Jason's story

My name is Jason and I'm originally from Kenora, Ontario. I'm 40 years old and I've been in the justice system since I was 15. My grandparents and my parents are residential school survivors. I was involved with the system with children’s aid society at the young age of nine. But they finally gave up on me because I always escape from there their control. Growing up in my time out west there was lots of police violence. If you can, google Kenora and you will see the police violence out there in treaty 3 against Indigenous Peoples. The missing people. There were times like one winter I was dropped off in the middle of nowhere. I was driven out way in the boonies somewhere and left there. I think it was almost 15 or 20 miles outside of my community out in the middle of nowhere. This happened in 2002 or 2003 where I was left out in the bush. I knew how to survive because I had my survival techniques. I always thought that at a young age because that's what my parents endorsed in me as an indigenous person. I was told that as a first nations person that I'm going to have a hard time growing up. So that's where they taught me the survival techniques like how to be left out in the bush and not to be hungry. Since a young age, I have seen a lot of violence with my mom. Police brutality with the RCMP and OPP back home. I saw my mother getting beat up and seen my mom tasered by cops. I saw this happen numerous times growing up. I have also experienced violence at the hands of the police. When I grew up I would get charged for things that I didn’t do. Going down the street growing up being native there were a couple of times when I was charged on my record for weapons that I didn’t even have or just saying like I was in the neighbourhood. Like a break and enter happened or some store got broken into if I was the one walking down the street. I was the one that would get charged and I have experienced that every time with different places and cities in the province of Ontario.

Certain things that I would experience like going for a haircut. Like I'll go to a barber with my friend who was white because we both had the same hair and same hair length. We did that just as a test because when I sat down my haircut was done in 10 minutes. It was just chip chop chip chop, okay get out of here. But with my friend who is white, the barber took about half an hour to 45 minutes to do his hair. A lot of different things too, like in the city of Ottawa, on OC Transpo I was on the bus with my son who's nine months at the time and the officer wanted me to pay a dollar fifty and I told them that your thing that here says under five children are free and he says well I don't care I want a dollar fifty. And I said is it because I'm native? And he started getting mad at me telling me that I was racist or pulling out the racist card. A lot of things in the city too like being followed at Walmart. Like the one time I was shopping at Walmart and I had a basket, but all the things were not fitting in the basket. So, I saw a lady, she was white, but I saw her putting her stuff underneath the stroller and I said okay well maybe I can put some stuff under the stroller. So, what I did was put some stuff not all stuff I put like two or three in the bottom. And I went to the next aisle and then two people approach me said they were from loss prevention and said that they're going to take me in the back because I was stealing. I told him that I was trying to explain myself that I wasn't stealing. I said you never let me explain, I never crossed the cashiers without paying and I'm still in the building. And I was trying to explain my situation with the lady and he says well I'm not worried about the lady I'm worried about you.

In Ottawa, I was moving back and forth one time. I have other kids, so I was helping my kids moved to another place. I was on a bike and the cops told me that he pulled me over because I had no lights and no helmet. It was like four in the evening and there was still light out. I told them if I'm not being arrested then I'm leaving. And then when I left with my bike he basically pushed me from behind from the bike and I went flying into a bunch of recycling things garbage things which wrecked my bike. The cop then threw me in the back of the cop cruiser and charged me. There's another time where they said there was some guy in Vanier with a knife and they said I barricaded myself in the house and they shot me. I wasn't carrying a weapon, but they shot me because of my record because of who I am. They shot me with the rubber bullets. RCMP shot me with rubber bullets at my residents in 2019.

A lot of people are telling me that I should be wearing a body camera for myself. But in native culture how we police today, like how it should be modernized today. Our policing would look like a mental health worker teaming up with somebody to help people. But police are always asking how the mental health workers are going to deal with the violent situation. I think from my experience I have mental health and post-traumatic stress because my sister died in a house fire when I was eight and I was abused from the ages of 14. I've noticed that with post-traumatic stress we act from our hurt, like the hurt that is done to us that we have a bunch of these flashbacks sometimes and we need to just let that person be for the time being. Like usually we can calm down ourselves, but if we have somebody talking like a social worker or somebody they develop the relationship with can come and talk to this person before the cops come in there and taser them and beat them up. But not all people are violent like we all experience moments of anger. Like sometimes for me with my post-traumatic, I get trapped in those moments where you know something happened to me when I was eight or nine I get trapped in that. Or when I see the police, the post-traumatic starts from the police where they're always too overly aggressive with me when I get arrested and pointing the guns at me. Overly violent.

I don’t think the solutions can just be one agency. I should be a cell group that is not tied with CAS—it needs to be unbiased and unprejudiced. If workers are going to be trained for this, it should just for their own communities. Need proper housing in Ottawa. I think housing should not be always downtown. A lot of places that I've been with housing. There's a lot of addiction issues in a lot of families and I don't know how to address that with people. Maybe like having the freedom to live where you want that's maybe something not being tied down by the system that segregates people based on class. Like, let people live in neighborhoods they feel comfortable in. The waiting list for Ottawa housing is like two years long and we need to reduce that. Especially with people coming out of jail and being told they will be put on a two-year housing list and where can they go with their children.

Basically, people are coming out of prison and instead of like having those supports in place we are telling you that you might have to wait two years. Also having a place that are surrounded by sober people is helpful because when I get released some of the buildings are hard because of all the partying. There is crack and people smoking in the hallways and my kids are exposed to that. I am not against people using drugs recreationally and I realize that some people are likely coping with all the stress and trauma they have endured by using drugs. I want to have the freedom of living somewhere you don’t have to be surrounded by this. There's a lot of families that would remain united if they had better support and programs for children.