your willingness.

With that, I will, I think, head for a recess with the committee until ten o’clock. I think our next guest is scheduled at ten.

Thank you very much, Chief Gale.

S. Gale: Okay, thank you. Have a good day, everybody.

The committee recessed from 9:51 a.m. to 10:03 a.m.

[D. Routley in the chair.]

D. Routley (Chair): Welcome back to this meeting with the Special Committee on Reforming the Police Act. I’m MLA Doug Routley form Nanaimo–North Cowichan.

I’m coming to you from the Malahat First Nation’s traditional lands, with deep appreciation.

I also have to say…. I could claim a photographic memory, but the trouble is my finger was over the lens for that photograph. That explains why I am only now introducing our staff, rather than at the beginning of the meeting. We’ve got Karan Riarh from the Clerk of Committees office, and we have, I believe, Dwight Schmidt today from Hansard Services.

With that, I’d like to welcome our first guest. We have put aside 15 minutes for each of these presentations. That will be followed by questions. I’ll ask everyone to mute their audio while the presentation is on and until they are recognized by the Chair. You can identify yourself for questions by raising your hand. We’ll keep a speakers list.

With that, I would like to introduce our first guest from the Homalco First Nation. Thank you for joining us.

[10:05 a.m.]

HOMALCO FIRST NATION

D. Blaney: Thank you, all, for giving us this opportunity to share some of our issues that we have regarding policing in Homalco. I’m sure we’re not much different from other nations.

One of the bigger issues I think we have in our community is the drug dealing. We are in Campbell River, and we have three, and soon four, First Nations communities around Campbell River. We have drug dealers that supply members in other communities with drugs. It’s a real issue here.

We just had a young lady overdose on fentanyl. She passed away. We’ve lost four people within the last four months, maybe even three months. She came up here for her brother’s funeral. His funeral was a few days ago. While she was here for his funeral, she got into some drugs that had fentanyl in there. She passed away. We’ve been trying to address the issues of drug dealers in the community.

We have a good relationship with the chief of police here, Jeff Preston, and we are working to try to address it. But one of the problems we have is that we have one police officer, First Nations police officer, for the three communities. When they’re split up into the three communities, it becomes very difficult to have any meaningful impact on some of these issues we deal with.

We have a lot of drug problems, alcohol problems, and one of the by-products of that is assaults, sexual assaults, violence that comes about from that, and child apprehensions. It’s very difficult for the police to lay charges when they think somebody’s drinking. They will not give them much credibility, I guess. Quite often, there are no charges laid in situations.

One of our council members has been trying to get his daughter sobered up for awhile. She was drugged and raped. He is pretty angry about that.

We’ve been trying to look at getting cameras installed in the community so that we can track the drug dealers coming and going.

One of the difficulties we’re having is that a lot of the alcohol and drug issues have been compounded by extra money from COVID money. That has created an ongoing problem for the last while. We’ve been trying to address it, but it’s difficult. We cannot get people to sober up.

We are working towards a treatment centre, but it’s going to be a treatment centre targeted towards trauma. We have alcohol and drug treatment centres that try to get people sober, but once they come back into the community, they’re only sober or clean for maybe a couple of hours or a couple of days. Then they’re back out again. That cycle has really been unbroken, so we have to figure out a way to get to the trauma.

Part of that is to remove some of the drug dealers in the community. We know who they are. The police know who they are. They’ve done investigations. But they’re having a hard time laying charges. I don’t know if it’s the resources that are needed. I know if we had another extra officer here, we would be able to address a lot of the alcohol and drug issues in the community, because there’s always something going on.

[10:10 a.m.]

I think there’s a lot of work needed. We’ve heard about the deaths in other communities. We’ve had issues with police assaulting some members but nothing like what has gone on in other communities where their members have been shot. I think that might be because of the good relationship we have with Jeff Preston.

We had a couple of drug dealers up here having a knife fight in one of the homes. They’re both not from this community, but they were stabbing each other. They stabbed each other, and the ambulance was called. Eventually, there were no charges though, and that was so disappointing for our community members, because they were pretty embarrassed by it. It was all over the news, all over TV.

