By: Yasmin Hassan, Staff Writer
Content warning: mentions of the transatlantic slave trade, segregation, anti-Indigenous violence, and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
There’s a tendency to compare Canada and the US on the issue of police brutality, and the sentiment I usually hear is, “Oh, well at least it’s not as bad as down south.” These kinds of ideas are extremely harmful and dismissive. Minimizing systemic violence because of numbers pushes the responsibility to acknowledge the horrors of a system away from ourselves; it’s complicit ignorance. Comparing numbers alone overlooks the deeper systemic issues at play, as well as the experiences of victims of police brutality in both countries.
While both countries share similar root causes, namely systemic racism and colonialism, they each have their own historical contexts. In the US, the institution of policing is inseparably tied to the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, where the system evolved from slave patrols designed to enforce racial hierarchies. In Canada, policing serves a similar purpose, mainly by defending settler property rights. Canadian law enforcement is rooted in anti-Indigenous violence and colonial policies, including the establishment of the RCMP as a tool to control Indigenous communities, enforce segregation on reserves, and suppress resistance to colonial expansion.
Canada’s policing history reveals glaring systemic inequalities, particularly concerning Indigenous communities. Policing of Indigenous Peoples on reserves has long been a tool of surveillance and control, bolstering marginalization and alienation. A harrowing example is the long and ongoing crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. The disproportionate rates of violence against Indigenous women are not coincidental but rather a reflection of a system that devalues their lives so blatantly that these acts of violence go unknown and unseen. Overpolicing and the overrepresentation of Indigenous Peoples in the criminal justice system is also an example of how intentional the system was created to work against marginalized and racialized groups. There is a never-ending list of unsolved and neglected cases of murder, highlighting the failures of the policing and justice system. With this in mind, can we really say that Canada has no police brutality problem?
“Minimizing systemic violence because of numbers pushes the responsibility to acknowledge the horrors of a system away from ourselves; it’s complicit ignorance.”
The systemic spatial segregation of racialized and marginalized communities into specific physical areas, such as inner-city neighbourhoods or reserves, is rooted in racist rhetoric and discriminatory policies. Practices like redlining, forced relocation, and “ghettoization” stem from colonialism and structural racism, reinforcing cycles of poverty and limiting access to adequate resources. These systems were often justified by stereotypes and the dehumanization of these communities, perpetuating inequality through urban planning, environmental neglect, and underfunding. Today, these patterns persist and reflect the lasting impact of systemic bias in shaping social and physical landscapes.
While crime rates in these areas may be statistically higher, this is not due to inherently criminal characteristics of the communities, but to the systemic neglect and structural inequalities that create conditions where crime is more likely to occur. These rates stem from urban disinvestment and lack of access to resources, which create the justification for heavy surveillance, racial profiling, and the criminalization of poverty. Policies like the Indian Act forced Indigenous Peoples into cycles of poverty on reserves and heightened police presence to enforce colonial control. Even the details of the law, such as mandatory minimum sentencing for certain crimes, disproportionately affect marginalized communities as they are more likely to be targeted and less likely to afford strong legal defense. As well, something we see all too often is a failure to address systemic housing inequities, leaving many facing homelessness and housing instability, or left in areas with heavy policing. Overpolicing only serves to exacerbate these issues instead of addressing their root causes.
We must aim to promote transparency and heavier accountability for police officers and the state that serves to protect their actions. Black and Indigenous communities need better resources to reduce the heavy influence of policing and to relieve the impacts of harmful policies as much as possible. These improvements can look like adequate mental health services, community advisors, material resources like food, environmental and infrastructural upgrades to communities, healthcare, education, economic restructuring, and much more. There are organizations, local initiatives, and advocacy groups that work to aid the effects of discriminatory policies and behaviours, like the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Idle No More, Black Lives Matter Canada, and many more. Above all, our attitudes toward the matter need to shift, and we need to put a spotlight on issues like these so they don’t just end up as a short news story that everyone forgets about.
