Nunavut’s new police chief talks accountability and trust

Nunavut’s new chief of police is bent on building trust between Inuit and the RCMP, and on bringing support to RCMP members who staff the territory’s 25 detachments.

“It is one of our most challenging divisions,” Chief Superintendent Amanda Jones said of Nunavut’s RCMP “V” Division, in an interview with Nunatsiaq News on Thursday, Jan. 24, the fourth day in her role as Nunavut’s top cop.

There’s often a “lack of trust” when Nunavut RCMP engage with the public, said Jones. As well, “the RCMP has had issues with harassment and respect in the workplace,” she said.

Jones is the eighth commanding officer to run Nunavut’s “V” Division, and the first woman to take on the role.

She replaces Chief Superintendent Michael Jeffrey, who held the position from 2014, up until last week.

Jones comes to Nunavut from Yellowknife, where she was officer in charge of criminal operations for the Northwest Territories. She worked previously with a coastal RCMP division that serves First Nations communities in Northern British Columbia.

Jones was born in Montreal, Que. and raised in Halifax, N.S.

She has 27 years of experience in the RCMP and was one of three candidates handpicked to be interviewed for the Nunavut job.

She holds a Canadian Forces Decoration and five medals. One of those accolades is for a United Nations posting in Kosovo, where she served for nine months in 2001.

“I like it when I can get to a place where we can actually make a change,” she said, explaining that in larger centres senior staff are often racing to keep up with daily demands. In a smaller division, it’s easier for one person to make an impact, she said.

“Here, I have the power to say, what are our issues, and then work with our members and work with our government to figure out: how do we make it better, and safer.”

Focus on safe gun storage

At city council this week, RCMP Staff Sgt. Garfield Elliott confirmed that crime is rising in Iqaluit. That’s especially true of firearms offences, which have doubled since 2017. Assault, sexual offences and arson cases are also increasing, his report showed.

Jones stressed a need for safe gun storage, so that firearms aren’t accessible to people when they intoxicated, or distressed, or both.

Gun ownership is common in Nunavut, where families often hunt for their food.

“Most households will have a firearm,” Jones said.

After a late-December standoff that left one man in hospital, the RCMP issued a call to action on firearms storage, urging the public to keep guns locked up.

In November, a coroner’s inquest looked into the police-related shooting of a Pond Inlet man, who was also armed when police fired on him.

Civilian oversight of RCMP preferred

In October, Nunavut’s legal services board flagged rising reports of police use of force experienced by their clients.

Right now, the Ottawa Police Service is contracted by the Nunavut government to review externally any RCMP-related violence, such as shootings or in-custody deaths. A review is underway for the December standoff that saw one man charged with attempted murder, discharging a firearm and assault with a weapon.

But there is pushback on whether the OPS, while non-RCMP, can be unbiased in its investigations. The Government of Nunavut has already completed a review of how other jurisdictions handle civilian oversight of police forces.

“I would prefer to have civilian oversight…. If the public doesn’t feel they can trust us, then the best way would be civilian oversight,” Jones said.

But that change will cost money, and will mean working closely with government, she said. Jones met with Nunavut’s Justice Minister Jeannie Ehaloak this week.

If that can’t happen, another question she’ll have would be: “Can we get the public to understand they can trust our outside agencies that do these investigations for us?”

“It’ll take a long time to build that trust,” she said.

Jones spoke in support of the work RCMP members do in Nunavut communities, where many of her staff coach sports teams or even teach Sunday school.

“We get a lot of negative attention in the media,” she said. “There are members who make mistakes and they should be held accountable. None of us want someone making bad decisions to get away with that, because it ruins everyone’s reputation.”

Her first step as chief of police is to visit Nunavut detachments where, due to sheer geography, many of her staff can feel isolated, she said.

Detachments with high call rates will take priority, she said.

“I’m going to reach out and engage with our members, go to their communities to let them know they’re not alone, and also to ensure they have a safe and healthy workplace.

“If they’re not healthy, they can’t do their best for the communities.”

She wants to continue working to staff detachments with public servants who are Inuit and can speak Inuktut. For recruitment, she said an analyst has been hired to look into Inuit recruitment nationally, to create supports for things like medical exams, drivers’ licences and education.

At a community level, recruitment might mean working with specific youth who are flagged as good candidates, and then setting them up with a mentor, she said.