Sweat lodge ceremony offers new perspectives as part of Thunder Bay police change project

A recent visit to a sweat lodge provided members of the community, who are working with the Thunder Bay Police Service on its organizational change project – 'Shaping Our Future' –  some new ideas and a new perspective on building relationships.

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The first priority of the working group is to revamp the police Aboriginal Liaison Unit (ALU), says Leisa Desmoulins, who is an associate professor of education at Lakehead University, and a consultant on the change project.

In order to do that, people felt it was important to learn more about Indigenous culture and traditions.

"It was a really unique experience," she said of the sweat lodge ceremony, which was lead by an elder and attended by members of the working group, senior police management, and past and present members of the ALU.

'Ceremony exists to teach us'

"Ceremony exists to teach us, and to build relationships, and most people, when they think of learning, that's not how they learn," said Desmoulins.

She said the ceremony "stretched" the participants, and encouraged them to think in different ways.

"The elder emphasized to us that we need to trust and love one another and that that's how we will do good work," said Desmoulins, adding "it gave us a different message and an important message in terms of working together."

Trust in policing, "that people believe police make decisions fairly and treat people fairly" is essential to the issue of public safety, she said.

Trust means calling 911, being a witness, cooperating

"You're willing to call 911, that you're willing to be a witness, that you're willing to cooperate. If you don't trust police, you're less willing to cooperate with police."

The amount of trust people in the northwestern Ontario city have in their police service will be at the heart of several questions on the upcoming Citizen Satisfaction Survey, which is expected to be ready by the end of 2018.

The change project, as a whole, aims to make the force more diverse and help it forge stronger relationships in the northwestern Ontario city, including those with Indigenous people, through training, recruitment, communication and community policing.

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Elder says change means mistakes will be made, that's okay

Desmoulins said the group was advised by the elder during the sweat lodge "that this kind of work, you may make mistakes" but that is offset by talking to the people affected beforehand, getting their advice and opinions and using that to inform the decision making.

The working group is beginning to pull together what it's found form talking to people in the force and in the community, and will soon start making recommendations, which may include changing the name of the police Aboriginal Liaison Unit.

Desmoulins presented an update on the progress of the community working  group during the regular monthly meeting of the Thunder Bay Police Services Board on Tuesday. 

You can hear the full interview with Leisa Desmoulins from CBC Superior Morning here.