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1995
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The 1988 Police
murder of J. J. Harper in Winnipeg
The CBC has a thorough
report on this stain on Canadian history. In 2003, they produced
the movie Cowboys and Indians which is one of the most accurate
docudramas ever done. If you have not seen this movie, watch
for it and/or request it. (There is also a stunning documentary
about the 1995 shooting of Dudley George made by Rough Cuts and
showing up on several channels).
The Harper story is interesting
for several reasons. A solid inquiry was held and recommendations
were made. Racism was identified and recognized. Yet, as the
CBC website shows in its update 15 years later, the police are
still reluctant to let go of a culture which allows it to commit
violence against the citizens it has sworn to serve and protect.
J.J. Harper: 15 years
later
from CBC website, by Wendy
Sawatsky
March 9, 1988: A young native
leader, J.J. Harper, is stopped by police, who mistake him for
a car thief.
A scuffle ensues. A shot is
fired. Harper is killed.
J.J. Harper's death, along
with the 1971 murder of Helen Betty Osbourne, sparks an outcry.
On April 13, 1988, Manitoba's NDP government set up the Aboriginal
Justice Inquiry.
For two years, a panel criss-crossed
the province, hearing heart-breaking stories from aboriginal
people struggling to fit into the justice system.
When it was over, the panel
had heard from more than 1,000 people, amassing 27,000 pages
of transcripts.
In 1991, the inquiry panel
released its final report. It was widely hailed as a landmark
document, announcing to the province what many aboriginal people
already knew: the justice system was insensitive and inaccessible,
and was failing aboriginal people on a massive scale.
Many in the aboriginal community
had high hopes the report would bring about big change. The report
included 140 recommendations: everything from setting up an independent
aboriginal child welfare system to hiring more aboriginal police
officers to setting up an independent justice system for aboriginal
people.
For years after the inquiry
panel filed its report, native groups complained it was being
ignored by the Conservative government that took over from the
NDP. Then, in 1999, the NDP returned to office.
· Putting the recommendations
to work ·
"When we came into office
and I walked into the minister's office, I discovered the minister's
copy of the AJI report on a top shelf, wrapped in its original
plastic," says NDP Justice Minister Gord Mackintosh. "I
think that spoke volumes to the respect that had not been given
to the promise that was held out by the AJI report of 1991."
The NDP set up the Aboriginal
Justice Inquiry Implementation Commission in late 1999 to study
the inquiry report's recommendations and create an action plan
based on the report. The Implementation Commission made 54 recommendations.
The government says it made progress on 52 of the recommendations,
but the progress is imperceptible to some observers.
"There has been no change,"
says Joe Guy Wood, former chief in the Island Lake Tribal Council
and J.J. Harper's uncle. "There [have been] a few attempts
at that by the present government to try and address those [AJI
recommendations], but there hasn't been that much change. As
a matter of fact, I could say it is worse today than it was at
that time.
"The bottom line is that
here in Manitoba, it is still very much an oppressive situation,"
says Assembly of First Nations Grand Chief Dennis White Bird.
"The police are still having their confrontations and conflicts
with First Nations people. Nothing has really changed."
· Changes
in the police, child welfare ·
Winnipeg Police Chief Jack
Ewatski disagrees, saying the AJI report was a catalyst for change
something the force is proud of.
"We now have 111 aboriginal
officers in the police service that's close to nine per
cent of the population of police, a significant improvement from
15 years ago," he says.
The AJI recommended the police
force target aboriginals for 50 per cent of their recruiting
until at least 133 native officers were on the force, with more
to come later. Ewatski says recruiting aboriginals is hard, saying
more needs to be done to foster better relations between First
Nations people and the police.
"There is still a level
of disconnect. There is still a level of uncomfortableness between
the police and the aboriginal community itself," he says.
Another area where the AJI's
recommendations have had some effect is in child welfare services.
The AJI recommended the province set up independent child welfare
systems for aboriginal and Métis children and give native
child welfare services jurisdiction over children living off-reserve.
In June, aboriginal child welfare
agencies in Manitoba will take over all First Nations cases
14,000 in all.
· Progress
is slow·
Despite this progress, many
people still feel the AJI's recommendations were too lofty to
be put into reality.
Gordon Sinclair, a columnist
for the Winnipeg Free Press who wrote a book on the shooting
of J.J. Harper, says he sees some improvement albeit slow
but the system can't change overnight, or even in the 12
years since the AJI released its report.
"I don't know if it's
palatable, or even doable," he says of some of the AJI recommendations.
"But if they can't do it, the NDP with their aboriginal
constituency, who's going to do it for aboriginal people?"
MLA Eric Robinson, who helped
write the original AJI report, agrees that change doesn't come
quickly. "I believe that the change is coming. We would
like to do it, like, 10 years ago, but unfortunately the way
things work out, we're just getting to these issues, the critical
ones if you will, at this point in time.
"There's much more work
to be done, let's not fool ourselves."
|
Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
