“Systemic discrimination” strikes Indigenous police officers, rules the Human Rights Tribunal. First Nations police officers carry out their mission with “insufficient” funding, but above all unequal compared to other police forces, it is determined, which is not without threatening the safety of citizens.
Salaries, benefits and other material resources vary by a factor of two between Indigenous police officers and those of the Sûreté du Québec, says Pierre Simard, director general of the Association of First Nations and Inuit Police Directors of Quebec (ADPPNIQ) , in a press conference organized following the delivery of the judgment.
The complaint was filed in 2016 by Pekuakamiulnuatsh First Nation Chief Gilbert Dominique about the Mashteuiatsh Police Department. Worried about having to downright “put the key in the door of [leur] service”, Chief Dominique called for a review of the way in which security in Aboriginal communities is funded through the First Nations Policing Program. The Human Rights Tribunal, by the signature of Gabriel Gaudreault, agrees with him in a judgment made public Thursday.
No Aboriginal police force has the “computer terminals” necessary to obtain information during an intervention, notes Mr. Simard. Tools as simple as breathalyzers sometimes turn out to be defective, points out the judgment of the Human Rights Tribunal.
However, community police officers have “the same powers, the same responsibilities, the same mission”, recalls Gilbert Dominique.
Buildings are also decrepit as a result of successive budget deficits. The security issues are such that during a visit by a government representative to one of Quebec’s Aboriginal communities a few years ago, this elected official was unable to visit the local police headquarters, on the orders from his security guards. “Do not enter, it’s dangerous,” he said, recalls Ghislain Picard, Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador during the press briefing.
“It would be scandalous in this country, yet it seems that it is acceptable for our people”, asserts Ghislain Picard.
“There is discrimination here,” he says, as police officers leave indigenous villages shortly after entering the service to join the ranks of non-native police. “The communities cannot compete with the offers of other police services”, sums up Ghislain Picard.
Repairs
The federal government and the province or territory provide 52% and 48% respectively of the government contribution offered to First Nations policing.
Although Public Safety Canada is directly affected by the court ruling, First Nations representatives hope that the two levels of government will change their funding methods.
Since band councils and governments negotiate police budgets every two, three or four years, their stability is never guaranteed, argues Chief Dominique. For example, Mashteuiatsh signed an agreement for 5 years, from 2018 to 2023, one of the longest to date.
The Court must convene the parties “later” in order to focus on “the question of reparations”. The Innu leaders hope to be able to resolve this issue by the end of the year.
The historical background must not be ignored in these negotiations, the Court also indicates. The “overrepresentation in the penal system, the high crime rate, poverty as well as the lack of housing and overcrowding” among First Nations weigh heavily on the discrimination experienced by the first inhabitants of Canada, he underlines.