Nuanced. - 196. Grand Chief Steven Point: Indigenous Leader on Poverty, Justice & Crime

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

Why are Indigenous people overrepresented in the justice system? Grand Chief Steven Point joins Aaron Pete to discuss poverty, law school, becoming Lieutenant Governor, leadership, justice, and systemic reform.Send us a textThe "What's Going On?" PodcastThink casual, relatable discussions like you'd overhear in a barbershop....Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger Than Me podcast. Here is your host, Aaron P. Thank you so much for joining for another episode. I'm speaking with a local legend from My City, and we're going to explore his background, how he became a role model to so many, his thoughts on the criminal justice system, and the living conditions for so many indigenous people.

My guest today is Grand Chief Stephen Point. Grand Chief Stephen Point, It is an honor to have you on the show today. Thank you so much for being willing to join us. Would you mind first briefly introducing yourself? Sure. My name is Holiehletal. I'm from Skaukail First Nation.

My mother is actually from Sue Mass, and my dad's from Muscram. So at my English name, Stephen Point, I'm a grand chief for the Stala Tribal Council. Can you tell us just a bit about your background, your legal background, those pieces? Yeah, I went to law school in 1982 to 85. It was called the bar in 86 and had my own practice here in Chilwark for three years and took a job with the federal government as a case presenting officer in their refugee backlog for a few years. Then I was called to take up the acting position at the University of British Columbia faculty of law for the native law and their person there had left.

So they called me to take up the position. So I did that for a few years. And eventually was the person in charge of the Native Law Program there for one a year because I was then called back to work with the tribal council. They called me back to home. They said they want help with working on the treaty process. So I came back home.

back home and left my job at the UBC and um and I did that that for quite a few years uh I was a chief for about 15 years and I was called to the bench in 1999 for between 1999 and I was called to the bench of provincial government um I applied to be a judge I wanted to be a judge for quite some time. So I got accepted and was interviewed and whatnot. So during that time, though, I served three years as the chief commissioner for the BC Treaty Commission. And then I had to leave the bench

to take up the job as the 28th left-end governor, British Columbia, in 2005, or 2007, rather. So I did that for five years. And then I came back to the bench, served again for a few years on the bench. So I had a mixed career. I wanted to start just by reflecting on my own experience. Growing up, you actually visited Chiluac Middle School. And that was a big deal for myself and so many others when you came and visited when I was in, I think, grade 7, 8 or 9.

And it was fascinating. The piece that really stood out to me was how many people wanted to be. to find a familial connection to you to brag about. And they were like, oh, I'm related to him. That's my, that's my great cousin. And it just showed me something interesting about how one person can be such a role model for so many others that so many people looked up to you with like, I want to be able to say I'm related to this man.

And there's something really deep about that that personally, I've said this many times. I think First Nations often lack role models in comparison to other. communities and you're one of those individuals who's just gone on and become an outlier of outliers, who's really set an example that so many aspire to work towards and likely have inspired others to want to go to law school and believe that that's something they can do because you were able to do it and you've set that stage. Have you experienced that in your own life and heard these stories from people? Oh yeah. I had young people come up to me and they said, well, I'm going to go to law school just because you went, you know. And I tell them,

you know, it's not that hard. You just have to work for it. And I think a lot of people, First Nations, particularly wonder if they could succeed in law school. Is it too much work, or am I smart enough? And, you know, we suffer this hangover from colonialism, and we don't have a high enough opinion of our abilities, I think, a lot of times. And so a lot of the times when I go to schools or I'm talking to young people, working with them, a lot of it is encouraging them to spread your wings now. Try it. Because, you know, it is difficult to be self-driven and to work hard, but it doesn't take anything more than average intelligence to do what I did. I mean, I'm no brainiac, but I wasn't the best lost student in school, but I made it through.

And so I figure, hey, anybody can do it. May I ask you to take us back to your childhood growing up. There's not a lot of information that's publicly available about that. But there must have been some pieces along the way. You must have faced some adversity in ending up in law school. I mean, you became chief at 23 years old. What was some of those childhood experiences like where you kind of set on such an extraordinary path?

Well, I don't know if they were extraordinary or ordinary. I grew up at Scout Cale with my parents, of course, in a house my dad built. The Indian Affairs in those days, you used to drop off lumber for the families and you just built your own house and so we had a house that had a living room and a bedroom for my parents a kitchen and that was it there wasn't any indoor plumbing there was a stove that my dad burned coal in we didn't have a insulation in the walls. We didn't have a cement under the house. It was no foundation. It was just on

pilings that my dad built there. He built the house himself. And we had children, my brother and sisters, we used to sleep on the floor and pretty much in the living room. And until my dad built a lean-to-a-the-poles that we got from Swali. And we all helped him. My uncle Murrow was living with us. Uncle Tuner was living with us too. Two aunties used to live with us. And so we had 10 kids plus relatives living with us. And so when they dug the hole, we helped dig the hole and they got the pulls from Swali to build the room for the kids to sleep in. That was a big deal because the girls had a double wide bunk bed to sleep on. There was five of them. There was five of them and then I slept on the top bunk of a three triple bunk bed and then the brothers slept on

