Indigenous people much more likely to be murdered than other Canadians

Indigenous people continue to be dramatically overrepresented among Canadian murder victims, according to a new report released by Statistics Canada.

First Nations, Métis and Inuit make up only 5% of Canada’s population, but in 2018 they made up 22% of the country’s homicide victims. Of the 651 murders that took place in Canada in 2018, 140 were of Indigenous people: 96 men and 44 women.

“While the number of male victims decreased for the first time since 2014 … there were six more female victims of homicide than in 2017, marking a second consecutive annual increase,” the report reads.

The data on murders is only one part of a much larger picture of violence made complicated by poor data collection procedures.

Related: Canada must not ignore Indigenous 'genocide', landmark report warns

Earlier this year, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls released its damning final report. That document called what is happening to Canada’s Indigenous peoples a “genocide” that “has been empowered by colonial structures”.

The annual police-reported crime statistics have only been tracking Indigenous peoples specifically since 2014. Throughout that time, Indigenous peoples have represented between one-quarter and one-fifth of all murder victims each year. Estimates from before that time suggest that the numbers would have been similarly high before tracking began.

Data collection about crime and Indigenous people in Canada is spotty, as the National Observer reported in June. “Up until very recently, [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] didn’t even record whether victims or offenders were Indigenous,” the Observer reported. “And such data that does exist was reported inconsistently.”

The RCMP, Canada’s national force, polices more than 600 Indigenous communities across the country. Its current and historical role in the ongoing crisis in Indigenous communities was a major topic in the national inquiry.