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Submission to the Government of Canada on Police Abuse of Indigenous Women in Saskatchewan and Failures to Protect Indigenous Women from Violence
Methodology
This submission outlines Human Rights Watch’s findings on police interactions with Indigenous women in Saskatchewan based on six weeks of fact-finding carried out from January to July 2016, in addition to interviews and correspondence with police authorities and complaint mechanisms from August 2016 to January 2017. The cases documented in this submission fall within Treaty Six Territory and the jurisdiction of the Saskatchewan RCMP “F” Division, as well as the municipal police services of Prince Albert, Regina, and Saskatoon.
The objective of the investigation is to provide an account of police treatment of Indigenous women in Saskatchewan that is grounded in their lived experiences. In August 2016, Human Rights Watch shared preliminary findings with all the police services implicated in this submission, as well as with the municipal police and RCMP complaint mechanisms − the Public Complaints Commission (PCC) and the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC), respectively. These letters informed authorities of our investigation in Saskatchewan, provided an overview of preliminary findings, and listed detailed questions and requests for data on policing policies and practices, accountability, and training.[1] In October 2016, Human Rights Watch staff met with all municipal police chiefs implicated in this submission, the Commanding Officer of the RCMP “F” Division, members of the PCC, and provincial government officials. By January 2017, all police services and complaints mechanisms had submitted written responses to Human Rights Watch. In March 2017, Human Rights Watch met with a member of the CRCC.
Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed 64 Indigenous women and social service providers in Prince Albert, Regina, Saskatoon, and more rural communities in northern and central Saskatchewan to complete this investigation. All interviewees provided oral informed consent to participate. Interviews were conducted in private and individuals were assured that they could end the interview at any time or decline to answer any questions without consequence. The identity of these interviewees has been disguised with randomly-selected pseudonyms and in some cases certain other identifying information has been withheld to protect their privacy and safety.
A working group composed of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous community workers from frontline organizations, academics, and local leaders provided direction and guidance during the investigation.
It’s scary being me. They [the police] could make me disappear if they wanted to.
-Sara F., Saskatoon, March 28, 2016
In Saskatchewan, as in Northern British Columbia, Human Rights Watch found evidence of a fractured relationship between law enforcement and Indigenous communities. The legacy of settler colonialism and racist assimilation policies—particularly the residential school system—still overshadow the present-day dynamics between police and Indigenous communities. Residential schools, which the Canadian government operated up until 1994, along with the Catholic Church, forcibly removed Indigenous children and youth from their communities, severing connections to their kinship networks and family, language, and culture. Many Indigenous children and youth in residential schools were also subjected to severe psychological and sexual abuse while in these facilities.[2] The RCMP was actively involved and complicit in ensuring that Indigenous children attended these schools. This historical context fuels the strong mistrust, suspicion, and resentment many Indigenous people continue to feel towards law enforcement.
In addition to this colonial backdrop, more recent policing failures, and violent policing practices in the present, have continued to fuel Indigenous communities’ fear and resentment of the police in many locations in Canada. In 2013 Human Rights Watch documented grave violations of the rights of Indigenous women and girls perpetrated by the RCMP and police uncovered in British Columbia. In 2015 Radio-Canada exposed similar abuses in Val-d’Or, Quebec.[3] The province of Saskatchewan has also come under scrutiny and criticism for abusive practices by law enforcement in Indigenous communities—both on and off reserve. These include the now infamous “starlight tours,” where police drove Indigenous people to the outskirts of the city to walk home in the dead of winter, risking death by hypothermia. These starlight tours are reported to have been happening as early as 1976.[4] In 2000, Darrel Night was arrested, taken to the outskirts of Saskatoon and left to walk back from there. Night survived, and his case led to convictions of both officers involved.[5] That same year, the frozen bodies of two Indigenous men had been found within a week of each other in Saskatoon, shortly after Night had come forward. While their inquests were ultimately inconclusive, following their deaths Indigenous leaders reported receiving over 250 phone calls reporting incidents of “starlight tours” across Saskatchewan.[6] The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) Special Investigations Unit reported receiving over 800 calls in the first few weeks regarding historic and current complaints about police across Saskatchewan.[7] In 2003, a Commission of Inquiry was established to examine the death of 17-year old Neil Stonechild in 1990. It found that the police investigation was “superficial at best” and “concluded prematurely,”[8] with “glaring deficiencies” that went “beyond incompetence or neglect.”[9] Mr. Justice David H. Wright presiding over the commission noted the “overly defensive attitude” of police officers regarding complaints against its own,[10] and also the “chasm that separates Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people” such that “our two communities do not know each other and do not seem to want to.”[11] No charges were ever subsequently laid against any police officers in connection with the death of Neil Stonechild.