pretty much beds on their own on the side and my grandfather when he moved in with us he was 90 some years old he's asleep in between the beds on his own bed so um yeah we were crowded it was and and you didn't want to be the first one of the outhouse in the middle of the winter because there's snow out there and my mom used to um uh it would break water and and smell melt the snow so that we could bath in a uh one of those big galvanized tubs and god help you were number five the water was pretty dirty by then and but uh um mom used to cook on the wood stove and uh you know thinking about it i don't know how she did that uh it was it was uh it was uh we didn't know we were poor though we didn't think we were poor but people used to drop off boxes

at christmas time you know so i guess we were pretty impoverished my dad was a longer though come home with um i remember getting home and he'd throw oranges at us because that's when we would get to have an orange she'd bring it from the logging camps we never had them uh until then and uh so you know it's like we used to i never used to you know go visit anybody else and nobody would come to our place I never brought anybody home except for the boy who lived across the road

he used to bring his guitar and left it out of our house because his dad wouldn't let him have a guitar and Rick works but you know we used to work in a field with my mom because she had raspberries we had a cow, we had a pig

we had chickens I used to look after the chickens and yeah everybody had a job everybody did stuff and I used to cut the grass and yeah but I remember when I was in high school and every year for some reason I was on student council even from grade 8 to grade 12 I would be elected from the student body to be on the student council.

And so I was always sitting with the other, in council meetings, right? And when I got the grade 12, I ran for the presidency. And I got the presidency. I won the presidency. But Mr. Wilson brought me in the back and he sat me down. He said, you know, Steve, your grades aren't that good.

He said, we're going to let so-and-so take the presidency and you can be the vice president, even though I won the election. Wow. I didn't know what to think about that. I said, what the heck, can you do that? But, yeah, that's what they did, did those days. But there wasn't many of us in grade 12 by the time we got the high grade 12.

Most of the people had stopped coming to school. What made you the outlier in that circumstance? So many, unfortunately, indigenous people don't end up graduating. What made you want to continue? What made you stay on that trajectory when so many people choose to walk away? Yeah, I don't know why, and I think about it, I wasn't like A, B student, right? I wasn't, in fact, I never read a full book until I got out of high school. and but I do remember my mom used to sit us around the table after dinner and we would talk she would talk to us about things

talk to us about what was going on in the world and ask us for our views and things like that and you know so I at some point I just I remember talking to my school counselor at high school. I said, what do you want to become? I thought, well, and my dad's a logger, I'd like to become a logger. I thought that'd be a good thing to do. Then by the time I got to grade 12, I said, you know, I think I'd like to become a lawyer. That's what I wanted to do. And the council looked at him and said, well, you know, so you can make a really good job

by just working in construction, you know, or being a problem, or they make good money too. that's what you should think about that you know discouraging you yeah wow it was I guess he sort of assessed looked at my grades because this guy's not that brain or something but boy was he wrong well and so then after I graduated I did apply to go to UBC and I got accepted and and boy was that an eye-opener because I really I didn't have the writing skills to write the papers they wanted. I didn't have the study skills either. And you're not really well prepared from the kind of way that things are in high school,

where teachers tell you everything, sometimes even write your notes for you, that sort of thing. They're not really preparing kids to be on their own, to be self-driven, to study on their own too. so how to organize your time so they can get things done. And I was in a city where my mom and dad were long ways away, and I was living with my aunt in Vancouver, and I was on my own. And being in Vancouver was awesome, you know. But, yeah, I didn't stay at university.

For a year and a half, I stayed, then I came home. Because I told Mrs. Kent, I don't know why I'm here. I said, I have no idea what I want to do. I don't know really, really why I'm here. The last thing she said to me before I walked out of the office, she said, Steve, don't you come back here until you really, really, really wanted. Okay, she was a really wise lady, Indian Affairs lady.

and so I left and came home. Got married, went logging for about seven, eight years. Wow. Yeah, and sitting up on that mountain, I used to make good money logging. And I just bought a truck, and I was sitting there one evening because we used to work after dinner going loading logs because he'd make an extra 10 cents of log loading logs

and just extra money and I used to go work after dinner and I was sitting there watching the sun go down and thinking to myself I don't have to do this work the way this is not I don't have to be here in this logging camp I have a chance

to do higher work in school because I could go to school and get a different job. I'm taking somebody's job here and really I should be doing something different and that was what was going on

in my brain, right? So I got up from there and I decided to leave. I left a job and went home, applied to law school. I remember Doug Sanders wrote me a letter

because I'd been the chief By then 15 years, no, seven years, eight years, half the time. And he knew me and I knew him. And he said, Steve, he says, we're accepting your application to law school, but we want you to do two more years of undergraduate work. So that's when I started. I went back to school and stayed and finished and learned how to be a student. learn how to do the work properly.

And I was motivated by then because I used to attend the meetings the chiefs had and listening to the reports by the lawyers, right, and the accountants and people who were hired by the agency, by the organization to work for us, look around the room and the chiefs that I knew and the people that I had been there with, I knew they didn't understand what they were talking about. They didn't understand the Supreme Court of Canada rulings. They knew what their rights were, but they didn't understand what these people were saying. And I didn't understand it either.