We had a meeting about it in the hall, and they invited Jeff Preston to come up. He didn’t tell us, but they had been doing undercover work on drug dealers, but the main drug dealer here in the community is still active. She is active. She’s taken a lot of people’s COVID money. They’re buying drugs with their COVID money and even their gift cards we give them to go buy groceries. She’s taking all those cards. So the drug problem has gotten worse in our community.

We’d like to be able to clean up our community and work towards a more healthy community. It’s very difficult when there is…. I guess compounding this issue with the COVID money has been the money coming from day-school settlements.

It has been just one big crazy time with drugs and alcohol. We were trying to address it through dealing with our youth so that we can provide the youth with opportunities so they don’t have to follow these ones that are doing drugs and alcohol. One of the things we keep pointing out to the youth is: “You’re picking up the alcohol or the drugs. You’re just throwing away all that potential, and that’s a pretty tough life.”

If there is something the police can do to enforce some of the laws that are there and start arresting these drug dealers and some of the kids that are drinking. I think that once we get our cameras up, we’ll have a better ability to work with the police in our community. But overall, I think we need to get an additional officer to work amongst our communities between Homalco, Campbell River and Cape Mudge, the Wei Wai Kai and Wei Wai Kum. Soon Tlowitsis will be just down the road. They’re getting set up down the road. So there are going to be four of us in this area.

We’ll keep trying to clean up our community, but it’s a lot of work. We don’t have enough funds to clean up our community properly. We’re trying to provide activities for our kids. The biggest problem is prevention, trying to prevent them from following. Then once they get into the alcohol and drugs, it starts compounding from there, and many kids get apprehended in this community. There are all different problems as a result of this.

I think that’s all I’ve got to say. Are there any questions anybody would like to ask me?

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you, Chief. I should have asked you to introduce yourself in the beginning. I apologize.

We will now go to questions. I see a number of hands. I see MLAs Kirkpatrick and Halford.

[10:15 a.m.]

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you very much, Chief Blaney.

You mentioned you’ve got a drug dealer who is obviously openly dealing drugs in the community, and then you had the mention of the knife fight. In neither of those cases…. It sounds like you’re not getting enforcement. Nothing is being done.

Thinking about the drug issue there, how is she able to operate so openly, without any consequence? I don’t understand that.

D. Blaney: That’s what I don’t understand. I’ve asked Jeff Preston about that.

When they did that investigation, she didn’t get charged, which was kind of funny because the other people down the street from her did get charged. It kind of settled them down, but she’s still tearing on. People watch her all day. The drug dealer comes next door to her grandfather’s place, and they just walk over through their grandfather’s house. Then they do the deal there. So it looks like they’ve visiting.

It’s getting frustrating to watch them, because at one point, about six years ago, she gave her younger brother some crack. And it wasn’t taking effect, so he took some more and took some more. Eventually, he started having blood coming out of his eyes, ears and nose. He died from massive hemorrhaging.

It’s frustrating to watch her carry on. We’re working on trying to get our housing rules so that you can’t be a drug dealer. We’re going to work at it from that way and see if we can evict her, but that’s only moving the problem somewhere else, if she’s going to be drug dealing. But she’s carrying on like there’s nothing to it, and that’s what’s frustrating for us.

K. Kirkpatrick: You’ve said that your young people are being apprehended, though. So I’m curious. What are those apprehensions for? Are they…?

D. Blaney: Mostly, that’s the parents that are drinking. Sometimes they’ll apprehend them right out of the hospital. We’ve had a few of them getting apprehended within the last few years, right out of the hospital. There are other ones that are trying to sober up, and then they go back out again. There are probably about three or four that are in care right now.

It’s a struggle. I mean, we have to work on the prevention to help out and get the support in the community. As it is right now, the support is out of our community, and our bus service here is terrible. We only have four buses out daily from our community. If anybody wants to work or anything and they don’t have vehicles, the bus service is not good. So you can’t really hold down a job.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

D. Blaney: Thank you.

D. Routley (Chair): I do see my friend Erralyn Joseph from Snuneymuxw is here now. Maybe, since she’s here, we could move to her presentation and then save the rest of the questions until after that presentation. Does that work for everybody?

