Chiefs are concerned that the incoming Community Safety and Policing Act doesn’t include First Nations bylaws as part of ‘adequate and effective policing’
First Nations chiefs are threatening to take the province to court over concerns that incoming policing laws won’t mandate enforcement of their communities’ laws — something they say is “discriminatory” and could jeopardize people’s safety.
The concern is over the Community Safety and Policing Act (CSPA), the Ford government’s law that is set to be implemented on April 1. The legislation would replace the Police Services Act and includes a series of changes to standards and oversight of policing such as allowing officers to be suspended without pay in some instances.
At issue is one section of the act that says “adequate and effective policing does not include, (a) the enforcement of municipal or First Nation bylaws, other than prescribed bylaws.” The act defines “prescribed” as “prescribed by the regulations.”
Darren Montour, president of Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario, said this is a concern in many First Nations communities, especially in the north.
“Without that enforcement of those laws specific to those territories and the bylaws, that drops down the effective policing for those communities because some of them really rely on the enforcement of bylaws to keep unwanted people out, to keep out people smuggling liquor into dry communities in the north or drugs or preventing waste from coming in,” said Montour, who is also chief of police with the Six Nations Police Service.
He added that communities that don’t want alcohol in them due to addiction rates, for example, pass bylaws that could allow for individuals trying to bring alcohol in to be charged and removed from the community.
“With more and more drugs and alcohol coming in, that’s the last thing that anybody wants, is to jeopardize especially the youth,” he said.
Montour said there are nine First Nations police services across the province that enforce the bylaws in their communities. The communities that don’t have their own law enforcement service are policed by the Ontario Provincial Police.
“So with this section in there, that it’s not mandatory for the OPP to enforce these bylaws, that’s the concern that many communities have,” he said. “That’s going to jeopardize the community safety of people.”
He added, “basically it’s our laws don’t matter, that’s the position that they’re taking.”
Rodney Nahwegahbow, chief of Whitefish River First Nation who retired as chief of police with the UCCM Anishnaabe Police Service in 2019, said chiefs are willing to “take whatever action is necessary in order to address change.”
Kent Elson, a lawyer with Elson Advocacy who is working with the Chiefs of Ontario, said the group will take legal action against the provincial and federal governments “as mandated by consensus by the Ontario Chiefs in Assembly, regarding the discriminatory lack of enforcement and prosecution of First Nations laws, including the exclusion of First Nations bylaw enforcement from the mandatory police functions under the CSPA, if the Ontario Government does not pass regulations before Ontario’s new policing legislation comes into force, stating that the enforcement of First Nations laws and bylaws is a mandatory police function.”
If a challenge goes ahead, it would be filed under section 15 of the charter, which relates to equality rights and includes the right to be equal “before and under the law” and “to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination.”
“First Nations people do not have equitable access to justice or the rule of law, which has real impacts on real people,” Elson wrote in a statement. “These inequitable gaps exist in areas where First Nations laws are needed because provincial laws do not apply, are inappropriate, or do not sufficiently reflect the needs and realities in First Nations communities.”
Nahwegahbow said he thinks there should be something in the legislation that “denote(s) that officers in Ontario would be able to enforce” First Nations laws. This would include officers with First Nations police services being “empowered” to do this as well.
“The issue that I have is that it erodes the relationship between the First Nation police and the community that they serve,” he said. “If it’s going to be written out … the fact that we can enforce bylaws, then it’s only going to prolong and exacerbate the problem that we’ve been experiencing historically on our reserves, and that’s a lot of lateral violence, the influx of drugs, a propensity to addictions.”
In a press release from the Chiefs of Ontario, James Killeen, chief of police for the United Chiefs and Councils of Manitoulin Anishnaabe Police on Manitoulin Island, said “criminals tell us that they are coming to our communities because they know that there is nothing we can do to stop them. They are violently shaking people down for money and Ontario is taking away our ability as police to remove them.”
The government offered no explanation of why First Nations bylaws aren’t included in the section on “adequate and effective policing,” but pushed back on the concerns by saying First Nations bylaws can still be enforced.
“The Community Safety & Policing Act consistently applies across Ontario, including in First Nations’ communities, with respect to enforcement of municipal and First Nations bylaws,” Hunter Kell, spokesperson for Solicitor General Michael Kerzner, wrote in an email. “Under both the Police Services Act and Community Safety & Policing Act, police can enforce municipal and First Nations bylaws.”
Chief Montour said chiefs have consulted with the minister, who has been “a very good proponent for First Nations policing,” and that he hopes changes will be made to the legislation by April 1.
Source link