Canadian People Must Put an End to Police Impunity
Condemn State-Sanctioned Police Violence Against Indigenous Peoples!
Since August 29, eight Indigenous people have been killed by police in five provinces. The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) condemns these brutal police killings and all state violence against Indigenous Peoples and joins the call for justice for the victims and for those responsible to be held to account. We send our heartfelt condolences to the victims' families and communities.
These are the names of those who died since August 29:
Jack Piche, 31, a Clearwater River Dene Nation man, 31, was struck and killed by RCMP on Highway 909 between Buffalo Narrows and Turnor Lake in Saskatchewan on August 29.
Hoss Lightning Saddleback, 15, from the Samson Cree Nation was shot by RCMP in Wetaskiwin, Alberta, after he called them for help on August 30.
Tammy Bateman, in her 30s, a member of the Roseau River Anishinaabe First Nation was struck and killed by a Winnipeg police car in a park on September 2.
Jason West, 57, a survivor of the Sixties Scoop, was shot by Windsor police on September 6.
Daniel Knife, 31, a member of the Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation in Saskatchewan was shot by RCMP on September 8.
Steven "Iggy" Dedam, 34, was killed by RCMP responding to a call in Elsipogtog First Nation in New Brunswick on September 8.
Jon Wells, 42, of the Blood tribe, was killed by Calgary police who responded to a call at a hotel and conference centre in the city September 17.
Joseph Desjarlais, 34, was killed during a police chase on Fishing Lake First Nation in Saskatchewan on September 24.
The Assembly of First Nations, alongside other Indigenous groups and organizations and Canadians and Quebeckers of conscience have spoken out in condemnation of the ongoing police violence against Indigenous people, many raising the issue of why the police continue to go directly to deadly force and not de-escalation, when dealing with them.
Christa Big Canoe, Legal Director of Aboriginal Legal Services in Toronto and partner on the Tracking (In)Justice project, a project of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, speaking about the police killing of Indigenous people in 2023, pointed out "... [T]hese numbers, these deaths, must be situated in a context of systemic discrimination within the criminal justice system. While we have known anecdotally that Indigenous people are over-represented in police use of force-involved deaths in Canada, this data provides us a clear picture of ongoing colonial racial injustice. While 5.1 per cent of people living in Canada are Indigenous, 16.2 per cent of people killed in police involved deaths are Indigenous."
The killings of Indigenous people and members of other marginalized groups continue and increase because the Canadian state and the Criminal Code enables the police to act with impunity. The Criminal Code empowers police to use deadly force if they have "reasonable grounds" to believe it necessary to protect the officer or any other person involved. "Reasonable grounds" is used to justify police violence including choke holds, tasers and lethal force even when there is ample evidence that there is no credible threat to the police or the public that cannot be handled without violence.
When it comes to accountability, often police stonewall, refuse to comply in investigations and refuse to tell the truth about the actions of their fellow officers, something Winnipeg defence lawyer and former Toronto police officer James Lowry calls "the blue wall of silence." The end result is that between 2000 and 2018, there were 461 deaths at the hands of police in Canada. There were 18 officers criminally charged and only two convicted. Governments at all levels fund and protect the police as a top priority, while cutting funding for social programs. Police are the "enforcers" of the anti-social order. The call across Canada to "defund the police" is a demand by the people to put an end to police impunity and to fund social programs instead of the police.
In its June 2021 report to Parliament on "Systemic Racism in Policing in Canada," the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security acknowledged widespread racism within the RCMP and other police forces across the country. It made 42 recommendations aimed at "building trust" between "Indigenous and racialized communities" and the police. This report, like countless others before it, is meant to disinform and divert attention from the fact that the Canadian state, its courts and institutions were founded as part of the genocidal colonial project of the British colonialists which denies the rights of the Indigenous Peoples, immigrants, workers and everyone else. The police are the enforcers of the "rule of law" that supports this ongoing violation of rights.
Canadian democracy is in need of profound changes, modernization and renewal. Fundamental to this is a modern constitution which upholds the rights of all, including the hereditary rights of the Indigenous Peoples, and which puts the police and armed forces under the control of the people.
Emergency Debate in Parliament Shows It Is
Part of the Problem, Not the Solution
An emergency debate on the police killing of six Indigenous people in less than two weeks was held after the House of Commons business of the day on September 16, the first day of Parliament's fall session.