Are you able to stay for a few minutes, Chief Blaney?

D. Blaney: Yes, I can. I can.

D. Routley (Chair): Okay, thank you.

With that, go ahead, Erralyn from Snuneymuxw.

SNUNEYMUXW FIRST NATION

E. Joseph: ‘uy’ netulh, everybody. Good morning. It’s good to see you all here. My name is Hunqwiithiye’, Erralyn Joseph, and I’m calling in from my territory, here in Snuneymuxw.

I’m glad to hear Chief Darren from Homalco and to hear their concerns. Ours are very similar — similar procedural issues under the legislation that lead to significant structural issues that have largely remained unamended since 1873, when the central police were created. Then, when the King put the royal decree on there, they were the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. That became the law enforcement here, prior to Confederation.

[10:20 a.m.]

At this time, in 1873, Snuneymuxw had entered a treaty with the Crown, represented by Sir James Douglas [audio interrupted] number of years of working with my great-great-great-grandmothers to come to a way where we could live harmoniously together.

It says my Internet is unstable. Can you guys hear me?

D. Routley (Chair): It did freeze up a little bit, but yeah.

E. Joseph: So that’s the treaty. Solemn promises to forever and always protect the way of life for Snuneymuxw people and their constitutional obligations on behalf of the Crown as represented by Canada and British Columbia. These are the promises that Snuneymuxw is very strong on.

Our friend Doug Routley is advocating for treaty implementation and [audio interrupted] era of denial [audio interrupted] colonial legislation starting from the Indian Act all the way to Canadian policies with respect to residential schools, the Sixties Scoop and the Indian hospitals and things like that.

All of this history between us underpins the law enforcement of British Columbia, and this understanding has extended to the RCMP officers that are serving right now. They carry this history on the other side of the fence, not the Indigenous, Snuneymuxw side. They lack this understanding. So it has percolated to create these complex social issues, whether it be unintended or whatnot.

Certainly, this opportunity to reform the Police Act and how law enforcement is delivered in British Columbia, including Snuneymuxw First Nation, is overdue. A lot of our people are dying [audio interrupted]. Indigenous people have died at the hands of RCMP, as late as a fellow who was released from custody up north, and he died the next day by strangling himself.

There’s a lack of trust. All of this creates a lack of trust from Snuneymuxw to law enforcement, to Canada and British Columbia. It certainly is a bilateral relationship to implement law enforcement, including the municipalities, but also with Snuneymuxw as a level of government. And Snuneymuxw doesn’t have a role in this within your legislation.

Your legislation is completely outdated. It doesn’t recognize the rights of Snuneymuxw people or Indigenous people at all — basic human rights or anything under the treaties. If this is the enabling act that’s backing up law enforcement in addition to the Criminal Code and other legislative tools that are all silent on respect and recognition of Indigenous people, including Snuneymuxw, and how to properly respond to public safety and more heinous public issues, that’s a problem, and I’m glad right now we have a chance to look at it.

There are significant structural and procedural issues with the Police Act. It advances the colonial approach that carries with it a catastrophic and devasting history for people. Sometimes officers with Health Canada removed our children to attend to residential school or acquiesced on Indian hospitals. I don’t know one story where we heard of a law enforcement going to an Indian hospital here, up on our DND lands, to say: “No. This isn’t good. This is not good. Let’s stop this. Let’s stop this policy to kill the Indian in the child.” I’m hard-pressed to think of one story.

Sometimes the officers would promote the Sixties Scoop, as of late. That’s the most recent atrocity to our Indigenous people that breathes more life into the systemic racism — within the act but also within the judicial system, the health system, the education system.

Education is starting to show positive results, meaning we’re having higher graduation rates. We’re starting to bounce back, but it certainly isn’t a [audio interrupted] result. Statistics aren’t at the level they need to be in the context of Canada and British Columbia.

[10:25 a.m.]

