Deputy Grand Chief Anna Betty Achneepineskum of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation called for the TBPS’s disbandment last year and says the latest report reveals how leadership has failed to take responsibility.Handout
The Thunder Bay Police Service leadership has to be held accountable for failing to implement many of the recommendations since the 1990s that were meant to fix the glaring faults that have plagued the force, says the First Nations leader who last year called for the TBPS’s disbandment.
“Very little work has been done,” said Anna Betty Achneepineskum, deputy grand chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, which represents 49 First Nations in the Thunder Bay area.
Ms. Achneepineskum was responding to the release Thursday of yet another report examining the TBPS. The report found that the force was making only glacial progress toward addressing systemic racism and other problems. It was penned by an expert panel of governance and policing experts, including Alok Mukherjee, a former chair of the Toronto Police Service.
“This report shows how this service’s leadership continues to refuse to accept responsibility for its failures and shows no signs of changing,” she said.
“Without leadership accepting responsibility, it is impossible to expect that serious issues such as systemic racism can even begin to be addressed.”
The report, which noted the hundreds of recommendations that have gone unheeded from past reviews, called on the Thunder Bay police and its civilian board to work toward creating a regional policing model, including joint training and firing-range facilities and sharing of personnel. Cases of Indigenous sudden deaths and missing persons should be investigated by blended teams led by TBPS but including Indigenous officers.
Mr. Mukherjee said both the federal and provincial governments should support Thunder Bay and its policing partners to create a regional policing model.
“Thunder Bay policing needs more resources,” he said. “We have advocated in the report for other orders of government to come to the table and support the possibility of real change in policing in Thunder Bay.”
The provincial government did not directly answer a question Friday about whether it would help fund a regional model approach. “The Ministry of the Solicitor-General is currently reviewing the report and will carefully assess the recommendations,” a spokesperson for the ministry said.
But Ms. Achneepineskum said funding isn’t the only problem.
“Inadequate investigations, mishandling of cases, and failure to address urgent issues are not a result of being underfunded, they are a result of failure of leadership,” she said.
The Thunder Bay Police Services problems were laid bare in 2018 with a report that centred on nine problematic police investigations into the sudden deaths of Indigenous people. Since then, these cases have been reinvestigated and subsequent reports have identified dozens more Indigenous death investigations that were incomplete and require review.
Last year, Ms. Achneepineskum called for the force to be dismantled amid a flurry of human-rights complaints, and investigations of senior members of the force.
The province appointed an administrator to oversee the board last April, and that term was recently extended to supervise the transition to a new police chief and new board.
Malcolm Mercer, administrator for the Thunder Bay Police Services Board, said it has received the expert panel’s final report and will review it.
“We will now closely review the report, carefully consider its recommendations, and map out a deliberate path forward for both the board and service to better provide policing to the communities that we serve.”
Métis Mountie Darcy Fleury from Manitoba starts his new job as Thunder Bay’s police chief on Monday. He was unavailable for comment Friday.
With a report from The Canadian Press
Willow Fiddler