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BIGGER THAN ME PODCAST
196. Grand Chief Steven Point: Indigenous Leader on Poverty, Justice & Crime
Why are Indigenous people overrepresented in the justice system? Grand Chief Steven Point joins Aaron Pete to discuss poverty, law school, becoming Lieutenant Governor, leadership, justice, and systemic reform.
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Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger Than Me podcast. Here is your host, aaron.
Aaron Pete:Peet, Thank you so much for joining for another episode. I'm speaking with a local legend from my city and we're going to explore his background, how he became a role model to so many, his thoughts on the criminal justice system and the living conditions for so many Indigenous people. My guest today is Grand Chief Stephen Point. Grand Chief Stephen Point, it is an honour to have you on the show today. Thank you so much for being willing to join us. Would you mind first briefly introducing yourself?
Steven Point:Sure, my name is Huli Kutul. I'm from Skowkale First Nation. My mother is actually from Sumas and my dad's from Musqueam, so my English name is Stephen Point. I'm Grand Chief for the Stuller Tribal Council.
Aaron Pete:Can you tell us just a bit about your background, your legal background, those pieces?
Steven Point:Yeah, I went to law school in 1982 to 85. I was called to bar in 86 and had my own practice here in Chilliwack for three years, and I took a job with the federal government as a case presenting officer in the refugee backlog for a few years. Then I was called to take up the acting position at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law for the Native Law Program and their person there had left, so they called me to take up the position. So I did that for a few years and eventually was the person in charge of the Native Law program there for one year, because I was then called back to work with the tribal council. They called me back to home. They said they wanted help with working on the treaty process, so I came back home and left my job at UBC and I did that for quite a few years.
Steven Point:I was a chief for about 15 years, and I was called to the bench in 1999. For between 1999 and 2018, I was called to the bench at Provincial Government. I applied to be a judge. I wanted to be a judge for quite some time, so I got accepted and was interviewed and whatnot. So during that time though, I served three years as the chief commissioner for the BC Treaty Commission, and then I had to leave the bench to take up the job as the 28th left-hand governor of British Columbia in 2005, or 2007, rather. So I did that for five years, and then I came back to the bench and served again for a few years on the bench, so I had a mixed career.
Aaron Pete:I wanted to start just by reflecting on my own experience growing up. You actually visited uh Chilliwack Middle School and that was a big deal for myself and so many others when you came and visited when I was in, I think, grade seven, eight or nine, and it was fascinating. The piece that really stood out to me was how many people wanted to find a familial connection to you to brag about, and they were like oh, I'm related to him, that's my, that's my great cousin or like, and it just. It showed me something interesting about how one person can be such a role model for so many others that so many people looked up to you with like. I want to be able to say I'm related to this man and there's something really deep about that that personally, I've said this many times.
Aaron Pete:I think First Nations often lack role models in comparison to other communities, and you're one of those individuals who's just gone on and become an outlier of outliers, who's really set an example that so many aspire to work towards and likely have inspired others to want to go to law school and believe that that's something they can do, because you were able to do it and you've set that stage. Have you experienced that in your own life and heard these stories from people. Oh yeah.
Steven Point:I had young people come up to me and they said well, I'm going to go to law school just because you went. And I tell them you know, it's not that hard, you just have to work for it. And I think a lot of people, First Nations particularly wonder if they could succeed in law school. Is it too much work? Or am I smart enough? And you know, we suffer this hangover from colonialism and we don't have a high enough opinion of our abilities. I think a lot of times, and so a lot of the times when I go to schools or I'm talking to young people working with them, a lot of it is encouraging them to spread your wings. Now, try it. Because you know it is difficult to be self-driven and to work hard, but it doesn't take anything more than average intelligence to do what I did. I mean I'm no brainiac. I did. I mean I'm no brainiac, but and I wasn't the best law student in school, but I made it through and so I figure, hey, anybody can do it.
Aaron Pete:May I ask you to take us back to your childhood growing up. There's not a lot of information that's publicly available about that, but there must've been some pieces along the way. You must have faced some adversity in ending up in law school. I mean you became chief at 23 years old. What was some of those childhood experiences like, where you kind of set on such an extraordinary path?
Steven Point:Well, I don't know if they were extraordinary or ordinary Grew up at Scout Kale, with my parents, of course, in a house my dad built. You know, the Indian Affairs in those days used to drop off lumber for the families and you just built your own house. And so we had a house that had a living room and a bedroom for my parents, a kitchen, and that was it. There wasn't any indoor plumbing. There was a stove that my dad burned coal in. We didn't have insulation in the walls. We didn't have cement under the house. In the walls we didn't have cement under the house. It was no foundation, it was just on pilings that my dad built there. He built the house himself and we had children, my brothers and sisters.
Steven Point:We used to sleep on the floor and pretty much in the living room, and until my dad built a lean-to of the poles that we got from Sewally, and he, we all helped him. My uncle Merle was living with us, uncle Tuner was living with us too, and the two aunties used to live with us, and so we had ten kids plus relatives living with us, and so when they dug the hole, we helped dig the hole and they got the poles from suwali to build the room for the kids to sleep in. That was a big deal because the the girls had a double wide bunk bed to sleep on. There was five of them and then I slept on the top bunk of a three triple bunk bed and then the brothers slept on pretty much beds on their own on the side, and my grandfather when he moved in with us, he was 90 some years old. He's asleep in between the beds on his own bed. So, um, yeah, we were crowded. It was uh, and, and you didn't want to be the first one to the outhouse in the middle of the winter because there's snow out there and my mom used to break water and melt the snow so that we could bath in one of those big galvanized tubs. And God help you if you were number five the water was pretty dirty by then. But Mom used to cook on the wooden stove and you know, thinking about it, I don't know how she did that, it was, it was. We didn't know we were poor though we didn't think we were poor but people used to drop off boxes at Christmas time, you know. So I guess we were pretty impoverished.
