Crime rates in northern Saskatchewan are falling, but the statistics are still not good.
That was the message at the 11th Annual Northern Symposium for Safer and Healthier Communities, held in Prince Albert from November 25 to 27.
People living in northern Saskatchewan are six times more likely to be a victim of a violent crime than in the south. Northern Saskatchewan has the highest rates of impaired driving in the country – and that’s despite a 35 per cent fall in impaired driving offences in 2013.
However the symposium was not all about statistics.
The 200-plus delegates, who came from communities across northern Saskatchewan and included representatives from First Nations, municipalities, government and RCMP, were more interested in the messages of hope and resilience than the facts and figures.
Elder James Burns of James Smith First Nation told delegates not to be victims “but to be victorious.”
Topics ranged from suicide prevention to bootlegging and victim services, but one topic emerged as an unofficial theme: violence against Aboriginal women and girls.
On day three, the Saskatchewan government presented its Framework for Addressing Violence Against Aboriginal Women and Girls.
The symposium heard that six northern communities are in the top 10 in the nation for reported violence against women. However, it is believed the vast majority of acts of violence against women go unreported.
La Loche Mayor Georgina Jolibois said that leaders who speak out on violence against women can become victims themselves.
“When you take a stand against violence against women you actually stand out,” she said. “You get abuse for that.”
Inquiry
Responding to a petition circulated by delegates calling for a national inquiry into murdered Aboriginal women, Deputy Justice Minister Kevin Fenwick reiterated his government’s support for such an inquiry – which the federal government
is holding out on – and said the province was not going to wait.
Among other presentations, Judge Gerald Morin, who hails from Cumberland House, used his keynote address to reflect on how far the criminal justice system had come in the North.
“If you look at the history of corrections in Saskatchewan, if you look at the annual reports, they would count the number of bushels of wheat, number of bags of carrots, number of potatoes and somewhere in there would be the number of prisoners,” Morin said. “Not a mention of any type of programming, but merely looking at the delivery of warehousing within that particular system.”
One way the system had changed was in the use of conditional sentence orders, sometimes referred to as community sentence orders.
“People ask why I give out conditional sentence orders,” Morin said. “Well, I ask, what rehabilitative chance do people have in jail?”
Morin, an Aboriginal man, also spoke of his experience of racism: “I had bought a brand new BMW. A police officer stopped me. He asked me where I got the car. I asked him where he got his uniform.”
In a wide-ranging address, Morin had some thoughts on bootlegging.
“Why is it [government] will subsidize every ounce of liquor that goes into La Loche, but won’t subsidize fruit or vegetables that go into that community?” he said. “I wonder who the real bootleggers are.”
Bootlegging was also the topic of a presentation by Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming’s Darryl Rideout, who expressed frustration at the limited means available to government to prevent bootlegging, a viewed later repeated by Deputy Minister Fenwick.
“How is it still possible for someone to back a truck up to a liquor store, buy the place out and claim that it is for personal use?” Fenwick asked.
Fenwick expressed the view that, based on Manitoba’s experience, limiting bulk sales won’t stop bootlegging.
The next symposium is planned for October 2015.