The white paper and the founders’ policy to kill the Indian in the child are underpinnings to this reality. This is the creation of Canada. These are the myths that they’ve put forward, from Sir John A. Macdonald all the way through the Prime Ministers to Justin Trudeau’s dad, who was trying to push the white paper. These are the underpinnings of this act that come to mind when policing is in our territory, by the RCMP.

We need to eliminate this idea about the doctrine of discovery, this idea of the doctrine of tenure in the jurisprudence stemming from all of this, starting from St. Catharines Milling Co. We need to eliminate that. That is what the executive branch of Canada, the judicial branches and the cooperative federalism…. Where B.C. has a play as head of power under section 92, we have an ability to change this in a meaningful and significant way and get it right, now.

The role of law enforcement is tone-deaf to these complex social issues that I’m sharing with you. The executive branch needs to take action now, as I’ve just said, and change the history, as the Chief always says — sorry he couldn’t be here; he had a competing meeting right now — so that our brave children and our grandchildren can live harmoniously together and have a chance at shared prosperity.

Aligning the act with DRIPA, Bill 41, that Doug Routley and his government, under Premier Horgan, were the first province to implement…. That was a great start. Now we need to begin the process to align all the laws with UNDRIP.

This is a great opportunity to do that. I am willing to help, if nudged on the shoulder, to work with you guys on that and create the space for Snuneymuxw to be at the table to advance the self-determination of our people. Right now we’re not at the table. Essentially, it’s Canada, B.C. and the municipalities that all have a say on how the CTA funds are spent. We have no say under that.

That’s a problem. Yeah, there’s a letter of expectation, but the letter of expectation is pretty much defunct. It’s ineffective. We sign the letter of expectation every two years, but Mike and I, in council, are always, constantly, harping on the issues under the LOE, which falls to the ground on the RCMP for a number of reasons.

The function of policing does not extend to the Snuneymuxw land, and I’ll tell you why. This might be an unintended consequence of the act, but law enforcement in this area have stated time and time again to us — whether it’s the general members or it’s the First Nations policing officers — that they are challenged to extend policing services on a reserve. They’re scared to come on reserve to respond to an assault call, they’re scared to come up and deal with this illicit activity that’s taking place, or they don’t want to go to this drug house.

They literally say these words to us, and Chief Mike and I just say back to the superintendent, Cameron Miller, and their subordinates underneath them, that that’s unacceptable. The Snuneymuxw don’t have our own police or the authority right now, or the funding, to implement our Snuneymuxw policing to respond appropriately to these issues. We don’t have a custody area. We don’t have a police station where we can put them, to tank them, and things like that. We just don’t have the tools to do that right now. This is a challenge.

I’ve heard this in the last six or seven years I’ve been on council. This has been said time and time again. That’s an issue for us. For example, another procedural issue that may cause these complex issues with respect to law enforcement is…. I just picked one example. Section 3 of the act is silent on the priority of the First Nations. There’s nothing in there. It says that it won’t extend to Nisg̱a’a lands or treaty lands, or something like that.

[10:30 a.m.]

That’s a problem. We need to switch that up. We need to update the act. It says that the minister sets the priorities of law enforcement. Okay, let’s talk about them. Let’s talk about them, and get them to a place where we start to see a different result.

Other procedural issues that we experience right now are overrepresentation of our Indigenous people within the system. We have a number of Snuneymuxw people here in Nanaimo. We have a justice committee. We have the various agencies there. We have victim services, probation, an RCMP member, native courtworkers and things like that. We’ve been proactive in that way but kind of doing it off the side of our desk because there’s no real model that supports that — legislative models or policy models to support the funding side.

We have higher rates of illicit activity, like the Chief said. Same thing with us. We have three drug houses that we constantly bring up. The RCMP said: “Okay, we’ll do a sting operation. We’ll do this. We’ll do that. We’ll do these ten things.” But months later, down the road, when something happens…. There was a stabbing at this drug house. I guess they must have been partying all night. It was noon or something, and the people who were partying at that drug trafficking house came out. I think the owner got stabbed pretty bad. He was in the hospital. Even that issue remains unresolved, and that was about a year or two ago.