Steven Point:My dad was a longer though come home with um. I remember getting home and he'd throw oranges at us because that's when we would get to have an orange. He'd bring it from the logging camps. We never had them, uh, until then. And so you know it's like. I never used to. You know, go visit anybody else. Nobody would come to our place. I never brought anybody home, except for the boy who lived across the road. He used to bring his guitar and left it at our house because his dad wouldn't let him have a guitar and Rick works, and.
Steven Point:But you know, we used to work in the fields with my mom, because she had raspberries, we had a cow, we had a pig, we had chickens. I used to look after the chickens and, yeah, everybody had a job, everybody did stuff. I used to cut the grass. But I remember when I was in high school and every year, for some reason, I was on student council. For some reason I was on student council Even from grade 8 to grade 12, I would be elected from the student body to be on the student council and so I was always sitting in council meetings, right?
Steven Point:And when I got to grade 12, I ran for the presidency and I got the presidency. I won the presidency. But Mr Wilson brought me in the back and he sat me down. He said you know, steve, your grades aren't that good. He said we're going to let so-and-so take the presidency and you can be the vice president, even though I won the election. Wow, I didn't know what to think about that. I said what the heck Can you do that? I thought what the heck Can you do that? But that's what they did in those days. But there wasn't many of us in grade 12. By the time we got to high school, most of the people had stopped coming to school.
Aaron Pete:What made you the outlier in that circumstance? So many, unfortunately, Indigenous people don't end up graduating. What made you want to continue? What made you stay on that trajectory when so many people choose to walk away?
Steven Point:Yeah, I don't know why, and I think about it like I wasn't like an A B student right, I wasn't, in fact, I never read a full book until I got out of high school. But I do remember my mom used to sit us around the table after dinner and we would talk. She would talk to us about things, talk to us about what, talk to us about, um, uh, what was going on in the world, and ask us for our views and things like that and and um, you know, so I, I, at some point, I decided, like I remember talking to my school counselor at high school said what do you want to become? And I thought, well, and my dad's a logger. I remember talking to my school counselor at high school. I said what do you want to become? And I thought, well, my dad's a logger, I'd like to become a logger. I thought that'd be a good thing to do.
Steven Point:Then, by the time I got to grade 12, I said, you know, I think I'd like to become a lawyer. That's what I wanted to do. And the counselor looked at me and said, well, you know, you can make a really good job by just working in construction or being a plumber. They make good money too. You should think about that, discouraging you. Yeah, wow, I guess he sort of assessed, looked at my grades and goes this guy's not that bright or something. Boy was he wrong? Boy was he wrong? Well, and so then after I graduated, I did apply to go to UBC and I got accepted no-transcript. I didn't have the study skills either, and you're not really well prepared from the kind of way that things are in high school, right, where teachers tell you everything, sometimes even write your notes for you, that sort of thing. They're not really preparing kids to be on their own, to be self-driven, to study on their own too. So how to organize your time so they can get things done?
Steven Point:And I was in a city where my mom and dad were a long ways away and I was living with my aunt in Vancouver and I was on my own and being in Vancouver was awesome, you know, being in Vancouver was awesome, you know. But yeah, I didn't stay at the university For a year and a half I stayed. Then I came home because I told Mrs Kent I don't know why I'm here. I said I have no idea what I want to do. I don't know really, really, why I'm here. The last thing she said to me before I walked out of the office she said Steve, don't you come back here until you really, really, really want it. Okay, she was a really wise lady, indian affairs lady.
Steven Point:And so I left and came home, got married, went logging for about seven, eight years Wow yeah, and sitting up on that mountain, I was sitting there one evening because we used to work after dinner, going loading logs, because you make an extra 10 cents a log loading logs and just extra money. And I used to go work after dinner and I was sitting there watching the sun go down, thinking to myself I don't have to do this work the way this is. I don't have to be here in this logging camp. I have a chance to do higher work in school, because I could go to school and get a different job. I'm taking somebody's job here and really I should be doing something different. And that was what was going on in my brain, right? So I got up from there and I decided to leave.
Steven Point:I left the job and went home, applied to law school and I remember Doug Sanders wrote me a letter because I'd been the chief by then 15 years.
Steven Point:Eh no, seven years, eight years, half the time, and he knew me and I knew him and he said, steve, he says we're accepting your application to law school, but we want you to do two more years of undergraduate work.
Steven Point:So that's when I started. I went back to school and stayed and finished and learned how to be a student, learned how to do the work properly, and I was motivated by then because I used to attend the meetings the chiefs had and listening to the reports by the lawyers, right, and the accountants and people who were hired by the agency, by the organization, to work for us. I'd look around the room and the chiefs that I knew and the people that I had been there with, I knew they didn't understand what they were talking about. They didn't understand the Supreme Court of Canada rulings, they knew what their rights were, but they didn't understand what these people were saying. And I didn't understand it either. And I thought it would be good if we had our own lawyers, we had our own people that knew what was going on, right? So that's when I decided I'm going to go back to become a lawyer and I did.