And I thought, it would be good if we had our own lawyers. We had our own people that knew what was going on, right? So that's when I decided I'm going to go back to become a lawyer. And I did. Wow. If you can take me back just for a brief moment, back to your mom and her willingness to talk to you about issues and almost show you the, well, definitely show you the respect, that you have thoughts and opinions that you come to that are valid. And that just, that makes me think this self-confidence issue that we have. And I think all vulnerable populations, but particularly with indigenous people, that they don't have a thought to share or that's worth hearing, that that could be such a discouraging message to young people when you don't ask for their opinions.

even right or wrong or you got lots to learn, but that willingness to engage you on issues and hear your perspective, do you think that played a large role in shaping your willingness to, because there's something about you that has to say, I'm willing to apply to law school, I'm willing to push forward despite having no idea what to expect. And you didn't have a ton of other people to go, that person's a lawyer, I know them, this person's a lawyer. And it's not like all your friends were doing that. This was a very solo mission.

and I'm just trying to figure out the impetus and the confidence you had to find in yourself to go down that path. Oh, yeah. Well, my mother was actively involved in the Homemaker's Organization in those days. She was one of the executive members, and they were doing a lot of work trying to improve homes on reserve. So that meant that mom went to a lot of these meetings. and I used to drive her sometimes. I used to go to some of the meetings and you hear the dialogue, you know.

And I drove her once to meet Pierre Trudeau, for example. She was having lunch with him, and I think I just turned 17 to get my license and I was driving down the wrong way and a one-way street in Vancouver. But in those times we spent together, my mom would talk to me about things And I remember before I left, before I left university the first time,

she had a lawyer pick me up at the university, actually. She says to me, you wait at the student union building and have, it said, Jim is going to come and pick you up. I didn't know who this was and so I was waiting there and he was Jim Thompson came and he's a lawyer from Chilwick and his wife was a friend of my mom's

and so he brought me to his house when I got there my mom and dad were there and we're having dinner so I was sitting there what's going on here and then and after dinner

Jim comes over and gives me a book to read. Well, I never read anything up till then. I never could read very well. I've vocalized all the things I read. Even today, it takes me a long time to read things.

But it was a book about Clarence Darrow's life. He was a lawyer from the United States and he used to fight for the unions and he fought for children. He did the monkey trial in

southern United States where they were trying to stop the teachers from teaching the theory of Darwin. Darwin's theory of evolution. The religious folks were trying to stop it being taught in the schools. And I had the book for some time

and I didn't read it at first but it was under my bed. I had only one book in my whole room and that was it and I remember clearing things out one time and I found that book and I decided to try to read it and I did read it and I was inspired by what he did for children who were working in coal mines in the work that he did you know fighting for the rights of the union people to work under positive conditions And I thought to myself, there, there's a man that's got a purpose, that he's living his purpose, he's doing something with his education.

And so that's when I did the kind of thing my mom used to do to try to push me along, right? And yeah, so that's the way she was. She's still alive now, is 97 now. Wow. That's amazing. You chose to run for Chief at 23 years old, and I'm wondering, did you know the responsibility that that would entail? It sounds like you were on student council, so you had some idea of governance. But when I ran for counsel, they gave me the housing portfolio.

And immediately, there was this very heavy way. weight that the homes on reserve are my responsibility, that the quality of living conditions on the reserve were my responsibility, that I couldn't blame, I mean, people do, they blame the federal government, they blame the provincial, they blame anybody, but ultimately, you have to go to bed knowing I can make a difference in improving the quality of life. And we've renovated 35 of 89 homes within the past two years. We've applied for more housing on reserve. We're doing things.

But that weight hit me really hard, and it didn't hit. me when I was running and I'm wondering you're 23. I think I was 27 or 28. What was that weight on your shoulders like? Well, I just remember walking home from Sardis one time and this is after I left university and Robbie Sapasi was one of our elders on the reserve called me into his yard and he said, Steve, you went to university. He says, I want you to university. He says, I want you to run for a council. And, oh, you know, the elder asked you to do things. I didn't say no.

I just said, oh, dear. And so I went home and I told my wife, I said, that what happened? And so I went and I was nominated to be the chief. And in those days, right, there was a band office. It was only a berry cabin on skids, and there was a telephone in there and a typewriter. And we didn't get a lot of money to run that less than $40,000 a year,

paid the electrical bill. and the phone bill and something for a secretary, but we had no money as a band in those days. But the chiefs got together as a tribal council and they used to meet, and they would meet with Indian Affairs. Indian Affairs used to give us an honorary, $35, I think we're coming to a meeting. Indian Affairs was still responsible for everything back then, housing, education, welfare, all of that.

But part of that responsibility had been transferred to the Chilok Area Indian Council where they were handling welfare now and education. Those are the only programs that we had that we were working on. And so when I became the chief, I was essentially working with other elderly chiefs and going to meetings, listening, you know, listening to what's going on. And it's a steep learning curve, I had no idea what a BCR was. I had no idea who the Indian agent was, or I didn't know what Aboriginal rights were, and all of those things you've got to learn on the job at just going to the meetings and listening.

