Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said today the RCMP and other police agencies across the country have a problem with systemic racism — a day after RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki said she’s “struggling” with the term and denied racism is entrenched within the organization.
“Systemic racism is an issue right across the country, in all our institutions, including in all our police forces, including in the RCMP. That’s what systemic racism is,” said Trudeau when asked about Lucki’s comments by reporters during a news conference in Ottawa this morning.
“In many cases it’s not deliberate, it’s not intentional, it’s not aggressive, individual acts of racism, although those obviously exist. It is recognizing that the systems we have built over the past generations have not always treated people of racialized backgrounds, of Indigenous backgrounds, fairly through the very construction of the systems that exist.”
Calls to change policing to better protect racial minorities are reverberating across the country.
During an interview with the CBC’s Rosemary Barton on Wednesday, Lucki — who was appointed by the Liberal government in 2018 — was asked directly if there is systemic racism in policing in Canada.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he believes systemic racism is an issue in institutions across Canada, including police forces and the RCMP. 2:50
“That is an interesting question because in the last couple of days I have honestly heard about 15 or 20 definitions of systemic racism,” she said.
“If it refers to an unconscious bias that exists … we definitely have that in the RCMP and we are not immune to it at all. There are times when our members don’t act in accordance with our core values, which includes racism, and it’s those times that we have to make sure that that doesn’t happen.”
Lucki was asked a similar question by other news outlets during back-to-back interviews yesterday, in response to renewed allegations against Mounties of discrimination and excessive use of force.
She also told Global News she is “struggling with the definition of systemic racism” and then later told the Globe and Mail that “if systemic racism is meaning that racism is entrenched in our policies and procedures, I would say that we don’t have systemic racism.”
Trudeau said some Canadians are now recognizing what many Indigenous Canadians and racialized Canadians have known for a long time — “that there is systemic discrimination right across our country, in every part of our country, and in our institutions.”
What is the definition of systemic racism? The head of the RCMP says that may be at the centre of Alberta’s deputy commissioner saying it does not exist in policing in Canada. 2:37
“I have confidence in Commissioner Lucki and I know that the changes that she has already begun to bring to our national police force, and the work that we’re going to be doing together in the coming months, is going to make a huge difference in combating systemic racism and reducing it in this country.”
‘The RCMP is a racist institution:’ May
Lucki’s comments followed controversial statements by the RCMP’s deputy commissioner in Alberta, where officers are being questioned about their use of force following allegations they abused an Indigenous chief during an arrest last March.
“I don’t believe it’s systemic through policing in Alberta,” he said.
Lucki has since spoken to Zablocki and said he misinterpreted the term “systemic racism”.
“His intention was to simply say that, you know, if there is racism, he didn’t believe it in his thoughts that it was rampant across the organization,” she said.
Green MP Elizabeth May says she feels she was arrested “nicely” during a Kinder Morgan protest in 2018 because she’s white, compared to how the RCMP has dealt with Indigenous protesters in recent years. 1:38
Over the weekend, Chief Allan Adam of the Athabascan Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta alleged that he was beaten by RCMP officers back in March when police stopped him for an expired licence plate in Fort McMurray. That arrest is now under review.
Just a few days earlier, a video appearing to show an RCMP officer in Nunavut using his truck’s door to knock a man over before arresting him spurred outrage. That incident is also under review.
“From the outside looking in, I have to be honest, it does not look like a reasonable response,” Lucki said in reference to the Nunavut arrest.
Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller said he won’t pass judgment on the commissioner’s comments, but will be watching to see what she does next.
“I will not judge the commissioner on a series of interviews that she made yesterday. I’ll judge on promises she made to Indigenous peoples when it comes to my portfolio,” he said.
“We must acknowledge that there is institutional racism in Canada. The RCMP is not immune, nor is any organization, and that re-examination requires a tremendous amount of education and self-awareness, frankly.”
“This will take tough leadership within the RCMP, but I think indeed most officers will welcome it.”
The Green Party’s Parliamentary leader Elizabeth May called the force a “racist institution” and said she feels she was arrested “nicely” during a Kinder Morgan protest in 2018 because she’s white.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A linebacker at Division II West Virginia State was fatally shot during what the university said Thursday is being investigated by police as a home invasion.
The body of Jyilek Zyiare Harrington, 21, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was found inside an apartment Wednesday night in Charleston, police Lt. Tony Hazelett said in a statement.
Hazelett said several gunshots were fired during a disturbance in a hallway and inside the apartment. The statement said Harrington had multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they had no information on a possible suspect.
