Warning: This story contains distressing details.
The chief of Vuntut Gwitchin is calling for a public inquiry and apology after a Yukon court ordered the release of a convicted sex offender back to his First Nation without community collaboration or consent.
Chief Dana Tizya-Tramm said his community was not properly consulted about the return of Christopher Schafer, who has a criminal history of violence and sexual assault. Schafer was set to fly into his home community of Old Crow just one day after the community heard the news.
“We get reached out to as an afterthought,” Tizya-Tramm said.
Concerned about community safety, Vuntut Gwitchin — with a population under 300 people — used its COVID emergency law to prevent Schafer from entering Old Crow for 90 days.
The crisis brings into question how former prisoners with violent histories are returned to their home communities. Often, Indigenous communities are under-resourced and overstretched, resulting in a struggle to develop necessary infrastructure and programs for community safety and effective reintegration, Tizya-Tramm said.
“We can see this individual is not rehabilitated and is institutionalized and is being thrown from one jurisdiction to another, and nobody is actually dealing with the issue,” he said.
“Our community does not have the capacity or resources to deal with it when our community is already on fire with mental health issues.”
Vuntut Gwitchin has little infrastructure or services to keep community members and Schafer safe. The community has only two RCMP officers, no band police department and few to no mental health professionals, Tizya-Tramm said.
The only way the community could assure the safety of women would’ve been to appoint community guardians to keep constant watch over Schafer, but that would’ve put the community, and Schaffer, unnecessarily at risk, Tizya-Tramm added.
“This is why the inquiry needs to happen, to feed the strategies of MMIWG (missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls) and to feed the strategies that are already happening and see ourselves reflected in it,” he said.
“We need to take responsibility.”
Tizya-Tramm sent a letter to federal Justice Minister David Lametti and Yukon Justice Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee but has yet to hear back.
The women in the community are livid about what they see as a careless decision by the Yukon Justice Department, he said.
“I hope the voices of our women are coming through saying this is enough, and that it is time for action,” he added. “We need help.”
This isn’t the first time the nation has used its COVID emergency law. During the pandemic, Vuntut Gwitchin used it to restrict who entered the community; it was necessary for Tizya-Tramm to protect the ancestral knowledge of the nation.
“Losing one elder is like losing a library of Alexandria; we can’t afford that when we are in this big cultural shift,” said Tizya-Tramm.
In the future, Tizya-Tramm wants regimentation, security resources and consultation for the community around reintegration. Without it, he worries the worst could happen, pointing to the recent stabbings in James Smith Cree Nation, where 11 community members were killed, as an example.
— With files from Ashley Joannou, The Canadian Press
Matteo Cimellaro / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer
Comments