Aaron Pete:Wow, if you can take me back just for a brief moment, back to your mom and her willingness to talk to you about issues and almost show you the well, definitely show you the respect that you have thoughts and opinions that you come to that are valid and that just that makes me think this self-confidence issue that we have in, I think, all vulnerable populations, but particularly with indigenous people, that they don't have a thought to share or that's worth hearing, that that could be such a a discouraging message to young people when you don't ask for their opinions, even right or wrong, or you've got lots to learn.
Aaron Pete:But that willingness to engage you on issues and hear your perspective, do you think that played a large role in shaping your willingness to? Because there's something about you that has to say I'm willing to apply to law school, I'm willing to push forward despite having no idea what to expect. And you didn't have a ton of other people to go. That's a lawyer, I know them, this person's a lawyer and like it's not like all your friends were doing that this was a very solo mission and I'm just trying to figure out the impetus and the, the confidence you had to find in yourself to go down that path oh yeah.
Steven Point:Well, my mother was actively involved in the Homemakers Organization in those days. She was one of the executive members and they were doing a lot of work trying to improve homes on reserve. So that meant that Mom went to a lot of these meetings and I used to drive her sometimes. I used to go to some of the meetings and hear the dialogue, you know, and I drove her once to meet Pierre Trudeau, for example. She was having lunch with him and I think I just turned 17 to get my license and I was driving down the wrong way in a one-way street in Vancouver. But in those times we spent together.
Steven Point:My mama talked to me about things and I remember before I left, before I left university, the first time, she had a lawyer pick me up at the university. Actually, she says to me you wait at the student union building and have. I said Jim is going to come and pick you up. I didn't know who this was and so I was waiting there and he was. Jim Thompson came and he's a lawyer from Chilliwack and his wife was a friend of my mom's, and so he brought me to his house. When I got there, my mom and dad were there and we were there having dinner. So I was sitting there what's going on here? And after dinner Jim comes over and gives me a book to read.
Steven Point:Well, I never read anything. Up until then, I never could read very well. I vocalize all the things I read. Even today it takes me a long time to read things.
Steven Point:But it was a book about Clarence darrow's life. He's a lawyer from the united states and he used to fight for the unions and he fought for children. He did the monkey trial in southern united states where they were trying to stop the teachers from teaching the theory of darwin, darwin's theory of evolution. The religious folks were trying to stop it. Teachers from teaching the theory of Darwin, Darwin's theory of evolution the religious folks were trying to stop it being taught in the schools.
Steven Point:And I had the book for some time and I didn't read it at first, but it was under my bed. I had only one book in my whole room and that was it, and I remember clearing things out one time and I found that book and I decided to try to read it and I did read it and I was inspired by what he did for children who were working in coal mines, for children who were working in coal mines, in the work that he did, you know, fighting for the rights of the union people to work under positive conditions. And I thought to myself there's a man that's got a purpose, that he's living his purpose, he's doing something with his education, that he's living his purpose, he's doing something with his education. And so that's when I did the kind of thing my mom used to do to try to push me along right and yeah, so that's the way she was.
Aaron Pete:She's still alive now, she's 97 now Wow, that's amazing alive now she's 97. Now, that's amazing. You chose to run for chief at 23 years old and I'm wondering did you know the responsibility that that would entail? It sounds like you were on student council so you had some idea of governance. But when I ran for council, they gave me the housing portfolio and immediately there was this very heavy weight that the homes on reserve are my responsibility, that the quality of living conditions on the reserve were my responsibility, that I couldn't blame I mean, people do. They blame the federal government, they blame the provincial, they blame anybody. But ultimately you have to go to bed knowing I can make a difference in improving the quality of life and we've renovated 35 of 89 homes within the past two years. We've applied for more housing on reserve. We're doing things. But that weight hit me really hard and it didn't hit me when I was running. And I'm wondering you're 23. I think I was 27 or 28. What was that weight on your shoulders like?
Steven Point:well I? I just remember walking home from Sardis one time and and this is after I'd left university and Robbie Sapassi was one of our elders on the reserve called me into his yard. He said, steve, you went to university. He says I want you to run, run for council. And, oh, you know, the elder asked you to do things he's. I didn't say no, I just said oh, dear and dear, and so I went home and I told my wife, I said what happened, and so I went and I was nominated to be the chief.
Steven Point:And in those days right, there was a band office. It was only a berry cabin on skids and there was a telephone in there and a typewriter and we didn't get a lot of money to run that. Less than $40,000 a year Paid the electrical bills and the phone bill and something for a secretary. But we had no money as a band in those days and the chiefs got together as a tribal council and they used to meet and they would meet with Indian Affairs. Indian Affairs used to give us an honorarium $35, I think for coming to a meeting. Indian Affairs was still responsible for everything back then housing, education, welfare, all of that. But part of that responsibility had been transferred to the Chilliwack Area Indian Council where they were handling welfare now and education. Those are the only programs that we had that we were working on, and so when I became the chief I was essentially working with other elderly chiefs and going to meetings, listening, you know, listening to what's going on, and it's a steep learning curve. I had no idea what a BCR was. I had no idea who the Indian agent was, or I didn't know what Aboriginal rights were, agent was, or I didn't know what Aboriginal rights were, and all of those things you got to learn on the job at just going to the meetings and listening. So a lot of listening and a lot of asking questions sometimes, and and you didn't really realize that what was on your shoulders was really the poverty that we're living under and the lack of education and the destruction of our rights and the need to get more fishing time, the need to improve the homes that were being built and not being built, and how do we help the young people. The whole thing was on your shoulders. Everything was on there. And the old counselors that were with me there they'd come to meetings, but I was 23. That were with me there. They'd come to meetings, but I was 23. I'd start going to the Union of Chiefs meetings, listening to what they're talking about.
