First Nations, and human rights and public advocacy groups have decried the treatment of Indigenous people by police for years.
First Nations have called for a national inquiry into ‘systemic’ racism in policing after a mounting death toll in interactions with police in the past decade, including high-profile cases in B.C.
The Assembly of First Nations passed a resolution Tuesday at its special chiefs assembly in Ottawa calling for the national inquiry and held a news conference to answer questions on Wednesday.
Speaking at the news conference, Terry Teegee, the regional chief of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, pointed to the deaths in the province of Jared Lowndes in 2021 and Dale Culver in 2017 after interactions with Mounties, and the death of Everett Patrick in 2020 in his cell in RCMP custody.
Teegee noted that Patrick was a relative of his.
There have been a spate of Indigenous deaths in interactions with police this year across Canada, including six in a two-week span in August and September, in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick.
“The list goes on and on. And it must stop,” said Teegee. “It’s really important that this is highlighted at the highest level. There needs to be systemic change in policing. Not only for First Nations Peoples, but the system itself needs to change.”
The AFN resolution maintained that despite 20 individual inquiries and commissions into the police and justice system since 1989, the federal government has failed to make substantive changes to address systemic racism within the RCMP and other agencies.
The resolution also called for the demilitarization of police forces and the establishment of a national intervention team across Canada that can support people in crisis.
In an interview, Teegee said the inquiry needs to examine how to rebuild a ‘broken’ policing system where too many interactions with police end in violence. It also needs to examine how more First Nations can police themselves and how to incorporate different approaches that include the use of mental-health specialists, for example, on calls such as wellness checks.
Teegee noted that Indigenous Peoples have a long history of poor relationships with police, including with the RCMP, a force that helped take children away to residential schools.
He noted that, in his language, the word for police is “those who take us away.”
Lowndes, 38, from the Wet’suwe’ten First Nation in northwest B.C., was killed in an RCMP shooting that took place at a Tim Hortons in Campbell River on July 8, 2021.
Culver, of the Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan Nations, died in police custody after being arrested by Mounties in Prince George on July 18, 2017.
Patrick, from the Lake Babine Nation, was arrested after a break-and-enter at a sporting good store in April 2020 in Prince George. He was medically cleared at a hospital, before being brought to jail cells in Prince George where he was later found in medical distress.
The B.C. Prosecution Service didn’t file charges in the Lowndes and Patrick cases, and has stayed almost all charges in the Culver case.
In all three cases, B.C.’s Independent Investigation Office, which probes deaths resulting from use of force by police, had found that there were grounds to believe an officer may have committed an offence and sent reports to the prosecution service asking for charges.
AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said she wants all federal political parties to support the inquiry. She said she has had discussions on the need for policing reform with both the federal Liberals and the Conservatives, including with Leader Pierre Poilievre, whose party is expected to win next year’s federal election.
In a statement, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc’s office said the RCMP is co-operating with independent police oversight bodies that are looking into the deaths.
“We recognize that recent officer-involved fatal incidents in Indigenous communities have been incredibly difficult for community members, and most of all the loved ones of the deceased. Our thoughts are with them,” the statement said.
In B.C., First Nations and human rights and public advocacy groups — including the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and Pivot Legal — have decried the treatment of Indigenous people by police for years, including interactions with cops that resulted in death.
In 2023, B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth announced the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team will investigate allegations that some Prince George RCMP officers sexually abused Indigenous women from 1992 to 2004.
In 2022, an all-party committee of the B.C. legislature recommended sweeping changes aimed at creating a community-based policing model — including more Indigenous-led policing — to restore trust among marginalized and racialized communities that say they face police brutality, racial profiling and over-policing.
Among its 11 recommendations was a call to dump the RCMP in favour of a provincial police force.