THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Tuesday, November 29, 2022
The Standing Senate Committee on Indigenous Peoples met with videoconference this day at 9:01 a.m. [ET] to examine the federal government’s constitutional, treaty, political and legal responsibilities to First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples and any other subject concerning Indigenous Peoples.
Senator Brian Francis (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, I’d like to begin by acknowledging that we are gathered on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people, and express gratitude for their role as the past, present and future caretakers of this land.
I am Mi’kmaq Senator Brian Francis from Epekwitk, also known as Prince Edward Island, and I am the Chair of the Committee on Indigenous Peoples.
Before we begin our meeting, I would like to ask everyone in the room to please refrain from leaning in too close to the microphone or remove your earpiece when doing so. This will avoid any sound feedback that could negatively impact the committee staff in the room.
I’d now like to ask committee members in attendance to introduce themselves by stating their name and province or territory. Let’s start on my left.
Senator Christmas: Good morning, everyone. I’m Daniel Christmas from the Membertou community of Nova Scotia.
Senator Hartling: Good morning. I’m Senator Nancy Hartling from Riverview, New Brunswick.
Senator LaBoucane-Benson: Good morning. Senator Patti LaBoucane-Benson, Treaty 6 territory, Alberta.
Senator Tannas: Scott Tannas from Alberta.
Senator Coyle: Mary Coyle from Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
The Chair: Thank you, senators. Welcome. Today we will resume our briefings from officials to discuss their work and priorities with the committee with the goal of informing and guiding our future work.
I’d now like to introduce our witness. With us virtually today we have Melanie Omeniho, President of Les Femmes Michif Otipemisiwak, or LFMO. President Omeniho will provide opening remarks of approximately five minutes which will be followed by a question-and-answer session of approximately five minutes per senator. I now invite President Omeniho to give her opening remarks.
Melanie Omeniho, President, Les Femmes Michif Otipemisiwak: Good morning, everyone. My name is Melanie Omeniho. The organization I represent is Les Femmes Michif Otipemisiwak, which is “Women of the Métis Nation.” I’m joining you today from Edmonton, which is situated in Treaty 6 territory in the homeland of the Métis people.
I would like to recognize that we are the voice of Métis women from across the Métis Nation motherland, and, as a mandated voice of the Métis Nation, we play a significant role in enhancing the social, cultural, economic and environmental health and well-being of Métis people, with a specific focus on women or people who identify as female.
We strive to ensure that Métis women from across the motherland are safe, respected, connected and empowered, and have the capacity to work with Canadian and Métis governments, agencies and organizations to help create the conditions for healthy, vibrant and productive communities throughout the Métis Nation.
Our board of directors provides committed leadership and support from a strength-based perspective. We work within the Métis Nation governance structures alongside with the Métis National Council and all of its governing members to represent the interests and promote leadership of Métis women at the local, provincial, national and international levels. We implement our vision and mandate through the national advocacy for culturally relevant policies, programs and services to improve the lives and well-being of Métis women, children, families and communities. We apply a Métis-first, gendered, intersectional lens that defines equality and equity from a Métis world view considering historical Métis women’s roles and acknowledging that culture and gender are inseparable.
LFMO undertakes many projects and initiatives each year addressing a broad range of issues. Priorities are identified through consultations with grassroots Métis women throughout the year and as new issues and opportunities arise.
Just last week, we brought together over 200 Métis women from across the Métis Nation from all provinces — from British Columbia to Ontario — and we received direction for several policy areas such as housing, environment, climate change, missing and murdered Indigenous women, gender-based violence, gender-based analysis, Indigenous early learning and childcare and Métis women’s health among many other important topics.
LFMO has initiated a report about Métis women’s perspectives that contains several significant recommendations to reduce racism that’s experienced within health care. Health has become one of the major priorities that we deal with.
One of the most important means to reduce racism in health care is education about Métis people. This needs to first occur in health training institutes, and must continue throughout the work of practitioners. The training can’t occur in any cookie-cutter fashion but must instead be developed and delivered by Métis people. We must raise awareness of the unique circumstances and vulnerabilities of Métis seniors and elders.
We must also promote Métis women’s health through public health prevention, promotion and messaging, including the right to informed consent in health care settings. LFMO advocates for increased mental wellness supports for Métis women across the motherland, incorporating culturally relevant, trauma-informed, strength-based approaches from the community and the regional programs and services.