This house has always been an issue. We all know what happens. The First Nation police officer can tell me when people go there, how often and things like that. Well, how come we can’t move it forward and do something about it? If you’re monitoring them, okay, let’s press some charges. I’m sure the report to Crown counsel can be substantiated in some way. It just leaves us scratching our heads and wondering what’s the real purpose of law enforcement. What’s the real purpose of the act with respect to Snuneymuxw people?

We, too, have lots of sexual assaults that go unresolved. One week we had, I think, a sexual assault in a house; we had two on our beach here; I think we had one more at the other end of the beach. The police officer just brought them back to the party house. These women were naked on the beach. Like, why would you do that? Second of all, who did this? Let’s investigate it. The lack of enforcement and investigation to resolve issues is a systemic issue as well.

With COVID, once again we got our legal counsel, got our negotiations team, to draft a COVID bylaw that enforced the different measures to create safety in our community. The First Nation policing officers always say: “We need a bylaw. We need a bylaw. We need a bylaw. We need a BCR.” They’re so notorious for that. “BCR, bylaw. BCR, bylaw.” Well, we have bylaws.

The next excuse is: “Well, you guys are federal. We have no jurisdiction.” That’s what the CTA is for. It says right in the community tripartite agreement that you’re to enforce the bylaws of the nation. I don’t know what’s going on, if they’re lazy or there’s a preconceived stereotype or there’s just attitude about our Snuneymuxw people within the Nanaimo detachment here. We need to figure it out and look into that a little bit more because we keep getting public safety issues on a daily basis — drinking and driving, a bunch of issues in our community that go unresolved.

There’s no agreement, as I said, with SFN and municipalities to address shared policing. We had maybe one conversation last year with the municipality, under Leonard Krog, but there hasn’t really been any substantive result there. The police report and work with the municipality, and they deal with the budget and things like that in Nanaimo. Snuneymuxw has zero say about that. We have other people making decisions on behalf of the Snuneymuxw that are tone deaf to these complex social issues and this history. We need to change that.

[10:35 a.m.]

The community tripartite agreement is effectively defunct and ineffective. We have three levels of government implementing law enforcement without any inclusion of Snuneymuxw. This is another structural issue that we continue to need to fix.

We spend time…. One of the things on the CTA is a letter of engagement — LOE is what we call it — and we continually take time to renegotiate it. We’d be modern with it. We’d be fresh with ideas. “Okay. Here are the three priorities we want you to focus on: illicit activity and drug trafficking; domestic abuse; alcohol, drinking and driving.” Three priorities. You know, after spending months negotiating that with the RCMP, things go back to the status quo.

Our members constantly call the dispatch, and without any response. All the time. Frequent. I wouldn’t be shocked if there were ten stories this week and our members’ call to 911 or the dispatch for law enforcement help has gone unresolved or unresponded to. It’s quite rampant and frequent.

There are a certain number of FTEs under the community tripartite agreement. For example, Snuneymuxw has 2.5 officers, and we share that with Snaw-Naw-As. We’ve said time and time again, this is not effective. That’s 175 hours that should be in Snuneymuxw. We’re hard pressed to see the police officer once a week let alone one hour a month. I don’t know. Last time I’ve seen our officer, it was a long time ago.

These things are more operational. Police is under the CTA that go unresolved. So we need to talk about how the money is spent, how Canada and B.C. work together, and Snuneymuxw has to have a say at that, because the result we’re creating right now is not conducive for a harmonious or prosperous future for our people.

The suggested solutions that I’ve jotted down here. As I’ve said, align this law with DRIPA. That’s a first kind of high-level start. That’s way 8,000 feet in the air. This creates the powers, authorities and obligations on all sides — B.C., in this case, and Snuneymuxw. We need to make it responsive to this catastrophic and devastating history so we can change the complex social issues that are resulting from law enforcement right now. We need to have a rights recognition approach and get into the shared decision-making area and create Snuneymuxw as an ally to smash this colonialism. That is the goal.

