Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario (IPCO) Speaks at Assembly of First Nations; Updates on Human Rights Complaint Against Canada
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Posted by Shelby Percival
- Posted in BlogsNews
[IMAGE – IPCO Executive Director Kai Liu, Vice-President James Killeen, Jackie Lombardi (Chiefs of Ontario Director of Justice), and Falconers legal team Julian Falconer and Jeremy Greenberg (AFN Annual General Assembly, July 10, 2024)]
This week, Falconers LLP had the honour of supporting the Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario during their appearance before the Assembly of First Nations.
The AFN’s Annual General Assembly, taking place this week on Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) territory, brings together thousands of delegates from hundreds of Indigenous communities across the country. During an appearance on July 10, 2024, IPCO Vice-President James Killeen and IPCO Executive Director Kai Liu spoke powerfully about the importance of listening to communities in order to ensure the safety and security of Indigenous peoples.
IPCO’s appearance follows the adoption of an important resolution by the Chiefs of Ontario (COO), re-affirming Indigenous peoples’ inherent jurisdiction over community safety and calling on Canada to acknowledge that right within its proposed federal policing legislation.
This week, the AFN Chiefs-in-Assembly adopted a similar Resolution, emphasizing the importance of respecting Indigenous self-determination, and insisting that any proposed legislation be the product of a collaborative process based on recognition of this inherent jurisdiction over safety.
In addition to appearing as part of a panel on community safety, IPCO also took the opportunity to publicly question Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc over his government’s commitments. During a plenary dialogue on July 9th, IPCO Executive Director Liu challenged the Minister about Canada’s newly proposed “two-track” process, which would remove the recognition of inherent jurisdiction over safety from the legislation entirely.
Speaking to the CBC, Executive Director Kai Liu reiterated, “the inherent jurisdiction of First Nations to govern their own resources for public safety — that is non-negotiable.” Vice-President Killeen, who is Chief of Police for UCCM Anishnaabe Police Service, added, “No other communities across Canada that are policed by provincial or municipal or federal police ever have the threat of having their funding cut off and their police service disbanded. But we did face that, and that resulted in us filing a human rights complaint.”
For more on IPCO’s appearance and ongoing human rights complaint, click here.
