Lawyer who was employed at Indigenous Justice Centre alleges toxic work environment

A lawyer who was employed as a staff member at an Indigenous Justice Centre in B.C. says she has filed a human rights complaint alleging that she was the victim of a toxic work environment in which her Indigenous background was mocked.

Pamela Shields, who started working at the Merritt centre in June 2021 but says she resigned in August last year, has filed the complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.

“I’m an Indian residential school survivor and they were mocking me about that,” she said Wednesday. “Their actions actually re-traumatized me.”

Shields said she tried to talk to officials with the centre and wrote letters to the board of the B.C. First Nations Justice Council, a non-profit organization that runs the centre.

“They just turned a deaf ear, they did not want to hear it,” she said.

B.C. has three Indigenous Justices Centres, in Merritt, Prince Rupert and Prince George, plus one that is run virtually. Their purpose is to address the over-representation of Indigenous people in Canadian jails and prisons, who estimated to be as high as 30 per cent of all prisoners.

Staff lawyers are employed at the centres along with other support personnel, including people who write reports aimed at delving into the Indigenous backgrounds of accused for use during sentencing proceedings.

Recently, the B.C. government announced a $44-million expansion of the program, to increase the number of Indigenous Justice Centres to 15  over the next several years.

Shields also spoke of a number of other issues at the centre, including a high turnover of staff. Two other lawyers who left their employment at two of the other centres confirmed Shields’ observation about staff turnover and other organizational issues but would not to comment on the record.

Shields said that after she was hired she discovered that there was no oversight and no organization at all.

“They can’t keep lawyers there. They’ve bumped up the salary of the lawyers by 50 per cent and there’s no way they’re going to be able to open 15 centres around the province. There’s just no way.”

She says she was told she’d have authority over the centre but found herself getting into “constant” disagreements with the administration because she wanted to hire local Indigenous people and they wanted to hire non-Indigenous people and didn’t want her to make any decisions.

Shields added that she heard that the people who worked at the Indigenous Justice Centre in Prince Rupert had to buy their own supplies, including toilet paper.

“This is what I mean, there’s no infrastructure in place. When I started at Merritt, all of the centres didn’t have a proper working telephone system. We didn’t have really basic information, like software, or tech support.”

In an emailed statement, the Justice Council said it had not been notified of any complaint filed with the tribunal and if a complaint is brought to their attention, they would comply with the process.

“Our 2023 Justice Forum was a huge success, held March 6-8 in Vancouver, and attended by more than 400 individuals representing First Nations leadership, rightsholders, justice system partners and allies,” said the statement.

“We are moving forward in our work with good governance, strong Indigenous leadership and a competent staff team.”

The statement added that the Justice Council is on track to open six Indigenous justice centres before the end of this year and another six centres next year.

Attorney-General Niki Sharma said opening more centres was part of the government’s Indigenous justice strategy worked on with the B.C. First Nations Justice Council and other representatives and has the goal of reducing the effects of the justice system on Indigenous people.

“They’ve been, from my point of view, very successful for the communities, providing local resources,” she said.

“The ultimate goal is that what might normally have been provided by Legal Aid B.C. is being transferred over to the B.C. First Nations Justice Council and then through the justice centres in the community, Indigenous people can get culturally appropriate supports they need when they encounter the justice system.”

Terry Teegee, regional chief of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, said the expansion of centres is good news.

He said he attended the opening of the centre in Prince George last year and noted that the centre had to move to a bigger office space because of the demand.

“It had all indications in Prince George of being well utilized. It serves the community well in Prince George.”

kfraser@postmedia.com

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