These past and more recent policing failures contribute to a climate of suspicion and a widely-held belief that the police targets and discriminates against Indigenous men and women with little accountability for violent and racist conduct. Indigenous women told Human Rights Watch that they would not call the police to report a crime committed against them or crimes that they had witnessed involving an Indigenous woman out of fear that the police may harass them, engage in physical violence towards the suspect, or take them on a “starlight tour.” Lauren T. said, “I have concerns about calling the cops. Even where I was working at [store name withheld] we had some incidents, but I was iffy on calling the cops.”[12]
An Indigenous woman community leader in Saskatchewan echoed these views, telling Human Rights Watch: “I have had problems with stalking, but [I] don’t trust the police. Professionally, I admit this [working with the police] is what we must do, but personally I have zero faith in the police. It doesn’t matter what position or how many degrees we have. By the police services we’re seen as just another Indian.”[13] Concerns about police harassment led this community leader to limit her time in public places where she might encounter police officers. “We become as invisible as possible,” she told Human Rights Watch.[14]
There is a historical and colonial background to present-day patterns of violence against Indigenous women and girls, and police failures to respond to such violence.[15] State law and policy, such as the Indian Residential School system,[16] the Sixties Scoop,[17] and sex-discrimination in the Indian Act,[18] subjected Indigenous families and communities to violence, cultural dislocation, and land dispossession. In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada described the cumulative effects of Canada’s Aboriginal assimilationist policies as a form of cultural genocide.[19] The inter-generational impacts of this colonial violence upon Indigenous women and girls are acute. Indigenous women and girls today are disproportionately more vulnerable to socio-economic marginalization than non-Indigenous women and girls.[20] They are more likely to live in poverty, on the streets or in insecure housing, be unemployed, or engage in dangerous economic survival strategies. They do not benefit from the same access to education, and other basic needs, such as clean water on reserve and healthcare.[21]
Indigenous women are particularly vulnerable to all forms of violence, including violence perpetrated by casual acquaintances[22] and police abuse.[23] In their inquiries into the murders and disappearances of Indigenous women and girls, The United Nations and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights have affirmed that racist discrimination and socio-economic marginalization were root causes of the violence.[24] In the 2015 United Nations inquiry report into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women highlighted Canada’s colonial roots, encompassing cultural dislocation, dispossession, intergenerational trauma, and the socio-economic marginalization of Indigenous peoples, as root causes of the violence experienced by Indigenous women.[25]
Indigenous women and girls are disproportionately more vulnerable to violence than their non-Indigenous counterparts in every province and territory, including Saskatchewan. In Saskatchewan, 55 percent of female homicide victims are Indigenous; the highest proportion of Indigenous female homicide victims of any province.[26] Indigenous women are also likely to be murdered at a rate almost seven times higher than non-Indigenous women.[27] While Indigenous women only make up 4.3 percent of the female population in Canada, they account for 16 percent of the total female homicides and 11.3 percent of missing women in the country.[28]
Systemic discrimination against Indigenous women makes them more vulnerable to police violence and harassment. As one Indigenous woman, Clara S., explained, “sometimes they [the police] do and say racist things. They think that Natives are going to keep quiet.” Many of the women and service providers interviewed by Human Rights Watch felt strongly that police officers brought a presumption of criminality to their interactions with Indigenous women. As Ashley D. said, “they look down on a lot of us Natives like we’re nothing; like we don’t deserve assistance. Like they’re out to get us… A lot of times they [the police] will stop you and ask ‘Where are you going? What are you doing?’ [The police] treat you like you got to be doing something [wrong].”[29]
