The First Voice Urban Indigenous Coalition is renewing its call for a police oversight board in the province.

It follows the Canadian Association of Police Governance’s annual conference held in St. John’s last week, where police oversight was a hot topic.

Justin Campbell of First Voice, who spoke to the conference, says the province is lagging behind in terms of police governance.

He states that Newfoundland and Labrador is one of the last jurisdictions without a police oversight board, which sets training requirements, define standards around use of force and cite high level policy for recruitment standards.

As of now, that is all governed by politicians and not in response to community priorities or needs, which separates NL from the rest of the province.

Campbell says former RNC Chief Joe Boland even acknowledged issues with the culture in the province’s police organizations.

“As the former chief of the RNC at this conference said, there’s a culture of unaccountability, there’s a lack of transparency; police are not working on priorities that matter to people in this province.”