Nishnawbe Aski Police trains drug investigators while waiting for equitable funding deal to hire more

Nishnawbe Aski Police Service (NAPS) say they're stepping up the war on drugs in First Nations across northern Ontario as drug traffickers continue to target isolated communities that they know have fewer resources.

NAPS Deputy Chief Brad Duce said the battle is to stop drugs before they enter communities, noting traffickers are coming from urban centres such as Toronto and Ottawa in Ontario and across the Manitoba border from Winnipeg.

"Once drugs enter the community, they have the potential to expand exponentially," he said, as they spread from one house to another.

He said police currently rely heavily on community peacekeepers in First Nations and confidential sources to help police stem the flood of illicit substances.

But he said NAPS is making progress in training its own drug investigators, thanks to a $10-million grant he obtained in 2022 from Public Safety Canada and the Ontario minister of the Solicitor General.

Duce said seven officers have been recruited so far with 11 left to go, however he said progress is slow because those specialty officers are promoted from the front lines, and he can't leave gaps in service in communities.

"That's the double edged sword right there, is that if we want to do 18 at once, what happens is, it would be an extreme detriment to our frontline communities where we need to provide that frontline policing," he said.

Eventually those 18 officers will staff three specialized drug units across northern Ontario; in Sioux Lookout, Thunder Bay and the Timmins area.

It's a plan that will get a significant boost once negotiations to reach a new deal on funding with the federal and provincial governments is complete that would put them on equal footing with non-Indigenous police services.

The negotiations are now in progress after the Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario won a human rights complaint, upheld in federal court, that Indigenous police are chronically underfunded by Ontario and Canada.

Individual First Nations have been doing what they can by working on bylaws and training community peacekeepers to search at points such as airports and post offices where drugs might be smuggled in.

Randy Cota is the co-founder of a security firm that employs drug sniffing dogs, called Creegonquin.

He's a retired OPP officer and a member of Moose Cree First Nation.

"We have lost so many people," he said. "Myself alone, I know six people that I would say were associates or friends that have died to this monster."