Grand Council Treaty 3 has joined Nishnawbe Aski Nation and Aboriginal Legal Services Toronto in a call for a formal inquiry into the exclusion of First Nations in the North from jury rolls.

“By joining with us to demand this inquiry these political Territorial Organizations have brought strength and unity to our coalition,” NAN deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler said in a release. “As more and more First Nations lend their voices, our demand for justice will be impossible for the government of Ontario to ignore.”

Treaty 3 Grand Chief Diane Kelly called on the Ministry of the Attorney General to make a change in the way the justice system interacts with First Nations people.

“Exclusion of First Nation people as jury candidates is a clear example of how systemic racism in the justice system continues to perpetuate the high number of our people involved in the justice system,” Kelly said in a release. “85 per cent of the men and 95 per cent of the women and youth in custody in our region are First Nation people and I want to know how this exclusion has contributed to these unacceptable rates.

“This further begs the question as to how many convictions of First Nations persons can be challenged as a result of this barrier to due process, bringing the administration of justice into disrepute.”

The coalition has requested the Attorney General conduct a formal inquiry into the jury roll system across the province following a recent revelation at a coroners inquest that the jury roll in the Kenora region has been leaving out First Nations people.

Evidence presented by the Coroner’s Counsel at the pre-inquest motions in the Coroners Inquest into the deaths of Jamie Goodwin and Ricardo Wesley revealed that the legal steps required to include First Nation people from reserves on the jury roll were ignored between the years 2000 and 2006.

As a result, only 44 First Nations individuals residing on reserves — out of a total population of 12,111 — are included on the Kenora District’s current jury roll.

“The Government of Ontario must conduct a formal inquiry into the legality of the jury selection system employed in the Territorial District of Kenora since 2000 and across the Province of Ontario,” Chiefs of Ontario Regional Chief Angus Toulouse in a release. “By not being selected for juries, First Nations are being denied their rightful roles as equal participants in the justice system.”