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NAN Press Release 

NAN pleased with jury recommendations in Wesley / Goodwin inquest

     THUNDER BAY, ON, May 21 /CNW/ - Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler is pleased with jury recommendations that call for police services in First Nation communities to be equivalent to those in non-First Nation communities delivered at the inquest into a fatal fire that claimed the lives of Jamie Goodwin and Ricardo Wesley at a police detachment in Kashechewan First Nation on January 8, 2006.

     "We thank the jury for these recommendations - they are everything we had hoped for," said Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler, who attended the conclusion of the coroner's inquest in Toronto today. "We call on the Government of Ontario and the Government of Canada to work with us to implement these recommendations."

     The five-member jury made 86 recommendations relevant to the Nishnawbe-Aski Nation Police Service (NAPS) and its policing delivery area, including:

     -   First Nations, Canada and Ontario should work together to ensure that policing standards and service levels in First Nation communities are equivalent to those in non-First Nation communities.
     -   Canada and Ontario should provide NAPS with the funding required to ensure that the communities it serves receive the same level and quality of policing services and infrastructure that non-First Nations communities receive.
     -   A public inquiry or Royal Commission should be conducted for the NAN communities which addresses parity of services, health and safety, and the quality of life.

     "These jury members were able to see what federal and provincial governments have failed to recognize - that NAN First Nations deserve the same level of police services as those enjoyed by the rest of the province," said Fiddler, noting the jury's recognition that 19 NAPS detachments do not meet National Building Code standards. "The inquest is done but the work is just staring, and we hope that something positive can come from this."

     James Goodwin and Ricardo Wesley died in a tragic jail fire at a NAPS detachment in Kashechewan on January 8, 2006 while the community was powerless to help them. The tragedy garnered national attention on the inadequacies of firefighting resources in First Nation communities.

     Kashechewan First Nation, a remote fly-in community along the west coast of James Bay with a population of 1,600 people, has trained a volunteer fire department and has acquired fire trucks which will not be delivered to the community until a fire hall, which is currently under construction, is completed. Until all the equipment is in place, the community will continue to be unable to respond to fires.

     Nishnawbe Aski Nation is a political territorial organization representing 49 First Nation communities within James Bay Treaty 9 and Treaty 5 territory - an area covering two-thirds of the province of Ontario.

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/For further information: Michael Heintzman, Media Relations Officer - Nishnawbe Aski Nation, (807) 625-4906 or (807) 621-2790 mobile; or Kashechewan First Nation Chief, Jonathon Solomon, (705) 275-4062 or (613) 294-0021/

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From CBC.ca 

Kashechewan fire inquest calls for more funds for police stations, training

May 21, 2009

A coroner's jury looking into the deaths of two aboriginal men in a fire at an isolated northern Ontario reserve's police station three years ago has called for more federal and provincial funding to improve First Nations police facilities and officers' training.

Ricardo Wesley, 22, and James Goodwin, 20, burned to death on Jan. 8, 2006, while being held for public intoxication at the ramshackle Kashechewan First Nation police detachment.

Among its 80 recommendations made in a report released on Thursday in Toronto, the five-member jury called on the Ontario and federal governments to provide the Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service the funds needed to ensure its policing standards and infrastructure are equivalent to those in non-First Nations communities.

The jury's report also recommends Ontario and Ottawa should also provide adequate money for annual fire inspections of all Nishnawbe-Aski Nation police stations, as well as additional fire response training for officers.

During the inquest, the jury previously heard the Kashechewan police station lacked a working smoke detector, fire extinguisher and sprinkler when the fire — believed to have been set by one of the men inside the holding cell — rapidly tore through the dilapidated building.

Police frantically tried to free the two men before the building was engulfed in flames but could not unlock their cells and had to flee, leaving the two men to die. An officer was also injured while trying to open the cell doors.

The jury previously heard that for years, reports were sent by the local police and community leaders asking that improvements be made to the jail, but the requests were never granted.

As many as 19 Nishnawbe-Aski police detachments do not meet national building code standards and do not have sprinkler systems installed, the jury found.

Any holding cells that fail to meet national fire inspection standards should not be used, report said.

The jury also recommends the province and Ottawa work together with First Nations to develop "flexible, innovative and effective" responses to the problems posed by alcohol and drug abuse in First Nations communities.

Located about 10 kilometres upstream from James Bay on the Albany River, the Kashechewan First Nation gained national prominence four years ago when the federal government ordered the evacuation of the reserve after E. coli was found in the water supply.

The community of some 1,700 people is linked to the outside world only by an ice road in the winter and by plane the rest of the year.

Its problems with water quality prompted an evacuation in 2005, and the population has been forced to leave another four times since 2005 because of spring flooding.