Province axes Indigenous police recruiting program

The Saskatchewan government has killed a program that was aimed at recruiting Indigenous people to the province's police forces because of disappointing results.

But officials are unable to say why the program was underperforming or what will be done to replace it.

"In terms of why we aren't able at this time to recruit a significant number, I don't have those answers for you," said Drew Wilby, executive director of corporate affairs with the Ministry of Justice.

"I think if I did have the answers, we wouldn't be in the position we are today."

Why didn't they do a better job of developing the program?- Hirsch Greenberg,justice studies professor at the University of Regina

A decade ago, the provincial government established the Saskatchewan Police Aboriginal Recruiting Committee (SPARC) in the wake of a 2004 commission report on Indigenous people and justice reform. The province ended the program this spring.

In its 10 years of existence, only 25 self-identifying Indigenous people completed training at the Saskatchewan Police College, which teaches members for all of the province's municipal police forces.

During that same period, the college trained a total 516 recruits, meaningjust five per cent were Indigenous. According to Statistics Canada, 16 per cent of Saskatchewan people are Indigenous.

Wilby also noted that it's impossible to know how many, if any, of those 25 recruits were actually influenced to enroll as a result of SPARC's work, "so it was very difficult to determine exactly the success rate of that program."

Sgt. Shawn George, an Indigenous officer who hasbeen with the Regina Police Service for 22 years, thinks Indigenousrecruitment officers are "very important."

He hopes that despite this move, more will be done to reach out.

"There's different communities that probably wouldn't know a lot about the Regina Police Service and other police services," said George. "So those positions like that, I think you need that to get the word out that there's opportunities for our young people."

'Why are white people getting in and not Indigenous people?'

Hirsch Greenberg, a justice studies professor at the University of Regina, said it's surprising the province doesn't know what was wrong with the program.

"Why are white people getting in and not Indigenous people? Like, what's different?" wondered Greenberg. "After 10 years, they have to know thisand if they don't, then why don't they? Why didn't they do a better job of developing the program?"

Greenberg said given Saskatchewan's large Indigenous population and the fact that 70 to 80 per cent of provincial inmates are Indigenous, it's not acceptable for the province to simply say the program was cancelled because it wasn't recruiting enough Indigenous people.

Wilby said officials reviewed the program and "determined it just wasn't meeting the needs of what was required." He notedthat police services across Canada struggle to recruit and retain Indigenous officers.

Wilby said the $150,000 it took to run the program is still available and officials are trying to figure out the best way to use the money.

Police chief shocked by numbers

Reginapolice chief Evan Bray said 25 Indigenous recruits over a decade "seems shockingly low to me."

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Despite that, he acknowledgedthat it's difficult to recruit Indigenous officers and said his police service can and should do better.

In 2015, 38 of his 407 officers self-identifiedas Indigenous almost 10 per cent of the force.

Bray, who was just sworn in as chief last month, said those numbers make this issue of recruitment a top priority because "in order for the community to trust us they have to feel like they're reflected in us."

Bray said RPS is working hard to build relationships with the Indigenous community. It consults regularly with elders and has a full-time Indigenous liaison who works on recruitment.

He said the police service is now seriously considering whether "there's some inherent things built into our hiring process that we need to look at that are barriers."

He added that RPS will be going back to potential recruits it has rejected in the past to see if it can help them meet the qualifications.

Greenberg said those are precisely the sorts of questions police need to be considering.

"Could be lack of education. Could be some populations may have criminal records disproportionately to mainstream and so on," said Greenberg. "So there's a selecting-out process before they even get to the application and seeing whether or not they qualify."

He said this sort of affirmative action is necessary in order to help Indigenous people qualify.

"We tend to look at: 'Why are we bending the rules?' Well, you're not bending the rules. It's that the rules are created by people that are not Indigenous," said Greenberg. "And so they're saying that these rules are equitable and fair but they're not."