Secondly, I think we need to remove the CTA approach. We need to come up with a collaborative and concurrent constitutional model that will return decision-making to shared decision-making with Snuneymuxw, and associated funding. I don’t think B.C. can do this alone. I think you need Snuneymuxw. You need all First Nations in British Columbia to be a part of this, and it needs to be Indigenous-led. We need to have some Indigenous people working with you, alongside your table here.

I appreciate your time, Doug, and your colleague as the co-Chair here, and for reaching out to Snuneymuxw and creating that space to sit together and to talk about this.

Once again, I’m sorry Chief Mike couldn’t make it. He had a last-minute meeting here but wanted me to share these kind of broader structural issues, some procedural issues and some solutions that we can maybe work on, consider, moving forward.

Huy ch q’u siem. Hey’ewulhi.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you very much, Erralyn.

Hon. Members, the Snuneymuxw are an amazing nation when you look at the history, with the three Doug Whites — the first, the second and the third — and all the contributions they’ve made to the legal process. Erralyn has done all the work she’s done lately carrying a baby, and then after birth.

Well done. We appreciate the contribution.

D. Blaney: Doug, can I add a few more things?

[10:40 a.m.]

D. Routley (Chair): Yes, absolutely. Go ahead, Chief Blaney.

D. Blaney: When Erralyn was speaking, it reminded me of the things we are trying to do to address the lack-of-policing issue. We’re looking into a security company to come into the community. I know other communities have tried it. It’s very expensive, but we’re looking at it.

One of the things that we’ve used to address that is generating our own revenues. That goes to many different areas in relation to the province. One of the things that we’ve been trying to deal with at Homalco is a road right-of-way that was taken from Homalco. It’s that economic marginalization that happens where our people can’t generate revenue to be able to address these problems ourselves.

I’m taking a look at what we’re negotiating. We’re in treaty. We have all kinds of access for people to come through our lands. You’ve heard about the slide in Southgate. The slide in Southgate has really brought to mind…. It became clear that there’s one man that has property there. His name is Jim Bowing. He’s from somewhere in Duncan. Through our logging operations, he would make $600,000 in the year for going through his land.

When people come through our lands, there’s no ability for us to generate revenue from that. That’s why they took the road from us in Orford, to cut us off from that revenue source. Those revenue sources are what can help us deal with some of these issues, help us deal with our kids to support them to have a better life and support our elders.

We’re trying to deal with stumpage right now. Right now, the province takes all the stumpage from the timber resources of our territories. That supports the roads, hospitals, highways, schools. We have a government. We have a government we’re trying to support. We’re trying to build healthy people. We have no revenue sources. So we’re saying part of that stumpage should be coming to our government from the timber resources of our territories.

A few years…. Well, a year ago we started a radio station. The revenues from that radio station would be held under a society called Aupe Cultural Enhancement Society. That society was designed to help us overcome the impacts of residential schools. That’s what we’re looking at in this community, with all the aftermath of the residential schools, whether it’s intergenerational…. All the people that are drinking and drugging are the aftermath of residential school.

Our radio station has gone through COVID, and we’re just starting to get to the point now where we’re going to become profitable. It’ll send money back to the youth, to the elders, cultural purposes and healing. That, I think, becomes the bottom line in all this, in terms of policing. If we’re healed, the need for policing would be much less. That’s why we’re looking at the treatment centre for trauma.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you, Chief Blaney.

Now I’d like to open the floor to members for questions. We already had a couple in the list there when we went to the second presentation.

Trevor Halford is up next.

T. Halford: Just to comment on…. You talked about Jeff Preston. I was just wondering how long he has been there for. How did that relationship evolve? What are some of the things that worked to establish that trust? Maybe what are some of the things that didn’t work?

D. Blaney: He came in probably about four years ago. He reached out and started meeting with us. Whenever there is an issue, I reach out to him. I’ve got his personal cell number, so that makes it easier to stay in contact with him whenever we have to address issues.

[10:45 a.m.]

Well, actually, the other thing we’re dealing with is the Native liaison officer that works with our three communities is burned out. So we don’t have a Native liaison officer because he’s stretched himself too thin throughout our communities.

