Inuit women’s organization steps up call for police reform
Pauktuutit wants Ottawa and RCMP to deliver an action plan to end systemic racism in policing
Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada is calling on both the federal government and the RCMP to commit to an action plan to end systemic racism in policing across Inuit Nunangat. (File photo)
The national organization representing Inuit women is calling on both the federal government and the RCMP to commit to an action plan to end systemic racism in policing across Inuit Nunangat.
Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada says it’s been working “in good faith” with RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki towards that goal since January, when the organization released a report called Addressing Gendered Violence Against Inuit Women.
The report says that Inuit women face discrimination in their encounters with police, particularly in the police response to gendered violence, citing mistrust and reluctance among women to even call on the police for help.
To remedy that, Pauktuutit recommended that the RCMP adopt trauma-informed policing, gender-based violence training and better community engagement.
Pauktuutit has asked that the RCMP enter into a memorandum of understanding with Pauktuutit to continue that “urgent work,” the organization said in a June 10 news release.
However, in a June 10 interview with the Globe and Mail, RCMP Commissioner Lucki denied that systemic racism exists within the police force.
Pauktuutit is now stepping up its calls for action on the heels of a CBC investigation that details more than 30 cases of alleged RCMP misconduct in Nunavut, most of them involving Inuit women.
Those allegations include a poor response to violence and sexual assault, strip-searches, and the mishandling of both victims and accused. As a result, the Legal Services Board of Nunavut has made its own call to the RCMP for a systemic review of policing in Nunavut, CBC reported this week.
“Many of the police actions described are in fact criminal acts and human rights violations,” said Pauktuutit President Rebecca Kudloo in the June 10 news release.
“I am calling on the federal minister of public safety, the honourable Bill Blair, to meet with me as soon as possible to provide an action plan on how his government will address this systemic racism in RCMP policing in our communities.”
For its part, the Government of Nunavut has committed to look at a new model for civilian oversight of the RCMP this year—this after the territory has seen six police-involved civilian injuries or deaths so far this year.
Pauktuutit is already working alongside Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada to help develop an Inuit national action plan in response to the calls for justice in the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls’ final report, released last year, which address violence against Inuit women and children.
But that work has been stalled during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the federal department saying the release of that action plan—originally planned for this month—would be postponed.
Pauktuutit has said that it’s critical that a national action plan to support Indigenous women at risk of violence is delivered this year, and that it should include emergency shelters for women across Inuit Nunangat.
Indigenous Services Canada announced on June 3 over $80 million in funding for new women’s shelters in Indigenous communities, noting two are destined for the territories, though the government has yet to name the communities where these shelters will be built.
The demand for and release of ‘action plans’ has become a bit of a performance routine among organizations that make their gruel in identifying gaps and alleged gaps in whatever their cause for social justice may be. It would not be a difficult position in these times to repeatedly sound the alarm and ride the ongoing waves of moral panic that have, at this point particularly, gripped our world. The pile on against police forces is now in full swing, who would dare ask if things are really as bad as they appear in our media? In the all or nothing, winner takes all zero sum game we think we are playing, I doubt many would. Though there are a few voices in the wilderness doing so. It’s risky business speaking truth to power, and in our age sources of power are diffuse, though those wielding such power are quick to turn our attention away from themselves and toward the tradition sources they hope to weaken and seize power from. Interesting times.