Third shooting underlines need for change in Nunavik
KRG, families and public push for changes to policing in wake of 3rd police shooting in 8 months
Protester Suzy Kauki stands in front of the Kativik Regional Government office in November 2024, calling for Nunavik institutions to stand in solidarity with the communities against police brutality. Since a fatal shooting by police of a man in Salluit in November, there have been two more deaths of people in Nunavik who were shot by police. (File photo by Cedric Gallant)
Something has to change in Nunavik.
There’s growing concern after the third fatal shooting by police in Nunavik in the past eight months.
That’s why Nunavimmiut should support the recent initiatives to get answers and to consider different ways of policing.
On July 17, a person died in Inukjuak after Nunavik Police Service officers opened fire while responding to a call during which they were approached by someone with a “bladed weapon.”
In May, Mark R. Annanack was fatally shot by police in Kangiqsualujjuaq when they were trying to apprehend a man in a tent. After using pepper spray to get him to exit, he came at police with a “bladed weapon” and was then fatally shot.
And last November in Salluit, Joshua Papigatuk died and his twin brother Garnet Papigatuk was injured when they were shot by police responding to a report of an impaired driver.
Few official details are known about the shootings. Quebec’s police watchdog, the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes, which looks into incidents where members of the public die or are seriously injured during contact with police, investigated the Salluit shooting and is investigating the other two.
That office is responsible for recommending whether criminal charges should be laid against officers involved in those incidents.
Desperate to end the string of deaths, families of two victims, the Kativik Regional Government and the general public have been calling for changes.
After the first incident in November, there were protests against Nunavik police in half of the region’s communities.
This week, family members of Papigatuk and Annanack called for a meeting with Quebec Premier François Legault, saying the criminal justice system in Nunavik is failing Nunavimmiut.
And in the wake of the recent third shooting last week, the Kativik Regional Government launched an audit of Nunavik Police Service practices and policies.
In the coming months, there will be dozens of questions. The big question is, will any of the officers face criminal charges in the shootings?
But there are others: Would less-lethal options, such as stun guns, lead to fewer deaths? Would more money from the Quebec government improve the criminal justice system the province established for Nunavik?
Is a change in leadership at the Nunavik Police Service in order? Can the Nunavik Police Service even be trusted to serve the region anymore? Or should it be replaced with a police force that doesn’t have such a troubled history?
Three deaths in less than a year is disturbingly high in a region with such a small population. The frequency of police shooting deaths appears to be about 40 times higher in Nunavik than in the rest of Quebec.
In the past 10 years, there have been 16 deaths in Nunavik with its population of 14,000, compared to 250 in all of Quebec which has a population of nine million.
Obviously, policing in Nunavik isn’t working the way it should. It can’t continue. Big changes are needed to restore public confidence in policing and to make Nunavimmiut feel safer around those responsible to serve and protect.
Where are all these Nunavimmiut signing up to be a police officer? It’s easy to blame the NPS, but they have made becoming an officer accessible to any Inuit who wants it. The rotational schedules were implemented so that Inuit would not have to police their own communities, but few if any took the offer.
Nunavik has more problems than elsewhere because it lacks rules and consequences for not following them. The problem is systemic, from an education system that gives diplomas to students who don’t show up just as it does to those who do. To DYP, that gives unfit parents every pass in the book. To families themselves, who will bully their own and others on Facebook and let abuse go unaddressed. To men, who stay friends with deadbeat dads and rapists because it isn’t expected of them to shun them. To women, who will go from one toxic relationship to another without dignity. To qallunaat, who witness these things and say nothing because they’ve integrated that this how Inuit are and not what they are suffering. And most of all, to the Church, who’s enabling all of this by putting up God as the reason why things are as he intended.
“Qallunat” can’t say anything or they are called white supremacists, or lose their jobs. This has nothing to do with caucasians. It’s the criminals themselves who need to change, and the culture that makes the criminals, as you cover so well in your comment. The church is also not at fault, there is no way they are encouraging this dysfunction, unless you mean some of the lay preachers who do whatever they like.
Yes, you nailed it good. Could not have done better myself. It’s surely a dysfunctional society we live in Nunavik. And the systemically deep rooted, rotten lack of accountability on part of the residents is saddened and pathetic. It’s not getting better soon. It will come to a point, whereby we’ll have to go back to administration days, where by the government officials will over see all control and for the rights and goods of all citizens safety and well being. While we are at it can we do something about that laziness coop store and gas station in kuujjuaq, turn over to some well boned non lazy directors or personal business sans the staying in bed in morning after token and drinking. Ridiculous on top agenda. The description and desperation of booze is sickening.
It is a little too free and easy with sidearms. Kids I regularly see swarm around the police on duty, picking at their equipment. The casual wearing of those lethal sidearms is recipe for trouble. Anything other than sidearms would be a huge improvement. There are alternate tools tried and effective that would do in a pinch. Sidearms in a vehicle a few steps away in most incidents would have prevented those 3 deaths. The few seconds between an encounter and retrieving a side arm allows police men and women time to better and coolly assess a situation. Speeling on about schools, social problems and all the ills is a distraction from the matter.
Easy to blame Inuit for being the authors of their own misfortune but the facts show that this is the direct consequence of colonialism that is widely demonstrated by numerous inquiries, some of them in Quebec, like the Viens Commission. The way the mainstream culture police its own population is very different from the way Indigenous people in general do, likewise for the whole legal system that is profoundly cultural. Whatever we do, imposing the mainstream approach to Indigenous people where it is profoundly inefficient, it will fail as it has failed for decades.