I phone Jeff and say: “How do we deal with this issue?” We have all kinds of issues that come up in the community. I have Jeff’s personal cell number, and he’ll send someone up to help us deal with stuff. But most of the time…. If it’s an alcohol issue, it won’t go anywhere because any statements…. It’s almost like some of the officers don’t want to lay charges because there’s paperwork involved in it.

G. Begg: I thank both the presenters for their presentations. My question arises out of something that Chief Blaney said.

I wonder if you could help me. Is there not an ability to ban people from your reserve?

D. Blaney: We did ban one guy that’s a non-band member. But for anybody who is a member, it becomes much more difficult to ban them from the community. So we’re looking at that.

We banned this one guy that was up here. He’s involved with the Hell’s Angels, and they’re looking for him. He kept bullying people and assaulting people. So we finally did a BCR, and we gave it to the police. The house where he usually goes to — we gave them a copy. So we haven’t seen him around here too much, but he did come back. Within the last month we’ve seen him here once.

For anybody that’s not a member, we can ban them easily enough. But for someone who is, it’s much more difficult.

G. Begg: Do the police enforce your bans? Do they have the authority to do that?

D. Blaney: We’ve been getting some support from them. When we go and deliver it to the homes, we usually have them come with us to go deliver the paper, that BCR to say: “You’re not allowed here anymore.”

G. Begg: Thanks very much.

A. Olsen: I think it’s important to just draw attention to the fact that both of the presentations that were made today have highlighted the lack of resources that are afforded to them through the tripartite agreement. The actual delivery of those resources is a real challenge. To the point that my colleague Garry has just made, I think there is an expectation that once an agreement is made, it is delivered upon.

Unfortunately, the current situation is, to the point of the questions that I asked to the presentation earlier, there are limited options for First Nations to be able to…. I think we should…. I’m hoping and I just wanted to bookmark this for our deliberations later as we’re talking about this — the recommendations that we make to the ministry with respect to flexibility in policing for Indigenous Nations. They’re very much limited at this point to the provincial service, and we’re hearing First Nations that are struggling to be able to find ways to cover over the gaps that are very clearly evidenced here.

The other thing that I think we need to ask the question of is: if there’s illegal activity that’s been brought to the police’s attention, what is it that is stopping them from doing the investigations and the arrests? I’m not going to editorialize, but I’m just going to leave the question out there. Why are we not seeing follow-through?

Even if we just, and I think we should, take Councillor Joseph and Chief Blaney at their word that they’ve requested there be action taken, why have we not seen action? That, to me, is very, very troubling.

[10:50 a.m.]

I just wanted to, I think, draw attention for our deliberations later around the delivery of those tripartite agreements. We need to ensure that if there’s an agreement that has been made, that agreement is being delivered.

We also need to make it clear, I think…. The question that I would like to see answered is: how is it that a community can request to have these full-time equivalents, as have been pointed out by Councillor Joseph and, actually, Chief Blaney, with respect to increasing the presence of the police?

We often hear about the over-policing of Indigenous communities and the impact that over-policing has. Similar to that, we’re hearing today about under-policing. And, actually, the outcomes, I think, are similar, in that the community can’t get the kind of public safety that it needs.

More comments than questions, but I just wanted to bookmark these for our future deliberations on this, because these are very important comments that have been made from Chief Blaney and Councillor Joseph.

HÍSW̱ḴE SIÁM. Thank you.

R. Singh: Thank you so much. I really appreciate both the presenters coming out today and making these presentations.

My first question is to Chief Blaney. You made very clear the challenges that your community is facing, especially with the drug addiction issue. That was made very clear. But one thing that you mentioned was that there is just one Indigenous police officer who goes into three commun­ities.

If you can just elaborate. That is the person assigned? Or there are other police officers, but what you wanted to say was there’s just one Indigenous police officer that the communities mostly deal with?

D. Blaney: There are other officers that will come up, but this one individual is burned-out now. For the amount of time he gets to spend in each community, he tries to spread himself between the three communities, and then he’s doing work in the schools as well. So he’s already overburdened with trying to deal with the schools. He spends a certain amount of time in the schools, and then he’s got all the different problems in the three communities.

