"I received a phone call from the Commanding Officer for the New Brunswick RCMP. He just said there's been an incident. He said, 'the timing is really bad.' That's what he said a of couple of times, 'this is just bad timing.' And I'm just thinking 'When is it a good time to shoot and kill someone?'"

That's Chief Bill Ward of the Metepenagiag First Nation in New Brunswick. He's this week's guest on the Akhameyimok Podcast, discussing the shooting death of his band member and neighbour, Ryan Levi, at the hands of the RCMP last week. This is just the latest incident of the use of deadly or brutal force by police against First Nations people in recent weeks. National Chief Bellegarde and Chief Ward talk about ways to change the confrontational relationship between First Nations and the police, including a greater focus on community policing and the need to first accept that systematic racism is baked into police forces across Canada.

A special thanks goes out to the Red Dog Singers of Treaty 4 territory in Saskatchewan, for providing the theme music for this podcast.

The Ahkameyimok Podcast is produced in Ottawa by David McGuffin of Explore Podcast Productions. davidrcmcguffin@gmail.com