International human rights experts have also raised concerns of entrenched and institutionalized stereotyping of Indigenous women by the police. The United Nations inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada reported that structural bias was, “reflected in the use of demeaning or derogatory language towards Aboriginal women and in stereotypical portrayals of Aboriginal women as prostitutes, transient or runaways and of having high-risk lifestyles.”[30]
The overrepresentation of Indigenous woman who pass through the criminal justice system in Canada and in the province of Saskatchewan underscores these systemic problems. Indigenous women made up more than 85 percent of all adult women admitted into provincial sentenced custody in Saskatchewan, according to the most recent race and gender disaggregated data available, while only accounting for under one-fifth of the adult female population.[31] According to the Saskatchewan branch of the Elizabeth Fry Society, in August 2013, only five of the approximately 140 women prisoners in the provincial Pine Grove Correctional Centre for women in Prince Albert identify as non-Indigenous; in other words, 96 percent of the female prisoner population in Saskatchewan under provincial custody at Pine Grove at the time were Indigenous.[32]
In Saskatchewan, Human Rights Watch documented 64 alleged cases of violent abuse against Indigenous women at the hands of the police. The abuse documented included excessive use of force, invasive body and strip searches by male officers, and sexual harassment during these searches. These cases mirror a wider pattern of allegations of physical and sexual abuse by police services in Quebec, British Columbia, and elsewhere in Canada documented by local civil society groups and the media.[33] Indigenous community leaders, academics, and activists also described distinctive risks of police abuse for particularly vulnerable groups, including Indigenous girls and Two-Spirit people.[34]
Several Indigenous women interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported episodes of physical assault by police officers during stops and arrests. One Indigenous woman, Lauren T. described the violence she experienced when stopped by the Prince Albert Police Service in 2014:
[He] asks ‘do you have your driver’s license and registration?’ I was reaching into the cubby hole and asked him why he was stopping me. I knew that I had a right to know why I was being stopped. He asked, ‘Can we deal with this in my car?’ I didn’t know what was going on. Deal with what? I said I didn’t want to leave my baby in the car. He said, ‘the cruiser is just a few steps away.’ I said I’m not going to leave my baby in the car. He started grabbing at my ear through the window. I started screaming. He started hitting my shoulder—I guess so I would let go of the steering wheel.[35]
Some accounts of police abuses reflect aggressive policing of public intoxication and reliance on detention to address alcohol dependence problems in the Indigenous community.[36] Indigenous women can struggle with drug and alcohol dependence associated with histories of trauma.[37] One woman, Elaine N., described the abuse and mistreatment she witnessed of another Indigenous woman arrested for public intoxication in a neighboring cell in Saskatoon in the summer of 2015:
Around 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning they brought in a woman in her late 40s. She was drunk. She didn’t know what was going on. She was in a cell by me and I could see a reflection of her cell. The police officers stripped her. They took her pants, her shirt, her bra. It was cold. She was screaming because they pepper sprayed her. When they threw her in the cell you could hear the thud. You only get a 3-inch pad to sleep on. She was crying for a while—she was hysterical. The cops refused to give her water—said ‘we’re shutting your water off.’ Left her like that all night. When they brought her in, her clothes were torn and bloody. It bothered me to see the way they treated her as an older lady. She reminded me of my aunts. The lady [police officer] said she was trying to hurt herself, was going to use her bra to hang herself, so they had to take her clothes.[38]
Human Rights Watch only collected testimony of Indigenous women’s experiences in detention in the context of “drunk tanks,” or cells used to temporarily detain intoxicated individuals. These interviews point to a need for publicly managed and operated short- and long-term detox facilities outside the policing and criminal justice systems.
