Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing MP, Carol Hughes writes a regular column about initiatives and issues impacting our community.
Most of us take for granted that if we have a concern about our safety, that a local police force is a call away to help. There is a very basic reason for this: the vast majority of police services are considered essential services, and are funded accordingly.
There is an expectation that police services are available when needed, and even during contract negotiations, funding for the majority of police services does not cease. This is however not the case with Indigenous-led police forces that are designed to police their own communities, and this puts the safety and security of First Nations at risk.
Recent reports by The Globe and Mail and our own Manitoulin Expositor have revealed some very startling information about contract negotiations, impasses by a stubborn government, and the nature of serious issues surrounding the First Nations and Inuit Policing Program. Three First Nations police services, the UCCM Anishnaabe Police Service, Treaty Three Police Service and the Anishinabek Police Service, have stopped receiving funding as of March 31.
Those three police services have not signed a new police agreement with the Federal government and negotiations have broken down because of their refusal to sign an imposed “take-it-or-leave-it” contract that does not address their concerns. Unlike other police services, basic core funding has not continued, and those forces are using the remainder of their available funds to pay their officers.
This leaves those police forces, and the communities they protect, in a very precarious position. Those three police services cover 45 separate communities and work to keep over 30,000 people safe.
Of deep concern as well, is the fact that the government has yet to provide any alternate plan for police protection for these communities, should the indigenous police services have to close their doors at the end of June due to lack of funding.
The tragic massacre at the James Smith Cree Nation highlighted the importance of local, Indigenous-led policing. The nearest detachment to James Smith Cree Nation was 40 kilometres away. 11 people died, and the manhunt for the perpetrator took four days after he fled the scene.
Following this tragic event, the Public Safety Minister vowed to expedite legislation declaring First Nations and Inuit policing to be an essential service, but so far, nothing has materialized. At the time, he said, “We need to anchor our work in a relationship that is based on trust, on respect and on a recognition of the inherent right of Indigenous Peoples to self-determine when it comes to public faith.” But that trust erodes when the government refuses to negotiate.
No legislation, not even draft legislation, exists, and the government’s heavy-handed approach to funding First Nations police services reeks of the kind of colonialism that upends their commitments to Indigenous self-determination.
The Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario have filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
Indigenous police units are not able to negotiate the terms of their contracts. They cannot have dedicated units, such as a homicide unit or drug task force. They are prohibited from having legal representation to assist them with funding agreements. The Federal government simply forces their agreements onto First Nations police services and asks them to sign on the dotted line. This is clearly the wrong approach.
The Public Safety Minister has proposed temporary funding for the next three months for those three police units so that they may continue operating, but to even allow this situation to escalate speaks to the importance of having an actual agreement in place.
This situation could have been resolved had the government kept its commitment to table legislation that would declare First Nations and Inuit policing to be an essential service and allow those First Nations police services to negotiate for funding for things like dedicated crime units.
Safety and security of First Nations should not be a bargaining chip in negotiations. It’s clear that the policies that allow this sort of situation to arise are in dire need of a rework, one that treats First Nation police services as essential, and in every way equal to their municipal, provincial, and federal counterparts.