Honouring the Truth Reconciling for the Future

The legacy • 227Canadian history. This victimization of children has carried profound and long-lastingeffects. Ruby Firth, a former student at Stringer Hall, told the Commission,All through my, residential school … I was a victim. They put me in that frameof mind where I was a victim. I was four years old being a victim. Five years old,couldn’t stop it. Six years old, couldn’t stop it. Seven years old, couldn’t stop it.So at some point my brain is going to say, “This is never going to stop!” So that’swhat I was doing in my adult life too because it didn’t stop in my childhood, Iwas doing that in my adult, “This is never going to stop.” 161The justice system continues to fail Aboriginal victims of crime. There are few servicesavailable for Aboriginal victims of crime. Victim compensation schemes are oftenlacking and often fail to recognize the distinct needs of Aboriginal victims of crime.The statistics are startling. Aboriginal people are 58% more likely to be victimized bycrime. 162 Aboriginal women report being victimized by violent crime at a rate almostthree times higher than non-Aboriginal women—13% of Aboriginal women reportedbeing victimized by violent crime in 2009. 163 In the same year, one in ten Aboriginalpeople reported being a victim of a non-spousal violent crime, more than double therate reported by non-Aboriginal people.It is difficult to obtain accurate information about the rate of victimization inAboriginal communities. According to some studies, less than one-third of victimsof crime report their victimization to police, and police forces across the countrydo not have a consistent method for recording the Aboriginal identity of victims. 164Statistics Canada does not provide the kinds of supports necessary to permit someAboriginal victims to comfortably disclose their experience to researchers. The mostrecent Statistics Canada data on homicide and family violence fail to report how manyvictims were Aboriginal, although older data suggest the homicide victimization rateof Aboriginal people between 1997 and 2000 was seven times that of non-Aboriginalpeople. 165Call to Action39) We call upon the federal government to develop a national plan to collect andpublish data on the criminal victimization of Aboriginal people, including datarelated to homicide and family violence victimization.This data should be used to guide the development and funding of culturally appropriateservices for Aboriginal victims of crime and to help make measureable reductionsin the overrepresentation of Aboriginal people among crime victims.