We sit on the Indigenous Advisory Circle through Indigenous Services Canada, and LFMO advocates for the right for Métis women to sexual and reproductive health care that is easily accessible and culturally safe, with the right to free, prior and informed consent about their own reproductive health care ensuring that it is respected and protected by all health care providers.
The next priority that we have is missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ Métis people. LFMO works tirelessly to raise awareness of the unique circumstances and vulnerabilities of Métis women. We must press to ensure that gender-based violence and abuse are significant physical and mental health priorities.
In conjunction with the Métis National Council and the Métis Nation governing members, LFMO has penned a national, Métis-specific action plan to end missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people. The action plan consists of 62 calls for change, or Calls to Miskotahâ. These calls are grouped into six threads that must be undertaken to ensure a whole-of-government approach to ending missing and murdered Indigenous women. These threads include gathering and evaluating data, relationship building, service planning and delivery, child and family services, healing and wellness, justice and policing.
One of the important approaches is to ensure that navigational supports exist to ensure Métis people interacting with all the systems are undertaken and can make decisions based on their own well-being. This includes in health care, child and family services, justice and policing. There is simply not one approach to ending this tragedy. The threads symbolize the connections, strength, resilience and support of Métis women, children and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people in the face of ongoing violence and the threats to their existence.
The next priority that we have is Métis women’s leadership. Les Femmes Michif Otipemisiwak strives to provide support and leadership to create the conditions for strong Métis women’s participation throughout the Métis Nation. Traditionally and historically, Métis women were equals in Métis culture. We come from an egalitarian society. LFMO strives to empower Métis women to reclaim their traditional roles within our nation.
As traditional knowledge holders and keepers of the water and lands, Les Femmes Michif Otipemisiwak prioritizes knowledge transfer between Métis women leaders and youth. Our goal is to build confidence within Métis women to encourage their leadership within their families, their work lives, within the communities and the entire Métis Nation.
Les Femmes Michif Otipemisiwak has developed a distinction-based, gender-sensitive, youth-centric curriculum for Métis youth and young adults based on leadership skills, job-readiness and employment training. This program is called Reach for the Sky. Working together with Métis subject matter experts and Métis-specific gender-based analysis plus, or GBA+, analysis experts, the Métis curriculum developers and educators for this program envision Métis youth of the 21st century in more post-secondary education programs, in secure, upwardly mobile employment positions and in leadership roles within their communities, Canada and beyond.
We need to create safe spaces for Métis women and people who are vulnerable. More and more, Les Femmes Michif Otipemisiwak has been asked to represent the voice of gender-diverse 2SLGBTQQIA+ people, and our mandate is to represent the voices of Métis women. We recognize we could not adequately express the views, perspectives and experiences of 2SLGBTQQIA+ people. What we could do is create a safe space for gender-diverse people to come together to discuss priorities, based on their experience. We host a “show your pride” engagement circle to begin to provide voices for gender-diverse people, and our vision is that the “show your pride” group will begin to organize into an independent national voice for Métis 2SLGBTQQIA+ people.
Given the time constraints of this presentation, it is difficult to prioritize just four areas to demonstrate our work. We encourage you to visit our website to view our full range of activities and engagements.
Thank you, meegwetch.
The Chair: Wela’lin.
Before we go to questions, I wish to remind everyone in the room to please refrain from leaning in too close to the microphone, or remove your earpiece when doing so.
I’ll start with an opening question. In your view, are there priority topics that could be studied by the Standing Senate Committee on Indigenous Peoples? If so, could you explain what your top priorities would be?
Ms. Omeniho: My top priority would be in the development of an oversight committee to ensure that the work that government has committed to in order to help effect change for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls is implemented.
The Chair: Thank you for that.
Senator Christmas: Thank you, Ms. Omeniho. I want to thank you for outlining for the committee the four priorities of LFMO.
I’m interested in asking you about your second priority. You mentioned that your organization produced a report on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and that you had produced a document that outlines 62 calls for change. You mentioned further that you began to outline or at least discuss the topics of the six threads of your report.
Given that you didn’t have a whole lot of time to elaborate, could you walk us through those six threads more deeply? Could you elaborate and expand upon your and your organization’s views on what that action plan is about in terms of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls?
Ms. Omeniho: I will happily expand on that. Thank you for the opportunity.
