Aboriginal knowledge highlighted at justice symposium

A national restorative justice symposium ‘Reflexions: Past, Present and Future’ held in Regina from Nov. 14-16, featured Aboriginal presenters from around the province.
One of these was Saskatoon lawyer Don Worme, who was keynote speaker in the opening plenary. Worme is originally from the Kawacatoose First Nation in Treaty 4 territory, and spoke of the past, present and future of restorative justice in Canada.

“He also spoke a great deal about the overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system, and how in his view, restorative justice needs to be used more broadly within the criminal justice system, but also more broadly outside of that with all people,” Barbara Tomporowski, Senior Policy Analyst with the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General of Saskatchewan, and Vice-Chair of the Planning Committee for the 2010 symposium.

Other notable speakers and workshop facilitators included Bevann Fox-Ironeagle and Susan Jolly-Maxie from the File Hills Qu’Appelle Tribal Council. Fox-Ironeagle and Jolly-Maxie arranged two presentations on a youth peacemaking program in the File Hills Qu’Appelle Tribal Council, on their community justice committee training and the guide book produced by the tribal council.

“We had 24 workshops in five streams, one of which was Aboriginal Justice. We had strong presentations on provincial, national, and international programs with a mix of both theoretical and practical knowledge,” said Tomporowski.

The symposium has been held in various Canadian cities for over a decade, and this year had a great deal of positive feedback, said Tomporowski.

“People were impressed with the quality of the program,” she stated, noting that the symposium definitely had an Aboriginal focus.

“Restorative Justice has borrowed from cultural practices of First Nations in Canada, and people in this field are very aware of that. It was quite important for the organizing committee to highlight Aboriginal programs and Aboriginal justice at this conference given that we are in Saskatchewan and that those issues are so critically important to us here,” she said.

The Year of the Métis Nation, 2010, was also acknowledged during the banquet. Sandy Pelletier told her mother’s story of being part of the relocated Métis community to Green Lake Saskatchewan in the 1940s.

“That was very powerful; there were people crying, frankly; an incredibly moving story that many people had never heard of before,” Tomporowski said.

Brett Bradshaw with CBC Saskatchewan also showed his documentary ‘The Red Road Forward’ two times.

“In my view, that’s a documentary every Canadian should see, and I considered it one of the highlights of the event,” she added. Bradshaw arranged for three people featured in the documentary to attend for a question and answer session.

The symposium focused on providing opportunities to learn about restorative justice and to network.

Attendees ranged from restorative justice practitioners through to victims’ service workers, Aboriginal groups, members of faith communities, people from agencies who work primarily with offenders, academics, and school educators.

“We had so much interest that we finally accepted 330 registrations, so the event was sold out; and we were very pleased with the high turn-out of people from Aboriginal Justice programs,” said Tomporowski.

The annual symposium is hosted by community based agencies and for the first time it was held in Saskatchewan. Next year, the symposium will be held in Kamloops, BC during National Restorative Justice Week in November.