Program helps build bridges between OPP, First Nations

When most people think of art, they think of things like paint brushes, portraits, prints, and Picasso.
But for the OPP, “art” means their program to reach out to First Nation communities across the province.
“The core of it is to have an open and positive relationship with the First Nation communities,” said OPP Sgt. Marty Singleton, who has co-ordinated the Aboriginal Relations Team, or “ART,” across the OPP’s Northwest Region since it first began in 2005.
OPP officers involved with ART keep in constant contact with First Nations, talking with leaders, elders, and community members.
“We don’t police a lot of the First Nation communities in our area anymore, it’s policed by Treaty #3,” noted Sgt. Singleton. “However, we still want to have those positive relationships with the First Nation communities in case we are called upon to be in the community and provide that support.”
No matter how big or small of an incident, Sgt. Singleton’s job is to make sure the OPP doesn’t leave on a negative front.
The position, he said, is a natural fit with the work he’s done so far with the OPP. Sgt. Singleton is a product of the northwest, having been born in Sioux Lookout. He’s been in policing for nine years, starting with the Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service and then moving on to become a crisis negotiator with the OPP.
Being involved in a number of different calls where he’s had to develop a rapport with people, and get people talking, is intuitive to what he has to do as an ART member, he said.
As ART co-ordinator for the Northwest Region, Sgt. Singleton can be found travelling anywhere between Marathon and Kenora, working with officers at each detachment who are a part of ART. Fort Frances’ ART member is OPP Cst. Bob Mainville.
“I’m from here, born and raised, so I pretty well know all the people around,” noted Cst. Mainville, who has served for six years on the OPP and currently is the only aboriginal officer with the local detachment.
“Anytime I hear something happening, I try to keep in contact with the chiefs and find out what is going on, just to keep updated on any issues that they may have,” he said.
Although First Nation leaders here already have a good line of communication with the OPP, “It’s what it is: it’s relations. Trying to keep positive with it,” he explained.
Most recently, with the National Treaty Gathering being held at Pither’s Point here at the beginning of August, Cst. Mainville was in contact with the organizers to proactively make things ran smoothly.
“We started meeting before it happened, and we just had an idea of what was going to happen, just for safety,” he said. “Like for emergency vehicles going to the Point and what we needed to do in case of an emergency.”
Part of the ART position also has been to help First Nations organize during the National Day of Action each year.
“We don’t want to promote having the highway shut down, or anything like that because we want to stress that it’s jeopardizing public safety, jeopardizing the safety of the community, and jeopardizing the safety of the general public,” said Sgt. Singleton. “We want to work with communities to prevent anything negative from happening because it just takes one person.”
This past April, for instance, ART officers in Marathon and Pickle Lake helped First Nations put together traffic slowdowns—something Mainville also did the previous June.
“What we did was get into contact with the local people here, and what they had was an information [event where] they slowed down traffic and handed out pamphlets,” he noted. “Basically, what it was was information on land claim issues.
“So what we did was we just attended the scene where they slowed traffic down, just for safety for everyone, and just sat there and made sure no one got hurt.
“We try to help out and keep the peace basically,” he added.
“So [First Nations] are still getting their [message] across, we’re still working with them, we’re ensuring public safety, [and] people are not going to be getting too upset,” echoed Sgt. Singleton. “From my perspective, people are going to be more receptive to a traffic slowdown, not a complete shutdown.”
Other ART projects have included a clothing drive in Dryden, which collected 300 coats for people who needed winter clothing. Most recently, Sgt. Singleton has been working with the “Walk 4 Justice”—a group of women walking from British Columbia to Ottawa to bring awareness to the number of aboriginal women who have gone missing over the years.
While Cst. Mainville works close to home, being involved in the program can mean travelling across the province if the need arises. Alongside other ART officers, he was one of the first sent to Caledonia, near Hamilton, when a land claim dispute boiled over into a larger confrontation a few years ago.
“Basically nothing [happened]. We were there, [but] there were other ART officers from their community, so they were basically more into it than I was,” Cst. Mainville said. “I never even got to speak to any of the leaders or that, but I was just there as an ART officer.
“Anything local, that’s where we would have a bigger role,” he explained. “That’s where we would be the go-betweens, between the police and [leaders], because they know who we are.”
As representatives of the government branch of the province, the OPP can be called in during land claim disputes to enforce court injunctions, said Sgt. Singleton—a time when ART’s previous liaison work hopefully will minimize conflict.
“We want to be able to meet with communities and have them understand,” he stressed. “Respect what they’re trying to accomplish and, in the same token, make sure they’re aware of our position and where we’re coming from as the police and where we basically may have to intervene and . . . act on a court injunction . . . and enforce it.
“We try to have those positive inroads beforehand and not just come in like a steamroller,” he said.
Part of the mandate of ART is to develop and promote strategies within the OPP to minimize the use of force as much as possible. It can be something as simple as having officers in their tactical unit wear their regular uniform instead of riot gear, said Sgt. Singleton.
“That little change of minimal force may be enough to diffuse a situation,” he noted, pointing to major events like G-8 summits where OPP officers dressed in uniform have experienced less confrontation with protestors than those in riot gear.
“If we do things in a consistent manner, it will work down the road,” Sgt. Singleton said. “Like the way we treat an incident and if something else happens that’s similar, we can work from that which was positive.”