Steven Point:Yeah, it's a learning curve. And then it's this awareness that we have lots of things that need to be done, lots of issues that need to be resolved, and very little resources to do it anything. Yeah, so there was no money to do anything. The chiefs used to sit around a table. I attended one of the meetings with them and they were throwing money on the table to send somebody to Vancouver or then to Ottawa to talk to the government, but there was no funding. They were putting their own money on the table. Wow, yeah, so it's an entirely different time, a different time for when I started as a chief back then. So, and most of the chiefs, like old Richard Malloy he was the president but admittedly, he could sign his name but he didn't read English or write it very well, so his language was El Camino, but he was our oldest chief and he was the most respected of all the chiefs. Eh, so I came at a time just when the old guys were leaving, beginning to leave office and leave our world even.
Aaron Pete:Is there any lessons you think this generation of leaders should learn from that generation of leaders?
Steven Point:Well, we should be feeling very grateful that you know that this generation of leaderships has got opportunities that those folks never had, right, and and it was always this feeling of unity amongst the chiefs I mean there was never this idea of divisions or them and us sort of thing. They all meet together. They all used to go to the river together fish meetings. They'd all meet at RT Charles' place and stand around ina fish cabin, have a chief's meeting, and when Sam Douglas would block the railway, everybody would go. There was this instant brotherhood amongst the leadership right across the country. If somebody needed help somewhere else, they'd send people to go and they all understood that we were fighting for a common cause, which was our rights to be recognized.
Steven Point:But you know, younger people today didn't experience a lot of the things that we went through and we were poor. We had nothing when we started organizations. And now there's all kinds of resources, there's all kinds of funds available right, shoulder to shoulder, to protect the rights that we have now being recognized by the Supreme Court and protected in the Constitution. There's a lot of people that like to take those away. I mean they were talking about that in this latest federal election. If the Conservatives won. They wanted to change things. We can't allow that to happen. We have to stand together to hold our line, hold the rights that we've been achieving through the years, and we need to stand together for that purpose. But more and more, we see divisions happening and not unity. Anyway, that's the way I see it.
Aaron Pete:When you look at Skokale now and the growth that it's seeing, it's remarkable to see the new administration office, the housing that's coming about. How does that make you feel knowing how everything started and having wood dropped off to build a house to what it looks like today and to see the approach leadership is taking.
Steven Point:Oh yeah, I mean it's very true that I look back over the 73, now 50, 60 years, I've been aware, 60 years I've been aware and our reserve. We've come from the kind of houses that were built back then by their own people to houses that they're now built to code, and these are nice homes, you know, and I think a lot of young people don't realize the distance that we've come in terms of just good housing, right, and the distance that we've come, because I remember when we had no band office and Chief Gordon Hall built a small cabin so that we could have an office there that we called it was just on stilts, it wasn't even on, it was on skids, rather it wasn't on a cement foundation. And now what they have and we have a gymnasium and we have a beautiful place to exercise and meeting halls there and it's just a fantastic facility. I mean we have every reason to be happy for the next generation, but we should be thankful too to have these, to be appreciating what we have now and to take care of it too, because there was a time when we had none of that, none of that at all.
Steven Point:We didn't have playgrounds. We used to collect rocks and play games with rocks on the fields right there. We used to collect bottles so that we'd go and get a 10-cent pop at Sardis. You know, a bag of chips for a dime and penny candies and you know, walk around thinking you're rich because you got 50 cents. I remember those times and now it's, I don't know. I guess we are maybe a victim of our own success. Sometimes People don't appreciate what we have. Now we have to take care of it. Look after what we have.
Aaron Pete:You were a native court worker, right.
Steven Point:Well, I didn't do the job. Actually, the native court worker that started that here was Alex James. He was an elder that worked in a court system helping Native people who were coming to court. Well, when I opened my practice up here in 86, I became the duty counsel for Chilliwack, hope and Abbotsford and so I'd be traveling back and forth doing duty counsel. The lawyers here, they're so busy. Oh, steve's, here you can do the duty counsel.
Steven Point:I opened my practice up and brand new lawyer and I got all the work to do, which which is good. You got to learn your craft somewhere and and it's not like the other lawyers left me only they supported me, they talked to me and helped me out. You know so, uh, but I was. I did a lot of the uh, the guys that were coming from the jails. We we have seven institutions around here.
Steven Point:I did a lot of the daily Monday work for Indigenous people because Monday morning was our day in the criminal law. So I did a lot of that work helping people stay out of jail, doing the bail hearings and then assisting with legal aid to fight some of the cases. But there was a time when I had 90 fish cases in my back pocket because of the demonstrations that used to take place on a Fraser, on a GM, and I had all those clients. But yeah, that's how I learned how to become a lawyer, actually doing legal aid. You don't make any money out of it, but you sure learn how to do your job One piece.
