Community mourns and holds vigil for six Indigenous people killed by Canadian police

The Native Women’s Shelter and Resilience Montreal invited community to gather at Place du Canada to commemorate the lives of six Indigenous people recently killed by Canadian law enforcement. Around 100 people gathered to honour the victims.

Aude Simon – Local Journalism Initiative

The six victims were killed in the span of 11 days. Speakers addressed the crowd, putting emphasis on the importance of remembering the six victims; Jack Piché; 31, Hoss Lightning-Saddleback; 15, Tammy Bateman; 39, Jason West; 57, Daniel Knife; 31, and Steven ‘Iggy’ Dedam; 31. 

Lightning-Saddleback, West, Knife and Dedam were all fatally shot by police, while Bateman and Piché both died after being struck by police cruisers.

At the time of the event, on September 18th, it had been revealed by journalist Brandi Morin, that three more Indigenous people had been killed by law enforcement, increasing the number of total victims to nine.

The speakers, additionally, dedicated their speech to calling out the institution of police and its structure. They highlighted the disproportionate level of brutality faced by Indigenous peoples at the hands of police. They also focused on systemic violence and racism. 

Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel emphasized that the police and law enforcement had too much power, saying, “We give the police too much power. We do not supervise how they are trained.” She proceeded to ask the crowd if anybody was aware of the police’s training structure, and length, “I think they are trained to hate Indigenous people. I think they’re trained to hate Black and Indigenous, People of Colour. I think they are trained to look at us as less than human, and until we start [implementing] the curriculum… Canada’s genocidal curriculum, and all of its root causes, we will continue to see our brothers and sisters being killed at the hands of police.

Multiple calls to action and recommendations have been outlined in reports, including the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report released in 2015. However, many of these calls have not been implemented.

Local 514 reached out to the RCMP for an interview and comment on the training of police and how the organization addresses racism.

The interview was declined, but a written comment was sent by email to Local 514. 

In the email, the RCMP wrote that "racism and discrimination have no place in the RCMP" and that they are taking "concrete actions to modernize and advance equity, accountability and trust in [their] organization."

The organization also shared that it is making fundamental changes to its structure by prioritizing antiracism training, developing a program to collect and analyse race-based data to understand the experience of Indigenous, Black and racialized individuals and communities during their interactions with RCMP, and that they are also working on strengthening trust with Indigenous peoples in Canada.

In the email, they highlighted that "a key priority for the RCMP is to take a shared and community-driven approach to advance reconciliation."