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OTTAWA -- British Columbia Assembly of First Nations Regional Chief Terry Teegee told a House of Commons committee studying systemic racism in policing in Canada that increased funding for community groups is a key factor in keeping marginalized communities safe.

Teegee said this is an immediate step governments can take as part of a larger review of how policing is conducting across the country.

"What we really need to change in terms of the overhaul of policing is in municipalities, large municipalities," Teegee said Thursday. "In Vancouver it’s the Downtown Eastside, many of these places need the social help for homelessness, need for the help for addictions and mental health."

He noted that police officers – RCMP or otherwise – often aren’t trained to handle these kind of situations.

Teegee’s remarks come after a series of high profile incidents in which police fatally shot individuals during wellness checks. These events have drawn criticism and amplified calls for a nationwide re-examination of how law enforcement agencies handle such situations.

Senator Vern White, a former Ottawa police chief and long-time member of the RCMP, also testified before the public safety committee on Thursday, responding specifically to calls to defund the police.

He said it’s an argument that’s been advocated for by police officers for decades.

"Except that [police] have been arguing that the demands placed on them would often be better served by others," he said. "The continued growth of expectations placed on the police has seen a current growth in policing budgets at some level."

White noted that the "deinstitutionalization" of mental health facilities in the 80s and 90s saw more involvement from police officers filing the gaps in service and that funds weren't properly reinvested in community supports.

"The impact is that the police have become the de facto response unit all too often to mental health calls for service often without the resources needed to fully engage," said White.

He said money should be spent upstream, ensuring mental health resources are more readily available to all communities so police officers aren’t the first to respond to wellness checks.

Respect for First Nations Governance

Teegee also raised another of MPs' key priorities: that police officers be trained in First Nations law, understand culturally-specific traditions, and respect jurisdictional differences in governance.

"Prior to colonization, many First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples had their own model of policing, had their own laws and asserted their laws and those laws need to be upheld," he said, adding that the government’s pitch to develop a legislative framework to make First Nations policing an essential service is just a start.

"It has to be much more than that and more so for First Nations that are asserting their sovereignty and their self-determination in terms of policing," said Teegee.

Public Safety Minister Bill Blair made the commitment in late June, saying Indigenous Peoples need to be at the decision-making table when drafting new legislation.

President and Chief of Police of the Wikwemikong Tribal Police Service Terry McCaffrey told the committee later in the day that the core difference between conventional policing and Indigenous-led policing, especially among racialized and Indigenous communities, is "trust."

"We have seen this play out in the United States with the protests in the wake of the George Floyd death, as well as here in Canada with the recent police-involved deaths of an Indigenous man Mr. Rodney Levi, and an Indigenous women Ms. Chantel Moore. Communities want accountability from police," he said.

President of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami Natan Obed said it comes down to improving the relationship between police and the community they serve.

"What we see is over-policing and under-policing. Excessive force being used, but then also when murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls are handled by the RCMP, we see complete under-policing," he said.

"These things happen because we don’t have a relationship and we don’t have specific control over policing in our communities."

McCaffrey agreed, saying the acknowledgment of community first, force second is essential to culturally-responsive policing.

"What it boils down to is we do not come in with a different set of values from our community, we come in and we adapt our values of our police service to that of our community," he said.

Though he added that as it stands today, First Nations policing is severely underfunded compared to conventional forces.

"First Nations officers have been forced to work in conditions which other officers throughout [Ontario] and country for that matter would never be subjected to."

The committee last heard from Blair and RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki in their study of systemic racism in policing launched in June, following nationwide anti-racism protests.

Lucki came under fire during her testimony when she was asked to provide an example of systemic racism in the forces and instead referred to the challenges shorter members face having to complete a mandatory physical agility test.