Opinion: Broken trust – broken system
By Peter Globensky and Beverly Sabourin
Systemic racism is rampant within the Thunder Bay Police Services (TBPS). So concludes a report recently tabled entitled Broken Trust: Indigenous People and the Thunder Bay Police Service – an undertaking two years in the making and prepared by the Ontario Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD). The findings in this report – the systemic discrimination woven into the fabric and culture of the police force and the racist attitudes of many of their personnel, the sloppy work and incompetent investigations, the premature conclusions—were a surprise to no one, least of all the Indigenous citizens of this community and the larger Indigenous diaspora in Northwestern Ontario where many of these First Nations lost their children to the violent, racist and intolerant underbelly too often exposing itself in Thunder Bay.
This city achieved national notoriety through a number of media reports over the past few years about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and murdered young men. Sloppy police work allowed the TBPS to erroneously conclude, in some cases and always prematurely, that the deaths were “accidental” or not suspicious. The “unsolved” files began to fill cabinets and collect dust! This report blows the dust off this tale of wilful incompetence.
Even a cursory examination of the 200-plus page report encourages anyone to conclude that the culture of the Keystone Kops is alive and well in a force where basic competence seems to come at a significant premium! The difference is that there is no room here for slapstick comedy. This is deadly serious business. Deadly serious!
How long does this outrage of racism and incompetence have to go on? We know the TBPS appears to harbour racism within its modus operandi, but what of the oversight function of the Thunder Bay Police Services Board? What switch have they been asleep at? Surely, they could have played a more critical oversight role in addressing these life and death issues! Why have the justifiably incessant complaints from Indigenous leaders and the Indigenous community fallen on deaf ears? And so many deaf ears! There are none as blind as those who will not see, none as deaf as those who will not hear!
Broken Trust submits over 40 recommendations on how to fix a broken system. If policing in Thunder Bay is to overcome the “crisis of trust” identified by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director and regain the trust and, as importantly, the cooperation of the Indigenous community, not only should these recommendations be implemented, but the process of doing so needs to be carefully monitored. There is the critical need to establish specific, clear, strategic and measurable objectives at the outset of implementing these recommendations; to set timelines and benchmarks along which the implementation phase must travel; to evaluate the success of implementing these recommendations at every stage. All of these “process points” are critical and essential if these recommendations on paper are to spring to life and “infiltrate” and change the culture of this police force. This is one outstanding case where the process of implementing these recommendations is as important as the substance of the recommendations themselves. If not, this report like so may others, becomes nothing more than a shooting star lighting the firmament with a dash of hope and promise only to fizzle out of public view to then function as a door-stop for someone’s office. Think of the 4,000 pages of the Royal Commission Report on Aboriginal Peoples.
A good start? Send a message! Get rid of the racists on the police force – fire them all! How hard is it to weed out these perpetual incomps? Subject all police personnel including civilian employees to mandatory cross-cultural training and psychological assessment. Have them write essays on the subject – if they can do so!
How many more unsolved murders (particularly of Indigenous youth) will it take to demand a basic level of competence in ‘civil servants’ who clearly have become neither? This is not the reputation Thunder Bay needs to continuously cultivate for itself. Broken trust indeed!