The federal government is backing away from setting a timeline to introduce legislation that would declare First Nations policing an essential service, but at least one regional chief hopes to see it this spring.
Ghislain Picard, a member of the Assembly of First Nations executive, says it has been fighting for improvements to First Nations policing on two fronts: securing better funding for existing services and helping to draft new legislation.
“We’ve been talking about this for years,” said Picard, one of the leads on justice and policing issues for the national advocacy organization that represents more than 600 First Nations.
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino told The Canadian Press last December that the government hoped to table a bill in 2023.
This week, however, a press secretary for the minister backed away from any timeline, saying “It is too early to say when the legislation will be tabled.”
In September 2022, Mendicino told reporters he would “work around the clock” to table a bill that fall.
That came two years after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to “accelerate work on First Nations policing, including legislating it as an essential service.”
Picard said he and others working on the issue remain “very much committed to see legislation hopefully before the House rises in June.”
“We’re still very much on that target, from our end.”
Mendicino’s director of communications said Tuesday that the legislation is a “major element” of its efforts to expand policing on First Nations.
“This work is well underway and includes several unique elements that make it difficult to provide an exact time frame. Most significantly, this bill is being co-developed (with) the Assembly of First Nations as an equal partner,” Alexander Cohen said in a written statement.
“Furthermore, it involves an area of shared federal-provincial jurisdiction, and as such requires more co-ordination between orders of government. That said, we are not waiting for…
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