Labrador women want RCMP in their communities

JULIE GREEN
Special to Nunatsiaq News

HAPPY VALLEY-GOOSE BAY — There’s enough crime in the Inuit communities of Makkovik, Postville and Rigolet to warrant a full-time police presence.

That’s the finding of a recent study of unreported crime in Labrador commissioned by Pauktuutit, Canada’s national Inuit women’s association.

Pauktuutit is hold its annual general meeting in Iqaluit next week.

The three communities are now policed from an RCMP detachment in Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

Violence against women unreported

Violence against women was the most frequently mentioned unreported crime, according to information gathered in interviews, at workshops and on questionnaires.

The study says other kinds of assault, property crimes and drunk driving are also under-reported.

These findings don’t come as a surprise to Charlotte Wolfrey of Rigolet, one of the women who conducted the research.

“If a complaint was made, police would investigate and when they leave people would be afraid of repercussions,” Wolfrey said.

As a result, crime isn’t reported.

“Some kinds of crime are becoming normal, like spousal assault, where a woman covers her black eye with makeup rather than reporting the problem,” she said.

Lobbying provincial government

Wolfrey and other members of Tongamiut Inuit Annait (Inuit Women of Torngat Mountains) plan to use the study to lobby the provincial government to provide community-based police in Rigolet, Postville and Makkovik.

They’ve invited Newfoundland’s attorney-general, Chris Decker, to their annual meeting in Rigolet next month.

Wolfrey wants him to hear what it’s like to live in a community without police, where it takes 45 minutes to fly in from the detachment in Happy Valley-Goose Bay and regular patrols occur only every three or four weeks.

Wolfrey’s daughter was murdered in Rigolet five years ago and she’s haunted by the idea that having police living in the community might have made a difference.

“On the day she died, she called police to tell them a guy was threatening to kill her, but they said they couldn’t do anything until something happened,” Wolfrey said.

A month after Wolfrey’s daughter died, Pauktuutit held its annual meeting in Happy Valley-Goose Bay and Wolfrey attended.

The organization decided to conduct a study to challenge police and government officials who said “low” crime rates don’t justify full time police in every Inuit community on Labrador’s north coast.

The study proves the police are needed, Wolfrey says.

Alternatives to police don’t work

She says people in Rigolet have tried alternatives, like Citizens on Patrol, but they don’t work.

“The work is dangerous and we don’t want to put our families at risk.”

The study was completed three years ago and sent to the premier at the time, Clyde Wells.

“We hope the province, the federal government, the community would get together to provide policing, but it didn’t happen,” Wolfrey said.

Pauktuutit ran out of money for its justice co-ordinator and the report gathered dust.

But Wolfrey says the findings are still relevant and she hopes the meeting next month will convince the province of Newfoundland to station police in every north coast community.