Lori Idlout, the NDP MP from Nunavut, requested the Emergency Debate. APTN National News reported that in her letter to the Speaker of the House requesting the Emergency Debate, Idlout said, "The lack of media coverage of these tragedies shows that systemic violence and deaths of Indigenous Peoples in Canada is normal and expected." She wrote "After years of hearing about police reforms in the wake of Black Lives Matter, the government's commitment to community policing in Northern, rural and remote areas, and a commitment to pass a First Nations Policing Act, Indigenous Peoples are owed answers by this government as to why Indigenous people continue to be victims of violence carried out by the government." She said, "There is a clear, urgent interest for Parliament to debate this disturbing pattern, so that parliamentarians can discuss immediate measures that can be taken to save Indigenous lives, today."
The Emergency Debate ended at midnight and clearly demonstrated to anyone who watched that Parliament has neither the interest nor the ability to address the problem of police impunity in the killing of Indigenous people. All the "interesting ideas" put forward in the debate did not once address how to end the police violence against Indigenous Peoples on which the Canadian state was founded. Idlout's hope that the killing will end if the government implements all the calls of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Report does not get to the heart of the problem, never mind that there is no chance of the calls of the TRC or of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls being implemented because the Canadian state does not recognize the rights and sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples. If it did, the recommendations would have been implemented long ago.
The Emergency Debate was rife with diversions. The Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, Toronto Liberal MP Gary Anandasangaree mused: "We have been struggling with the notion of systemic racism in law enforcement for many years and across different jurisdictions. In this particular case, it was in different areas and involved different police services. What would accountability and truth look like in these cases? I know there cannot be one particular answer because they are all different, but I would like to get a sense from the member of what she feels justice would be."
Ms. Idlout's response missed the crucial point that it is the Canadian colonial state and not the Canadian people which is responsible for the racist colonial laws and policies that make Indigenous people "fair game." She said, "Part of the reason systemic racism still exists is that there is still too much ignorance. There is still too much denialism about residential schools, for example. We need to make sure we are opening the eyes of Canada."
Fueling the fire of blaming the people and not the state, Elizabeth May of the Green Party stated: "Truth and reconciliation starts with understanding the truth of 167 years of racism and genocide. We must recognize that individuals, settler culture Canadians, are very uncomfortable with the word racism. They say, 'Well, gee, I am not a racist.' White fragility is also an issue."
During the course of the debate, proposals were made to increase funding for Indigenous policing, including a proposal from the Conservatives that if they formed the next government they would decentralize policing and put it in the hands of Indigenous organizations and communities. Liberal MPs patted themselves on the back for what they claimed were advances in Crown-Indigenous relations. Altogether the debate was treated as an opportunity for Parliamentarians to take cheap shots at one another and blow their own horns, exposing the institution's deep disrespect for Indigenous Peoples and all Canadians and Quebeckers. In the Parliament, even an "emergency debate" about an urgent matter of six lives lost to police violence, is turned into fodder to advance the self-interest of the cartel parties. It was a charade.
Toward the end, Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons offered: "Mr. Speaker, listening to the debate this evening, one of the things that crosses my mind is that we have the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs. As with all other standing committees, there is always an agenda set. There are individuals such as the national chief of the AFN [Assembly of First Nations] Cindy Woodhouse, who has always been a very strong advocate for Indigenous policing. As well, I know the member for Sydney-Victoria moved a motion at that standing committee saying that we should be conducting a study on the issue. The member opposite [Conservative MP for Battle River-Crowfoot Damien Kurek] knows having an emergency debate is not that common on the floor of the House of Commons, especially on this issue. Given that we are having this debate tonight, would he not agree that the standing committee should look at what has been suggested by the member for Sydney-Victoria so we can actually have that committee deal with what is being talked about this evening?"
Such "debate" went on until midnight with not one concrete action to change the situation coming out of it.
Parliament, with all its trappings and underpinnings of British colonialism, is no more capable of addressing the problems facing Canadians than are the colonial courts and police. As an institution of liberal democracy it is neither representative nor democratic and is an anachronistic holdover of a past era. The people need to build new institutions based on a modern constitution they write which upholds the hereditary rights of Indigenous Peoples and the rights of all.
(With files from Hansard, APTN)
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