Quebec expected to announce finalized Nunavik police agreement soon

The Kativik Regional Police Force says it has reached an agreement in principle for a new round of funding to maintain policing in Nunavik until 2023.

The KRPF’s last funding agreement expired in April 2019, and the force has operated on an advance contribution from the Quebec government ever since.

In late 2018, KRPF chief Jean-Pierre Larose said the force was essentially “on life support.”

Now, Larose said the force is working out the “final details” of the new agreement, the finalized version of which Quebec’s ministry of public security should be announcing shortly.

The new agreement will allow the force to hire more officers to staff its 14 communities, boost the training for its staff and upgrade its material resources, Larose told Kativik Regional Government council meetings in Kuujjuaq last week.

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

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.

The KRPF currently counts 80 staff members, which includes its chief, captains, sergeants and constables.

Of that group, three officers are Inuit.

As the KRPF rolls out the use of Tasers across the region, the new policing agreement is expected to provide for training and equipment so that each of Nunavik’s 14 police detachments will have a Taser and at least one officer trained to use it.

Tasers were introduced in the region last year as a way to at reducing fatalities during police confrontations.

To date, a total of 29 KRPF officers have been trained to use Tasers in a handful of communities.

KRPF says help is still available for registering weapons

Nunavimmiut gun owners can continue to register their weapons, the KRPF says, by bringing them into their local police detachment or to the KRG’s Department of Renewable Resources, Environment, Lands and Parks office in Kuujjuaq.

A one-year grace period for Quebec long-gun owners to register their weapons ended Jan. 29.

While many Nunavimmiut registered their weapons at the last minute this week, the registry remains controversial in the region, where Inuit hunters say they should be exempt because of their harvesting rights under the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement.

As of mid-February, the KRPF said 431 firearms in the region have been registered.

Gun owners can register their weapons online at the government website, instructions for which are provided in Inuktitut here