Good morning.

Thank you for the opportunity to attend this morning's hearing, and thank you for taking a run at pronouncing the name of our organization in Anishinabe. It means “we all take care of them”.

Today I would like to speak to you about the inclusion of the red dress alert and the financing provided to Search the Landfill. My remarks will be brief.

We appreciate the inclusion of up to $1.3 million over a period of three years for the creation of a pilot project on the red dress alert for missing indigenous women and girls and gender-diverse relatives.

We acknowledge that in May 2023, Parliament unanimously recognized that there is a Canada-wide emergency as a result of the disproportionate number of missing and murdered indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA relatives in Canada. For those of us directly involved, this acknowledgement represented recognition of the ongoing gendered and race-based genocide occurring in our country. This decision gave us hope for real and substantive change.

Throughout the winter of 2023, while most Canadians were preparing for Christmas, we as a committee and as a community were involved in providing our input into the consultations around what a red dress alert system should look like.

In February 2024, the federal-provincial-territorial indigenous organizations table reviewed the findings of these consultations. We are pleased that these findings have been incorporated into the 2024 budget.

We remain concerned that this allocation addresses only engagement, not the full implementation of the red dress alert, or whatever it will ultimately be called. The safety and well-being of our vulnerable and targeted populations continue to be at risk. Families, survivors and all those involved in these matters need decisive action. We remain hopeful that this allocation will pave the way for meaningful progress and meaningful implementation of a red dress alert.

Further, we are grateful for the support provided by Canada and Manitoba to the families that have been impacted by the murder of their loved ones—Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe Iban, Morgan Harris, Rebecca Contois and Marcedes Myran—and are currently involved in the court case. The contributions of governments have made a difference in providing support to their families to attend court and to receive the necessary support as they see fit.

We remain concerned, based on the evidence that has come out in court, that this is not simply a recovery operation but that this landfill remains a crime scene. We want to see this investigation or recovery led by those responsible for criminal justice.

We continue to call for United Nations oversight of this operation and investigative process, given Canada's commitment to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The difference in searching for loved ones between the municipalities of Winnipeg and Saskatoon—Saskatoon began its search in May for one individual—further affirms that there must be additional investigation on how this decision-making process was made by the Winnipeg Police Service. At this point, it is not believed that the Winnipeg Police Service can be left alone to do this important work. Again, we call on oversight by the United Nations on this case.

Thank you.