We developed what we called Weaving Miskotahâ, which is similar to weaving the sashes, which often represent and are an icon of the Métis Nation. In those threads, we were gathering and evaluating data, which was a very important part. We’ve been doing the work around missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Very often people have skewed data and not had data as to what’s happened. How many women are missing? How many women have been murdered? How many crimes have been solved? Those numbers don’t exist. We need data to help us. Without data, we can’t determine how to make change.
For example, we know that many of these women have been involved in the criminal justice system. We know many of them have had significant issues around the child welfare system. If we were able to identify where the triggers and vulnerabilities are, we could build on policies and programs that are going to help us effect change so that we have fewer missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
We believe that relationship building, building relationships with government and building the understanding that we need — no one can effect change or make a difference alone. We have to work collectively. These aren’t just one group’s problems; this is Canada’s problem. We believe in relationships to help us resolve that.
Regarding service planning and delivery, there are very few programs that are effectively working with vulnerable Indigenous women and Métis women at a community level. The programs are kind of a patchwork, and we need to have effective programs so people know where to find the doors to find supports. If somebody’s children go missing, they don’t even know how to begin the process of trying to address that and hopefully rescue their children from things like human trafficking. We need to make sure the services planning and delivery are better.
Child and family services are not much different than some of the issues that residential schools and the Sixties Scoop have brought forward. We are trying to, through Bill C-92, deal with some of that, but at a community level, things are not happening fast enough.
For the families and people who have been impacted, we need to develop healing and wellness programs to help support them and try to bring an end to the intergenerational trauma.
Until we fix the justice and the policing systems of this country, things will not get better.
I know that’s a large mandate. I know that it’s not going to be easily fixed. These institutions have been around for a very long time, and many of them are quite militant. It’s going to take a lot of work to effectively change policies and laws that will make sure that women are not always a vulnerable population within them.
Senator Christmas: Thank you, Ms. Omeniho.
Senator LaBoucane-Benson: It is nice to see you, Ms. Omeniho.
You mentioned that you are undertaking a trauma-informed approach. Could you help the committee better understand what that means from a Métis woman’s perspective?
Ms. Omeniho: When we take a trauma-informed approach, we try to realize that it takes the whole of the community to help support and understand the issues that go on. Many times for Métis women — because they are unique and different than First Nations, Inuit or non-Indigenous people — they need to have a community that understands where they come from. When we’re working on trauma-informed initiatives, we’re basing it on the fact that we understand where some of the trauma has been, we understand where the triggers have been and we build programs to help remove those things from the population we’re working with.
We also help educate other service agencies and organizations that are working with our community on the various levels of trauma that have been experienced and help them build an understanding of where we’ve come from, historically, so they have a better understanding of where some of those intergenerational traumas come from.
We continue to try to bring those forward to help build the healing programs that are necessary to change where things are going.
Senator LaBoucane-Benson: Thank you.
Senator Coyle: Thank you so much, President Omeniho. Thank you also for supporting us in the Senate with the beautiful masks that we received some time ago. They were gorgeous. I’m happy to have the occasion to thank you here now.
I was just at COP 27 and I was extremely impressed by the quality of the people from the Métis Nation, particularly the women, Les Femmes Michif Otipemisiwak, who were there and their contributions to that important climate conference. I believe the climate conference happened just before your forum. Am I correct?
Ms. Omeniho: Yes.
Senator Coyle: You mentioned environment and climate as areas of priority for Les Femmes Michif Otipemisiwak. Could you maybe share with us any of the important inputs that came back into the women’s policy forum from COP 27 and what that might be doing in terms of your key areas of priority related to climate? Thank you.
Ms. Omeniho: Thank you. I’m very proud of the people we sent. It’s the first time we’ve had an international presence at COP. In a week or so, they will all be in Montreal at the COP forum there.
For Métis women, it’s really important to be a part of the environment. At our policy forum, the conversations are around the importance of protecting water, land and resources. Oftentimes, women are not engaged in the conversations where a lot of the environment is being impacted and affected. We need to be a part of those conversations because it’s the women raising the children in those communities that are the most impacted and affected. Without us looking at what climate change is doing, what biodiversity is doing, food sustainability — all those things play key roles in what happens and impacts the lives of Métis women. The women at our policy forum were very excited, and want to be engaged and involved. They were super informative on some of the areas where we need to proceed with environment.
Senator Hartling: Thank you, President Omeniho, for being here with us today. I really appreciate seeing you and hearing from you. I heard from you some time ago.
I’ve been privileged to sit on the Human Rights Committee and work with Senator Boyer, who you probably know, especially dealing with coerced and forced sterilization of women. Even this weekend, we had another report in Quebec that 22 women had that happen to them.
