James Smith Cree Nation Chief Wally Burns, the leader of the First Nation where the Saskatchewan stabbing massacre took place, has called for new law-enforcement arrangements across Canada.Liam Richards/The Canadian Press
Six weeks after a knife-wielding man killed 11 people and injured 18 others at a Saskatchewan First Nation, Indigenous leaders in the province say they are taking their first steps toward creating a plan to place more police officers on reserves.
“We need our own policing. We need our own training,” Chief Wally Burns told a conference in Prince Albert on Monday. Mr. Burns, the leader of the First Nation where the massacre took place, called for new law-enforcement arrangements across Canada. “I don’t want to see this happening to another community. It hurts. It hurts so much.”
The chief and other leaders of Saskatchewan First Nations were meeting with federal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino and his provincial counterpart, Christine Tell. Together, they signed a letter of intent they hope will eventually create a government-funded Indigenous-led police force that spans several Saskatchewan communities.
Monday’s initiative would create a working group involving the two governments and the Saskatchewan First Nations. Together, they have agreed to work toward implementing a community safely plan that the First Nations will develop in consultation with their communities.
On Sept. 4, Myles Sanderson stabbed nearly 30 people in an overnight rampage, killing 10 at the James Smith Cree Nation and a 78-year-old man in the nearby village of Weldon. The reserve was being policed by a rural RCMP detachment 45 kilometres away. The Mounties took four days to track down the killer, who died after his arrest.
The tragedy brought a recognition that many First Nations, particularly on the Prairies, have to rely on Mounties who are trying to cover reserves as they also patrol rural villages, small towns and highways. “We have many RCMP detachments in those communities, but we have communities that don’t have detachments. That’s an immediate concern,” said Grand Chief Brian Hardlotte.
Inquests to be held into Saskatchewan stabbings, Myles Sanderson’s death in police custody
Mr. Hardlotte leads the Prince Albert Grand Council, the group that was meeting on Monday. It represents 12 band governments in Saskatchewan, including the James Smith Cree Nation.
Some parts of Canada have large, self-administered Indigenous police forces. For example, Northern Ontario’s Nishnawbe Aski Police patrols 34 First Nation communities. Saskatchewan has only the police force at the File Hills First Nation.
The federal Liberal government has promised legislation that could reboot a 30-year-old initiative known as Canada’s First Nations and Inuit Policing Program. The program stopped expanding to new communities years ago, and the hope is that the new approach may help such arrangements get traction again.
Mr. Mendicino told the Prince Albert Grand Council during Monday’s meeting that he had just had a “very heavy and difficult meeting with the families of the victims” at James Smith Cree Nation. The crisis there highlights the need for new legislation, he said, but he did not commit to timelines. “I would like to table the legislation that recognizes Indigenous policing as an essential service as quickly as possible.”
Indigenous leaders at the Prince Albert grand council meeting said they have been discussing starting up a standalone police service since 2018, but that essential services designation is a crucial step given that it would help free up funding.
Years earlier, the James Smith Cree Nation was part of a discussion involving three Saskatchewan First Nations to install RCMP detachments on those reserves.
Public Safety Canada spokesperson Magali Deussing said in an e-mail to The Globe that the three bands passed a resolution in 2005.
It is unclear what happened to that initiative.
The Indigenous policing program was created in the 1990s as a 50-50 federal-provincial cost-sharing arrangement to encourage more policing on reserves. More than 60 self-administered Indigenous police forces launched, but within a few years, about a third failed.
During the 2000s, federal and provincial governments stopped rolling out the program to new communities, and the budget went entirely to the incumbent police forces. “The most politically savvy and politically sophisticated got really good funding and some of those other agencies missed the boat,” says University of Regina criminologist Rick Ruddell.
Public Safety Canada says the country has a total of 697 First Nations and Inuit communities, and 426 of them receive their police services through the federal program. A review posted online by the department earlier this year says the “budget and existing authorities did not support program expansion and one-third of eligible communities do not have access to FNIPP-funded policing service.”