Work to establish a First Nations Court in Williams Lake is moving along well according to the executive director of the Punky Lake Wilderness Camp Society.
“We have the Tsilhqot’in National Government negotiation team working with us now to work with the Province, and we had a meeting set up with Minister Eby last week. As sometimes with provincial ministers, sometimes you don’t make the agenda because they have other things come up so we are getting ourselves back on the agenda next month.”
Jackman says they have already done up their proposal which was greeted with a lot of enthusiasm.
“We are the only First Nations court proposal as of yet that has included both family court and criminal court. So they’re very interested in what we can possibly do with the family court aspect of it and taking that off some of the docket of the regular court list that takes up so much time,” she says.
“So we’re feeling really good about it and I think probably within a year we can get this up and running.”
Jackman is hopeful that within the year Williams Lake will have a First Nations Court adding that she is not in anyway disappointed of this week’s news announcing the province’s 6th First Nations Court that will open this spring in Prince George.