RCMP MUST DO BETTER, MINISTER SAYS
PM says he has confidence in commissioner
OTTAWA • Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller delivered a scathing rebuke of Canada’s national police service Thursday, saying the Mounties are not immune to systemic racism and that they can and should do better.
His remarks came as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed confidence in RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki after the top Mountie said she is struggling with the definition of systemic racism within the force.
Lucki made the comments during media interviews this week. She was responding to allegations of bias and discrimination in the federal police force and others across the country following several violent interactions between authorities and Indigenous Peoples.
Miller refused to pass judgment on Lucki over her comments, but did point to the apology she delivered in 2018 on behalf of the RCMP to the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
In it, Lucki promised to “examine the systemic causes of violence against Indigenous women and girls in Canada, and prevent and eliminate further violence.”
Miller said Thursday that scrutiny of the promise is warranted.
“She undertook to do better and that the RCMP and Indigenous Peoples were entitled to the best there was of the RCMP,” Miller.
“That was a promise two years ago. Now, I look at the events of the last couple of weeks ... and I ask myself, ‘Is that the best? Is that the absolute best?’ Because that was the promise that was made two years ago.”
As for the lingering question of whether systemic racism exists within the RCMP, Miller said the answer is a clear and simple yes.
But he also said this doesn’t mean every cop or individual is a racist.
“We must acknowledge, the government has acknowledged, that there is institutional racism in Canada, the RCMP is not immune, nor is any organization and that re-examination requires a tremendous amount of education and self-awareness, frankly,” Miller told reporters.
“We are at our best when we question ourselves, when we question our instincts and I think that’s something that needs to be done because I know we’re turning around an issue that we do need to re-examine in the RCMP and there’s no question about it.”
In his defence of Lucki Thursday, Trudeau says he has worked closely with her over the years and that he trusts the commissioner to lead reforms at the RCMP.
“We’re facing a really important time in our country right now where we are recognizing what many Indigenous Canadians and racialized Canadians have known for a long time — that there is systemic discrimination right across our country and every part of our country and in our institutions. And recognizing that is difficult,” Trudeau said in Ottawa.
“I have confidence in Commissioner Lucki,” he added, “and I know that the changes that she has already begun to bring to our national police force and the work that we’re going to be doing together in the coming months is going to make a huge difference in combating systemic racism and reducing it in this country.”
Green party Leader Elizabeth May took her criticism of the RCMP’S dealings with Black, Indigenous and racialized Canadians a step further, calling it a “racist institution” during a news conference on Parliament Hill Thursday morning.
May compared the calm way she was arrested during a pipeline protest in B.C. in May 2018 to the way Indigenous Peoples, including Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs arrested during protests against the Coastal Gaslink pipeline in northern B.C. earlier this year, have been treated by the RCMP under similar circumstances.
“Those arrests were decisions within the institution,” May said.
“I think the reason I got arrested nicely is that I’m white.”
WE’RE FACING A REALLY IMPORTANT TIME IN OUR COUNTRY.