A lot of listening and a lot of asking questions sometimes. And you didn't really realize that what was on your shoulders was really the poverty that we're living under. And the lack of education and the destruction of our rights and the need to get more fishing time, the need to improve the homes that were being built and not being built and how do we help the young people the whole thing was on your shoulders

everything was on there and the old counselors that were with me there they'd come to meetings but I was 23 and start going to the Union of Chiefs meetings listening to what they're talking about

Yeah, it's a learning curve And then it's this awareness that we have lots of things That need to be done Lots of issues that need to be resolved And very little resources to do it If anything Yeah, so there was no Money to do anything

The chiefs used to sit around a table And I attended one of them meetings with them and they were throwing money on the table to send somebody to Vancouver or then to Ottawa to talk to the government but there was no funny they were putting their own money on the table yeah so it's entirely different time a different time for when I started as a chief back then so um and most of the chiefs like old old Richard Malaway he was the president but admittedly he could sign his name but he didn't read English or write it very well

so his language was Helcamel and that's what he but he was our oldest chief and he was the most respected of all the chiefs so so I came at a time just when the old guys were leaving beginning to leave office and leave our world even and and but is there any lessons you think this generation

of leaders should learn from that generation of leaders well we should be feeling very grateful that you know that this generation of leaderships

has got opportunities that those folks never had right and And it was always this feeling of unity amongst the chiefs. I mean, there was never this idea of divisions or them and us sort of thing. They all meet together. They all used to go to the river together, fish meetings.

They'd all meet at Archie Charles's place and stand around and at a fish cabin have a chief's meeting. and when Sam Douglas would block the railway, everybody would go. I mean, there was this instant brotherhood amongst the leadership right across the country. I mean, if somebody needed help, somewhere else they'd send people to go. And they all understood that we were fighting for a common cause, which was our rights to be recognized. But, you know, younger people today didn't experience a lot of the things that we went through.

And we were poor. We had nothing when we started organizations. And now there's all kinds of resources. There's all kinds of funds available, right? That's nothing wrong with that, but I think they would benefit from knowing and understanding that we are and we should be together, fighting together, shoulder to shoulder to protect the rights that we have now being recognized by the Supreme Court and protected in the Constitution. There's a lot of people that like to take those away. I mean, they were talking about that in this latest federal election. If the Conservatives were only wanted to change things.

And we can't allow that to happen. We have to stand together to hold our line, hold the rights that we've been achieving through the years. And we need to stand together for that purpose. But more and more we see divisions happening and not unity. that's anyway that's where I see it when you look at Skokale now and the growth that it's seeing it's remarkable to see

the new administration office the housing that's coming about how does that make you feel knowing how everything started and having wood dropped off to build a house to what it looks like today and to see the approach leadership is taking

oh yeah I mean it's very true that I look back over the 73 now of 50, 60 years I've been aware, and our reserve, we've come from the kind of houses that were built back then by their own people to houses that they're now built to code. And these are nice homes, you know, and, And I think a lot of young people don't realize the distance that we've come in terms of just good housing, right, and the distance that we've come. Because I remember when we had no band office, and Chief Gordon Hall built a small cabin so that we could have an office there that we called it.

It was just on stilts. It wasn't even on, it was on skids, but it wasn't on a cement found. And now what they have, and we have a gymnasium, and we have a beautiful place to exercise and meeting halls there. It's just a fantastic facility. I mean, we have every reason to be happy for the next generation. But we should be thankful, too, to have these, to be appreciating what we have now and to take care of it, too. Yeah, it's Because there was a time when we had none of that, none of that at all.

We didn't have playgrounds. We used to collect rocks and play games with rocks on the fat fields right there. We used to collect bottles so that we'd go and get a 10-cent pop at Sardis, you know, a bag of chips for a dime. and penny candies and, you know, walk around thinking you're rich

because you got 50 cents. I remember those times, and now it's, I don't know. I guess we are maybe a victim of our own success sometimes. People don't appreciate what we have now. We have to take care of it, look after what we have. You were a native court worker, right? well i i i i didn't do the job actually um the native court worker that started that here was

alex james he was an elder that worked in a court system helping uh native people who were coming to court well when i opened my practice up here in 86 i became the uh duty council for chiloac Hope and Abbotsford. And so I'd be traveling back and forth doing duty council. The lawyers here, they're so busy. Oh, Steve's here. You can do the duty council also.

I opened my practice. I've been a brand new lawyer and I got all the work to do, which is good. You've got to learn your craft somewhere. And it's not like the other lawyers left me. They supported me. They talked to me and helped me out, you know.

So, but I was, I did a lot of things. the guys that were coming from the jails. We have seven institutions around here. I did a lot of the daily Monday work for indigenous people because Monday morning was our day and in the criminal law. So I did a lot of that work,

helping people stay out of jail, doing the bail hearings, and then assisting with legal aid to fight some of the cases. there was a time when I had 90 fish cases in my back pocket because of the demonstrations that used to take place on a Fraser out of GM and I had all those clients. But, yeah, that's how I learned how to become a lawyer, actually, doing legal aid.

