Gabriel Wortman, the author of the 22 murders of Portapique (Nova Scotia) in 2020, was a white man. Myles Sanderson, who killed 10 people and injured 18 others on September 4 on the James Smith Cree Nation reserve near Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, was of aboriginal ancestry. Difficult to know what could have predisposed one and the other to engage in such murderous madness. Fortunately, pathological murderers are rare in all ethnic communities.
One thing is certain, however: we must go beyond psychological analysis and bring the questioning to the level of society as a whole. During the 2017-2019 pre-pandemic period, there were an average of 673 homicide victims per year in Canada. A quarter (160) were Aboriginal and, of these, nearly two-thirds (102) lived in the Prairies (Manitoba, Saskatchewan or Alberta).
Overall, the homicide rate per 100,000 population is low in Canada. Among non-Indigenous people, the 2017-2019 average annual rate was just over 1 victim per 100,000. But among Indigenous people, it reached 14 victims per 100,000 in the Prairies and 19 per 100,000 in the three territories (Yukon, North West and Nunavut), more than 10 to 15 times the rate for non-Aboriginals.
In Quebec, it was 4 Aboriginal victims per 100,000 inhabitants; in the Atlantic 1, in Ontario and British Columbia, 5. One-third of all homicide perpetrators in Canada were Aboriginal. Across all ethnicities, the vast majority of victims were killed by family members or acquaintances. Why ?
Harold Johnson, a First Nations lawyer of Cree ancestry from Saskatchewan, was a long-time Crown prosecutor in the northern part of that province. He rose to fame in 2016 when he published his memoirs in a book called Firewater: How Alcohol is Killing My People (And Yours). This title refers to the overarching theme of the book, which is that it is imperative for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal leaders to address alcohol and drug abuse among Aboriginal people in northern Saskatchewan. According to him, blaming it entirely on white colonization and the residential schools would be a mistake, because it would mean that only past history would be responsible for today’s problems and that we would be completely powerless to repair the damage. .
Johnson’s recommendations deserve to be taken very seriously. First and foremost, he insisted on absolute respect for Aboriginal identity. Second, he promoted safe houses (protected houses), where residents commit to abstinence. Thirdly, he called above all to confront the syndrome of high rates of homicides, suicides and alcohol and drug abuse by resolutely attacking chronic unemployment, low levels of education and low income. remote aboriginal communities, especially in the prairies.
Johnson did not speak through his hat. By analyzing the evolution of the counties of the American Rust Belt for 25 years (including Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh), the economist Angus Deaton, of Princeton University, showed that the closings of factories had been a major cause the marked increase in the rates of suicides, alcohol and drug abuse and morbidity in the region. These closures led to a sharp rise in local unemployment and lower wages for displaced workers.
This fundamental discovery won Deaton the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economics. He and his wife, Anne Case, a world-renowned health economist, summarized their analysis in a now famous book titled Deaths of Despair (Died of despair. The future of capitalism, PUF 2021). They do not claim that the deterioration of living conditions over the last quarter century is the only explanation for the problems of small towns in decline, but their results leave no doubt that the availability of good-paying jobs is one. crucial element.
In a remarkable speech, Wally Burns, the chief of the James Smith reservation where the killings have just taken place, acknowledged that alcohol and drug use is widespread in his community and constitutes a serious problem. It is unclear what precisely motivated Myles Sanderson. Be that as it may, what we now know for certain is that the glaring lack of good jobs on several remote reserves like that of James Smith is a determining factor in the “deaths of despair”.
It may happen that a First Nation’s reserve is fortunate to be located near a potential mining, forestry or energy development. In this case, if it has strong leadership, it can be part of the project in terms of jobs and business benefits. However, good jobs usually require a good level of education or training, which is often lacking. And, of course, many remote reserves are not lucky enough to be close to the resources.
There is no doubt that the search for truth and reconciliation was essential as the first step in a common journey of Nations in Canada. But there is an urgent need to commit more firmly to the second stage: that of concrete and determined action in favor of the education, health and economic development of the First Nations.