The figure has spread all over the web, in some circles at least, and circulates like a dark and heavy specter: between August 29 and September 8, while the whole country was dizzy with back-to-school affairs, six indigenous people were killed by police forces in Canada.
Proportionate to their representation in the general population, that’s roughly as if 130 people had died as a result of interaction with the police in less than two weeks.
Between August 29 and September 8 alone, Jack Piché, 31, was struck by a police vehicle north of Saskatoon under unclear circumstances. Then, Hoss Lightning-Saddleback, 15, was shot and killed near Edmonton by an RCMP officer responding to a 911 call made by the teenager himself. Tammy Bateman, 32, was also struck by a police vehicle in Winnipeg. Jason West, 57, was shot and killed by Windsor police. And a few days later, Steven Dedam, 33, was also shot and killed by an RCMP officer in his home. That same day, Daniel Knife was shot and killed during an RCMP response to the incident on Ahtahkakoop Cree First Nation. A video of Knife’s final moments was captured and released by a family member. It shows a child witnessing the fatal scene.
This week, Nunavut NDP MP Lori Idlout wrote to Speaker Greg Fergus calling for an emergency debate on the relationship between First Nations people and Canada’s police forces. She decried the lack of oversight and accountability within police forces for the (too many) incidents that go wrong. She also deplored the lack of adequate and disinterested media coverage of these deaths.
This week, three more deaths were added to this grim toll: between September 14 and 17, three more men died while in police custody. Among them, Jon Wells, 42, died in custody after being brutally arrested by Calgary police. While the man was apparently in crisis, officers used a Taser gun and pepper spray to subdue him. He then apparently suffered a fatal illness while in custody, the police defended themselves in a press release. Nothing to do with the use of force, especially not, we say to ourselves with a frown.
How can we talk about “reconciliation” without laughing when interactions between the police and members of indigenous communities are so lethal, and when such deaths barely cause a stir among the population? It is even surprising that we are still calling for a “debate” in the Commons on the issue.
It seems to me that the situation is clear, documented — historically, as well as in the contemporary context. Relations between the police and Aboriginal people are marked by episodes of violence, discrimination, and excessive use of force. This is not up for debate; it is a fact.
This violence is at the very foundation of the colonial entity that we call Canada, it is at the heart of modus operandi of the occupation of the territory: tearing people away from the land, children from their families, people in distress from their living environment… This violence spans time: it emerges each time as a reminder of the Canadian colonial present.
We know the numbers, at least the most spectacular ones. In Montreal, Indigenous people are six times more likely to be arrested by the SPVM than white people (eleven times more likely for women). The incarceration rate for Indigenous people is about nine times higher than that of non-Indigenous people in Canada. Half—half!—of the women incarcerated in penitentiaries are Indigenous.
As for deaths at the hands of police forces, the toll is patchy. There is no unified portrait — understandably, the RCMP and local police forces are not boasting about it. To get a clear picture and put the deaths of recent weeks into context, we must rely on data collected over time by researchers, journalists or civil society groups.
For example, the Tracking (In) Justice project, an observatory that documents police interventions that lead to deaths in Canada, reported last year that, overall, lethal interactions with police have been increasing since the early 2000s and are outpacing population growth. The data also shows clear racial disparities: while Indigenous people represent 5.1% of the Canadian population, they accounted for 16.2% of deaths at the hands of police forces. It is also noted that Black people are overrepresented among these deaths (they represent 3.8% of the general population and 8.1% of deaths).
This is far from negligible. According to an analysis conducted by CTV News in 2020, an Indigenous person was 10 times more likely to be shot by the police than a non-Indigenous person. Between 2017 and 2020, again according to the CTV analysis, 40% of people killed by police in Canada were Indigenous.
These brutal and deadly interactions with the police are so frequent that one can question whether they are out of order. Could they not be more a reflection of the role assigned to police forces in the enterprise of eradicating Indigenous populations on Canadian territory? This role is, after all, at the very foundation of the colonial institution that is the RCMP. Until we know what to call it, this violence will not stop.