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| Judge and Senator Calvin Murray Sinclair - photo by Archkris, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wiki Commons |
by John Lyons
John Lyons spent many years as a patrol officer living and working in northern Canadian communities. A member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for 28 years, he served as a major crime investigator. For 10 years he was an international crime analyst with Interpol Ottawa. Post policing he consulted government on health care fraud. Now he brings his extensive experience to SafeGrowth, particularly in conducting search conferences to prevent crime and build collaborative networks.
This week, a giant died in Canada. I met him many years ago when I gave legal testimony in an inquiry that he headed as a judge. I have remained impressed by him ever since. How we could use his wise advice now!
I speak of the Ojibway First Nations Judge and retired Canadian Senator Calvin Murray Sinclair who died on November 04th, 2024. His passing is a deep and huge loss to Canada. Judge Sinclair was a champion of crime prevention through First Nations community development. From 2009, he was a leader in Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and he had a profound impact on how Canadians, such as myself, contextualize colonial abuse of First Nations peoples.
He shaped my perspective on addressing crimes and incivilities by economic and socially marginalized First Nations people. The problems Judge Sinclair brought to light are still apparent in the cities across northern communities, especially in the northern Canadian city of Prince George, British Columbia, a community with problems of homelessness, street crime, illicit drugs, and drug overdoses. The blog "Innovations in responding to street drugs" described those issues last year.
The Prince George story illustrates Judge Sinclair’s message most succinctly. The story we told a year ago was about the 2023 SafeGrowth Person of the Year, Jordan Steward, and her downtown safe inhalation, harm reduction site – The Pounds Project – which was largely defunded.
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| Aerial photo of Prince George, British Columbia - photo by CPG1100, CC BY-SA via Wiki Commons |
Of the thousands of drug-addicted and unhoused people in Canadian cities, far too many hail from Indigenous backgrounds. Where is Judge Sinclair’s perspective at this point in history when so many Canadian cities, like Prince George, are suffering from this social pain?
WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN?
First, one of the persistent paradoxes we know that emerges from top-down government responses to the unhoused, especially with people from marginalized communities, is the problem of inaction and the false belief that one-size-fits-all. True to form, this paradox has now reared its head according to news stories about conflicts between the city of Prince George and the provincial government.
Second, having spent a great deal of time in Prince George, I have learned that it is not enough to treat the problem as an eyesore disrupting downtown businesses. The city must go beyond displacing these troubled souls to accommodations outside the city centre. This blog has previously described cities like Wheat Ridge, Colorado and Victoria, British Columbia that experienced the futility of simply rehousing the homeless without wraparound services.
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| Housing encampment in Prince George |
Third, bottom-up strategies were already emerging in Prince George, for example the harm reduction that Jordan Steward attempted through her Pounds Project. That is what should be expanded and supported. We know that relocating the unhoused and drug addicted must involve far more than pushing the problem around the city like some perverse board game. We also know, from prior blogs, that successful projects already exist in places like Finland.
All these examples teach us that any relocation plan needs to consider setting up safer physical environments using strategies like 1st and 2nd-generation CPTED. They must also reinforce historic Indigenous culture. If there is to be any hope of redemption, that is the way to make things right.
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The Grand Medicine Society in Ojibwa syllabics. Judge Sinclair combined his wisdom as a member of this traditional First Nations society and as a Judge, Canadian Senator, and a Companion of the Order of Canada. |
LOCAL ACTION PLANS
Over the years I have joined members of the SafeGrowth team in delivering search conferences precisely to create local visions of new approaches and to build local capacity to make them happen. This approach produces success. For example, last year SafeGrowth facilitator, Professor Tarah Hodgkinson finished a successful search conference for safety planning in Brantford, Ontario.
I see the value of empowering those in the community by teaching skills in crime prevention, neighborhood planning, community investment, and rehabilitation. This is how you build local capacity. Diffuse government programs rarely fit the local context, as suggested by recent provincial/municipal government conflicts in Prince George.
Judge Sinclair was a member of a traditional Ojibway medicine society and his Ojibway name was Mizanay Gheezhik. That translates to "the One Who Speaks of Pictures in the Sky”. If there was ever a time when we needed a new vision of something bigger and better – new pictures in the sky – now is the time!
Judge Sinclair, we miss your vision.
