Read on Twitter
Here’s a thread about why this is appalling to hear from the commissioner and insulting to all those the RCMP has harmed. https://twitter.com/pnpcbc/status/1275580521972670464
The NWMP (now the RCMP) was founded in 1873 and it’s main objective was to control aboriginal and Métis populations.
They controlled this populations by forcing them onto reserves and not allowing them to leave. They used a pass system and if you didn’t have a “pass” you weren’t allowed to leave. Then the RCMP transferred their previous lands to the federal government.
The RCMP enforced the “Indian act” which “allowed” them to rip indigenous children away from their parents and put them into residential schools where they would be forced to assimilate into white culture.
Often times parents would have no idea where their children were going and children ended up brutally traumatized from the experience, and many died. The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996.
Since the 70’s the RCMP in Saskatoon have been partaking in an act called “starlight tours” where they arrest indigenous men and drive them out of town and abandon them, where they ultimately die.
Missing and murdered indigenous woman has been classified a NATIONAL CRISIS in Canada. There are so many and so little is being done it’s a CRISIS. HOW IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE TO BE THIS IGNORANT TO SYSTEMATIC RACISM!?
You don’t have to look very hard to see the beaten and murdered indigenous people at the hands of the RCMP. This in just the past couple of weeks. And this isn’t even close to all of them recently.
Canada has commited billions of dollars in reparations to indigenous peoples for their racists acts and laws that your agency upheld, but you don’t see the systematic racism?
The very foundations of your entire institution is racist and yet you some how need to “widen your lense” to see it? Absolutely disgraceful and insulting to all of those the RCMP has harmed.
As the head of command of the RCMP, largely considered one of the most racists institutions in Canada, the fact that it took her this long to see there is racism in her own instituation means I fear for a lot of POC in Canada.
None of this is ancient history. Much of this has happened in my lifetime or yours. Canada and the RCMP need to be better and do more.
