Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by thanking my good colleague, the member for Nunavut, for requesting this emergency debate. I also want to give a shout-out to my good friend and colleague Kim Pate, on the Senate side, who has done tremendous work in this area as well.
This is a topic, as we know, that is often neglected by politicians, and quite frankly the media normalizes systemic violence against indigenous people. Police brutality against people of colour, particularly indigenous people and Black people, BIPOC people, is nothing new in this country. However, recently the extent of police violence against indigenous people has grown to such a shocking level that it cannot be ignored by our leaders.
Given that it is our duty to promote reconciliation, the federal government must end the ongoing legacy of settler violence that is being perpetrated through police brutality, and I want to give some examples of that. Between 2017 and 2020, an indigenous person in Canada was 10 times more likely to have been shot and killed by a police officer than a white person was. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association recently reported that while indigenous people make up 5.1% of people living in Canada, they represent 16.2% of people killed in police-involved deaths.
There is no centralized, updated data set that exists that tracks deaths and provides information about the person, location, implicated police service, type of force used and many other contextual details. Much of what we rely on to understand these cases are “official documents” like police oversight body and media releases that contain limited details and tell only a one-sided police narrative, which is something that has often been cited and complained about by the public in Winnipeg with its current independent investigation unit.
Researchers have also found that the use of lethal force by police was on the rise, especially since the start of the pandemic, between 2011 and 2022. Lethal force was 66.5% higher than in the previous decade, with indigenous and Black people being disproportionately impacted.
I share this because it is nothing new. In fact in the last two weeks, we witnessed six cases of police brutality resulting in the deaths of indigenous people. This included cases of unnecessary force in response to people undergoing things like mental health crises; negligence resulting in the death of an unhoused person, like what I witnessed in Winnipeg; a photo of an unsheltered woman being removed by six patrol officers for sleeping on a bench in Winnipeg; and the lethal force used against a 15 year old. To me, it is unconscionable that our society is treating people made most vulnerable by systems with violence rather than uplifting them and treating them as human beings.
I want to give my sympathies to the latest victims' families, and I want to say the victims' names. We must say their names, because they were human beings who were deserving of respect, dignity and human rights, something that was robbed from them and in turn hurt families and those who are left behind. They are Jack Piche, age 31; Hoss Lightning-Saddleback, age 15; Tammy Bateman, a woman in her 30s; Jason West, age 57; and Steven Dedam, age 33.
However, as I said, this is not anything new. In fact, in April 2020, in the city of Winnipeg, three indigenous people were killed in a span of 10 days: Eishia Hudson, age 16; Stewart Kevin Andrews, age 22; and Jason Collins, age 36.
In these cases, the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba laid no criminal charges. It is a unit that has been criticized by the hon. former senator Murray Sinclair.
Today, just before coming to the debate, I spoke to the family of William Walter Ahmo, who was incarcerated in a provincial jail. The violence against indigenous people does not just happen on the streets with police; it also happens within our penitentiaries. On February 7, William Walter Ahmo had an emotional breakdown after a guard made a racist comment toward him.
Racism is so normalized in our justice system that indigenous people such as the Wet'suwet'en have to listen to racist comments from the RCMP. The Winnipeg city police said it was up to indigenous people to search for their loved ones in a landfill. It was up to us.
It could come from a current city councillor or the officer on guard in the prison making a racist comment to William, a young man struggling with mental health and dealing with intergenerational trauma, and he responded. Fourteen guards brought him down to get him under control, and as a result of excessive force, he lost his life.
This evening I asked his mother, “Can I share your words?” She said, “Do you know how it felt having to watch my son lose his life? It was like having an out-of-body experience, watching my son yell over and over and over again, 'I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe'.”
The chief medical examiner ruled it a homicide. The Court of King's Bench let the guards off.
This is a system that is broken, and the result of these persistent cuts and underfunding of vital social services fall the hardest on indigenous people. For example, Iggy Dedam was the third indigenous person in recent years to be shot and killed by police during a wellness check in New Brunswick. Had he been provided with the health care supports he needed, he probably would be alive today.
In the city of Winnipeg, Tammy Bateman was hit by a police cruiser driving through an encampment at Fort Rouge Park. Putting aside the gross negligence of the officer driving the cruiser, we again see the impacts that the housing crisis has had on indigenous people, many of whom lack a home they can find safety in.
During question period, I asked the Liberal government why the Liberal government is failing to honour its legal obligation to fund health services to first nations youth through Jordan's principle. According to Cindy Blackstock, there are between 40,000 and 80,000 Jordan's principle requests that Indigenous Services Canada has not processed or opened. When first nations children and youth are denied health services they desperately need, they are more likely to encounter police rather than health care professionals when undergoing a mental health crisis, and this is costing lives.
This is not another tragedy: This is elected officials willfully turning a blind eye on a system filled with systemic racism in policing and at all levels of the justice system.
As the late Cathy Merrick said when speaking about William Ahmo's case, “This justice system was not meant for us.” I want to honour the late Grand Chief Cathy Merrick this evening.