Four Sask. players named to Canada world junior hockey championship team
Dec 14, 2024
Berkly Catton, Brayden Yager, Caden Price and Tanner Howe were all named.
The Assembly of First Nations national chief said a coroner’s inquest into a mass stabbing in Saskatchewan shows Ottawa must return to the table to negotiate long-promised legislation declaring First Nations policing an essential service.
Cindy Woodhouse said Thursday in Saskatoon that if there had been a First Nations police service on the James Smith Cree Nation on Sept. 4, 2022, the rampage could have been avoided.
Myles Sanderson killed 11 people and injured 17 others on the First Nation and in the nearby village of Weldon. He died in police custody a few days later.
An inquest into the killings released more than two dozen recommendations Wednesday, including one for the First Nation to establish a local police force in a timely fashion.
The idea of First Nations policing had been raised previously, but calls intensified after Sanderson’s attacks.
“This tragedy is a systemic failure of the police and justice system,” Woodhouse said. “All the evidence presented throughout the inquiry further demonstrates that if a First Nations police service had been equitably funded in the James Smith Cree Nation, this tragedy could’ve been avoided.”
Woodhouse added many First Nations communities are underfunded when it comes to policing.
Woodhouse mentioned she plans on speaking with the prime minister about the recommendations made by the jury from the inquest.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised his government would bring forward a new First Nations policing law in 2020 but Woodhouse says the legislation remains stalled.
“I know he’s wanting to meet and wanting to meet with First Nations very quickly. We will be speaking to him before March. These (recommendations) can’t be left to collect dust again,” she explained.
“We have to continue to act on these recommendations and not put them on the wayside. It’ll make a better Canada and stronger Canada.”
Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore, the commanding officer of the Saskatchewan RCMP, said the force is committed to improving how it serves First Nations. But she says Mounties are also in need more staff and funding to make that work.
“In order to do better, we need two things: One is appropriate funding and we need human resources in order to do that,” she said. “While we often talk and examine the reaction to a horrible tragedy such as this, nobody wants this tragedy. The win comes when there is no tragedy.”
— With files from 650 CKOM’s Shane Clausing