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Prince Albert's chief of police Jon Bergen said his department is achieving in key areas but the final report on the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls was an opportunity to improve.(File photo/paNOW Staff)
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We will listen: PA Police Chief responds to MMIWG report

Jun 4, 2019 | 3:44 PM

Prince Albert’s chief of police said his department is achieving in areas of policing that pertain to investigations into murdered and missing women, but there is an opportunity for improvement as well as to prove that his department is capable of listening.

Jon Bergen was speaking to the release Monday of the final report on the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. He noted he and his counterparts with the Saskatchewan Association of Police Chiefs (SACP) had not yet had time to digest the total 231 recommendations in the report but they would be reviewed to seek ways to implement necessary changes.

We will listen…[that’s] what the community expects and deserves -Jon Bergen

“If we say we’re doing everything right we’re not listening to the recommendations,” Bergen told paNOW. “This is an opportunity to take a good thorough read, consider all things, and make sure where we can improve, we do improve.”

A media release by the SACP said “We cannot have reconciliation without first hearing and accepting truth …and we must all recognize that when we become defensive we stop listening.”

Bergen said his department was committed to listening.

“I say that we will listen, that’s absolutely in our interests and is what the community expects and deserves,” he said. “Part of that listening will be a thorough review of the document.”

Among the report’s recommendations specific to police services are the need to build respectful working relationships with Indigenous peoples through knowing and understanding, as well as the recruitment of Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA (two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual) people.

Bergen said the Prince Albert Police Service had a representative work force.

Latest available figures provided to paNOW showed of more than 90 sworn members 22 of them, or 23.4 per cent, self-identified as Métis, while six or 6.3 per cent were First Nations. A total of seven bylaw/special constables were Métis or First Nations members.

There were a total of 15 sworn female officers. Approximately 24 per cent of the civilian staff were Métis or First Nations.

“We have to make sure our police service is represented by the same diversity our community is made up of,” he said. “We are achieving, we’ve done well, and we need to continue to make sure we represent the city of Prince Albert. The department was not able to immediately provide the precise number of members who were Indigenous, or their gender preference.

When it came to cultural competency Bergen said his department was achieving through community training for all staff as well as training through the provincial and Canadian police colleges but the report would be reviewed to see if they could improve.

Another call for action in the report is to establish a national task force to review and, if required, to reinvestigate each case of all unresolved files.

Asked what he had learned from his own professional experiences as a police officer regarding the issue of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls, Bergen said it was that he was able to get a far greater understanding of the frustration and pain families are going through.

“We don’t know how to get all those answers all the time [for the families]. That’s something I really feel when I walk beside the families, listen to them and live in that minute with them,” he said. “I can tell you that pain is real.”

Editor’s note: this story was amended June 10 to include the latest available personnel numbers at PAPS.

glenn.hicks@jpbg.ca

On Twitter:@princealbertnow

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