Statistics show high rate of Aboriginal murders and accused in Alberta

NOVEMBER 30, 2015

This past weekend, the Samson Cree Nation was rocked by violence. Kirsten Cutknife, 20, was found dead in a residence on Nov. 28. Charged with second degree murder in her homicide is Joshua Crier, 19. Crier is also charged with assaulting Zoe Littlechild, 20, with a weapon. Littlechild was not seriously injured. All three young people are from the Samson Cree Nation.

The murder on the Samson Cree Nation comes only days after Statistics Canada released homicide figures for 2014 indicating that the rate of homicides involving Aboriginal victims in Alberta is 11.55 per cent. Only Manitoba is higher at 13.29 per cent. In Alberta, 13.48 per cent of those accused of murder were Aboriginal, second once more to Manitoba at a rate of 16.96 per cent.

Last year marks the first time murder statistics have broken out Aboriginal involvement. Nationally, 23 per cent of murder victims were Aboriginal while one-third of those accused of murder were Aboriginal people. Aboriginal people account for only five per cent of the Canadian population.

Nelson Mayer, executive director with Alberta Native Friendship Centres Association, is not surprised by those statistics.

“You’ve got to go back to some of the historical context.… We’re talking about a whole colonized process leading to the residential schools and from there the issues we face now in terms of poverty and marginalization. It just goes on and on,” said Mayer.

Residential schools have caused intergenerational damage, he says.

Mayer also points to existing systems that have traditionally placed Aboriginal people at a disadvantage, including the correctional system, with its high number of incarcerated Aboriginal people; school with its high number of Aboriginal drop outs; and child and family services, with its high number of Aboriginal child in care.

“It’s a very complex issue when you start exploring it and getting to the roots of what’s going to address it,” said Mayer.
Why Alberta’s Aboriginal homicide rate is second only to Manitoba, Mayer says he does not know.

“I’m always leery about statistics because in my work we’ve seen how statistical information can be utilized or interpreted differently by a variety of sources depending on how you look at it,” he said.

Mayer does note that Winnipeg has the highest urban Aboriginal population and Edmonton the second highest.
He also points to the limited funding the Progressive Conservative government has provided to Alberta’s 20 friendship centres over the past 30 years. That limitation has made it impossible for friendship centres to respond appropriately to the needs of Aboriginal people and provide relevant programming.

“We’ve got a new government, they seem to be committed to a new relationship with First Nations and Metis leaders, and with the urban Aboriginal community, and I’m hoping that transcends itself into action,” he said.

Stats Canada figures indicate that nationally, one-third of Aboriginal women were victims of spousal homicide compared to 45 per cent of non-Aboriginal women. Thirty-eight per cent of Aboriginal women were killed by another family member; eight per cent were killed by an acquaintance; and four per cent were killed by a stranger. Nine per cent of Aboriginal males were the victims of spousal homicide.

Mayer says he recalls incidences when he was growing up in Manitoba of non-Aboriginal men ganging up on Aboriginal men. But he’s not saying violence hasn’t become part of the Aboriginal world although violence “is not part of any of our cultures.”

“When you look at other nations across the world, whenever you have oppressed communities, the oppression goes downward and downward until there’s no other place to go, then it goes sideways,” said Mayer. “Here in Canada, it’s our Indigenous people, who are being oppressed and it’s down, down, down until that lateral violence sweeps sideways.”