 This is who we're here for. You can see this is Kyla and baby Tanner. We're gonna open with a prayer Our elder Leon over here will open us with a prayer. So if you can all just rise for a moment Thank you very much elder Leon to choose this for your your words this morning I'm just to give you a quick background every most of you have already received our press release So you know a little bit of what had taken place February 11th the Prince Albert police service issued a press Release of themselves stating that there was an incident at home They attended arrested one individual and returned back a few hours later to a deceased child that litigation and that Circumstances I guess rather than litigation is continuing. So again, there are certain things that we can and cannot say But with that Through our own investigation. We found that that wasn't the situation There's more to that situation and that's why we're here today to make sure that something like this never happens again Right now baby Tanner is laying in the community on the traditional territories of Thunder child's where his final home is Elaborate a little more on the evening of the night in question police arrived to a domestic disturbance call and The mother here Kyla was the one that was taken into custody although she was Obviously upset at the time she'd informed officers that her child was home And in danger and nothing was done about that. That's more of a clear picture of why we're here today With Thunder child chief James snakeskin So we thank you chief for coming to say a few words Thank you Tomaya Mr The last one mom or time on what a most on where I'm super to mom That's it. Yes. I was going to tell me what they need and I'm gonna make sure I'm a part of my Elam and I'm just a man. I'm a musketeer kind of better manner of us Because he said I'm so not she did you say he gave each other an order on you here or okay Oh, it's nice to go. I'll go. I'll go. Yeah, I can't you can give it to them and I can't do that. Yeah, you can They get into it. I'll be 90 meter. I'll ask So yeah, it's always a not-so-mere thing when I, yeah, why we might not be taught it's going to be a seat of strategy, they will use what they will use how I'm going to be taught it, yeah, umse usse mio, yeah, who thought that I'd be taught it's going. First of all, I'd like to thank the creator for bringing us together here to, discuss what happened and going forward to how we can prevent that tragedy, tragedy like this happening again. I'd like to thank the elder for the open prayer. When we heard about the passing of the young person here, we, as a community, we got together and we tried to support the family as much as we can. We had our CFS people involved, what you call the communication also and my counselors being involved. It was always, it's always a community effort. Unfortunately, that's about the only time we get together and talk about issues that affect our everyday lives is when there's a tragedy that happens. It's not only isolated in one or zero, but when something like this happens, it affects all of us because I keep saying that we're all interrelated. I don't know if this is the right place to say this, but you're always here at Canada, giving foreign aid to people in different countries. I think they should look in their own backyard and give that aid to us. There's a lot of mental issues happening out there with COVID. I think they should be funding those kind of things so we don't have what you call unfortunate deaths like what happened to the baby tanner. I thank everybody for attending. It shows that we, as an Indigenous group, native of our First Nations, we are strong when we come together, but with that, I can ask them to highlight. We'll have Chief FSA and Chief Bobby Cameron to come say a few words. Thank you, Larissa, and thank our no-goom-no for the perilous morning. Akayla, and your family. I'll grant you a word, Lord, and your executive, and our executive, which we're on the media that's here, and a lot of emotions running through many of us have hurt and anger to name a few. We just can't understand why those officers who fielded the calls, who answered the calls from 9-1-1, when Kyla put the call in, it was clear she said, my baby, they get to the residents and detainer. Again, she said, my baby. In the cop car, she said, my baby, and in the cells, she said, my baby. And the staff sergeant, I don't know his name, at the time said, Kyla is sober, but the officer still under the assumption, he took her in under the assumption she was intoxicated. And some of the excuses we heard, we don't have the training. Well, resign if you don't have the training. Get the hell out of there. John Bergen and Greg Dion do something. Terminate these guys without pay. They are just as much to blame for this young boy dying as the father. We demand you to terminate them. And we demand Christine Tell to step up and do something too. The speakers before me talked of racism. This evening, some of the non-first nation people will hit social media and put us down. There they go again, racism. I'll tell you this. If that was a white baby, this would never happen. Never. If Kyla was a white woman, this would never happen. Them officers would have taken the utmost care and attention if Kyla was a white woman. And if that baby was a white baby in that house, but were first nations. And again, being subjected to horrendous, disrespectful, ignorant behaviors from these types of officers. So we're angry and we expect and demand justice. We demand immediate change. We demand immediate results. Greg Dion, I'm going to call and text you until you make changes. John Bergen, I don't have your cell number, but you can make the changes too. If not, then you should resign. If you don't want to do something right for the people of Prince Albert, which are first nations, then get the hell out of there. You're just as much to blame as those officers. If the mother decides to seek legal action, we're going to support her. All it would have took for those officers was to make a 30-second walk into the house. And clearly, they would have saw an intoxicated man with a baby in the house. This little guy would still be alive. A 30-second walk. That's all it would have taken for the officers to save this little