Aaron Pete:So I was a native co-worker for four and a half years and I just kept running into the client needs housing or the client needs support with addiction services or treatment or recovery, and I've spoken to Premier Eby and the current AG, nikki Sharma. There's just not enough resources for these individuals. But the other piece after going to law school was that I realized a lot of these issues should be addressed and can be prevented in the community. And that's what made me so interested in running for council Was because you don't say you have an individual who's First Nations, who needs housing. Well, it's the council members' responsibility within that nation to help get housing so that they could return home or start to address those issues. It's the community that can apply for addiction services. But me, as a court worker, I can say they can go to this place or that place, but that person's more likely than not unfortunately going to recidivate and come back into the criminal justice system. If we want to prevent this, we have to go to the community and we have to start offering the education resources and the programs and those supports. And the only criticism I have of organizations that are focused on justice is if you're not talking about housing in First Nation communities, if you're not talking about treatment services and elders programs on reserve to support people so they don't go down that path to begin with, I'm never going to be able to solve those individuals coming through the criminal justice system. Some people manage to find their way out, but unfortunately that's less common than the common circumstance which is somebody struggling with homelessness comes back and comes back and they deserve support.
Aaron Pete:One thing that I learned from the person training me was she was very hard on a person who had committed again a crime and was like why are you doing this? What are you up to? You shouldn't be doing that. And there was just a part of me that was like that's, that's just not my job. My job isn't to judge that person based on the fact that they're back. It's to help them get up again, because somebody can fall down a hundred times, but you should always try and support them in returning back to community. And so I'm just wondering how do you balance the perspective of? A lot of things happen in the court system, but I just I'm not sold that that's where we end up, reducing the over-incarceration rates of Indigenous people. My personal belief is it's more likely solved in the community and I'm just curious to get your take on that.
Steven Point:Oh yeah, I know you're right there. I mean, criminologists for a long time have studied what's the psychological root of criminal behavior, or what is the psychosocial result from parenting, or what are the economic factors. Why do we have criminal behavior and all that? Why do we have criminal behavior and all of that? And I remember going down to a conference one time and the United States had been trying to work on this issue of you know, the revolving door, their civism rate, the number of people that are, the number of black people, the number of poor people, the number of women, the number of youth that are in the system and whatnot, and trying to sort of address these issues. And what they came to in New York was exactly your conclusion that the justice system is not well equipped to deal with criminal behavior. We're there to. The justice system is there to actually punish people and hopefully protect the community, if we can by putting people in jail, but that's it. They don't have any other tools to stop people from committing crimes and offenses, right. And so what they started in New York was what's called community court, where, instead of treating the people as if they're criminals, they treated them like they have social problems. That's driving their criminal behavior. So you'd get into the courtroom and the judge would say OK, jimmy, we want you to stop drinking for seven days. Okay, your Honor, seven days, come by. Are you sober? Yes, your Honor. Oh good, we have a cake for you. And the judge would come down with a candle, seven days sober. And then they'd say now, jimmy, we want you to work on getting a real place to stay. There'd be social workers coming in. I want to see you in 30 days with a reg, still sober and with a place to stay. Social workers come in and take Jimmy out and they get him a place to stay in 30 days. They back him. Jimmy, did you get a place to stay? Yes, I did. Are you still sober yet? Cake again, there's another cake.
Steven Point:And so, and then this community court idea caught on in Toronto and then it caught on in Vancouver after Judge Gove did a report on Tutu Tumain. I don't know if you've ever been to Tutu Tumain and we called it the zoo back in the day when I was there and when you walked into Tutu Tumain, the court list ran right to the ground. It used to be right on the floor. You used to pick them up and and see who was. And every week it was the same people, it was the same, it wouldn't different. And um, so the last time I was a judge I went down to sit at 222 main and and, um, I went to look at the court list Two pages stuck in the wall.
Steven Point:I was looking at that. What the heck he says, oh, the community court's got the rest. Wow, and, judge Gove, and they have a community court. I went, I said, can I see it? He said, yeah, we'll take you over.
Steven Point:So we went and observed the community court and of course you see all the people in downtown Vancouver who are living on the streets and they're addicts or they don't have a place to stay or they're just poor people, whatever. They've drifted into the cities and they're committing offenses because they need their next drug fix or they need food to eat or they just need money to survive in some way. And so criminality was driven by poverty and driven by drug addiction or driven by lots of social issues. There was a guy in one of the towns I was sitting at. He used to wait in the middle of the street with a police car and he'd bust the headlight on a cop car with a wrench and wait to get arrested. He always got three months in jail.
Steven Point:But it's not designed to help people.
Steven Point:For instance, rehabilitation is one of the objectives of sentencing, but in the end what you really see is just people going into custody, going into jail, coming out, going back into custody, coming out. But the community court idea passed on to now that we have First Nations court, where the First Nations court, people come in, first Nations come in, they sit with the judge and they sit with an elder and they talk about what's going on with you, jimmy, oh well. And they say, okay, well, let's work on that. Let's you know you're having trouble with drinking, let's see if we can help you with that. And so the whole idea behind community court is to do exactly what the car system is not designed to do. You know, I as a judge I mean when I was sitting on the bench anyway Native people would come in front of me right and say to them well, I could get a GLADU report and that would probably take six months, but I'm going to stand on right now. I went in the back and I phoned up to Chihayla.
Steven Point:I said do you guys have a bed for us also? Yeah, we do. Go back in the court. You're going to go to Chihayla's, I mean, and then I'm going to call you back in six months after you finish the program to see how you did. Okay, judge and then goes off to jail, comes back after the program. How did you do? I've been dry since they went up and I'm seeing my family again and working on getting my job back. All that right.
Steven Point:And the justice system can do other things, but it's not its inclination, it's not the reason it was created, and so it's just. It's not well equipped to deal with young offenders, for example. It's not well equipped to deal with drug addicts or homeless people or people who've got schizophrenia or should be taking their medication, who don't all that sort of stuff. In society. We keep recycling our people into justice system that should be getting help somewhere else and should be getting services somewhere else, because we're not a health center. We're not a health center, we're not a place to dry out. But the justice system is designed to protect people's property. That's what it's designed to do mostly. It came from England for that purpose.
