Nunavik police get a step closer to new funding, then a step back

For a period of time this month, it appeared as though Nunavik’s police force had finally secured a new funding agreement.

The Kativik Regional Police Force has been without an agreement since April 2018, operating since then on an $8-million advance contribution from the Quebec government and help from the Kativik Regional Government.

Policing in Nunavik receives 52 per cent of its funding from the federal government and 48 per cent through Quebec.

A year of negotiations seemed to reach an end earlier this month, when the office of Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told APTN on Jan. 18 that the three parties had reached an agreement in principle.

But now both the KRG and federal government deny there is any agreement in place, saying those negotiations continue.

“The Government of Canada continues to have positive discussions with the Kativik Regional Police Force and the Government of Quebec regarding the renewal of the police service funding agreement,” said a Public Safety Canada spokesperson by email this week.

The KRG declined to comment and Quebec’s Public Safety department has not responded to Nunatsiaq News’ request for information.

The KRPF pressed the urgent need for a new agreement last November, when its chief Jean-Pierre Larose told Viens commission hearings in Kuujjuaq that the force was “on life support.”

Larose suggested that if no agreement was reached by the end of 2018 the region would have to turn policing over to the Sûreté du Québec—though that has yet to happen.

For its part, the federal government said the money is there, written into the federal budget via its First Nations Policing Program, which funds roughly 185 Indigenous policing agreements across the country.

Last year, Ottawa beefed up that program by $292 million over a five-year period, in addition to $88 million allotted to police infrastructure over a seven-year period.

The KRPF said last year that tripartite agreement negotiations hinge on the request the force has made for additional funding that is needed, in part, to hire additional officers to relieve the demands on existing staff.

Nunavik communities, depending on their population size, are staffed with between three and five officers, who often work patrol shifts alone and are almost always on call.