It is also widely documented that an Indigenous approach has better chances of success like what is done in BC, Yukon and many other jurisdictions but Quebec has been deaf to the facts and is still trying to impose its own policing culture with this kind of results. They still have a circuit court that fly in and out of the territory and is largely run by non Inuit, the vast majority from the South with little knowledge of Nunavik’s realities, culture and language. No wonder this is a dismal failure. Look at community safety officers in the West and you’ll see a program that works in Indigenous communities and is managed by Indigenous people, That’s only one example, like Indigenous Courts in BC that can inspire changes but Quebec has still its own colonial approach and rejects changes.
Inuit can police themselves, why not , you tell me. You complaining has no merit. You blame without justification. How do you think , you might handle a person , coming after you with a dangerous object, like a gun, or knife if you were the police , tell me.
There needs to be a change in people in nunavik not their police force.
The amount of violence, alcohol abuse is not caused by police, but by the people of Nunavik.
Its easier to blame others for our social problems . you always hear ” colonialism”.
wait till , we get self government , all our problems will go away.
Your problems will not go away with self government. They will still be there. Stop making excuses.
“Three deaths in less than a year is disturbingly high in a region with such a small population. The frequency of police shooting deaths appears to be about 40 times higher in Nunavik than in the rest of Quebec.”
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I’d like to see the flip side of these stats too, as the numbers would be a lot more meaningful. How often do Nunavik officers get shot at vs other Quebec/Canadian police?
I saw the stats 3 or 4 years ago and at the time, the chances of a Nunavik officer getting shot was a lot more than 40 times the Quebec average. Name one place in North America that is more dangerous to be a police officer?
I do remember when I looked them up that Nunavut had as many police shot during the time period as Alberta and BC, despite both provinces having a population 125 times Nunavuts.
Maybe the answer to my question is Nunavut….. maybe not too.
I am not sure where in the world that an individual can confront the police with a firearm and it is going to end well, if the individual makes the choice not to dis-arm.
This is not in any way a racial issue, but one of public safety.
@ “Deafears”
Okay, what about when they shoot to kill a “non-firearmed” individual?
Section 25 of the Canadian Criminal Code allows for a police (peace) officer to use force that is intended or is likely to cause death or grievous bodily harm to a person to be arrested, if…
“(a) the peace officer is proceeding lawfully to arrest, with or without warrant, the person to be arrested;
(b) the offence for which the person is to be arrested is one for which that person may be arrested without warrant;
(c) the person to be arrested takes flight to avoid arrest;
(d) the peace officer or other person using the force believes on reasonable grounds that the force is necessary for the purpose of protecting the peace officer, the person lawfully assisting the peace officer or any other person from imminent or future death or grievous bodily harm; and
(e) the flight cannot be prevented by reasonable means in a less violent manner.”
The population of Nunavik is significantly younger than the overall population of Quebec; 1 third is under the age of 15, the median age is 23, and over half are under 30.
What is very well known about young people of whatever race is that they take way more risks, and do not adequately address the consequences of their actions compared to older people, including committing criminal acts. It is therefore perfectly predictable that Nunavik would have more interactions with police than other parts of Quebec.
This is so well known that criminologists refer to this as the age/crime curve. Without blaming imagined or real racial or institutional factors affecting relations between the police and Nunavik Inuit, it must be accepted that until Nunavik’s population ages, the police are going to be interacting with Nunavik Inuit way more than police elsewhere in the province.
Accepting human nature is no smear against Nunavik Inuit or the police. And, changing the justice system or replacing the police is not going to make Nunavik’s youth mature quicker.
However, it is incredible to me that so many involved in an altercations with the police react by attacking them back. It really does seem like the role of the police in being in authority over everyone to keep the peace in a community is being ignored or misunderstood.
Perhaps Nunavik needs to question why their youth might be pre-disposed to react this way. It should be assumed in almost every possible scenario in Canada, for whatever a policeman is doing to you, knifing him to get out of the immediate situation is not an acceptable response. Even if this only serves to avoid further charges being pressed against you.
Some effort should be made to examine what sort of messages and perceptions young Inuit in Nunavik are getting from their community, family and friends about authority figures like police.
Inuit don’t get to be too old , much of it from abuse of Al and poor life style. That’s why we are left with a young ignorant population, no old people , no wisdom, no balance. It’s gone the Nunavik society, no return of peace or healing.
@ Lucretius
Here I fixed it for you…….
Some effort should be made to examine what sort of messages and perceptions young Inuit in Nunavik are getting from their Fly in , Fly out Police service.
From 2007 to 2017, The RCMP fatally shot 61 people, 36% of them were indigenous people even though indigenous people represent 5% of the population
In Nunavut with a population of 15,000 Inuit in 8 months there have been three fatal police shootings representing 36 fatal police shootings per 100,000 people in a year.
In Nunatsiavut (Labrador) there are no repotted fatal police shootings and they are policed by the RCMP
Inuvialuit Region of Yukon, NWT and Nunavut, zero police shootings
Nunavut has a fatal police shooting rate of 2.6 per 100,000 people annually
By comparing stats from the different regions of Inuit territory somethign is wrong in Nunavik, Maybe they should get the RCMP to police that region too and maybe the death rate will get reduced.