During an Athabasca County council meeting last week, Cpl. Dale Bereza spoke about the difference it can make in the crime level of a community when certain criminals are behind bars. He gave the example of Calling Lake, saying lately, since putting some big players behind bars, there have not been any “major calls” like “gun play.”
The calls they have been getting relate to “minor stuff, like maybe the drinking and some domestic stuff.”
Here we have an RCMP officer – representing the entity that we are supposed to trust to keep law and order – calling “domestic stuff” minor.
In actuality, domestic violence is one of the most reported crimes across the country. According to Statistics Canada, almost 92,000 people in Canada were victims of intimate partner violence in 2015, representing just over a quarter of all victims of police-reported violent crime. StatsCan also reports there have been 964 intimate partner homicides in Canada between 2005 and 2015.
Just two months ago, Athabasca got good look at how domestic violence impacts the community during the annual Walk A Mile In Her Shoes event, where shoes representing victims of domestic violence were displayed on the route.
To be fair to Bereza, he did say in a follow-up interview that “domestics” are one of the most serious crimes RCMP members deal with, adding that he meant to say “arguing, not the physical stuff.”
But there is no such thing as domestic arguing in the Criminal Code of Canada – only assault, and aggravated assault, which is where some of this domestic “arguing” can end.
We are not denying the RCMP do help victims of domestic violence by ensuring their safety, but when members say loud and clear in a public space that “domestic stuff” is “minor,” that sends the wrong message to potentially vulnerable victims around then.
How can victims of domestic violence be expected to trust they will be kept safe by current or former abusers if they hear statements such as these from those who are supposed to protect them?