guy. Man, oh, man, how many times are we going to continue to face this kind of ignorance and disrespectful method from the police services, whether it's PA, Regina, or any RCMP detachment out in Canada. PA, GC, and many others have continued to push for our own, our own First Nation tribal police. This is clear, a clear example of how our own First Nation police force would have the compassion and the respect and the dignity to take the extra time to walk into that house. This poor little young mother here. My goodness, we demand a media change and we demand it today. We expect those individuals to make a statement by day's end and terminate those officers. Because if the mother decides there's going to be legal action, then they have no other alternative but to respond. This is clear discrimination. There's no excuses to say we didn't have the training. That's a lame, weak excuse. We didn't have the training. What training do you need to walk towards the house and make sure that baby is safe in the house? That's a training with a father, a mother, a grandmother, a grandfather. That's the kind of training. It's gut instincts, common sense. So media, you have a story to tell. And we hope you tell the right story. We hope you say the message that was spoken here this morning on behalf of our FSIN and our executive and everyone that's here today, our 74 First Nations under Child Chiefing Council. This lady deserves all the respect and all the justice that any mother would expect. That was it. Bye, bye. Thank you. And acknowledge all of our of the media that are here. Of course, our our elder and thank you for that opening pair. Knowledge folks around the front table as well. And my name is Dutch Lara. I'm the second Vice Chief of the FSIN. My portfolio is justice as Larissa has said. My statement today. I want to acknowledge who's here with us. This tragedy deserves national attention. It has been far too long that our people have suffered the experience of racism at the hands of the justice system. One of our young First Nations woman at a time of need where she feared for the safety of her child and herself received another dose of reality from the officers of the Prince Albert police service. At the time during this incident, they labeled Kyla as being drunk despite being sober. Prince Albert police service ignored the importance of her plea for help and her motherly concern for her baby. And they did not check safety check on baby Tanner as a follow up. They locked this young lady up. They lied and said she was drunk when she was not. This is criminal negligence that would be disgusting in any country. The police locked this woman up as I said and did not care about the safety of the baby, the First Nations baby. The sergeant who was responsible for the cell block allowed this woman to be unlawfully confined against her will and again ignored Kyla's plea for her baby safety. To us, the police assisted in baby Tanner's murder and the chief of police made a loud and clear statement as he kept these officers at work. To this date, they are still on patrol. This is shocking and vile incompetence at all levels. Echoing Grand Chief Hardlock's comments, Provincial Minister of Corrections and Public Safety Minister Tell, you have the authority to step in and address these injustices. Your ministry accredits Prince Albert police service and you have the responsibility to ensure ethical professionalism and public confidence. We called upon you after the third in custody death of a First Nation man at the Prince Albert police service last fall and you responded then that it was business as usual. We will not rest in our fight for justice as our people in Prince Albert are at risk. In December of 2018, an incident happened or many incidents happened in a city in western Ontario. Two Ontario government bodies published reports that affirm that Indigenous residents of Thunder Bay had long known that both the city's police force and the board of commissioners that oversees them were so encumbered by their own systematic racism that they had been failing to carry out even basic responsibilities. The intervention by the provincial government in Ontario is what we refer to as reconciliation. Minister Tell, we ask you again, meet with us, make this a priority and recognize our concerns of our nations. Thank you. So this ladies and gentlemen is Kyla Frenchman. This is her sister Jocelyn. This is the mother of baby Tanner. Jocelyn, you want to talk about baby Tanner a little bit? It's obviously understandable very hard. She's keeping her for all of us. She's okay. It's okay. You don't have to say anything. Don't worry. Okay. It's okay. As you guys can understand, it's a very hard emotional time for all of us. We've provided a quote in the press release from the family from Kyla. He was a very sweet boy. He was always smiling. He was always happy. He didn't have a chance. And it's time now that we bring justice for him and we're not going to stop fighting for baby Tanner until there is justice for baby Tanner like Chief Cameron said. So with that, we thank you all again. Please do respect the privacy of this family at this very emotional time and direct any media questions and calls to us. Grand Chief from the Prince Albert Grand Council, Brian Hardlot. Did you get Larissa? Thank you Larissa. Thank you for the opening bird. And the Chiefs up there, Chief. A true body. A true father-child. A young lady here. A young woman. And of course, a Vice Chief Dutch. And Vice Chief drove from my office. Then asked him when I'm here. I'm grateful that I'm here. I'm here to really make the change. But first, I thank you for the opportunity here this afternoon to say what I have to say and really with a heavy heart. In honor of this child, baby Tanner, and of course, the mother child. This news conference here today this afternoon is about the child. And it's really about the mother here today. I think I don't think it I know as leaders, as leaders, whether it's provincial municipalities, as first nations, as tribal councils, and as first nations. And all organizations, the police services, in this case the Prince Albert Police Service, and the organizations within within the Prince Albert Police Service. All the support systems that are there. Yeah, the mobile crisis that's