Thunder Bay – News – Eleven members of the Regional Multicultural Youth Council (RMYC) summer students visited the Thunder Bay Police Service headquarters to learn about policing services in our community, and the primary issues among the youth the police were dealing with .
Our youth group had watched a documentary about Black youth being recruited in southern Ontario and sent to Thunder Bay and northern reserves to traffic drugs. With a rapidly growing Black population in Thunder Bay since the pandemic, we wanted to get a police perspective of this matter so that we can prevent the local Black youths we work with at the Multicultural Youth Centre from befriending drug dealers and becoming caught up in criminal activities that perpetuate negative racial stereotypes.
We had also read news reports that Thunder Bay had Canada’s highest human trafficking rate averaging 8.0 police-reported incidents per 100,000 people. Therefore, we wanted to get the police service’s insights on this matter as well.
Even though we made no formal appointment to visit the police station, officers Jeny Bailot and Amanda Zappitelli were kind enough to take us into a room where we discussed the issues. They explained the factors that contributed to increase human and drug trafficking in Thunder Bay such as our location in the centre of Canada connected by the trans-Canada highway that also links many northern reserves.
We learned that a significant number of the people involved as traffickers were youths between the ages 13 to 17 from Toronto and other southern Ontario towns. They were lured into crimes such as selling drugs, stealing and vandalism with the promise of money and a better life without realizing the aftermath of their decisions and actions. Raising awareness of the risks and the consequences of criminal activities will help to prevent kids and teens from getting lured into gangs and becoming involved in criminal activities. Supporting the youth mentally and physically is important and educating them about the risk factors and using positive role models to guide them will help them to stay on the right path. Encouraging them to form groups for peer support and having sharing circles to discuss ideas and provide relevant information will enable them to make wise choices and good decisions.
We also heard that the Thunder Bay Police Service is working hard on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls file. Police officers were doing their best to address missing people in general and did not segregate their investigations based on race. Systemic racism was still a concern in policing not only in Thunder Bay, but in Ontario and across Canada. Steps were being taken to address this problem and we should be vigilant and work together to enhance our safety in the community..
We enjoyed the visit to the police station and the officers made us feel comfortable to talk and ask questions. Police Chief Fleury dropped in our meeting and had a picture taken with him. The RMYC plans to have follow-up meetings with the police to chat about safety, juvenile crime, high-risk areas in the city, criminal youth gangs, online safety and police recruitment.
By: Heritage Akinrinade and Roman Sakakeep
Regional Multicultural Youth Council
