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First Nation police services remain underfunded

Author

By Shari Narine Windspeaker Contributor OTTAWA

Volume

31

Issue

1

Year

2013

A commitment for the next five years for funding police services on First Nations is an important step in acknowledging First Nations police services as essential, but that funding doesn’t address the entire picture.

“Ongoing negotiations need to continue because although there’s a five-year commitment, there are still funding shortfalls,” said Assembly of First Nations Justice Portfolio holder Alberta Regional Chief Cameron Alexis.

In early March, federal Public Security Minister Vic Toews announced that funding for policing agreements with First Nation and Inuit communities would be renewed under the First Nations Policing Program, but did not specify the funding amount.
Presently, the federal government spends about $122 million, which covers 163 policing arrangements that encompass 1,250 trained police officers in about 400 communities serving about 338,000 people.

Alexis gives credit to AFN National Chief Shawn Atleo and Quebec/Labrador Regional Chief Ghislain Picard for pushing the issue of funding.

“Throughout the years, First Nations and their police services of choice have been operating almost year-to-year on their funding. First Nations police services across this country are essential services and that’s the key word, ‘essential’ services, and because they’ve been funded year-to-year, to a degree, they haven’t been recognized as essential services,” said Alexis.

Those First Nations that do operate their own police services will have to negotiate tri-partite agreements with the provinces and the federal government. The federal government covers 51 per cent of the cost while the province picks up the remainder.
Alexis said he is not aware how negotiations are going with any of the provinces.

Picard is calling for an immediate signing of a single-year agreement with the First Nations in Quebec, the province and the federal government. He is concerned that delays will put at risk 18 tripartite agreements governing the police services in 26 Quebec communities.

“What the AFNQL chiefs are demanding is clear and simple: We want to see, first of all, the immediate signing of tripartite First Nations-Canada-Quebec agreements for a one-year period. Then, over this one-year period, the AFNQL Chiefs will conduct a review of their police services and the conditions governing these services, and we expect the federal and provincial ministers to participate in this review,” said Picard in a news release.

Also of concern is the correctional system. In February, the Board of the Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service and the Chiefs of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation wrote a letter to the Office of the Chief Coroner in Ontario to “put (him) on formal notice … that safety of 35 of NAN’s communities currently policed by NAPS is in severe jeopardy.”

The letter followed the Feb. 1 death of Lena Anderson, 23, who had been taken into custody by the NAPS Kasabonika Lake Detachment. She was held in a police cruiser because of the lack of heating in the detachment. She allegedly committed suicide in the cruiser.

The letter also noted that the May 2009 Kashechewan Inquest designated seven communities to receive modular units for detachments. Only one unit had been installed. This does not take into account the 19 detachments which are unsafe because they do not have sprinkler systems.

Alexis said the police funding announced by the federal government does not target correctional facilities, which falls under a different category and “is vastly underfunded.” To date, the AFN has not been approached by any First Nations group in a “cohesive fashion” to push for funding for correctional facilities and programs.

AFN was approached by the First Nations Chiefs of Police Association for support on the police funding issue.

 “Unfortunately the funding does not equate to an all-inclusive cohesive funding to meet all these issues,” said Alexis.