Homeless Indigenous women in the north don’t feel adequately protected by the RCMP and instead face police violence and discrimination, a new report from the Yellowknife Women’s Association finds. .
The group held two sessions with women last October, and all participants said they had experienced abuse at the hands of RCMP officers or knew an Indigenous person who had been abused.
“Women in our circles have shared many stories of being assaulted by police or being told outright, ‘You can do whatever you want, no one will believe you.’ ,” the report states.
“Women also seek help and complain that the RCMP focuses on the ‘wrong things’ – asking them offensive questions and spending time checking administrative boxes despite emergencies.” They also told us about their arrests and arrests of women who asked for help.”
Women in the study generally said they felt their concerns were not taken as seriously or as credible as those of non-Indigenous people.
“You know, when you don’t need them, they’re there. And when you need them, they’re nowhere to be found,” said one participant.
Renee Sanderson, executive director of the Yellowknife Women’s Association, said these experiences have real-world consequences, along with widespread mistrust of the RCMP.
“So many homeless Indigenous women do not seek help from the police because they fear being ignored, manhandled, or worse,” she says.
“If we feel that the people we are supposed to be protecting are in danger, who should we talk to?”
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The report makes 24 recommendations to improve these relationships and ensure the safety of the people our armed forces are mandated to protect.
Sanderson, who previously worked for the RCMP, said in his report that the things he witnessed and interacted with during his time with the force were “heartbreaking.”
“I quickly realized that you had two choices: be part of this close-knit group and turn a blind eye when injustice happens, or speak out about it. Either you are excluded,” she wrote.
The report says the RCMP is a force “left to police itself” due to current practices and the lack of resources for civilian review and complaint commissions.
“Nearly all individual cases of officer misconduct are referred to the RCMP for internal investigation.”
The report said between 2018 and 2023, there were 63 allegations of inappropriate use of force by the division operating in Yellowknife.
They all turned out to be unfounded.
“The opinion of the Indigenous women in our sharing circle was clear: Despite hundreds or even thousands of recommendations from every government order across the country, unhoused Indigenous women in Yellowknife and the RCMP relationship is not working.”
The force’s predecessor, the Northwest Mounted Police, was one of the first non-Indigenous peoples to arrive in the region in 1873 and was tasked with imposing “law and order” and asserting Canadian sovereignty. It was integrated into the broader RCMP in 1920.
Women’s groups say many still view police as agents of colonialism.
This finding is consistent with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s findings that for many Indigenous children, their first encounter with the justice system is when RCMP officers take them to residential school. .
RCMP still considering report
Study participants stated that many RCMP officers in the community lacked understanding of Indigenous peoples, their culture, and their history with the force.
Although Indigenous people make up about a quarter of Yellowknife’s population, they make up about 90 percent of the city’s homeless population.
Of this group, more than 60% reported that at least one parent had sent them to boarding school, and more than a third had lived in an orphanage or group home when they were younger.
Improving social services would go a long way, the report says.
The association recommends increasing the number of shelter spaces and the capacity of mobile crisis response teams to limit interactions between police and homeless Indigenous women.
“Despite having one of the highest rates of drug use and addiction in Canada, the Northwest Territories lack residential mental wellness and addiction treatment facilities,” the report said. It is recommended that a facility be established.
The report also calls on the RCMP to identify local policing needs and develop better training, more ambitious communities to address the under-protection and over-policing of Indigenous women and other vulnerable groups. It calls for integration and a comprehensive review of policing in the region.
“This is not the first report calling for changes to the RCMP,” the report notes.
“The failure of the Government of Canada and the RCMP’s national leadership to enact these recommendations contributes to the breakdown in the relationship between the RCMP and undetained Indigenous women.”
CBC News reached out to the RCMP for an interview about this report.
NWT RCMP spokesperson Matt Halstead said in an email response that the RCMP is “still reviewing this lengthy report.”
“We welcome any recommendations aimed at supporting the delivery of improved police services.”
Halstead added that the RCMP needs time to consider and consider what recommendations might be adopted.
