Centre the Experiences of Black and Indigenous Folks to Eliminate Violence

It’s so important that we do provide input for First Nations, as our people have been impacted by colonization and by the tragic treatment that we’ve been receiving from the police since contact. We all know about all of the terrible things that have happened to our people since contact and how the police were put in to ensure that our people are oppressed.

We’re finding that, moving forward — 2021, 2022 — this doesn’t work for our people. We have a lot of need to have input into this.

It has been highlighted by the frontline work of our members and by the people they serve, there is rampant gender and racial profiling where Black and Indigenous women and girls experience a unique version of racism that intersects with misogyny for the profound effect of experiencing the least amount of protection by the state and public safety mechanism and are indeed targeted for police and state violence especially when they are faced with having to call 911. We acknowledge the police killing of Chantel Moore, a Tla-o-qui-aht woman who was killed by police during a “wellness check”.

 Police reforms and legislation changes must specifically be revised to explicitly keep women and children safe. We categorically object to the police killing anyone including women and children. As it has been said by many who have appeared here, women should not be killed after calling 911 during a police “wellness check”. Every legislative tool and policy must be used to ensure that that state sanctioned murder or abuse of women and children is not permitted. It has been recommended that mental health practitioners accompany or replace police on health checks and we urge the committee to review jurisdictions that have piloted this kind of intervention.

The recommendations we will make centre on the enhanced safety of women and children, accountability of police, addressing and ending systemic racism through legislative tools, a legislated review system to audit police funding and commit to reduce funding for police to address issues that would be better addressed by professionals trained in mental health and in harm reduction.

What we recommend is that there be a comprehensive review of policing domestic violence and sexualized violence, specifically, within British Columbia. This review would be the opportunity for front-line workers to provide anonymous feedback to a special committee that would be able to evaluate the effectiveness of policing around domestic violence and sexual violence. This is very important because we make an assumption about the effectiveness and the role of policing.

We know that the vast majority of victims are not contacting the police, for a number of different reasons. The estimates are that 25 percent are involving the police, but I think it’s actually much lower than that. This is something that I think is really important: that we begin to understand those survivors’ behaviour. If they’re not contacting police, where are they getting support? How are they becoming safer within their communities? To evaluate that — I think that’s a very vital piece in thinking about police reform at this time.

RCMP, VPD and other police agencies have denied the existence of systemic racism. Even a former Supreme Court of Canada judge, Bastarache, found the RCMP incapable of internal systemic reform.

We’d also like to remind you that this is not new. We need innovative and urgent actions to help cops do the job they’re equipped to do and to let go of duties that they were never suited to perform. The Police Act is a great home for mandates that will inform policing priorities.

We are past the time for raising awareness and implementing energy-efficient training. We’ve come to the sad conclusion that the police institution has not learned, because it is resisting change and is still in a place of general failure to pursue preventative strategies and of inadequate accountability structures, as the Forsaken report outlined. Having diversity within the institution will not change the oppressive system, as the folks who are recruited, and their members of the marginalized communities, have to apply laws that are created to benefit the wealthy, the able-bodied, the gender-conforming white folks.

The majority of persons working in police oversight in Canada are white men who are former police officers. While anti-bias training of employees is a necessity, this training cannot make up for lived experiences. We are asking this committee to consider structural changes, such as a process for monitoring of police accountability by diverse communities and monitors with expertise in gender-based violence. We also would like to see a process for civil society interventions in police accountability.

We further urge this committee to adopt a coordinated approach to rebuilding the community and social sector, with the recognition that police reform is only one part of the picture. And we share that view with many organizations — that police ought to be detasked where possible and that funding that would otherwise go to policing should be put towards reinvesting in services that support communities on their own terms.