RCMP needs a reality check

First she said there was no systemic racism in the RCMP. Then she backtracked. Then Brenda Lucki, the RCMP’s head honcho, went before a parliamentary committee and explained that the RCMP might be discriminating against short people who apply to join the RCMP.

Indigenous people were left reeling in disbelief.

“If Commissioner Lucki believes this, then she does not understand what systemic discrimination is,” Sen. Murray Sinclair, who hails from Manitoba and led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, wrote on Facebook.

Sen. Lillian Dyck of Saskatchewan, who boasts both Indigenous and Chinese heritage, called for Lucki’s resignation.

Marion Buller, an Indigenous B.C. judge who headed up the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

Inquiry, reminded Lucki that she pledged to improve relations with Indigenous communities when she took on her position two years ago but there has been little action on that front. It’s not surprising that the head of Canada’s national police force would want to defend her force, the thousands of men and women who work in communities across the country.

But surely reality can’t be completely ignored in favour of white washing.

Lucki first denied that there is any systemic racism within the RCMP only a few days after Chantel Moore, a young Indigenous woman had been shot and killed by an officer in New Brunswick.

Lucki denied there was a problem only days after the RCMP were caught on video using an open car door to knock a Nunavut man to the ground.

A few days later, Rodney Levi, who was also Indigenous, was shot dead by RCMP in New Brunswick.

And by that time, if Lucki didn’t know about the March 10 dash cam video of Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca-Chipewyan First Nation in northern Alberta being tackled to the ground and punched in the face during an encounter with the RCMP in Fort McMurray, her senior officers in Alberta surely did.

They had viewed that video and didn’t see any need to reprimand, discipline or suspend the officer.

Now it has been revealed that six months earlier, Simon Seguin, the officer who delivered that flying tackle and then punched Adam’s face into the pavement, had been charged with assault, mischief and unlawfully entering a private residence while off-duty and is due to go on trial in September.

The charges were never made public, which is the usual practice.

According to CBC News, after an internal review, Seguin was given a oneday suspension for the mischief allegation and received a letter of reprimand on his file for the assault charge.

This was after the incident with Chief Adam and before any decision had been rendered by the courts on the off-duty assault charge.

Just to be clear: Seguin’s supervisors knew he had already been charged with assault when they viewed the dash cam video of him tackling Chief Adam and still they left him on active duty.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde, who hails from Saskatchewan and knows well the role of the RCMP in Indigenous communities, said in a statement Thursday that the RCMP should suspend Seguin until the province’s police watchdog, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, concludes its investigation into

Adam’s arrest.

“The news that Const. Simon Seguin is still on active duty is unacceptable. The RCMP should suspend the officer ... First Nations see the assault on Chief Allan Adam as unprovoked and unforgivable. To re-establish trust, the RCMP must address incidents of brutality head on.”

It’s not as though the issues surrounding policing and Indigenous people haven’t been studied and studied. They’ve been studied in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, with the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry, recommendations have been made but very few have been implemented.

“Complacency is killing our people,” Bellegarde said during a Global News interview.

Forty per cent of the Indigenous population in Canada is policed by the RCMP, mainly in the West and the North. Its predecessor, the North West Mounted Police, was on hand almost 150 years ago when First Nations in the West were being herded onto reserves so settlers could move in.

Isn’t it about time for the RCMP to get serious about creating a better relationship? Gillian Steward is a Calgary-based writer and freelance contributing columnist for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @GillianSteward