Several police chiefs Human Rights Watch interviewed in Saskatchewan complained that there were not enough addiction treatment centers available nearby, and not enough beds at those centers. They also spoke of the challenges faced by people with chronic alcoholism who have overstayed their welcome at available treatment centers and have nowhere to go. Police themselves recognize the problem and acknowledge that more centers are required and more support needed for those suffering from alcohol dependency. The Prince Albert Police Chief told Human Rights Watch that the most common crimes they see are alcohol-related and noted that his force “arrests 3,000 people a year for no other crime than public intoxication.”[39]
While police officers have a duty to restrain violent individuals to protect others and themselves, any use of force should be justified by the circumstances and limited to the minimum extent necessary. Human Rights Watch documented at least six incidents in which the relevant municipal police service or the RCMP reportedly used excessive force against Indigenous women in Saskatchewan. These cases include the ones noted above, as well as the following:
They [the RCMP officers] would not wait for a female to search me. I did not have a weapon or anything. I ended up in the drunk tank with just my bra and shorts. Left all night. It was cold. A female officer on the next shift asked ‘why are you in your bra?’
-Anne C., 23, location withheld, July 15, 2016
Human Rights Watch documented reports of degrading and abusive body and strip searches by male officers of Indigenous women in every jurisdiction researched for this submission. The removal of undergarments in custody—a practice which the Supreme Court of Canada has deemed to be a form of strip search—was mentioned frequently. According to the Supreme Court, a strip search involves “the removal or rearrangement of some or all of the clothing of a person so as to permit a visual inspection of a person’s private areas, namely genitals, buttocks, breasts (in the case of a female), or undergarments [emphasis added].”[40] This has been interpreted by lower courts to include any removal and inspection of undergarments, and not limited to situations where police are searching an accused for weapons or evidence of the commission of a crime.[41]
Donna H. described being strip searched by a male officer at an RCMP detachment in Regina and what happened when she tried to report it:
A year and a half ago I had an experience here in Regina. I was brought into cells. Usually a woman searches. But they told me to take off my clothes. It was a man who did it. I said this is not right. I was crying. He said take it all off. He shut the door behind him. I had to take off my bra and underwear. I was brought in on a warrant. I said a woman is supposed to be doing it. I was literally starting to cry and he just said, ‘put your clothes back on’ and said I was being released. He just walked out. It had been 10 -15 minutes. I was held for another hour and then they released me. On the way out, I said something to the front desk about what happened. But they didn’t say anything.[42]
Regan S. recounted her experience of sexually inappropriate behavior by officers from one of the municipal police services in Saskatchewan [name withheld]:
I was picked up by two male police officers—not sure exactly what for, maybe a breach. I was wearing yoga pants and a tight tank top. At the police station there is a high desk where they book you. There were four cops back there. I went through intake. There was no matron on duty. The officer behind the desk said to take my bra off. I said I don’t have a bra on. [They] repeated ‘Take your bra off.’ ‘I do not have a bra on.’ We kept arguing. I pulled my tank top straps down [to show no bra straps]. ‘I am not wearing a bra.’ He said, ‘I want to check for myself.’ He came down and said, ‘put your arms out.’ He felt me up and down my body—my complete body. Groped [my] breasts. It was completely absolutely inappropriate. Soon after I got released, I complained to an officer I know. All he did was laugh. He thought it was funny.[43]
In total, Human Rights Watch documented eight incidents in which Indigenous women said that male officers ordered and conducted body and strip searches. It is unclear whether and to what extent this is due to female staffing shortages.
