Northern Advocate Staff
Representatives from Northern Saskatchewan were among the delegates who travelled to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York on April 21.
The group included representatives from the PAGC, Black Lake Dene First Nation, Assembly of First Nations, BC First Nations Justice Council, Union of BC Indian Chiefs, and Prisoners’ Legal Services urging Canada to “end the mass incarceration of Indigenous Peoples.”
“For decades, Canada has promised to reduce the overrepresentation of Indigenous Peoples in prison, yet today we make up just 5% of the population and one-third of those in federal custody, and half of incarcerated women,” PAGC Grand Chief Brian Hardlotte said in a press release. “This is systemic racism rooted in colonialism, not individual failure.”
Hardlotte highlighted the case of Joey Toutsaint as an example. Toutsaint spent more than 3,000 days in intermittent solitary confinement, Hardlotte said, in violation of the UN Nelson Mandela Rules.
“These conditions are driving disproportionate rates of self-harm and suicide and constitute a serious threat to the health and wellbeing of Indigenous Peoples,” Hardlotte said. “In accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Canada must work in true partnership with First Nations to support self-determined approaches to justice, community safety, and healing by transferring resources and authority to Indigenous governments.
“The solution is clear, respect our right to self-determination and end the mass incarceration of Indigenous Peoples.
Toutsaint was convicted of more than 70 criminal offences, and was designated a dangerous offender. In 2019, the CBC reported that Toutsaint had spent the bulk of his time in federal prison “in segregation, both voluntary and involuntary.”
In 2018, the Vancouver-based Prisoners’ Legal Services represented Toutsaint in a complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, arguing he’d been discriminated in prison because of his mental disability and Indigenous identity.
In 2019, Prisoners’ Legal Services filed an injunction request in Federal Court, arguing he was having suicidal thoughts nearly every day while in segregation, and regularly self-harming.
Hardlotte and the rest of the Canadian representatives called on the federal government to redirect one-third of the roughly $3 billion Correctional Service of Canada budget to Indigenous governments “to decarcerate Indigenous Peoples in a manner consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”