West Virginia State said counselors were available to students and faculty on campus.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Jyilek’s family as they mourn the loss of this incredible young man,” West Virginia State President Ericke S. Cage said in a letter to students and faculty.
Harrington, a senior, had eight total tackles, including a sack, in a 27-24 win at Barton College last week.
“Jyilek truly embodied what it means to be a student-athlete and was a leader not only on campus but in the community,” West Virginia State Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Nate Burton said. “Jyilek was a young man that, during Christmas, would create a GoFundMe to help less fortunate families.”
Burton said donations to a fund established by the athletic department in Harrington’s memory will be distributed to an organization in Charlotte to continue his charity work.
West Virginia State’s home opener against Carson-Newman, originally scheduled for Thursday night, has been rescheduled to Friday, and a private vigil involving both teams was set for Thursday night. Harrington previously attended Carson-Newman, where he made seven tackles in six games last season. He began his college career at Division II Erskine College.
“Carson-Newman joins West Virginia State in mourning the untimely passing of former student-athlete Jyilek Harrington,” Carson-Newman Vice President of Athletics Matt Pope said in a statement. “The Harrington family and the Yellow Jackets’ campus community is in our prayers. News like this is sad to hear anytime, but today it feels worse with two teams who knew him coming together to play.”
DETROIT (AP) — Joe Schmidt, the Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the Detroit Lions win NFL championships in 1953 and 1957 and later coached the team, has died. He was 92.
The Lions said family informed the team Schmidt died Wednesday. A cause of death was not provided.
One of pro football’s first great middle linebackers, Schmidt played his entire NFL career with the Lions from 1953-65. An eight-time All-Pro, he was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the college football version in 2000.
“Joe likes to say that at one point in his career, he was 6-3, but he had tackled so many fullbacks that it drove his neck into his shoulders and now he is 6-foot,” said the late Lions owner William Clay Ford, Schmidt’s presenter at his Hall of Fame induction in 1973. “At any rate, he was listed at 6-feet and as I say was marginal for that position. There are, however, qualities that certainly scouts or anybody who is drafting a ballplayer cannot measure.”
Born in Pittsburgh, Schmidt played college football in his hometown at Pitt, beginning his stint there as a fullback and guard before coach Len Casanova switched him to linebacker.
“Pitt provided me with the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do, and further myself through my athletic abilities,” Schmidt said. “Everything I have stemmed from that opportunity.”
Schmidt dealt with injuries throughout his college career and was drafted by the Lions in the seventh round in 1953. As defenses evolved in that era, Schmidt’s speed, savvy and tackling ability made him a valuable part of some of the franchise’s greatest teams.
Schmidt was elected to the Pro Bowl 10 straight years from 1955-64, and after his arrival, the Lions won the last two of their three NFL titles in the 1950s.
In a 1957 playoff game at San Francisco, the Lions trailed 27-7 in the third quarter before rallying to win 31-27. That was the NFL’s largest comeback in postseason history until Buffalo rallied from a 32-point deficit to beat Houston in 1993.
“We just decided to go after them, blitz them almost every down,” Schmidt recalled. “We had nothing to lose. When you’re up against it, you let both barrels fly.”
Schmidt became an assistant coach after wrapping up his career as a player. He was Detroit’s head coach from 1967-72, going 43-35-7.
Schmidt was part of the NFL’s All-Time Team revealed in 2019 to celebrate the league’s centennial season. Of course, he’d gone into the Hall of Fame 46 years earlier.
Not bad for an undersized seventh-round draft pick.
“It was a dream of mine to play football,” Schmidt told the Detroit Free Press in 2017. “I had so many people tell me that I was too small. That I couldn’t play. I had so many negative people say negative things about me … that it makes you feel good inside. I said, ‘OK, I’ll prove it to you.’”
VICTORIA – British Columbia’s Environment Assessment Office has fined Coastal GasLink Pipeline Ltd. $590,000 for “deficiencies” in the construction of its pipeline crossing the province.
The office says in a statement that 10 administrative penalties have been levied against the company for non-compliance with requirements of its environmental assessment certificate.
It says the fines come after problems with erosion and sediment control measures were identified by enforcement officers along the pipeline route across northern B.C. in April and May 2023.
The office says that the latest financial penalties reflect its escalation of enforcement due to repeated non-compliance of its requirements.
Four previous penalties have been issued for failing to control erosion and sediment valued at almost $800,000, while a fifth fine of $6,000 was handed out for providing false or misleading information.
The office says it prioritized its inspections along the 670-kilometre route by air and ground as a result of the continued concerns, leading to 59 warnings and 13 stop-work orders along the pipeline that has now been completed.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
