Province signs law enforcement agreement with two Sask. First Nations

Whitecap Dakota First Nation, Muskoday First Nation and the province signed a memorandum of understanding Friday that could change the way laws are enforced on reserve.

Currently, reserves across Saskatchewan have no way of enforcing laws enacted under First Nations Lands codes and bylaws enacted under the Indian Act because there is no formal way of prosecuting the laws or bylaws.

With this agreement, a task group will be set up to formalize a process of enforcing, prosecuting before rolling out a pilot project with a target date of April 1, 2020.

“The purpose of this working group will develop procedures and protocols so that charges that are laid will be able to be enforced in the courts in the ordinary and usual manner,” Minister of Justice Don Morgan said.

“It’s not a matter of saying, ‘We want our courts to exercise jurisdiction.’ It’s about developing a partnership with First Nations so that they will be able to use our courts and their peacekeepers in trying to develop good methods for it to go forward.”

Morgan said similar protocols have been created across the country, but this will be the first agreement of its kind in Canada with such a template.

The agreement could eventually expand to include urban reserves in the province.

Whitecap Dakota First Nation Chief, Darcy Bear, said the agreement also helps ease the worries of investors coming to the area looking for assurances.

“(The agreement) also creates investor certainty. Under our land code, we can issue long-term commercial leasehold interest and residential leasehold interest. The private sector is going to want to see some certainty. This is going to create that (now) that we have enforceable laws,” Bear said.

There are two peace officers working and living in the area right now. Bear is looking to add two more personnel once the agreement is formalized. Morgan said those salaries will be absorbed into the province’s existing budget.

Bear said those officers hands are tied much of the time when trying to enforce noise complaints, or hunting bylaw zones in the area.

“They cannot enforce any of our bylaws or any of our laws because there’s no one to prosecute them. It will be a game-changer for them,” Bear said.

The two officers joining the fold would act as both bylaw enforcement and peacekeeper.

Bear said this furthers Whitecap’s path towards self-governance to eventually become recognized as a third order of government.