Justice minister says sexual assault
unit not appropriate for territory
Cites lack of road access and weather conditions as obstacles
Kirsten Fenn
Northern News Services
Friday, June 2, 2017
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Some people are expressing concern about how sexual assaults are investigated in the NWT after the justice minister delivered a statement last week saying a specialized RCMP unit dedicated to investigating sexual assaults wouldn't be appropriate for the territory.
Louis Sebert made the comment May 25 in a response to questions from Yellowknife Centre MLA Julie Green about the high rate of unfounded sexual assaults in the NWT.
Her questions followed a national Globe and Mail investigation that included data indicating 30 per cent of sexual assault complaints made in the NWT between 2010 and 2014 were dismissed as unfounded.
The RCMP has since adjusted its unfounded sexual assault rate to 18.7 per cent for the territory as a whole, as its review of the cases found many were classified as unfounded due to a "coding error," according to the justice minister.
The minister did not say in his statement whether there is an updated rate for Yellowknife.
Unfounded is a classification police use when they determine a crime did not occur or was never attempted.
"In the NWT, the geographic reality of having 33 communities, most of which do not have all-season road access, makes a specialized investigation model less appropriate," said Sebert in the legislative assembly.
"The RCMP advises that these communities are best served by ensuring the general duty RCMP officers stationed at their local detachment have all of the tools available to them to investigate allegations of sexual assault thoroughly."
Lyda Fuller, executive director of the YWCA in Yellowknife, doesn't agree this is the best approach.
She said she doesn't have much confidence that RCMP in small communities has the time to deal with sexual assaults in a specialized way, with everything else they deal with.
"Officers are fairly busy doing a wide range of things in the RCMP," she said. "I just look, for example, at our experience facilitating the emergency protection orders, which we can do and the RCMP can do. Generally we do the bulk of the applications for emergency protection orders because the RCMP can't dedicate the amount of time it takes to do them."
With the NWT having one of the highest sexual assault rates in Canada, Fuller said having stronger supports for those affected "would make a lot of sense."
The justice minister pointed out a lack of roads and weather conditions could affect an investigator's ability to deal with complaints in remote NWT communities.
The Yukon created a special unit in 2013 to deal with domestic violence, child abuse and sexual assault. Sebert said the approach makes more sense for that territory.
"Over 75 per cent of the population resides in Whitehorse and all but one of the 17 communities are accessible by road," he said. "A specialized unit is a better fit for a predominantly urban population like that of Yukon."
Green said a specialized unit makes sense for the Yellowknife detachment, where the rate of unfounded sexual assault complaints is even higher than the territorial average, at 36 per cent, according to the Globe and Mail.
"When you look at 33 communities, well then it doesn't seem like such a good idea. But of course (about) half the population is here and the unfounded rate is very high," she said. "There are so many people that don't have ready access to Yellowknife that what would you do? Would you fly them there? Would you fly the victim here? So I appreciate that there still needs to be strong training at the front-line level, because in a lot of the small communities that's how people are going to report."
Fuller doesn't buy lack of roads as an excuse.
"Just because we have a small population doesn't mean people are feeling any less pain," she said.
Green has asked the minister for more detail on the RCMP's review and has suggested a civilian oversight model for examining unfounded rates could make a big impact.
RCMP declined to comment when Yellowknifer asked whether they are re-opening cases that were incorrectly categorized as unfounded because of the coding error.
