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B.C.'s Indigenous court system continues to grow with new location in Williams Lake

Judges in Indigenous courts work with lawyers, community elders and often victims to come up with a "healing plan" for the offender, with an aim of rehabilitating them back into society while serving their sentence.

Courts are for Indigenous offenders who have admitted guilt and are strong candidates for rehabilitation

Andrew Kurjata · CBC News ·
Indigenous and First Nations courts are opening across Canada, including one in the Wagmatcook Cultural and Heritage Centre in Nova Scotia. Williams Lake will be the seventh B.C. city with an Indigenous court starting April 2020. (Len Wagg/Government of Nova Scotia)

British Columbia continues to expand its Indigenous court system, with a seventh location set to open in Williams Lake in April 2020.

The courts, which are already operating in New Westminster, Duncan, Kamloops, North Vancouver, Merritt and Prince George, offer alternative sentencing options for Indigenous offenders who have already admitted guilt in a regular court setting.

Judges work with lawyers, community elders and often victims to come up with a "healing plan" for the offender, with an aim of rehabilitating them back into society while serving their sentence.

In a statement, B.C. Attorney General David Eby said the courts are an important part of addressing over-representation of Indigenous people in the province's correctional system, which "has its roots in systemic discrimination and the impacts of intergenerational trauma from residential schools."

One of the advocates for bringing an Indigenous court to Williams Lake was Samantha Dick, who runs a wilderness camp society aimed at connecting Indigenous youth with traditional values, as well as a Tsilhqot'in First Nation restorative justice program for children and youth.

"There's just an over-representation of Indigenous people in the justice system, and clearly the traditional justice system isn't working," she told CBC Daybreak Kamloops host Shelley Joyce. "When you look [at the numbers] it's like, 'Why didn't this happen sooner?'"

By the numbers

In 2016, Canada's prison ombudsman provided numbers to the federal government outlining the over-representation of Indigenous people incarcerated in Canada. Some of those findings were relayed by then-justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould in remarks she made favouring restorative justice. They included:

  • In 2016, Indigenous people represented more than 25 per cent of inmates while making up just 4.3 per cent of the overall population.

  • Between 2005 and 2015, the Indigenous inmate population grew by 50 per cent compared to the overall growth rate of 10 per cent.

  • Indigenous women comprise 37 per cent of all women serving a sentence of more than two years.

  • Incarceration rates for Indigenous people in some parts of Canada are up to 33 times higher than for non-Indigenous peoples.

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