The killing of one aboriginal woman, or anybody else, is one too many. But according to an RCMP report released earlier this year, the number of murdered aboriginal women in Canada per capita has dropped 41% from 1996 to 2011.
You'd hardly know it, with ongoing calls for a national inquiry and claims the problem is getting worse.
Actually, it's not getting worse. We should never be satisfied with any amount of killing in our communities, regardless of race or gender. But the number of murdered aboriginal women in Canada per capita is falling, not growing. And to characterize it otherwise is dishonest.
In 1996, there were 7.6 aboriginal women per 100,000 who were victims of murder, according to the RCMP's Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women: A National Operational Overview released in May. That number dropped steadily to 4.5 per 100,000 aboriginal women by 2011.
In fact, murders against all women in Canada have gone down during that period, according to the report.
Also, despite claims Canadian police agencies don't take the murder of aboriginal women seriously enough -- another reason behind the drive for a national inquiry -- the facts tell a very different story.
The clearance rate for homicides against aboriginal women is actually very high and almost identical to that of non-aboriginal women. That's because police don't care what the race of the victim is. Homicide detectives want to solve murders regardless of race or gender. And they're very good at it, solving some nine of 10 female homicides between 1980 and 2012, according to the RCMP report.
For aboriginal women murder victims, the clearance rate is 88%, almost identical to the 89% rate for non-aboriginals.
Violence against women shouldn't be distinguished by race: Brodbeck | Tom Brodbe