RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson has confirmed that Aboriginal perpetrators killed 70 per cent of Canada’s female Aboriginal homicide victims between 1980 and 2012.
Churchill MP Niki Ashton and others had sought proof of the figure after Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada Minister Bernard Valcourt referenced it in a closed-door meeting in Calgary.
Ashton went so far as to suggest Valcourt may have “made this number up to suit the Conservatives’ discriminatory agenda.” Soon afterwards, Paulson vouched for the figure.
Still, Ashton said confirmation without the statistics to back it up is nothing more than a way for the federal government to avoid truly examining the issue.
“The purpose of this whole discussion from the government side has been to say we don’t need a national inquiry [on missing and murdered Indigenous women],” she said.
Confirming the figure also flies in the face of the RCMP’s policy of bias-free policing, Ashton argued, and undermines work done by RCMP detachments in communities across Canada to build and improve relationships with First Nations.
Rather than actually dealing with the issue of unsolved murders of Aboriginal women – there are 225 unsolved killings from between 1980 and 2012 – Ashton said identifying the ethnicity of those responsible for the solved ones only serves to silence victims’ families and communities, and encourage racism and stereotypes.
In an April 7 letter, Paulson not only confirmed the 70 per cent figure but also noted that 25 per cent of people who murdered Aboriginal women were non-Aboriginal. Another five per cent were of unknown ethnicity.
The Globe and Mail reported March 31 that it had obtained a transcript of remarks Valcourt made during a meeting with chiefs in Calgary on March 20.
Among his statements: “I will tell you ’cause there is no media in the room that the RCMP report states that up to 70 per cent of the murdered and missing Indigenous women issue stems from their own communities.”
A 2014 report by the RCMP said that about 90 per cent of female Aboriginal murder victims were killed by someone they knew, but did not identify the perpetrators by ethnicity.
A 2014 RCMP report said there were 1,017 female Aboriginal homicide victims between 1980 and 2012 as well as 164 Aboriginal women considered missing.
About 16 per cent of all female homicide victims during the period covered by the report were Aboriginal women, who made up about 4.3 per cent of Canada’s female population in 2011.
– Thompson Citizen, with files from staff
