U.S. policing crisis a chance to reflect on Canadian policing

Canadians thankfully don’t have the same policing problems as the fractured U.S., but that doesn’t mean we have all that much room for smugness.

Sadly, smugly comparing ourselves with Americans tends to be what we do best, but it is seldom a productive way to deal with our own problems.

Consider the current COVID-19 crisis: We’ve redeployed that old Canadian trick of comparing outcomes with the Americans to convince ourselves that we’re not doing badly because we don’t have America’s world-leading 1,961,187 cases (we’re 17th in the world with 97,779 as of Tuesday morning), or America’s world-leading 111,007 deaths (Canada is 11th in the world with 7,910).

Canada is the 39th most populous country in the world with 37,894,799 people. Our record speaks for itself, or at least speaks much more loudly than comparisons with the Americans. But we have only 7.1 per cent of the U.S. deaths while we have 11.4 per cent of its population. An overwhelming victory?

We again seem to be doing this after the eruption of protest violence in the U.S. in the wake of the George Floyd killing perhaps as a way to gloss over the fact that there are police accountability issues in this country and right here in this province.

Admittedly, crime issues in the U.S. are defined not only by race and poverty but also by a culture that has produced the highest incarceration rate in the world: 655 per 100,000 people. With roughly four per cent of the world’s population, the U.S. accounts for roughly 25 per cent of the world’s jailed population.

This is one area where Canadians do compare favourably. According to 2016 Census data, there were 40,147 adults in Canada’s federal and provincial prisons for an average daily incarceration rate of 139 per 100,000 people.

That said, importing the U.S. racism/policing experience to Canada is a good and productive thing if it forces us to accept we’re not perfect, either.

It is by no small coincidence that simultaneous to these protests emerges the story of Athabasca Chipewyan Chief Allan Adam whose March 10 arrest by RCMP left his face bruised and battered.

The RCMP has enjoyed nearly 150 years of good will from a Hollywood Dudley Do-right image that’s neither reality for many First Nations people nor all that reflective of historic issues or training and resource challenges.

Similarly, the image of Canadian municipal police forces is more likely framed by the actions of Regina police Chief Evan Bray taking a knee at the Black Lives Matter protest than the actions of the New York, Philadelphia or Buffalo police during this protest.

Nor are Canadians plagued by a U.S. president using policing as a political wedge issue by commanding his voting base not to believe their own eyes when it comes to the brutality of a 75-year-old protester left hospitalized by storm trooper tactics.

But it wasn’t so long ago that we were talking about the name of First Nations teenager Neil Stonechild, found frozen to death in 1990 in North Saskatoon after last being seen handcuffed by two city police constables. And given the policing and prosecution issues surrounding Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the killing of Colten Boushie, perhaps Canadians require their own conversations.

Maybe that means a different conversation than appropriating the current language we are hearing in the U.S. Those now eager to sign the online petition in Regina to defund police should be cautious as to what that looks like.

Yes, policing at all levels likely needs better training and a far greater emphasis on community policing, but does that mean robbing traditional police of money for needed enforcement or deterrent practices? Can we not provide funding for mental health issues and provide funds needed for public safety?

It surely begins with having more civilian oversight of police, which Premier Scott Moe should acknowledge is a key component to reform. But it’s mostly recognizing our own needs. Let’s draw on the American experience to make ourselves better.

Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-post and Saskatoon Starphoenix.