You know, I raised the issue with Marc Miller, the Indigenous Services Minister in Ottawa. He said that something will happen soon. That was over a year ago, before COVID hit. So I haven’t seen anything. It’s disappointing to see that there’s nothing happening around that.

It’s very limited service. A police officer comes up here. They’ll go knock on somebody’s door, and if they don’t answer, that’s about it. They don’t get to address the issue. Especially loud noise, noisy people in the community. They will go there and knock, but that’s about it. As soon as they’re gone, within an hour, the noise is back.

That’s one of the issues we deal with a lot, noise complaints, especially when there are kids that have to go to school in the morning. They’re playing loud music or playing that rap music with all the swearing in it. Our kids don’t need to be hearing that.

R. Singh: Thank you, Chief. Just to elaborate on that, the role that this police officer, the Indigenous police officer, is doing is more towards the education and more mentoring the younger generation?

D. Blaney: It’s part of it. That’s part of his job. But he also deals with…. Like when the other member was talking about banning somebody from the community, he’s the one you get a hold of. He’ll come with you and go to that house and deal with the noise complaint and other housing issues. We try to get him to come up to keep our housing person safe so that there’s no violence when they’re communicating issues with them.

R. Singh: Thank you so much.

Just a comment for Councillor Joseph. I really appreciate you coming in today and talking about the gaps. I just want you to know that you are not the first one. We have heard from a number of communities talking about that.

[10:55 a.m.]

You talked a lot about the act and that it needs to be reviewed. That’s what the whole purpose of this committee is. The Police Act needs to be reviewed. The comments that you have made today, about the gaps, the barriers that communities are facing, those are well noted. I just wanted you to know. Thank you so much.

D. Routley (Chair): I don’t see any other questions at this point. I’d like to say thanks to both guests.

Erralyn, I also would like to say I appreciate the way that you pointed towards the silence in the act and how we have to adapt it to DRIPA and now to virtually reflect UNDRIP. I know that there are a lot of people working on it — Chief Wyse, of course. And we’ll be hearing later from the First Nations Justice Council, which will be another Snuneymuxw member making that presentation.

You make a lot of very specific points. I wonder if there is another way you could contribute specifically to those elements that you pointed to. We’d like to hear more, also, from Chief Blaney.

That’s my long, roundabout way of asking. If there are other contributions that you’d like to make, we’re very eager to have them from both of our presenters. And if you have any other questions of us, or any other inquiry you’d like to make about the committee’s work, feel free. You know where we are.

D. Blaney: If there’s some help that we can get in terms of getting security coming into the community who can do some of the work that police aren’t doing in the community, just to address some of the more minor issues like noise complaints and stuff like that, that would be helpful. I’m sure the police get tired of coming up here.

D. Routley (Chair): Yeah. Well, we have pretty broad terms of reference to make recommendations and to [audio interrupted] of police and a number of other elements. So we really are grateful for your contribution today.

I don’t believe our other presenters will be here this morning, and I believe that completes the list of presentations for the day.

I want to thank you both very deeply for this, and all of the members for their interesting questions. I’ve sure learned a lot, and I’m sure this will be very beneficial to all of us as we move forward with this important work.

E. Joseph: Thank you, MLA Doug Routley. I appreciate the time.

Thank you, MLA Adam and MLA Singh, for your comments as well.

We’ll submit a written submission to follow up with today.

Huy ch q’u siem.

D. Routley (Chair): Okay. With that, I would take a motion to adjourn the meeting.

K. Riarh (Clerk to the Committee): I believe we have some time set aside, if members would like to go in camera and have some deliberations.

Deliberations

D. Routley (Chair): I’m sorry. Okay. Well, then, I’ll take a motion to go in camera. From MLA Singh, seconded by MLA Davies.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 10:58 a.m. to 12 noon.

[D. Routley in the chair.]

D. Routley (Chair): Okay. Having completed our business for today, I want to thank members. I would entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting.

Moved by Dan Davies, seconded by Adam Olsen.

Thanks a lot, my friends.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 12 noon.