I like a lot of the things you’re saying about your goals. I’m wondering about mental health and physical health and how you will be working on that. Maybe give us more information on what some of the strategies are and some of the areas that you feel need to be addressed.
Ms. Omeniho: Actually, we do try to address the issues of mental health. Even with the forced and coerced sterilization, sexual reproductive health is a very important priority to us. We have worked with Senator Boyer and others to try to address that.
Just a small fact: If we supported HPV programming for everybody, things like cervical cancer would disappear from the face of our earth. It’s ridiculous that it’s not important enough that we wouldn’t be looking at HPV programming to help support the end of cervical cancer. That’s just an aside.
When it comes to things like free, prior and informed consent, the most important area there is in the area of health. It’s really important for us to continue to work and push forward on those policies and to try to make sure that we have the right to health. When it comes to mental health, we are only beginning to see the effects of what even COVID-19 has done to the levels of mental health issues that exist within our communities.
I do know that many young women who we’ve been working with — and I talked to you about the Reach for the Sky project we have where we’re trying to develop leadership training programs for young women — have been impacted by COVID. Their levels of anxiety, their ability to be able to cope and their mental wellness are all at risk. We need to find those supports. Things like mental wellness programming are not that readily available to people who are in marginalized communities. Sometimes we have months-long waiting lists for things like psychologists or psychiatrists, or even to get people into the medical services and have a general practitioner, a doctor or a medical clinic understand the issues of mental health. That is not ideal.
The other plug I’m going to tell you — and I know I only have a short time — is that mental wellness and police do not work. Some of our women have ended up dead as a result of mental wellness checks that police services have done. Thank you for the time.
Senator Hartling: Thank you very much.
The Chair: I have a quick question for you, Ms. Omeniho. In your view, why is the development of an oversight committee on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls necessary? How might it contribute to the implementation of the Calls for Justice?
Ms. Omeniho: Thank you for that. An oversight committee is imperative. It’s not just to keep an eye on government and make sure government is doing their job. The oversight committee needs to be a broader thing for all governments, including our Indigenous governments. We need to make sure that there’s accountability coming from everybody to effect change.
I’m going to be frank. At this point in time, many things have been said. That is, they’re doing this and doing that, but nothing has actually happened or affected any change at the ground level. We need to ensure that resources that are coming and being made available for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls are not spent building bureaucracies or on administrative things. Rather, we need to ensure resources are spent on actually affecting change at the ground level, where Métis women and other Indigenous women are.
The Chair: Thank you for that, Ms. Omeniho.
Senator Christmas: I’m also intrigued by your third priority. You talked about developing the leadership of Métis women. You mentioned a specific program that you called Reach for the Sky. Can you elaborate on that program and describe it in more detail?
Ms. Omeniho: The Reach for the Sky program brings in young Métis women. A certain segment of it is land-based learning. A program has been developed through the University of Alberta by Métis women PhDs who have developed a Métis women’s leadership and understanding program. They take the curriculum from that program, and they work with and take a program through SaskPolytech. It’s a program that helps inspire these young women to further their education.
We have three cohort groups. The first ones are young women who are just coming out of high school. The second cohort are single-parent moms. The third group are people who have some post-secondary, but may have withdrawn. We try to encourage them and support them either to get back into post-secondary or to start building and pushing through some of the glass ceilings, as they call them, to be able to get better leadership.
Women in this country need to do a lot of work — not just Métis women, but all women need to do a lot of work to find what equity and equality truly are. We’re just trying to put a few stepping stones on the way to help encourage them to start thinking beyond where they’re at right now.
Senator Christmas: Thank you, President Omeniho.
Senator Coyle: Thank you again. On this theme of education, I met a lot of the Métis delegation in Egypt. One of the young women was telling me about her experience of post-secondary education in Denmark, I believe.
The incredible supports, particularly mental health supports, that were in place for the post-secondary students there and the importance of the model that was used there is one that she suggested could be one that we could learn from here at post-secondary institutions in Canada, and she was going to bring them forward. I’m curious whether Les Femmes Michif Otipemisiwak have a relationship with either Universities Canada or other associations of post-secondary institutions, and if you have a plan or have already proceeded with some suggestions and recommendations for those institutions to make themselves more friendly so that retention and success will be more readily available for young Métis people in those institutions.