The Prince Albert police chief admitted that while his detachment has been able to recruit a more diverse pool of male officers, they have been far less successful with respect to gender diversity.[44] He said that “for the most part we do have a female on each patrol shift. If not, we always have a female matron on staff and that matron is doing the search if there’s no female officer available.” The Saskatoon Police Chief similarly said that “male officers should not be searching female’s bodies. That should not be happening. I can’t say it never happens but I’m just saying that as a regular course, that should not be happening at all. We have a luxury here. We do have a lot of females [officers] here.”[45]
Nevertheless, despite these assurances Human Rights Watch heard several disturbing allegations of sexual harassment and groping by male RCMP and municipal police officers during these searches. These include the incidents noted above as well as the following:
Various international human rights standards and practices for law enforcement affirm that strip searches by government authorities should only be conducted by persons of the same sex and in limited circumstances, as they are a significant invasion of privacy.[46] The Supreme Court of Canada echoed this view in R v Golden, explicitly asking in its framework for conducting a strip search in compliance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, whether the police officer(s) carrying out the search is of the same gender as the individual being searched.[47] It also stated that strip searches are “one of the most extreme exercises of police power” and “cannot be carried out as a matter of routine police department policy.”[48]
The Supreme Court, however, noted a “disturbing trend towards strip searching detained persons as a matter of routine police policy.”[49] Indeed, in 2013, the Fort Qu’Appelle Detachment of the RCMP was found by the Saskatchewan Provincial Court to have had in place a standard operating procedure requiring every woman placed in cells to remove her bra, “notwithstanding the decision in Golden and many cases subsequent thereto, including cases relating to the surrender of bras and hand-search beneath bras.”[50]
As the Supreme Court also observed in Golden, “[w]omen and minorities in particular may have a real fear of strip searches and may experience such a search as equivalent to a sexual assault. The psychological effects of strip searches may also be particularly traumatic for individuals who have previously been subject to abuse.”[51] The British Columbia Provincial Court explicitly noted the First Nations identity of a defendant when describing the reasons why a strip search was unreasonable:
A request of a female youth, from a First Nations background, to remove her brassiere, made by a male police officer, in the proximity of another male officer, is a situation which a reasonable and objective observer would perceive to be frightening, humiliating, and threatening to the young person, likely to make that young person feel as if her bodily integrity is being violated.[52]
Affirming Golden, the Provincial Court went on to say that such policies (requiring an accused to remove her bra pursuant to general policy) can “lead to vulnerable persons experiencing legitimate feelings of violation at the hands of a powerful system that can seem to them to be unjust and bullying” and can also “contribute into an atmosphere in which classes of prisoners such as members of First Nations are belittled and degraded.”[53]
In 2017, the RCMP’s Civilian Review and Complaints Commission released a final report on the public interest investigation in Northern British Columbia that was conducted in response to the Human Rights Watch’s 2013 report on police failings and abuses in British Columbia.[54] The final report addressed the shortcomings of RCMP policy and practice relating to strip searches. It found that the RCMP’s national policy requirement that “members obtain the approval of a supervisor for a strip search when one is available [emphasis added] is insufficiently stringent to ensure that such approval will be sought in all but exigent circumstances.”[55] The oversight body also found that the British Columbia RCMP’s policy mandating the removal of bras was “contrary to common law principles” and that “absent reasonable grounds to conduct a strip search, the removal of a prisoner’s bra is unreasonable.”[56]
It should be noted that while the Supreme Court distinguishes “frisk” or “pat-down” searches as less intrusive manners of searching,[57] and thus bearing a lower threshold,[58] the same concerns regarding cross-gender searches arise. They are simply more acute in the context of strip searches. International human rights standards for law enforcement affirm that personal or body searches should be conducted by persons of the same sex.[59]
A lot of the Indigenous women who go missing—it starts with this. Until we address the everyday violence how can we address the issue in its entirety?
-Jennifer P., 30, Regina, January 27, 2016
Among the provinces, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have consistently recorded the highest rate of police reported crime, including rates of violence against women that are nearly double the national average.[60] Indigenous women are also more likely than non-Indigenous women to be murdered and disappeared by casual acquaintances, or strangers.[61] Cases of police abuse like those noted above undermine trust between Indigenous communities and law enforcement and result in Indigenous women being reluctant to call the police for help when they or someone they know has experienced violence. When women choose not to report crimes because of their mistrust of the police, this perpetuates impunity for perpetrators of violence against Indigenous women.