You don't make any money on it, but you sure learn how to do your job. One piece, so I was a native co-worker for four and a half years, and I just kept running into the client needs housing where the, the client needs support with addiction services or treatment or recovery. And I've spoken to our Premier Eby and the current AG Nikki Sharma. There's just not enough resources for these individuals. But the other piece after going to law school was that I realized a lot of these issues should be addressed and can be prevented in the community.

and that's what made me so interested in running for council was because you don't, say you have an individual who's First Nations who needs housing. Well, it's the council member's responsibility within that nation to help get housing so that they could return home or start to address those issues. It's the community that can apply for addiction services. But me as a court worker,

I can say they can go to this place or that place. But that person's more likely than not unfortunately going to recidivate and come back into the criminal justice system. If we want to prevent this, we have to go to the community and we have to start offering the education resources and the programs and those supports. And the only criticism I have of organizations that are focused on justice

is if you're not talking about housing in First Nation communities, if you're not talking about treatment services and elders programs on reserve to support people so they don't go down that path to begin with. I'm never going to be able to solve, those individuals coming through the criminal justice system. Some people managed to find their way out, but unfortunately, that's less common than the common circumstance, which is somebody struggling with homelessness, comes back and comes back.

And they deserve support. One thing that I learned from the person training me was she was very hard on a person who had committed again a crime and was like, why are you doing that? What are you up to? You shouldn't be doing that. And there was just a part of me that was like, that's just not my job. My job isn't to judge that person based on the fact that they're back, it's to help them get up again because somebody can fall down 100 times, but you should always try and support them in returning back to community. And so I'm just wondering, how do you balance the perspective of a lot of things happen in the court system, but I just, I'm not sold that that's where we end up reducing the over-incarceration rates of indigenous people.

My personal belief is it's more likely solved in the community. and I'm just curious to get your take on that. Oh, yeah, I know you're right there. I mean, criminologists for a long time have studied what's the psychological root of criminal behavior or what is the psychosocial result from parenting or what are the economic factors? Why do we have criminal behavior and all that? and and I remember going down to to conference one time and the United States have been trying to work on this issue of

you know the revolving door or their civitism rate the number of people that are the number of black people the number of poor people, the number of women, the number of youth that are in the system and whatnot and trying to sort of address these issues And what they came to in New York was exactly your conclusion that the justice system is not well equipped to deal with criminal behavior. We're there to, the justice system was there to actually punish people

and hopefully protect the community if we can by putting people in jail. But that's it. They don't have any other tools to stop people from committing crimes and offenses, right? And so what they started in New York, was what's called community court where instead of treating the people as if they're criminals, they treated them like they have social problems that's driving their criminal behavior. So you'd get into the courtroom and the judge would say, okay, Jimmy, we're going to, we want you to stop drinking for seven days. Okay, Your Honor, seven days come by.

Have you, are you sober seven days? Yes, you're all good. We have a cake for you. Judge would come down, candle, seven days sober for, you know, and then they'd say, now, Jimmy, you want you to work on getting a real place to stay? They'd be social workers coming in. I want to see you in 30 days with a real, still sober, and with a place to stay. Social workers come in and take Jimmy out, and they get in a place to stay in 30 days.

They'd back on it. Jimmy, did you get a place to stay? Yes, I did. Are you still sober? You had the cake again. There's another cake. And so, and then this community court idea caught on in Toronto, and then it caught on in Vancouver after Judge Gove did a report on Tutu-2-2-Main.

I don't know if you've ever been to Tutu-2-2-Main. And we called it the zoo back in the day when I was there. And when you walked into Tutu-T-2-2-Main, the court list ran right to the ground. It used to be right on the floor. You used to pick them up and see who was, and every week it was. the same people. It was the same. It wouldn't different. And so the last time

I was a judge, I went down to sit at Tutu, Maine, and I went to look at the court list, two pages stuck in the wall. I was looking at that. What the heck? He says, oh, the community courts got the rest. And Judge Gove

and they have a community court. I went, I said, can I see it? He's yeah, we'll take you over. So win and observed community court and of course you see all the people in downtown Vancouver who are living

on the streets and they're addicts or they don't have a place to stay or they're just poor people, whatever, they've drifted into the cities and they're committing offenses because they need their next drug fix or they need food to eat or they just need money to survive in some way

and so criminality was driven by poverty and driven by drug addiction or driven by lots of social issues. There was a guy in one of the towns I was sitting at. He used to wait in the middle of the street with a police car and he bust the headlight on a cop car with a wrench and then wait to get arrested. He always got three months in jail, but for that three months he was not in the cold because it was winter and he ate three meals a day, you see. So the criminal justice system is designed to do one thing only, but it's not designed to help people.

For instance, rehabilitation is one of the objectives of sentencing. But in the end, what you really see is just people going into custody, going into jail, coming out, going back into custody, coming out. But the community court idea passed on to know what we have First Nations Court.

Where the First Nations Court people come in. First Nations come in. They sit with the judge and they sit with an elder and they talk about what's going on with you, Jimmy. Oh, well,

and they say, okay, well, let's work on that. You know, you're having trouble with drinking. Let's see who can help you with that. And so the whole idea behind community court is to do exactly what the car system is not designed to do. You know, as a judge, I mean, when I was sitting on the bench anyway, Native people had come in front of me, right, and say to them, well, I could get a glad to do report, and that would probably take six months. but I'm going to stand on right now I went in the back and I phoned up to

Jayalas. Do you guys have a bed for us also? Yeah, we do. Go back at the court. You're going to go to Jailis. I mean, and I'm going to call you back in six months after you finish the program to see how you did.