Steven Point:So who gets tangled up in it? People that don't have. There's the haves and have-nots, and most poor people and indigenous people are have-nots, and so they get tangled up in that system. Once you get tangled up into it it's hard to get out of it, it's hard to get untangled, and so you see these few folks I used to get when I was a lawyer. I'd file somebody as a young offender and they would be 13 or 14 years old. Then they become adults and then I got to file for them as an adult. And then they get married and then I got a file for them as an adult. And then they get married and then I have a file for them because they're in family court and my file's getting fatter and fatter and fatter. And all that time nobody's asked them about whether you're living in a good place or not, or have you got help with your drug addiction, or do you need counseling to get into school, or you know nothing like that. They come to us for a very narrow reason, and that's what we deal with.
Aaron Pete:So I have a few statistics here. In 2021, indigenous individuals comprised approximately 32% of the federal prison population In provinces. Indigenous adults accounted for 30% of admissions into provincial and territorial correctional services. Indigenous youth made up 46% of admissions to correctional services in 2016 and 2017, while only representing 8% of the population. Indigenous women only represent 4% of the population in Canada, but account for 50% of female federal inmate population.
Aaron Pete:We've seen and I spoke to Nikki Sharma about this we've seen the Native court workers, who have existed for 50 years and have done, in my opinion, important work, but we're not making significant progress on these issues. And what are your thoughts? Is there a silver bullet? Or is this just poverty mixed with addictions that it's very hard to untangle this problem? How do we get to the point where we don't need First Nations? I know a lot of people are excited about First Nations Court. How do we get to the point where we don't need First Nations? I know a lot of people are excited about First Nations court. How do we get to the point where we don't want or need that, that there's no opportunities for that to be a service, where there is no need for a Native court worker, where there is no need for further cultural services in prisons Because they're not a high representative or Gladue reports, are an obsolete piece of the past. It feels more and more like there's less and less hope on addressing these issues.
Steven Point:Oh yeah, Well, I don't think there is any one answer that comes to mind. Right comes to mind right. The truth is, this system is imposed on Native people. We never agreed to it. We never. I mean, these people came here and set up governments, set up courts and started arresting us as Native people. We know that. We know that this isn't, that these are not our laws, right, and that's a problem.
Steven Point:Creating a social contract with people, though, would go a long way to, I think, helping people understand their place in society. Right Right now, we're on the outside, looking in the Canadian society, and we've become victims of that society through their justice system. I think the other thing is, it's clear and I talk to people in Vancouver through the one society that's working with homeless people society's priorities is not around sharing the wealth of society other than through taxation. The truth about housing in any city is that if you took the homeless population and just put them into decent, clean housing, provided them enough food to eat, it would be cheaper than what we're doing now. The cost that we have for the justice system, the cost that we have for health care, right, the cost that we bring up for all of the addictions and all the work that we're doing in those areas, All the money being spent a million dollars a day in East Vancouver to help people. It's cheaper just to build them brand new houses and units. It's cheaper to get them to school for free, as they're doing in Finland. It's cheaper to make sure they have enough to eat, right. But society isn't about doing that. They're not wanting to provide that sort of socialist perspective, right? I think society takes a view that this is their fault, that they created that themselves and they should pull up their socks and make a better life for themselves the way I did, sort of thing. So that's the other thing. I think society's priorities isn't really around applying resources that would actually change the lives of these folks. That would actually change the lives of these folks.
Steven Point:The other thing, I think, is that a lot of indigenous people that end up in the cities they don't start in the cities. They're not born there. They're coming from reserves and communities where life is also very bad and and they're facing social issues that need to be addressed in the communities from where the they're coming from young girls who are running away from bad family situations, and we're not spending enough time and energy on helping communities deal with their social issues right, and when we apprehend children, for example. Children are being apprehended here when the family has had the crisis. The crisis, though, is way back here. Dad lost his job and mom started drinking again. Whatever happened was the crisis. It ended up in a situation where someone had to intervene now and take the children away. It's only at the time when they look at taking the children away that they say, well, how can we provide family services to the family? Well, they needed the services way back there. Right, they needed the help way back then. And you know what Teachers, when you get kids walking into a school, they know when the child is in danger, they know something's happening, something's changed. When the child is in danger, they know something's happening, something's changed, and we need to pay attention to that and apply resources early for families, but we don't. We spend the time and money only to protect and apprehend the child, and then it's too late. It's really too late, and it's the same with someone getting arrested right. By the time the kid is out, the adult is out running and they're being arrested right, they're being arrested five, ten years after things started going bad in the home. A long time before that, things were going awry. Right Now, they're being arrested and they're saying how can we help the family? Well, it's five or 10 years too late, right, and so they need to look at actually helping the families earlier.
Steven Point:One of the things I tried to do when I was working with my wife and I took 17 children with us to Europe. We raised the money to attend a cultural festival and we had a dance troupe and we'd get the kids dressed up and they would perform for other people. And these kids you could see them blossom as little young people. They're just amazed and they have this experience outside of their community. And I often think we need to do more with our youth before they get angry, before they get soured by how bad things are. To get them, and I started bringing them to Victoria to do leadership training with them and kids in elementary school not elementary, but early high school they're great kids, they're just. They're so open to suggestion too. You can do this, you can become this, and we need to take the young people out of their milieu and into an environment in which they can make up their own mind about what they can do and what they can't do. The real change has to happen before they get arrested, before the children go and be taken away. It has to happen early, and you know our young people.
