Talks between Ottawa and AFN break down over Indigenous policing

Open this photo in gallery:

Talks aimed at creating legislation to ensure better policing within Indigenous communities are breaking down over the federal government’s refusal to recognize that First Nations have the right to determine their community safety needs, the Assembly of First Nations says in court documents.

Last year, the federal government said it was planning to introduce legislation declaring First Nations and Inuit policing to be an essential service by last winter or early this spring. But the AFN, which has been working to co-develop the bill, says this work is at a standstill.

“We’ve been talking about this since this government came to power in 2015. Year after year, saying that Indigenous policing is a priority. And yet here we are a few years later and we’re nowhere near legislation,” AFN Regional Chief Ghislain Picard said in an interview Monday.

Mr. Picard was speaking about a document that his group filed in Federal Court last week regarding the status of the pending policing legislation.

“To date, no draft legislation framework exists, nor has the scope of the legislation been agreed to by the parties,” reads a sworn statement from acting AFN chief executive Amber Potts.

In an affidavit, she says her group has concerns about the federal Public Safety department’s ability to ensure the law gets drafted.

“First Nations possess the right to self-determination with respect to determining their own community-safety needs and the right to exercise their jurisdiction over policing,” Ms. Potts writes.

But, she says, the AFN cannot reach agreements with Public Safety Canada because the federal department lacks a “mandate to recognize First Nations’ rights” and this “has hindered the parties’ ability to come to agreement on the objectives and guiding principles that would define the scope of the legislative framework.”

In 2019, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls called for new federal legislation to “immediately and dramatically transform Indigenous policing.” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau later told two members of his cabinet in their ministerial mandate letters to develop such a bill. In 2020, the Liberal government announced it would try to craft First Nations’ policing legislation together with the AFN, which had been calling for such changes for years.

Last year, the massacre at the James Smith Cree Nation further highlighted how the lack of a local police presence can be dangerous for Indigenous communities. RCMP officers responded to that rampage from a detachment more than 40 kilometres away. By that time, the killer of 11 people had fled the scene and was arrested only after a four-day manhunt. (He died during his capture.)

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino vowed in the aftermath of that tragedy that his officials would “work around the clock” to make the policing bill a reality. His office, however, has recently been vague about the legislation’s timelines.

Government grants for Indigenous policing are currently distributed under Public Safety Canada’s First Nations and Inuit Policing Program (FNIPP). This program, for which both Ottawa and the provinces share the costs, has bypassed many communities. Meantime, many of those that do rely on the FNIPP are alleging discrimination, funding shortages and accountability issues in several legal actions.

The affidavit by the AFN was filed by that group as it seeks to take part in an emergency legal action launched this spring by the Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario.

In a matter slated for Federal Court on Wednesday, the police chiefs will plead for a judge to restore FNIPP funding to jurisdictions now going without it in what the chiefs’ organization has called a “looming public-safety crisis.”

Groups representing more than 45 First Nations in Canada’s most populous province have declared states of emergency in recent weeks because they fear their police officers will soon walk off the job if they go unpaid. Grants for the First Nations’ police forces that patrol these lands were cut off on March 31 when old FNIPP agreements expired and negotiations with Public Safety Canada for new ones broke down.

Mr. Mendicino said Monday he is not happy with the stalemate in negotiations toward renewed funding for the affected First Nations police forces. He said he has directed that the forces continue to be funded for the next three months on an interim basis and to ensure negotiations can get back on track.

“I believe that a number of their concerns in fact have merit, which is I’ve now become directly engaged with the community and I’ve instructed my department to find solutions quickly so that we can resolve any ongoing issues with regards to the flow of monies to the community,” he said.