A community counselor in Saskatoon told Human Rights Watch, “a few weeks back a pregnant woman where I live was being beaten up and no one was calling because they want to avoid all contact with the police.”[62] This sentiment mirrors findings by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and the Manitoba Justice Inquiry, from over a decade ago.[63]
Domestic violence survivors and community organizations in Saskatchewan reported to Human Rights Watch that calls to the police by Indigenous women and girls seeking help with violence are frequently met with skepticism and victim-blaming, and that police often arrest victims of abuse for actions taken in self-defense. One Indigenous woman, Lisa K., told Human Rights Watch, “If they [the police] know that they are going to a domestic violence situation, and there’s alcohol, and they’ve been there before, they take their time.”[64]
Another Indigenous woman, Jennifer P., spoke to Human Rights Watch about a municipal police service’s response to the violence experienced by her mother, perpetrated by her non-Indigenous partner:
My mother was assaulted by her partner… I was very concerned. I found out he had been repeatedly abusive. [Later that same day] I went to check on her. Then I noticed a bunch of cop cars on the opposite side of the street. I asked two of the cops if they would be able to check on her… I explained that she’d been beaten up already that day. They didn’t seem too concerned. They went in. I explained that I had a recording [of partner admitting to assault]. I waited in the car 10 minutes… All of a sudden my mom was being put in cuffs… They said something about her cat being at large and that she was supposed to appear for it. The officer said, ‘your mom’s drunk and she’s not cooperating with us.’ At that point, they told me to leave… And I’m just astonished that this is even happening. I stepped away because they were yanking her out. The cop yelled, ‘Move! Get the fuck out of the way!’ He’s a big man and I’m five foot nothing. ‘Get out of the fucking way! Get into your vehicle or be arrested. You’re not cooperating…’ I went into my vehicle and I just burst out crying.[65]
She went on to describe how a municipal police officer threatened her to force her to cooperate:
He [the police officer] said, ‘We’re taking your mom in. She was not cooperating.’ Then he asked me, ‘Where are your kids?’ If you want to threaten a woman, especially an Indigenous woman, you ask about her kids. I never said I had kids. At that point, I felt unsafe. Is he thinking about throwing me in? Is he thinking about the repercussions of throwing me in?[66]
The case above highlights serious shortcomings in relation to dual charges in domestic violence cases. The Canadian Observatory on the Justice System’s Response to Intimate Partner Violence has recommended that “police service policy and procedures include a statement regarding the importance of determining which party is the principal or dominant aggressor and lay charges against that individual.”[67] However, when the municipal police services and RCMP in Saskatchewan were asked in writing by Human Rights Watch whether they had a specific policy on dual arrests in domestic violence cases, none of the police services could identify such a policy.[68]
Police accountability is required to ensure the safety of Indigenous women and girls. Human Rights Watch argues that Canada needs independent civilian investigations of all allegations of serious police misconduct, including allegations of sexual assault. Our research has indicated that Canada has made only limited progress to ensure that police are accountable for their policing failures affecting Indigenous women and girls, as well as for the violence police officers have committed against Indigenous women and girls.
Lack of accountability also exacerbates long-standing tensions between police and Indigenous communities. Despite law and policy reform, in some jurisdictions allegations of serious police misconduct may still result only in police investigating police.[69] The allegations of abuse toward Indigenous women in Val-d’Or, Quebec, were ultimately investigated by the Montreal police.[70]
In Saskatchewan, two bodies handle complaints of police misconduct, but neither carry the authority to impose sanctions. They act as recommendation bodies only, serving an advisory function, with limited power to compel concrete changes in policy. The Public Complaints Commission (PCC) can make recommendations to chiefs of police, but disciplinary measures are ultimately to be determined by the chief.[71] Additionally, while the PCC has an investigative arm, the Regina Police Service and Saskatoon Police Service each have their own dedicated professional standards sections, which undertake the investigations. The PCC takes part in some of these investigations, but “there is no set criterion for whether a complaint is assigned to a PCC investigator or to the police service for investigation.”[72] While the PCC is the only police oversight mechanism with mandated Indigenous representation,[73] the present oversight structures are no guarantee of independent investigations and accountability. Both investigations and disciplinary action may ultimately be determined internally by the implicated police service.
