Fort William First Nation declares state of emergency over drug epidemic

Fort William First Nation in northwestern Ontario has declared a state of emergency as the community struggles with an ongoing drug epidemic.

The state of emergency was announced Friday by Chief Michele Solomon and formally passed by council on Monday.

"This decision was made after a lot of consideration of the escalating situation that has been happening in our community related to opioid drugs," Solomon said in a Facebook livestream informing the community of the state of emergency. "We want to assure the community that we have seen the posts on social media expressing the concerns that the community has.

"We want to assure the community that we've heard the messages that you've sent to us and that we take those to heart and we take those very seriously. We want to assure the community that we're going to take whatever measures are necessary to try and bring a safer situation to our community, and to deal with the drug-related issues."

In a media release, Solomon said the community is seeking support and resources from other levels of government, including additional funding for policing and the development of a critical incident response team, and to recruit staff to work with families and community members in response to the loss of lives.

FWFN is also seeking funding to develop a land-based pre-treatment facility and an after-care facility.

In an interview following the livestream, Solomon said the community has received a response from Indigenous Services Canada and hopes to meet with the government agency next week to discuss their concerns.

FWFN council has been discussing some strategies of its own as well, Solomon said.

"One of the biggest barriers we know exists for people to access treatment services is a place for withdrawal management or a place for detox," she said. " One of the things we're looking at is having a place that we have for our own people, so that when they are ready to get help, they have a place to go."

Solomon also said a checkpoint that would operate in FWFN at certain hours is being considered, as is a surveillance camera program.

Community members will have the chance to provide feedback on the ideas at an upcoming meeting.

"We haven't had any direct communication with the City of Thunder Bay," Solomon said. "The City of Thunder Bay police are aware of this state of emergency, in addition to our own local police, the Anishinabek Police Service.

"So we're more reaching out to the local police services to let them know that we invite them to our community to assist our police service in reaching any illegal activity that may be happening here."