Good morning. Oki.
My name is Stephanie Weasel Child from Siksika Nation. I come to you from Calgary, which is on the traditional Blackfoot territory. It's an honour to be asked to speak before the committee.
I'll give you a bit of background on Siksika Nation. It's the second-largest land-based Indian reservation in Canada. We have a population of just under 8,000; 45% is on reserve and 55% is off. Our fastest growing population is 25 and under.
When I was looking at the topic that was chosen for today, I was thinking of recommendations like having more elders involvement, more female corrections officers, more female first nation judges, access to language and culture, traditional spiritual components within the federal corrections system, for example smudging, learning about your own language and your own culture. But the one thing that kept popping into my head was we should be focusing on ways to keep them out in the first place. When talking to the lawyer in Siksika Nation, she told me that the major cause of having first nations people get in trouble with the law is poverty and addictions. She asks her clients if they would have done this, if they would have committed the crime if they were sober, and nine times out of 10, the answer is no.
Siksika Nation is in a unique position. We have our own courthouse with regularly scheduled criminal and family court. We have our own legal aid office right on reserve. We have a victims' services and a crisis unit. We have probation services. We have two court workers who are Siksika Nation members. One is for criminal and one is for family court. We have a mediation program called Aiskapimohkiiks, which is used mainly for domestic violence and family court. Ninety per cent of the employees with Siksika justice are first nation.
My thinking is we need more programs on reserve to battle the problems of addictions and poverty. Siksika Nation has a Matrix program, which is basically a day treatment program. The limit for that is 20 people per session. I think it's a 12-week program. It's an outpatient treatment program. The only other alternative is to go to a residential treatment program in Calgary or Edmonton, and the wait-list is very long for that.
Another answer would be to look at traditional case management, bringing in elders, following the Aiskapimohkiiks program, which is fully functional in Siksika Nation. It would be bringing in elders, bringing in traditional leaders, traditional knowledge holders, society members, to help with the process with the members who are falling onto the wrong side of the law.
That would be true reconciliation, in my opinion. There is another component where you can educate the guards, the lawyers, the crown prosecutors, the judges, as to why first nations people are where they are. Educate them about the trauma of the residential schools, which caused all the broken families and caused a lot of the problems that first nations are facing today.
We could implement having more first nations judges, female judges. I know of a first nation member who applied. She went through the process and was put on a waiting list, and was told it would be three years before she would hear back for the final decision on whether she would become a judge or not. Three years came and went, so she contacted them again and they told her that the whole process had changed, that she had to go through the application process all over again.
She is a first nations female lawyer who had been working in Siksika Nation for, I would say, about 20 years. She goes out of her way, over and above to help her clients. That's the type of person the provincial government should be looking at to appoint as a judge to work full time in Siksika, because she has made a difference in her work, first as legal aid, as crown prosecutor, as defence, as duty counsel.
There are solutions. Improving their stay while they're in the system is an admirable attempt, but the focus should be on keeping first nations people out in the first place.
Thank you.