Similarly, the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP can make recommendations to the RCMP commissioner, but the commissioner may ultimately take no action on the recommendations.[74] Additionally, for all complaints, the RCMP investigates first, with the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission reviewing the RCMP’s report, only thereafter determining whether it will investigate or institute a hearing.[75]
Saskatchewan is also one of the five Canadian provinces that does not have an independent civilian special investigations unit. Instead, the Saskatchewan Police Act provides for the appointment of an investigation observer by both municipal police and RCMP in situations where a person has suffered serious injury or died while in custody of that police service or RCMP detachment, or as a result of the actions of a member or officer of that police service or RCMP detachment.[76] The statute also authorizes appointment of an investigation observer where the matter is publicly sensitive and it is in the public interest to do so.[77] However, except in these latter discretionary appointments, an investigation observer must otherwise be a serving or retired member from another police service or detachment of the RCMP.[78]
Police representatives told Human Rights Watch that they are committed to protecting and serving Indigenous communities, and that anyone experiencing police abuse should lodge a complaint. However, Human Rights Watch has documented in both British Columbia and Saskatchewan that Indigenous women and girls do not trust police forces, and report alarming levels of fear of police retaliation.[79] These are inhibiting factors to Indigenous women’s use of available police complaints mechanisms, inadequate as they may be.
Throughout Saskatchewan, Indigenous women reported that they mistrusted law enforcement and feared that they would face retaliation if they filed a complaint against an officer even for the most egregious abuses of power. Lydia A. reported suffering diplopia (or “double vision”) following head trauma she alleged was inflicted by a police officer. She told Human Rights Watch: “Why won’t I file a complaint? I think it would make it to the shredder. And I’ve heard of people doing that and then getting picked on. All of a sudden, you’ve got all of them coming after you.”[80]
Karen D. described the fear that she felt after she filed a complaint against the police, “I was scared shitless when I made the complaint. [I] feared for my life. After what happened to Neil Stonechild, how do I know they’re not going to take me out?”[81]
The few Indigenous women Human Rights Watch spoke with who did report police abuse to the authorities allege that, as result, they experienced retaliatory harassment. As Sarah P. said, “they pick on you when you complain. Police like to hassle you if you put up a complaint about them. They try to intimidate you. They’ve treated me worse since I complained about the police.”[82]
Jennifer P., a University student, described what she went through to file a police complaint:
I got in touch with [someone at community organization]. The next day I went to go and report [complaint] with my sister [at the police station]. On shift there is supposed to be a shift supervisor. They said I couldn’t make a complaint without a certain form. I called in the afternoon and couldn’t get a hold of anyone. I discussed it with [same person at community organization]. We made a second trip—went down at 10 am. They said call back. I called back and no one was available. It got to the point that it was so frustrating for me to get in and be heard. I was traumatized by the way I was treated. I wanted to fight. I wanted to stand up for myself. [But] they make you feel like a pain and a bother. I was exhausted and in the middle of my semester. I was extremely drained. I just kind of dropped it.[83]
Police and police complaints commission staff who discourage women from reporting incidents of violence or otherwise obstruct the process of filing a complaint are failing in their duty to protect women from violence and hold perpetrators accountable. Government failure to stop such policing behavior contributes to Canada’s failure to meet its due diligence obligations under CEDAW.[84]
Another possible deterrent to filing a police complaint is the prominent warning on the Saskatchewan Public Complaints Commission’s complaint form. The warning states “An intentionally false complaint under The Police Act, 1990 may result in criminal charges for public mischief or obstructing a Peace Officer.”[85] It is worth noting that only one other province has a warning against false complaints.[86] Given the highly fraught relationship between Indigenous peoples and law enforcement, coupled with the vastly unequal power relations, this seems especially troubling and creates an impression that what matters first and foremost is the protection of the police.
There are no formally documented estimates that indicate how prevalent police mistreatment or abuse against Indigenous women is in Saskatchewan or throughout Canada. There is no standardized mandate of ethnicity-data collection across police forces in Canada.[87] Police forces have generally not been under a mandate to collect race data due to internal bias-free policing rules.[88] the Saskatoon Police Service Chief indicated in an interview with Human Rights Watch that concerns about discrimination were central to the decision not to collect such data.