Okay, Judge, and then goes off to Jailas. Comes back after the program. How did you do? I've been dry since they went up and I'm seeing my family again and working on getting my job bank, all that, right? And justice system can do other things, but it's not its inclination. It's not the reason it was created. And so it's just, it's not well equipped to deal with

young offenders, for example. It's not well equipped to deal with drug addicts or homeless people or people who've got schizophrenia or should be taking their medication who don't, all that sort of stuff. It's, and in society, we keep recycling our people into justice system that should be getting help somewhere else and should be getting services somewhere else because we're not a health center, we're not a, we're not a place to dry out. and you know but

the justice system is designed to protect people's property that's what it's designed to do mostly it came from England for that purpose and so

who gets tangled up in it people that don't have there's the haves and have-nots and most poor people and indigenous people are have-nots and so they get tangled up in that system. Once you get tangled up into it,

hard to get out of it. It's hard to get untangled. And so you see these few folks, I used to get when I was a lawyer, I'd get a file somebody as a young offender, and they would be 13 or 14

years old. Then they'd become adults, and then I got a file for them as an adult. And then they get married, and then I have a file for them because they're in family court. And my father's getting fatter and fatter and fatter. And all that time, nobody's asked them about whether you're living in a good place or not.

Or have you got help with your drug addiction or do you need counseling to get into school or, you know, nothing like that? They come to us for a very narrow reason and that's what we deal with. So I have a few statistics here in 2021, in digital. Indigenous individuals comprised approximately 32% of the federal prison population. In provinces, indigenous adults accounted for 30% of admissions into provincial and territorial correctional services. Indigenous youth made up 46% of admissions to correctional services in 2016 and 2017, while only representing 8% of the population.

Indigenous women only represent 4% of the population in Canada. but account for 50% of female federal inmate population. We've seen, and I spoke to Nikki Sharma about this, we've seen the native court workers who have existed for 50 years and have done, in my opinion, important work, but we're not making significant progress on these issues. And what are your thoughts? Is there a silver bullet or is this just poverty mixed with addictions

that it's very hard to untangle this problem. How do we get to the point where we don't need First Nations? I know a lot of people are excited about First Nations Court. How do we get to the point where we don't want that or need that? There's no opportunities for that to be a service where there is no need for a Native court worker, where there is no need for further cultural services in prisons, because they're not a high representative. Where Gladu reports are an obsolete piece of the past,

it feels more and more like there's less and less hope. on addressing these issues. Oh, yeah. Well, they, I don't think there is any one answer that comes to mind, right? The truth is this system is imposed on Native people. We never agreed to it. We never, I mean, these people came,

here and set up governments, set up courts and started arresting us as native people. We know that. We know that this isn't that these aren't our laws, right? And that's a problem. Creating a social contract with people, though, would go a long way to, I think, helping people understand their place in society, right? Right now, we're on the outside looking. in the Canadian society and where we've become victims of that society through their justice system.

I think the other thing is it's clear, and I talk to people in Vancouver through the one society that's working with homeless people. society's priorities is not around sharing the wealth of society other than through taxation the truth about housing in any city is that if you took the homeless population and just put them into decent clean housing provided them enough food to eat it would be cheap than what we're doing now, the costs that we have for the justice system, the costs that we have for health care, right, the cost that we ring up for all of the addictions and all the work that we're doing in those areas. All the money being spent a million dollars a day in East Vancouver to help people, it's cheaper just to build them brand new houses. units. It's cheaper to get them to school for free as they're doing in Finland. It's cheaper to make sure they have enough to eat, right? But society isn't about doing that. They're not

wanting to provide that sort of socialist perspective, right? I think society takes a view that this is their fault that they created that themselves and they should get pull up their socks and make a better life of themselves the way I did sort of thing and um so that's the other thing I think society's priorities isn't really around uh applying resources that would actually change the lives of these folks um the other thing I think is that a lot of indigenous people that end up in the cities, they don't start in the cities, they don't born there. They're coming from reserves and communities where life is also very bad and they're facing social issues that need to be addressed in the communities

from where they're coming from, young girls who are running away from bad families, situations and we're not spending enough time and energy on helping communities deal with their social issues, right? And when we apprehend children, for example, children are being apprehended here. When the family has got it, had the crisis, though, is way back here. Dad lost his job and mom started drinking again, whatever happened was the crisis. It ended up in a situation where someone had to intervene now and take the children away. It's only at the time when they look at taking the children away that they say, well, how can we provide family services to the family? Well, they needed the services way back there, right? They needed to help way back

then and you know what teachers when you get kids walking into a school they know when the child is in danger they know something's happening something's changed and we need to pay attention to that and apply resources early for families but we don't we spend the time and money only to protect and apprehend the child and then it's too late it's really too late and the same with someone getting arrested right by the time the kid is out or adulter is out running and and and they're being arrested right they're being arrested five 10 years after things started going bad in the home a long time before that things were going awry right Now they're being arrested and they're saying, how can we help the family?

