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Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes
No one in Saskatchewan talks about it because it is pretty much a given that Prince Albert and North Battleford will have homicide rates more than 20 per 100,000. It has seemingly just been ignored by provincial governments here as a fact of life and handed to the municipalities who cannot cope with it.
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Northern towns in Manitoba deal with the same dynamic. Thompson has a homicide rate over 20, I'm not sure what the rates are in The Pas and Flin Flon but it wouldn't shock me if they were well above normal although maybe not quite at Thompson levels.
Your comment raises a good point... these municipal governments are forced to deal with the fallout of 150+ years of federal policies. And they are clearly ill equipped to do it which is no surprise given that a municipality's job is to make sure the roads are passable and the sewer system works. They can't address the cumulative effects of how Indigenous people have been treated since for the last 200 years. And that's mainly where the issue lies.
Winnipeg has to deal with this too, although it has more resources to cope with it, and it has the luxury of being by far the biggest fish in the provincial pond so it does get some attention from the province even if the current provincial government isn't that interested in engaging.
Municipalities clearly need help from the provinces and Ottawa to deal with the situations that they are facing. Not just in terms of police budgets and justice resources, but in the bigger picture too... things like housing, education, recreation, health care including addiction treatment... all of the things that help people to successfully integrate into the community.