The collection of comprehensive, sex- and race-disaggregated data on violence against women is a part of Canada’s due diligence obligation under international law.[89] No disaggregated data was made available to Human Rights Watch upon request from the RCMP on use of force, police stops, or searches of Indigenous men or women because the RCMP does not collect such sex- and race- disaggregated data.[90] Similarly, the municipal police and RCMP complaints mechanisms told Human Rights Watch that they have no mandate to collect race- and gender-disaggregated data, and thus could not confirm how many complaints against the police are made by Indigenous women.[91]
According to the Government of Canada however, the RCMP has now changed its policy and reporting practices and is providing Statistics Canada with data on the ethnic identity of homicide victims and those accused of homicide.[92] Additionally, the federal government reports that Statistics Canada is working with police services to improve the quality of data recorded and reported to Statistics Canada.[93]
While this is a welcome development, the RCMP should also change its data collection rules on other matters, including use of force, police stops, and searches. Further, such change in policy and practice should be similarly mandated across all police forces in Canada, not just the RCMP. The variations in race- and gender-data collection mandates across police forces in Canada means that even with the RCMP’s improved policy and reporting practices, Statistics Canada’s data will be incomplete and inaccurate.
Human Rights Watch believes that police forces across Canada should collect and report ethnicity- and gender-disaggregated data collection on victims of crime and on complainants of police misconduct, with their voluntary participation, as a means of tackling systemic racism in policing institutions. The absence of race-disaggregated data obscures the racial dimensions of the violence, and inhibits efforts to identify discrimination in responding to incidents of violence involving police officers.
Canada is party to international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR),[94] the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD),[95] and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Canada has an obligation to protect people’s right to personal security under the ICCPR from attacks by private persons.[96] Canada is also obliged to ensure the rights of Indigenous women are respected, protected, and fulfilled.[97] Pursuant to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Persons in 2016, Canada should ensure that “indigenous women and children enjoy the full protection and guarantees against all forms of violence and discrimination.”[98] Canada’s treaty obligations extend to the protection of Indigenous women’s rights, central among which is their right to live free from discrimination; this fundamental right encompasses Indigenous women’s right to live free from violence, a form of gender- and race-based discrimination.[99]
All levels of government in Canada should exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate and punish violence against Indigenous women and girls.[100] The Canadian government should also ensure that police treat all people with respect and dignity in a non-discriminatory manner. Failure to act with due diligence in response to the violence against Indigenous women and girls, including police failures to investigate, amounts to a violation of the rights of Indigenous women victims of violence.[101]
Since Human Rights Watch’s 2013 report on police failings in British Columbia, both the United Nations and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights have completed inquiries into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada. In 2015, these expert bodies released reports finding that Canada was violating the rights of Indigenous women and girls. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee) concluded that Canada is committing grave violations[102] of the rights of Indigenous women and girls by not meeting its obligations under articles 1, 2, 3, 5, 14 and 15 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.[103] This conclusion encompasses the Committee’s finding that Canada is failing to fulfill its due diligence obligation to prevent violence, to investigate and punish acts of violence, and to provide reparations to Indigenous women victims of gender-based violence and Indigenous women victims who have gone missing or been murdered by State or non-State actors.[104] The Committee resoundingly concluded that Canada’s formal legislative and institutional framework for responding to incidents of violence is ineffective in practice.[105]
The UN CEDAW Committee made thirty-eight recommendations to Canada. Thirteen of these recommendations directly implicate the police, including recommendations on: violence against women, data collection, police investigations and law enforcement, police complaints mechanisms, stereotyping, overcoming the legacy of the colonial period and the elimination of discrimination, and a national public inquiry and plan of action.[106] In the most recent November 2016 review of Canada’s women’s rights record, the CEDAW Committee found that Canada had only implemented the recommendation setting up a national inquiry, and had not acted on the report’s remaining thirty-seven recommendations.[107] The Committee called on Canada to implement the remaining recommendations without delay in order to meet its due diligence obligation.[108] Canada should immediately act on these recommendations.
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