Well, it's five or ten years too late, right? Right. And so they need to look at actually helping the families earlier. One of the things I tried to do when I was working with, you know, my wife and I took 17 children with us to, to Europe. We raised the money to attend a cultural festival. And we had a dance troupe

and we'd get the kids dressed up and they would perform for other people. And these kids, you could see them blossom as little young people. They're just amazed and

they have this experience outside of their community. And I often think we need to do more with our youth, when they're, before they get angry, before they get soured by how bad things are to get them. And I started bringing them to Victoria to do leadership training with them. And kids in elementary school, not elementary, but early high school, they're great kids. They're just, they're so open to suggestion too. You can do this. You can become this.

and we need to take the young people out of their milieu and into an environment in which they can make up their own mind about what they can do and what they can't do. You know, the real change has to happen before they get arrested, before the children go and be taken away. It has to happen early. and you know our young people of course it used to be at a time you had a child when you were young thing

nobody thought I think that was not a bad thing but now we think it's a bad thing our morals have changed and we kick the children out when there's certain age to look after yourself now. But in the old days, you lived in a long house. Everybody looked after the children. Everybody went hunting and fishing together, and the young people got married whenever they wanted to get married when they're young. But it was the grandparents that actually raised the children because the grandparents said, well, those kids are too young. They don't know what they're saying yet. But nowadays, we've told the kids, you made them, you look after them. Whereas even today under the current CFCSA, I mean, grandparents aren't given standing to talk in court, even though they should be, they should be turning to the grandparents saying, how do we fix this?

Because the grandparents, if they all take the children, I'll look after them. Because that's our traditional job anyway, as grandparents. So there's things that they can do in society that I think society is not willing to do. or society's not aware enough to do it. I'd like to talk a little bit about your work being a provincial court judge. I've had the privilege of working with many, and it's a really unique position, and the piece that stands out to me is the impact you can have on a person. There's one sentencing that will just always stand out to me,

and it was a woman who was abused, I think, probably her whole life. and it was just a very humanizing moment when the judge acknowledged that and held space and said, I understand why your circumstance is the way it is. I've heard your story. Gladu played a huge role in the judge being able to hear that piece of her story

that she was just never given a chance. And to have somebody sitting in a chair like that and be able to kind of acknowledge you've been through something I couldn't imagine and I wouldn't ever let my children go through. You've been through that. And so I hold space for that. And ultimately, I want you to take a different direction in your life. To be able to sit in that seat on a regular basis is I imagine a lot of responsibility.

But I also imagine a huge privilege. Can you just reflect on your work? Oh, yeah. Well, my time on the bench was it was not. a combination of stressful, being stressed out because of the amount of work that you have got to do, the amount of reading that you've got to do, and in many cases, the writing that you've got to do for cases. But I never had an issue with sitting in court and talking to people.

Kids used to walk by my court when I was in Prince George waving at me because they they knew I was the judge. And this one guy come in, these little guy with wrong glasses. I forget his name now, but I used to call him Bobby. I think, Bobby, what are you doing? And you go, hi, Judge. He says, I got arrested again.

And he was only like 13 or 14. And a little red-headed face. And I just, oh, man. And one thing that I never wanted to judge people the way they feel like they're being judged, right? Like looking down their nose at them for what's gone on in their life. And certainly as a judge, you got to sentence people for their behavior. But my own attitude was like everybody.

everybody's a person. Everybody has a story. Everybody has some value and there's still some hope to help this person. And only one time I lost my temper, I think, in court and that was at a prosecutor. But most of the time, I try to understand where the people are coming from, what's happening with them in their lives. And to express empathy and compassion is not inconsistent with providing justice. It's, I think, necessary to do that. And to be respectful to them,

regardless of what they may be charged with, treat them as a human being. I think that if you treat people in a certain way they will live up to your expectation right that sounds like what your mom had done for you during that period

is that she held that space for you and treated you like a person and that that was passed on I also wanted to ask you became at age 56 you became the lieutenant governor of British Columbia what did that role involve well

quite honestly when they asked me to do this i was given i was given fair warning that the prime minister was going to call me and so gwen and i looked it up on the internet what is the left-time guy because we didn't know what it was and she says doesn't he have a house to live in i go let's find out and he does i say yeah there is a house in victoria we didn't know that either and and um so When I got the job, of course, I was rebuilding an old green 77 GMC truck, and my own car was, we only had one other car.

Gwen needed it for him to work. I said, I'll just go over in my truck. I said, the first day I was going over, and I was sitting in my truck and waiting to get on a ferry. And the guy walks by, he says, he comes up to the window, and he says, you work for the government now? And I go, yeah, it's his first day. He goes, ah, he says, come with me.

This is where we're going. She's just, come on. I was way in the back of the line up. I had my whole truck, and he started bringing me up to the front of the line. And all those people are looking. What the heck is that guy going? They brought me at the front of the line, and I got to go on the ferry before everybody.

Wow. And they put the flag up that the left-hand governor was on the ferry, and then he brought me to a room and they said this is your room sir you can sit here and we'll bring you some lunch and I go holy moly and I got into the house there late that night and nobody was there when I got there just security and and the next morning I realized hey I didn't have any socks I forgot socks I better go to the store get some socks so I caught the bus down down because I didn't want to drive my old truck down here because I didn't know what the parking was going to be like this is a city bus you might as well just catch a bus so I went down there and got down his husband's bay was closed you really it was not

open till 930 so I'll go at breakfast got some eggs and bacon and finally the 10 o'clock they were open so I went in and got my socks and I was coming back on a bus and I said, the bus driver, I said, I know the address, it's 1410 Rockland. He goes, oh, he goes, you have to wait for this bus, he said. So I got on the bus that he told me to get on. The bus driver says, no, you walk that way, sir. When you see the stone wall, that's where you're going. Okay, so I took off and I walked, I got off the bus a certain spot,

and I walked down the road in there. the gate, the iron gate, and I recognized I walked in and all of a sudden the secretary and staff are running towards me, they grabbed me by the arms, had a radio, we found him, he's right here.