Ms. Omeniho: I’m very privileged to know many Métis women who are professors in many of the universities across our Métis motherland, and I’m very proud and honoured to be able to call them my friends. Through them, we have worked on many issues. As many of you may have heard, there is a lot of work being done right now in relation to retention and how challenging it is for some of them to move forward even within their own positions and their own roles, which is another issue that we are working on in relation to leadership.
I take to heart what you said. I believe we need to look at a different way. Even within our Reach program, one of the reasons I believe it’s working right now is because we have wraparound supports, which are mental health supports. We have elders working with these young women. We are putting in everything we can to try to make these young women as successful as possible, and I believe that programming needs to be like that.
I can only use my own experiences. I went back to school as a mature student and single parent. The kind of supports that are necessary for you to succeed are more than just paying your tuition and getting a textbook. There is a lot more going on in these people’s lives. They need that kind of wraparound support and mental wellness support to be able to succeed in what they are doing. That’s why we work so closely with some of our Métis doctorates. We need to show them as an example, and then they can help lead these young women through some of the struggles they have faced so that they can achieve what they have accomplished themselves.
Senator LaBoucane-Benson: You mentioned your research into housing. Housing is such a major issue for Indigenous women in general — having enough shelter, transitional and low-cost housing stock across this country. Do you have any findings that you can share with us in your research about Métis women’s experience with housing?
Ms. Omeniho: We actually just finished a report this past year on housing for CMHC from a Métis women’s lens. It’s on our website. I really encourage you to look at it. It was an amazing report. We are going to do a second version of that because CMHC was really happy with what we were able to do.
Housing for Métis women is extremely challenging. There are not a lot of housing supports. Even social housing programs, for the most part, are non-existent in many places. We have had to create ways to be able to keep people safe. It also makes women vulnerable when it comes to things like violence. We’re trying to figure out ways and create supports. We’re working on shelter programs, on second-stage transitional programs and are trying to make more housing accessible places for Métis women and their children.
The other thing that we found in our report is that many young Métis women will never be able to afford to own a house unless we build policies and create relationships that are maybe not going to be the standard, normal traditional ways, but ways that women can eventually own their own homes. This will be the first generation — the one that’s coming up now — that may not ever be able to own homes because they are just not realistically affordable. They will never have the kind of money they need for a down payment to be able to get a home.
Senator LaBoucane-Benson: I will read the report. Thank you so much.
Senator Coyle: I could have a conversation with you all day long. It’s really important work that you are doing.
You mentioned a point about how mental health and police are not a healthy mix. You have also mentioned the issues of overrepresentation in terms of incarcerated women. We know that is the case for all Indigenous women. Could you speak a little more specifically about the incarceration rates of Métis women and anything in particular that leads them to be more susceptible to incarceration, as well as anything in particular that we should be thinking about to prevent this? If you could also address your point, if you would like to go into a little more detail, on that issue of mental health and policing?
Ms. Omeniho: The situation of women’s prisons in itself, more than 50% of the women — and I think it’s probably closer to 70 or 80% of many of the women’s prisons — are Indigenous women, and more than 50% of those are Métis women. Jean Teillet was one of our keynote speakers last week, and she informed us, through some of the historical research she did, that in the mid 1800s, of the women that were imprisoned, 50% of those were Métis women. So nothing much has changed in terms of how easily women become incarcerated.
One of the things I would like to tell you is that there are laws that make women more vulnerable within the criminal justice system than men. Many women end up in prison because they don’t have the resources and supports that they need, they feel that they are in survival mode, they do things that get them in a lot of trouble and then it ends up with them being incarcerated. Once they are within those systems — I’m sure you have all heard this — they compound on each other. It’s a cycle of people that end up continually being a part of these systems. I believe that the whole issue of how we deal with people that are incarcerated needs to be looked at and changed. I know Senator Pate has talked about this many times.
I want to share a story with you about a young Métis women that I know who had some mental health issues going on. Her family sent the police in because it is the only resource you have when somebody you know is in trouble and may be suicidal or harming themselves. The only resource you have is police. They sent the police in, they went into her home and the police took her out of her home in handcuffs. She was stark naked. They paraded her through her neighbourhood and put her into a police car. That was their mental wellness check. For anybody who thinks that didn’t further impact the mental wellness of that woman, the harm and trauma that it created for her, her children and grandchildren — it was horrific. We know of stories where women have ended up dead because they don’t respond well to having police come aggressively into their homes when they are in a mental crisis.