there. A victim services. We all have a responsibility. We all have that responsibility. The provincial government, they have a great responsibility when this happened. And I feel that today in my heart, our most precious valuable resource, the child. A child. We are not, we are being proactive there. We are not reacting. And I say that our most valuable resource, precious. When we speak, we say that we will work hard. I will work hard. I believe we have, as a Prince Albert Rand council with my colleague, Vice Chief Joe, the 12 Chiefs of the Prince Albert Rand Council and all their council members. We will work hard and make sure that this doesn't happen again to our first nation's people, to any other first nation's mother. Very, very, very troubled on how this this situation was handled when all the support systems are there. All the government support systems that are there. All the first nation's support systems that we have, that they did not follow policy, their policy. And again, I'll say this is about responsibility. I call on the provincial government to step up, talk to us, the municipal government of Prince Albert to call on us to better things for our first nation's people in our urban centers, our vulnerable people, our young mothers to be protected. I just come this morning from a conference in Prince Albert, a, posted by the RCMP and the, the North SAS victim services. And victim service services is part of the PAPS, Prince Albert Police Service. So that's one. But as caring people, we're also supported in our Prince Albert Rand council. We have an urban services, a unit, a, the mighty nation, they have a support service. Yeah. You know, but they, when they, people that are supposed to activate those services and they don't, that's where the problem is. And either they don't, they're not trained that way or they're not experienced officers. I don't know, but we demand answers. Why that wasn't done. Kina nasko mit na, kina nasko mit na. I thank you. I thank you to the media. I know you'll put this story out there and it's about making change into the future. N'a nasko mit na, kina nasko mit na. Mercy Joe Bedavio. Hey, hey. What do we want to see? We want to see justice firstly for this family. Secondly, we want to see an overhaul and a review of how the police in Prince Albert conduct their business. We want to see a review of the personnel involved with and their, and how they do their internal governance. We want to acknowledge as well that there's many good policemen in the Prince Albert Police Service, but there's a certain few that control that agenda and it's time for some of those, those officers that have been there obviously too long to retire and to let a different focus, a different frame of mind, community policing, getting back to community policing as opposed to, and prevention as opposed to arresting and detention. That's what we'd like to see. Speaking as the Vice Chief of the Prince Albert Grant Council, Vice Chief Joe. First and foremost, I'd like to acknowledge our creator for giving us this opportunity to set the light of injustices of our people. And thanks for the opening prayer there, and thanks for that. You know, I'm here to support Tanner and Kaila. You know, I just want to say a few words by saying the injustices of our people. You know, they depend on us to do the work for them. And it's so important, you know, the media that's here today to share that story, to share our emotions, the pain that our people are going through, like leaders of the day, especially now, you know, as you can see, the Boosie trial, there was no justice for our people there. The justice system needs to not only favor anybody, but to favor everybody. At the end of the day, we're going to keep on seeing this, that little boy didn't even get to see the future that holds for him, because there was nothing. You know, I'm excited about that. I'd always want to say, you know, when my colleagues says, are the young generation are the most important resource, they are because they are the next generation of leaders. And we have to keep on putting the good fight of our people. And I'm not excited to say this, and I don't know what there's so much racism that we fight amongst our other, you know, I just want to say that racism is live and well in here. And, you know, we always say this, we always, all of us breathe the same air, we walk the same ground, we look at the same sky, we drink the same water, majority. When I say that, you know, we're only skin deep, different. The only thing that's different is, you know, the way our people, the genocide of our people, of this Canada, of this Turtle Island. We have a long way to go, but we keep on have to have advocating for the people that can't speak for themselves. Today, kind of, you know, we need, she needs our prayers. It's not only Kyla. Imagine how many people are out there going through the same situation. Just imagine, this is just one story, but that's one story too many. That little boy will never see life, just like your own children, your own grandchildren, as much as you love them. That's how much that little boy was being loved. We always point fingers, always point fingers at the females or the males of that family, but the system is broken, not only the justice system. You know what's broken? This is what's broken in our people, the people that are so racist towards our people. Yet they live the luxuries of Canada, they live the luxuries of the resources that come of our Turtle Island. I say that we only accept it to share the land because the Creator only gave us this land. He never gave it to us. He gave it to us for to share with others. I just want to say that thank you and Tanner will not be forgotten. This journey, we're going to walk with Kyla and also the Boussi family that never got justice. No more. The leaders of the day, like I say, the ministers that are involved with the government's provincial and also the federal, they need to open their hearts, man, open their hearts that can easily be happening to your children and grandchildren. Leave a legacy, leave a legacy for our people, leave a legacy for your family that you were known, that you tried to do your best for your people of Turtle Island. You will say, God bless you all, God bless you all, God bless you all.