Steven Point:Of course it used to be at a time you had a child when you were young, nobody thought anything, that was not a bad thing.
Steven Point:But now we think it's a bad thing. Our morals have changed and we kick the children out when they're a certain age to look after yourself now. But in the old days you lived in a longhouse, everybody looked after the children, everybody went hunting and fishing together and the young people got married whenever they wanted to get married when they were young. But it was the grandparents that actually raised the children. Because the grandparents said those kids are too young, they don't know what they're saying yet. But nowadays we tell the kids, you made them, you look after them, whereas even today, under the current CFCSA I mean, grandparents aren't given standing to talk in court, even though they should be. They should be turning to the grandparents saying how do we fix this? Because the grandparents, if they all take the children, all look after them, because that's our traditional job anyway as grandparents. So there's things that they can do in society that I think society is not willing to do or society's not aware enough to do it.
Aaron Pete:So I'd like to talk a little bit about your work.
Aaron Pete:Being a provincial court judge, I've had the privilege of working with many and it's a really unique position and the piece that stands out to me is the impact you can have on a person who was abused I think probably her whole life and it was just a very humanizing moment when the judge acknowledged that and held space and said I understand why your circumstance is the way it is.
Aaron Pete:I've heard your story. Gladue played a huge role in the judge being able to hear that piece of her story, that she was just never given a chance and to have somebody sitting in a chair like that and be able to kind of acknowledge you've been through something I couldn't imagine and I wouldn't ever let my children go through. You've been through that and so I hold space for that and ultimately I want you to take a different direction in your life. Space for that and ultimately I want you to take a different direction in your life to be able to sit in that seat on a regular basis is, I imagine, a lot of responsibility but I also imagine, a huge privilege.
Steven Point:Can you just reflect on your work and oh yeah, well, the um my time on the bench was, um, it was a combination of of stressful being stressed out because of the amount of work that you have got to do, the amount of reading that you've got to do and, in many cases, the writing that you've got to do for cases. But I never had an issue with sitting in court and talking to people. I never had an issue with sitting in court and talking to people. Kids used to walk by my court when I was in Prince George, waving at me because they knew I was the judge. And this one guy come in, this little guy with wrong glasses I forget his name now, but I used to call him Bobby. I think, bobby, what are you doing? And he goes hi, john, he says I got arrested again and he was only like 13 or 14. And a little redheaded face and I just, oh man.
Steven Point:And one thing that I never wanted to judge people the way they feel like they're being judged right, like looking down their nose at them for what's gone on in their life. And certainly, as a judge, you got to sentence people for their behavior. But my own attitude was like everybody's a person, everybody has a story, everybody has some value and there's still some hope to help this person. And the only one time I lost my temper, I think in court, and that was at a prosecutor. But most of the time I try to understand where the people are coming from, what's happening with them in their lives, and to express empathy and compassion is not inconsistent with providing justice. It's, I think, necessary to do that and to be respectful to them, regardless of what they may be charged with.
Aaron Pete:To treat them as a human being.
Steven Point:I think that if you treat people in a certain way, they will live up to your expectation right.
Aaron Pete:That sounds like what your mom had done for you during that period is that she held that space for you and treated you like a person, and that that was passed on. I also wanted to ask you became at age 56, you became the lieutenant governor of British Columbia. What did that role involve?
Steven Point:Well, quite honestly, when they asked me to do this, I was given fair warning that the prime minister was going to call me. And so Gwen and I looked it up on the internet what is the left-hand guy? Because we didn't know what it was. And she says doesn't he have a house to live in? I go, let's find out. And he does. I said, yeah, there is a house in Victoria. We didn't know that either.
Steven Point:And so when I got the job, of course I was rebuilding an old green 77 GMC truck and my own car was. We only had one other car. Gwen needed it for her to work. I said I'll just go over in my truck. I said the first day I was going over and I was sitting in my truck and waiting to get on a ferry and a guy walks by. He says he comes up to the window and he says you work for the government now. And I go yeah, it's his first day. He goes ah, he says come with me. He says where are we going? He says come with me. I said where are we going? He says come on.
Steven Point:I was way in the back of the line behind my old truck and he started bringing me up to the front of the line and all those people were looking at me what the heck is that guy going in? They brought me to the front of the line and I got to go on the ferry before everybody, wow. And they put the flag up that the left-hand governor was on the ferry. And then he brought me to a room and they said this is your room, sir, you can sit here, we'll bring you some lunch. And I go holy moly and I got into the house there late that night and nobody was there when I got there, just security. And the next morning I realized hey, I didn't have any socks. I forgot socks. I better go to the store and get some socks.
Steven Point:So I caught the bus downtown because I didn't want to drive my old truck down there, because I didn't know what the parking was going to be like. This is a city bus, you might as well just catch a bus. So I went down there and got down. His husband's bay was closed already. This is a city bus, you might as well just catch a bus. So I went down there and got down. It was Hudson's Bay. It was closed. Really it was not open until 9.30, so I thought I'll go have breakfast, got some eggs and bacon and finally at 10 o'clock they were open.