I’m not saying that it’s all the police’s fault. We need to find a better way to work with people who are struggling with mental wellness issues so that we can support them in a way that’s going to benefit them and help reduce the crisis that they are in rather than putting them into the same system that they would put a bank robber.
Senator Hartling: Thank you, Ms. Omeniho, for all your work and leadership. It’s really speaking to me.
I worked for many years with women’s groups in New Brunswick, and a lot of things you are saying, how many things need to be addressed and the intersectionality of all these issues.
Your goals are really important. I’m just wondering if you can share with the committee more about some of the challenges or barriers to realizing those goals and objectives that you have. What do you think will be some of the challenges that you’ll have to face to realize them? Thank you.
Ms. Omeniho: I would tell you that the greatest challenge that I have as President of Les Femmes Michif Otipemisiwak is having enough resources to do the work that we need to do.
We are not short of things to do or ways to start to address many of those issues. I don’t mean just money, by the way. I’m talking about resources, even human resources. It’s challenging to find people that are passionate enough about the work that we do to be able to move forward and address many of the issues that we’re working on.
I have an amazing team that I work with, but we are a small and mighty team. I have to look for outside contracts and people to work with many of these things. I know I’m not the only one. I believe many of our Métis Nation governments are in the same boat where they are always looking to find resources to help support the work that we want to do. That is my greatest challenge of all in working in many of the areas that we want to work in.
The other challenge that we often face is the reception of governments to be able to hear what we have to say. The issues are real. The facts are real. The process is real. There are times when government doors are open to be able to hear, talk, negotiate and be able to address those things. However, that’s not always the case.
We have provincial governments in this country that, quite frankly, would just as soon not know that we exist, much less address any of the policies that they need to look at to change what’s happening.
Senator Hartling: Yes, thank you. I imagine there is some burnout there with all the heavy-duty things that you have to do.
Ms. Omeniho: There definitely is. I work hard to try to get my staff and team to be able to address things so that they aren’t burnt out.
That is one of the things that we worked with when we did some work around mental wellness. The mental wellness of caregivers and caretakers in these programs is a significant issue because you are dealing with trauma every day. You are trying to take the trauma away. But you can’t let your employees take that home because then they need to be healed from the trauma. It’s a challenge each and every day.
Senator Christmas: Ms. Omeniho, has the RCMP or municipal police forces reached out to LFMO to try to find a better way to work with Métis women?
Ms. Omeniho: We have built relationships with some RCMP. Not all of them are as receptive and responsive. Some of these various levels of institutions are quite paternalistic and really patronizing. I’m going to be honest — many of them, when they come and approach us, are looking to tick off their check mark. They are not interested in hearing what we have to say.
We do have allies within the police services. I can tell you that people like the chief of police in Saskatoon has definitely been an ally working with missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. I know that there are some RCMP officers who are in various roles, like within the ethics department, who are really working hard to help open doors and effect change.
However, the issue of many of the police institutions is that there are a lot of years of institutionalization that is going to be a lot bigger than me to change.
Senator Christmas: Is it fair to say that there is only a small minority of police leadership that are responsive? Is that fair to say?
Ms. Omeniho: It is fair to say.
Senator Coyle: Hello again, madam president.
One of the matters that was raised, particularly by some of the young Métis women who were at COP 27 was the issue of the land — not just land-based therapies, et cetera, but actual access to the land, historical rights to access to the land. I’m wondering if Les Femmes Michif Otipemisiwak is involved in that, and if there is anything you could tell us about that?
Ms. Omeniho: This probably is out of my wheelhouse somewhat, I’ll be honest with you.
There are places where the rights of land and land access are taking place, but it’s with the Métis Nation governments. I know that in some instances, like in northwest Saskatchewan, some of those cases have been going on for many years.
One of the things that I know that used to be available to us, and does not seem to be quite as readily available, is that there used to be Crown lands that we would have access to. Those Crown lands, for the most part, are now part of provincial jurisdictions, and in some of these provincial areas — in many of them, in fact — those Crown lands are being sold off, so we have less access to land availability.
For instance, in some of the national parks where, historically, those were part of the Métis homelands, and there were traditional Métis communities within those homelands — I can use Jasper National Park as an example of that — we don’t have access to go, harvest or be a part of those lands because the rules and stipulations around national parks don’t give us that accessibility.
The Chair: I don’t see any hands raised.
Thank you, Ms. Omeniho, for joining us today. We really appreciate your testimony. The time for this panel is now complete.
(The committee adjourned.)