Justice system report slams Alberta for hiding Indigenous incarceration rates
OTTAWA — The government of Alberta is being lambasted in a review of Canada’s justice system as the only province to keep secret the number of Indigenous people it has locked up over the last five years.
The criticism comes as part of an annual report card released Monday by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute that ranks the provinces and territories in terms of access to justice, efficiency, cost, public safety and support for victims.
Alberta is the only province that doesn’t make public its disproportionately high Indigenous incarceration rate, said report co-author Benjamin Perrin.
“It’s unconscionable to keep secret the number of Indigenous people who are being sent to jail in that province every year,” said Perrin, who is a law professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.