It's just, secretary, just my first day in the job, we lost the left day of government. What are you guys worried when I was just getting socks, you know? Everything you do, I realized is you're followed around

and they know to everything they say and we got up one morning and Thomas stuck his head to the door, he says, Your Honor, he says, tell your wife to quit making the beds, that's my job. Gwen looked at me, he's one making the bed. It was a total shift.

I mean, you have a chef there you have a car and a driver and then they take you down to parliament and you walk in and there's guns going off and there was demonstrators in the front of the parliament my brother was in there demonstrating

against government they all put the signs on are waving at me but I mean I just I mean we were raised with very little and everything I made in my life I earned that right to sit down and have that piece of bacon or whatever I'm eating but to be brought into a place like that where you know there's a swimming pool we never had a swimming pool there's a whole room down there just to hang

your coat up and 17 bedrooms and that was amazing I I We finally figured out that the government can't run without the Queen's representative because the Crown is the sovereign head of British Columbia and Canada. And they need to pass laws. They need the Queen's consent or the King's consent now. They can't even pass a money bill on their own. They can't even introduce a money bill. It's the left-hand governor that actually has to introduce money bills in the Parliament.

And if the premier, for whatever reason, gets sick or maybe gets arrested or something, you have to fire that person and hire a different premier. It's called a constitutional crisis, right? And you really are the queen's representative. But nobody knows that. Nobody understands that. I went to school after school. And they all say to me, are you the governor general?

No, I'm the left-hand governor. What do you do and all that? And it's actually lieutenant governor, right? It's not lieutenant. It's lieutenant. Lieutenant is what they say in the United States. And even teachers, I would ask you, what does that job mean? And where do you work at?

They don't know. People don't understand the constitutional nature of our governance in Canada. Are you allowed to say no in those circumstances? Like if you need to introduce a money bill, are you able to say, not today, I don't want to? Yeah, I could have. But it's not done. Oh, yeah, there were times when the left-hand governor actually in Alberta, apparently, refused to pass a act, and they cut his water off in his house. You didn't have a house for a long time.

I think they have one now. But, I mean, constitutionally you're allowed to, but just as a matter of fact, it's never done. My last question that I just want to get to. you don't do this alone, and you've mentioned Gwen a few times. And I'm wondering if you can just reflect on the partnership, the relationship that you have, and the work you've been able to accomplish together. Well, Gwen and I've been together 53 years now. I always say her and I grew up together, right?

She went to school. When I went to school, she was a hairdresser. She started out. She didn't finish high school. she finished high school then she went on to get her bachelor's degree in education then her master's of education

then her PhD in education she's intelligent person and but we've been partners now for a long time and you know we do everything

pretty much together cultural work the healing work all of that we do together and so I don't know honestly she's been my teacher as well over the years you know and honestly don't think I would have gotten this far but for the fact that I've had strong support from her and she's been there she still washes my clothes she still looks after me And, you know, it's just been a great, I've been very fortunate.

I can't have been very lucky you've had her all these years. Is there anything you want to leave listeners with, a reflection, advice? Well, you know, my granddaughter said to me, and my grandson said to me, he says, one day he says, you know, well, all this is about Papa. He was only about eight years old. I said, what? He says, it's about living. It's about living your life.

And that's what my granddaughter said to me one time. She says, Papa, you should just live your life. You know what? You want to buy that old car? Go ahead. And I thought to myself, wow, how was she able to see this inside in me? Right? And I think that people in this modern day and age,

are afraid. There's too much fear. And that's how we were controlled by people who want to control us. And they say that we need to do this out of fear. And we conform. We listen out of fear. And I think we need to try to exercise our own personal sovereignty make up our own mind because sometimes the people telling us what is real and what

it's not real they're not right it's not right and right and right now we're being told a lot of things and it's too easy i think just to allow someone else to do our thinking for us we need to sit down and ground ourselves and center ourselves and really come to our own view and our own perspective about what is true and what is not true governments aren't always right teachers aren't always right judges aren't always right And when we can listen with our heart to that good voice sometimes that we hear in our brain

and help us to do what is, to do what is right. And I think that's a hard thing to do sometimes is to really think about what is right and what is not right. and then to act on it. It's not easy to do. You look what happened in the Second World War. How many people, six million Jews were killed because one man said it was the right thing to do. And now we've got one man telling us all kinds of things.

He's the ruler of the world, he thinks. And I think we need to pause and sit down and ask ourselves, is this right? What is right? And otherwise history tends to repeat itself over and over and over again. We can bring about change. We can bring about positive change. We only have to have the desire and the, and the courage to do it.

That's all. Grand Chief, thank you so much for sharing your time today. It's been an absolute honor. Thank you for having me over. It's an honor to meet you. Well.