First Nations call on feds, Ontario to hash out deal as police strike looms

“We cannot keep going the way that we have been operating,” Fiddler said. “It is just not sustainable and it is posing a danger to our communities as well as the safety of our officers.”

The strike vote speaks to the depth of the “deplorable” work conditions for officers, Fiddler added, including the lack of policing standards.

“I don’t blame them for the action.”

Officers are rolling the dice when they go out in the field with a lack of resources such as a lack of backup, says New Democrat MP Charlie Angus.

“We’ve had people die,” the MP for the massive Timmins-James Bay riding said in an interview. “We’ve had inquests because of the systemic underfunding that these officers are facing and nobody has really given a damn.”

Additional lives will be lost if urgent action is not taken, Angus said, and it is not just the safety of officers that’s at stake.

“When you have an officer that works 24 hours and has to finally sleep, there’s no protection in the community,” he said.

“When he goes into a domestic dispute knowing there’s a gun and alcohol in there and he’s got no backup in that community, no other police officer would ever be put in that situation.”

Policing is expected to be a central theme in the upcoming inquiry into murdered and missing indigenous women across the country.

It is has been a long-standing fight in northern Ontario, an area the size of Italy and France combined.

In 2007, seven First Nations lodged a human rights complaint against the federal government over equality in policing.

The complaint suggests disparity in services between aboriginal and non-aboriginal community stems from flaws in the federal government’s First Nations Policing Program and funding regime.

Resource struggles also impact the mental health of officers, said Sgt. Jason Storkson, a local union president with the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

“We have a very high rate of people who go off on short-term and long-term disability based on post-traumatic stress,” Storkson told The Canadian Press.

“You sit and talk to officers and they break down and cry, not being able to cope …. Believe me, when you have police integrity, willingness to work, duty to community, that’s in the forefront of everyone’s mind.”

Officers are called to address the suicide crisis in communities, he added.

“You’re dealing with very traumatic situations,” Storkson said. “At the end of the day, you’re looking at a blank wall and don’t have anybody to talk to.”

In a statement Friday, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said the government is committed to making progress on community safety and policing for indigenous communities.

At this stage of the engagement process, no decisions have been made on funding, expansion or other details of how the renewed approach to indigenous policing would be implemented, said press secretary Scott Bardsley.

“In the event of a strike, the OPP would have to take over policing duties in the Nishnawbe-Aski community as it would fall under provincial jurisdiction,” he said.

A tripartite agreement is set to be negotiated in 2018 for the force with the federal and provincial governments but communities cannot afford to wait until then, Fiddler said.

First Nations deserve the same levels of policing as any other Canadian community, he added.

If Canada is serious about forging a nation-to-nation relationship with indigenous communities, it must stop fighting First Nations at the human rights tribunal and it must come to the table now to find solutions, Angus said.

Storkson echoed that plea: “They have hundreds of recommendations with no follow through …. What do we have inquests for?”

—Follow @kkirkup on Twitter

Kristy Kirkup, The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

First Nations call on feds, Ontario to hash out deal as police strike looms

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