The RCMP’s commanding officer in Alberta denies there is systemic racism in policing in Canada, amid allegations his members used excessive force against an Indigenous chief during an arrest.
“I don’t believe that racism is systemic through Canadian policing, I don’t believe it’s systemic through policing in Alberta,” Deputy Commissioner Curtis Zablocki told a news conference in Edmonton on Monday, when asked about unfolding protests in the United States over the death of George Floyd, and debates over police violence around the world.
Zablocki’s comments came just a day after Alberta’s Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) said it would investigate claims of racism and police brutality brought forward by Athabasca Chipewyan Chief Allan Adam.
Black Lives Matter activist and comedian Adora Nwofor said she disagrees with Zablocki.
Nwofor said she has personally experienced two traumatic incidents of racism by police in Alberta and has heard many accounts from Black, Indigenous and other people of colour about racism during contact with police.
“He’s wrong, that’s plain and simple, he’s wrong,” Nwofor told CBC News on Tuesday.
“If a white man is denying systemic racism, that is systemic racism. Because he is denying that he knows and that’s really how systemic racism continues.”
When contacted by CBC News about his comments, Zablocki issued a statement saying: “We all acknowledge that racist individuals can be anywhere throughout our society and institutions — and we have acknowledged that organizationally in the RCMP.”
Zablocki added it is the duty of police organizations to “keep listening, learning and working with the citizens we serve — and we are committed to continuing to challenge ourselves to deliver police services in a way that best meets the expectations of Albertans.”
But he did not change his initial statement.
“I feel issues of racism and relationships with our diverse communities in Canada differ from our U.S. counterparts,” his statement added.
Zablocki’s messaging appears to contradict the federal department that oversees the RCMP.
In response to the incident involving Adam, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said Indigenous people and communities “still face systemic barriers in Canada, and the racism they face often takes form in interactions with law enforcement.”
Blair further denounced racism in the criminal justice system on Tuesday.
“Discrimination on the basis of race or any other form of bias is not only abhorrent and not acceptable, it’s unlawful,” the minister said.
Nwofor said denying systemic racism is simply an obstacle to changing it.
“There are many types of systemic oppression that are happening in Canada and Alberta’s police forces,” she said. “To deny it means you want to silence it.”
This is not first time Zablocki has made headlines for comments about race and policing.
In 2017, two years before being named deputy commissioner, he refuted a Human Rights Watch Canada report that found evidence of a “deeply fractured” relationship between police and Indigenous communities in Alberta.
ASIRT investigates cases of serious injury or death that may have been caused by police, and “serious or sensitive” allegations of police misconduct.
