Saskatoon Tribal Council partners with province on landmark reintegration pilot project

The Saskatoon Tribal Council (STC) has partnered with the province’s ministry of corrections on a community-based reintegration project to reduce the number of Indigenous women returning to custody.

A facility located in Saskatoon will provide up to 18 months of intensive support to female offenders who are reincarcerated on minor offences, with a strong focus on gendered and culturally responsive approaches to reintegration.

The program is called Īkwēskīcik iskwēwak,which means “turning their life around” in Cree.

“We believe that there's a lot of women out there that want to find their culture, their language and their identity. So really get back to who they are, the roots of their community,” said STC Tribal Chief Mark Arcand.

“Maybe it's cooking classes, maybe it's beading classes. Whatever it is, just those simple things I think will start grounding people back to the roots of their people.”

The pilot project will last three years with an option for two more, and the province will provide $1.2 million per year to STC to design and deliver the program.

“We had to look at something different and this makes this makes perfect sense and STC is a great partner,” said Corrections, Policing and Public Safety minister Christine Tell. “If they're continually coming back into our institutions, their communities are suffering, they're suffering.”

STC is well suited to provide for the women targeted by this project, said Tell.

“They're in there for generally quite minor offenses or they reoffend on minor offenses and end up back in our institutions. We think that STC can have a significant impact here.”

Arcand says STC wanted to get a plan for the program in place before attempting to look for a quality facility in Saskatoon.

“The Indigenous incarceration rate, whether it's male or female, or even youth for that matter, it's probably close to 80-plus per cent in each of these facilities, and it's unacceptable,” he said.

“When somebody leaves the Saskatoon correctional facility, they don't get housing, they don’t get jobs. So, we're changing that process so they don't go back into that system.”

Arcand says women are “probably the most important elders” in Indigenous culture, and that guidance from those elders will be a vital part of the program.

“Everybody kind of puts the females in the corner and doesn't worry about them and think about them. Well, no,” said Arcand.

“We’ve really got to put them on a pedestal to really help them so they can take care of their children and their home fires the way they were meant to.”

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