Calls for industries, institutions, services, and partnerships

Police services

Recommendation 71: We call upon all actors in the justice system, including police services, to build respectful working relationships with Indigenous Peoples by knowing, understanding, and respecting the people they are serving. Initiatives and actions should include, but are not limited to, the following measures:

1. Review and revise all policies, practices, and procedures to ensure service delivery that is culturally appropriate and reflects no bias or racism toward Indigenous Peoples, including victims and survivors of violence.
2. Establish engagement and partnerships with Indigenous Peoples, communities, and leadership, including women, Elders, youth, and 2SLGBTQQIA people from the respective territories and who are resident within a police service’s jurisdiction.
3. Ensure appropriate Indigenous representation, including Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people, on police services boards and oversight authorities.
4. Undertake training and education of all staff and officers so that they understand and implement culturally appropriate and trauma-informed practices, especially when dealing with families of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people.

Calls for industries, institutions, services, and partnerships

Police services

Recommendation 72: We call upon all governments to fund an increase in recruitment of Indigenous Peoples to all police services, and for all police services to include representation of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people, inclusive of diverse Indigenous cultural backgrounds, within their ranks. This includes measures such as the following:

1. Achieve representative First Nations, Inuit, and Métis diversity and gender diversity within all police services through intensive and specialized recruitment across Canada.
2. Ensure mandatory Indigenous language capacity within police services.
3. Ensure that screening of recruits includes testing for racial, gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation bias.
4. Include the Indigenous community in the recruitment and hiring committees/process.
5. In training recruits, include: history of police in the oppression and genocide of Indigenous Peoples; anti-racism and anti-bias training; and culture and language training. All training must be distinctions-based and relevant to the land and people being served; training must not be pan-Indigenous.
6. Retain Indigenous officers through relevant employment supports, and offer incentives to Indigenous officers to meet their unique needs as Indigenous officers serving Indigenous communities, to ensure retention and overall health and wellness of the service.
7. End the practice of limited-duration posts in all police services, and instead implement a policy regarding remote and rural communities focused on building and sustaining a relationship with the local community and cultures. This relationship must be led by, and in partnership with, the Indigenous Peoples living in those remote and rural communities.

Calls for industries, institutions, services, and partnerships

Police services

Recommendation 73: We call upon non-Indigenous police services to ensure they have the capacity and resources to serve and protect Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. We further call upon all non-Indigenous police services to establish specialized Indigenous policing units within their services located in cities and regions with Indigenous populations.

1. Specialized Indigenous policing units are to be staffed with experienced and well-trained Indigenous investigators, who will be the primary investigative teams and officers overseeing the investigation of cases involving Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people.
2. Specialized Indigenous policing units are to lead the services’ efforts in community liaison work, community relationship building, and community crime-prevention programs within and for Indigenous communities.
3. Specialized Indigenous policing units, within non-Indigenous police services, are to be funded adequately by governments.

Calls for industries, institutions, services, and partnerships

Police services

Recommendation 74: We call upon all police services for the standardization of protocols for policies and practices that ensure that all cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people are thoroughly investigated. This includes the following measures:

1. Establish a communication protocol with Indigenous communities to inform them of policies, practices, and programs that make the communities safe.
2. Improve communication between police and families of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people from the first report, with regular and ongoing communication throughout the investigation.
3. Improve coordination across government departments and between jurisdictions and Indigenous communities and police services.
4. Recognize that the high turnover among officers assigned to a missing and murdered Indigenous woman’s, girl’s, or 2SLGBTQQIA person’s file may negatively impact both progress on the investigation and relationships with family members; police services must have robust protocols to mitigate these impacts.
5. Create a national strategy, through the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, to ensure consistency in reporting mechanisms for reporting missing Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. This could be developed in conjunction with implementation of a national database.
6. Establish standardized response times to reports of missing Indigenous persons and women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people experiencing violence, and conduct a regular audit of response times to monitor and provide feedback for improvement.
7. Lead the provincial and territorial governments to establish a nationwide emergency number.

Calls for industries, institutions, services, and partnerships

Police services

Recommendation 75: We call upon all police services to establish an independent, special investigation unit for the investigation of incidents of failures to investigate, police misconduct, and all forms of discriminatory practices and mistreatment of Indigenous Peoples within their police service. This special investigation unit must be transparent in practice and report at least annually to Indigenous communities, leadership, and people in their jurisdiction.

Calls for industries, institutions, services, and partnerships

Police services

Recommendation 76: We call upon all police services to partner with front-line organizations that work in service delivery, safety, and harm reduction for Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people to expand and strengthen police services delivery.

Calls for industries, institutions, services, and partnerships

Police services

Recommendation 77: We call upon all police services to establish and engage with a civilian Indigenous advisory committee for each police service or police division, and to establish and engage with a local civilian Indigenous advisory committee to advise the detachment operating within the Indigenous community.

Calls for industries, institutions, services, and partnerships

Police services

Recommendation 78: We call upon all levels of government and all police services for the establishment of a national task force, comprised of an independent, highly qualified, and specialized team of investigators, to review and, if required, to reinvestigate each case of all unresolved files of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people from across Canada. Further, this task force must disclose to families and to survivors all non-privileged information and findings.

Calls for industries, institutions, services, and partnerships

Police services

Recommendation 79: We call upon all police services to voluntarily produce all unresolved cases of missing or murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people to the national task force.

Calls for industries, institutions, services, and partnerships

Police services

Recommendation 80: We call upon all police services to develop and implement guidelines for the policing of the sex industry in consultation with women engaged in the sex industry, and to create a specific complaints mechanism about police for those in the sex industry.