Obedjiwan dismantles police service, SQ takes over
Kate McGillivray | CBC News | Posted: April 1, 2016 10:25 PM | Last Updated: April 1, 2016
Band council chief says Quebec failed to pay promised amount to keep local police force afloat
The Atikamekw First Nation of Obedjiwan in the Mauricie region has dismantled its police force, blaming Quebec for what the band council says is the government's failure to honour an agreement to help pay for it.
The band-run police force, which employed 22 officers to patrol the reserve 200 kilometres west of Roberval, Que., has been replaced by the Sûreté du Québec.
The chief of the Obedjiwan band council, Christian Awashish, said the government failed to fulfill an agreement made last year to pay an extra $600,000 to help keep the police force afloat.
"Negotiators from the Ministry of Public Security have once again undermined our confidence with broken promises," he said in a statement.
A spokesperson for Awashish said that the ministry offered the Obedjiwan council about a third of the promised funds, citing budget cuts as one of the reasons it could not offer the level of funding that had been promised.
"It seems that our community is not entitled, in the same way as other citizens of Quebec, to adequate and permanent police service to meet the real needs of people in the community," said Awashish.
He said the community had no choice but to dismantle the police force or face having to dig into the budget for other essential services such as housing, welfare and fire services.
A long struggle
Awashish said the police force in the community of 2,000 has been chronically underfunded for many years.
He said he first appealed to the province for more money in 2012.
Obedjiwan's police force receives $2.2 million annually through the 1991 federal First Nations policing program, a trilateral agreement which mandates that the cost of aboriginal policing be split between the provincial and federal governments.
The program was criticized by the auditor general in 2014, who said it lacked of transparency and led to a poor allocation of funds.
A 2015 study conducted by the Sûreté du Québec concluded the Obedjiwan police force required between $2.6 million and $3.2 million to operate.
'Women here are worried'
Awashish is concerned about the ability of the Sûreté du Québec to adequately police his remote community.
He said the majority of people in Obedjiwan speak Atikamekw, not French nor English, and he's concerned with SQ officers patrolling the reserve, there could be communication issues and incidents of culture clash.
The news that the indigenous police force is being dismantled also comes just a day after Radio-Canada's investigative program Enquête released a report in which aboriginal women across Quebec described suffering physical and sexual abuse at the hands of provincial police.
"Women here are worried, and men as well," said Awashish in an interview with Radio-Canada's Michel Auger.
"Our police knew our area. The SQ doesn't have that experience with the area, with the language. In Obedjiwan, the other reality is that the social problems are high. So it's not easy."
Awashish said he will seek meetings with Public Security Minister Martin Coiteux and Premiere Philippe Couillard to discuss the issue.
In a statement released on Friday afternoon, the Public Security Ministry said it regrets the outcome of its negotiations with Obedjiwan, adding that the safety of the community is the ministry's priority.