Steven Point:So I went in and got my socks and I was coming back on the bus and I said to the bus driver I said I know the address, it's 1410, rockland. He goes, oh, he goes, you have to wait for this bus, he said. So I got on the bus that he told me to get on. The bus driver says no, you walk that way, sir. When you see the stone wall, that's where you're going. Okay, so I took off and I walked. I got off the bus at a certain spot and I walked down the road and there was the gate, the Iron Gate. I recognized it. I walked in and all of a sudden the secretary and staff are running towards me. They grabbed me by the arms. I had a radio. We found him. He's right here. It's just secretary.
Steven Point:This is my first day in the job, but we lost the left hand governor. I was just what are you guys worried about? I was just getting socks, you know. But everything you do, I realized, is you're followed around and they know everything that you say. I realized is you're followed around and they know everything that you say.
Steven Point:And we got up one morning and Thomas stuck his head in the door. He says your Honor, he says, tell your wife to quit making the beds. That's my job. Gwen looked at me. He's the one making the beds. It was a total shift. You have a chef there, you have a car and a driver and then they take you down to parliament and you walk in and there's guns going off and there was demonstrators in the front of the parliament. My brother was in there demonstrating against government. They all put their signs on or waving at me. Is that what it is? But I mean, we were raised with very little and everything I made in my life I earned that right to sit down and have that piece of bacon or whatever I'm eating. But to be brought into a place like that where you know there's a swimming pool we never had a swimming pool. There's a whole room down there just to hang your coat up, and 17 bedrooms, and that was amazing.
Steven Point:I, I, we finally figured out that the government can't run without the queen's representative, because the crown is the sovereign head of british columbia and can, and they need to pass laws. They need the Queen's consent or the King's consent. Now they can't even pass a money bill on their own. They can't even introduce a money bill. It's the left-hand governor that actually has to introduce money bills in the parliament. Wow, and if the premier, for whatever reason reason, gets sick or maybe gets arrested or something, you have to fire that person and hire a different premier. It's called a constitutional crisis, right, and you really are the queen's representative, and but nobody knows that, nobody understands that. I went to school after and they all say to me are you the governor general? No, I'm the lieutenant governor. What do you do? And all that.
Aaron Pete:And it's actually lieutenant governor right. It's not lieutenant right.
Steven Point:It's lieutenant. Yeah, lieutenant is what they say in the United States, yeah, yeah, and even teachers. They would ask you what does that job mean and where do you work at? They don't know. People don't understand the constitutional nature of our governance in Canada.
Aaron Pete:Are you allowed to say no in those circumstances, like if you need to introduce a money bill? Are you able to say not today, I don't want to.
Steven Point:Yeah, I could have, but it's not done. Oh yeah, there were times when the left-hand governor actually in Alberta apparently refused to pass an act and they cut his water off his house. He didn't have a house for a long time. I think they have one now.
Steven Point:But I mean, constitutionally you're allowed to, but just as a matter of fact, it's never done so. My last question that I just want to get to um, you don't do this alone and you've mentioned gwen a few times and I'm wondering if you can just reflect on the partnership, the relationship that you have and the work you've been able to accomplish together.
Steven Point:Well, gwen and I have been together 53 years now. I always say her and I grew up together. She went to school. When I went to school she was a hairdresser. She started out. She didn't finish high school. She finished high school, then she went on to get her bachelor's degree in education, then her master's of education, then her PhD in education. She's an intelligent person, but we've been partners now for a long time and we do everything pretty much together cultural work, the healing work all of that we do together. So I don't know. Honestly, she's been my teacher as well over the years, you know, and I honestly don't think I would have gotten this far but for the fact that I've had strong support from her and she's been there. She still washes my clothes, she still looks after me and you know, it's just been a great. I've been very fortunate, I can't. I've been very lucky to have had her all these years.
Aaron Pete:Is there anything you want to leave listeners with a reflection advice?
Steven Point:Well, you know, my granddaughter said to me, and my grandson said to me one day. He says you know, well, all this is about Papa. He was only about eight years old. I said what he said it's about living. It's about living your life. And that's what my granddaughter said to me one time.
Aaron Pete:She says Papa you should just live your life.
Steven Point:You know what you want to buy that old car, go ahead. And I thought to myself wow, how is she able to see this inside in me, right, to see this inside in me, right? And I think that people in this modern day and age are afraid, there's too much fear, and that's how we're controlled by people who want to control us. And they say that we need to do this out of fear, and we conform, we listen out of fear, and I think we need to try to exercise our own personal sovereignty, make up our own mind, try to exercise our own personal sovereignty, make up our own mind, because sometimes the people telling us what is real and what is not real they're not right. It's not right. And right now we're being told a lot of things and it's too easy, I think, just to allow someone else to do our thinking for us. We need to sit down and ground ourself and center ourself and really come to our own view and our own perspective about what is true and what is not true. Governments aren't always right, teachers aren't always right, judges aren't always right. And when we can listen with our heart to that good voice sometimes that we hear in our brain and help us to do what is right and I think that's a hard thing to do sometimes is to really think about what is right and what is not right and then to act on it. It's not easy to do.
Steven Point:Look what happened in the Second World War. How many people six million Jews were killed because one man said it was the right thing to do. And now we've got one man telling us all kinds of things. He's the ruler of the world. He thinks, and I think we need to pause and sit down and ask ourselves is this right, what is right? Sit down and ask ourselves is this right, what is right? Otherwise, history tends to repeat itself over and over and over again. We can bring about change. We can bring about positive change. We only have to have the desire and the courage to do it. That's all.
Aaron Pete:Grand Chief, thank you so much for sharing your time today. It's been an absolute honor, thank you for having me over.
Steven Point:It's an honor to meet you Well.
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