RCMP Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore was in Prince Albert on Monday to speak at the Prince Albert Grand Council’s National Red Dress Day event at the PAGC Cultural Centre.
Blackmore spoke about the work the RCMP is doing to address the high number of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
“I think Red Dress Day is really important,” Blackmore said. “We have to keep that focus. These are individuals who may not have been seen for several years and we have to remember that their families are still living with that anguish of not knowing what happened to them, not knowing where they are.”
Blackmore said the RCMP has started new initiatives to focus on missing and murdered Indigenous women. They are currently trying to find funding for Project Faith, which would specifically focus on MMIWG.
“We have quite a number of files that are on missing people,” she said. “We need to really have that concentrated focus on our Indigenous women and girls, but also Indigenous people who are missing.”
Staff Sergeant Cliff Joannis of the Indigenous Policing Services based in Prince Albert was also at Monday’s event. Joannis said it was important for people to realize that investigations are always ongoing.
“I don’t stop and the files don’t stop,” he explained. “We’re continually working on things, so it’s important to get that message out.”
Joannis said one of their biggest concerns is the “24-hour rule”. He said many people incorrectly think you have to wait 24 hours to report someone missing, but that’s not the case in Saskatchewan.
“You know your loved ones more than anyone,” he said. “If something’s out of the ordinary, whether it’s an hour, two hours, three hours, let the police know right away because time is important.”
Blackmore said they want people to know individuals are missing, but also they do not want to flood the zone with missing people. A total of 2,752 people were reported missing in Saskatchewan RCMP jurisdictions last year. That number does not include cities like Regina and Saskatoon.
“The problem is we don’t know which one of those is someone who is in trouble, who has been targeted by criminal element, right, or it’s someone who is just late coming home or maybe their cell phone died and can’t report in as they normally would,” Blackmore explained.
Blackmore said that from the start missing persons cases have to be treated with significant attention.
“Those files missing person files, especially vulnerable people, are treated as a high risk file and that’s why you get the media releases on those because it’s important for us to get that information out,” she said. “I talked about our Crime Watch Advisory Network that people can sign up to that in a certain jurisdiction. Again, it’s information that we put on there for persons who are reported missing because you never know which one has been fallen prey to some sort of criminal element.”
The goal of Project Faith, which Blackmore hopes to soon have funding for, is to get MMIWG cases down to zero.
She said there has been some positive discussions with the province about funding for positions in Project Faith.
“In this case, we have individuals identified from other provinces who want to work here and work specifically on that project,” she said. “It’s really great to have the resources. We’re not getting money and then having to try to find people. These are people with an interest in working on those files, so it’s a little bit different than other situations.
“I think the province has recognized the importance and the value of having that continual and focused effort on those files.”
Blackmore said she does not like the term cold case as the RCMP is working on the files. She said that even when a missing person cases pile up, the original files are still getting worked on.
“We need that dedicated effort,” she said. “I think what would make the difference in some of these files is that you would continue to follow up on all of those tips, all of those tasks until we’ve exhausted all of those and then try to figure out, OK, what can we do next? What other techniques (and) what technology can we use that can advance this because there’s lots of changes, lots of times. We may have a dead end and then new technology and DNA or something else comes along.”
The goal of Project Faith is to transition from MMIWG to MMIP (people) to having no files to work on.
“Ideally there’s no need for that team,” Blackmore said. “That would be the best day ever, if someone said, ‘look we have no files to work on, so we are going to have to close down the team because there’s no work for them.’ Awesome day. That would be wonderful.”
The RCMP is also working on outreach and recruiting Indigenous officers, which is something that Blackmore said is improving but could still use more focus.
“I think it’s important to have that trust that relatability to some of the cultural significant pieces of that file,” Blackmore said,
Joannis said the RCMP is aware of the mistrust and that the RCMP’s history with Indigenous people is not the best.
“It’s just building those relationships and creating understanding so people can talk to us like first and foremost and get that information to us,” he said.
“It’s again creating that understanding, and the empathy.”
Joannis said the Indigenous Policing Service unit has what’s called indigenous perceptions training. He said they bring in regular RCMP officers and civilian members to
to create the understanding of the Treaties, residential schools and the history of Indigenous people and where we stand now through a partnership with the Office of the Treaty Commissioner.
“It’s just been a really good partnership with them and we’re looking to build on that,” Joannis said. “We’re creating understanding.”
Joannis said that ideally these exercises would help to get rid of implicit bias in officers
“We’re always reviewing our educational courses and it’s fluid, so we’re not getting something on one level, we’ll try to move a few other levels. Again, we’re just working together.”
PAGC Associate Director of Health and Social Penny Constant, one of the organizers of Monday’s event, said bringing in Blackmore was about relationship building.
“It’s important to build that relationship with as many organisations as possible, especially the RCMP, to foster that trust for families that have been affected by murdered and missing,” Constant said.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.c
