B.C.'s government recently decided to ignore one of the most important recommendations of both the 2012 Oppal Inquiry into the missing women case and the 2006 Highway of Tears Symposium Recommendations report, which was sponsored by aboriginal groups in the North -- the creation of an affordable shuttle bus system on the Interior's Highway of Tears. It is a simple reform that would leave poor women, many aboriginal, less at risk from sexual predators when forced to hitchhike between the region's small settlements along Highway 16, where 18 women have been murdered or gone missing.

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With this missed opportunity, chalk up one more sign this provincial government still has a long way to go before it can claim to be in any hurry to meet its responsibilities to B.C.'s First Nations.

Another sign, more hidden from public light, is the shamefully slow process that native court workers in B.C. have endured since 2011, when their last contract ran out.

Although the native court worker program has been an important resource for First Nations people caught up in the justice system for more than 40 years now, the workers have not had a raise since 2009 and are currently paid annual salaries that are more than $10,000 lower than other aboriginal employees of the government doing similar work.

This is due to decisions made (or not) by the Ministry of Justice, upon which the association that directly employs native court workers depends for funding. Stuart Bertrand, who speaks for the Ministry of Justice, confirmed the funding relationship between his Ministry and that association, the NCCABC. Bertrand said on Dec. 9, "B.C. Corrections holds a contract with the Native Courtworker and Counselling Association of B.C. (NCCABC). The salaries for native courtworkers are paid by the NCCABC, which is funded through a provincial/federal cost sharing agreement. Our staff meet with the NCCABC on a regular basis, and although we are not directly involved in the current labour negotiations -- as they are solely between the NCCABC and the BCGEU -- we have discussed the pressures faced by the association. We are hopeful that a resolution will be found as quickly as possible."

The native court workers ''provide culturally appropriate services to Aboriginal people and communities consistent with their needs,'' according to the NCCABC website.

Their service, the site explains, is accomplished through access to counselling and referral services to clients with substance abuse and detox support issues; advocacy services for aboriginal family and youth; facilitating and enhancing access to justice by assisting clients involved in the criminal justice system; providing services to Vancouver community court; providing community outreach; networking and partnerships; advocacy services; and providing training and workshops. Despite this important range of services, NCCABC court workers have been paid well below parity for a decade and have been constrained to work without a contract since March 31, 2011.

All that may change next year.

Bargaining breakthrough?

If NCCABC court workers and the counsellors who share with them a bargaining unit represented by the B.C. Government and Service Employees Union approve the tentative contract recommended to them by their union negotiators this Tuesday, Dec. 16, wages will be brought up to parity with other aboriginal social service workers performing similar tasks on Jan. 1, according to a Dec. 17 BCGEU press release. The tentative agreement was hammered out in meetings between union and NCCABC negotiators and mediated by the Labour Relations Board.

The move to wage parity will likely be welcomed by native court workers but it will do nothing to make up for long years of brutal underpayment. The province failed to include the NCCABC under the Community Social Service Employers Association (CSSEA) process when it was revamped in 2003. BCGEU president Stephanie Smith said she continues to be baffled about why the government has not moved to include the court worker association under the umbrella of CSSEA, a move that would have seen the native court workers receive equal pay for work of equal value over the last decade.

''It looks like discrimination to me,'' Smith said.

Terry LaLiberté, the prominent Metis lawyer who heads up the NCCABC, said, ''The court system can't really work without native court workers.''

Jack Kruger, a veteran native court worker based in Penticton, agrees about the key role he and other court workers play.

Without native court workers, Kruger, a court worker since 1974, told the Penticton Western News during November's month long rotating strike, ''I think crime would go up lot. Natives would fall through cracks and be sentenced to jail for things that normally they wouldn't because the judge doesn't know the person or background.

''We're strangled for resources.'' That's LaLiberté's assessment of the damage done by government inadequately funding the NCCABC in the past. He lays the blame for salary shortfalls for his workers on government failure to properly fund the court worker program.

Systemic racism: a case study

Darlene Shackley, executive director of the NCCABC, has watched her ranks shrink. When she started with the program in 1982, there were close to 60 other native court workers. Currently, she supervises a staff of only 23 court workers.

While LaLiberté stopped short of attributing the program's underfunding to explicit racism among politicians or government managers, he said, ''Racism in the court system in B.C. is systematic.''

The form of racism LaLiberté is describing -- systemic, structural racism -- is woven into the operations of the B.C. government, as it is in B.C. society in general. The government's decision to bring native court workers up to wage parity is to be applauded. But if we are serious about reconciling with First Nations and righting the injustices of the past, why did these workers endure such a long delay before their chance, finally, to achieve basic wage justice?