Thunder Bay Police Service still working on increasing diversity
The Thunder Bay Police Service outperforms other Canadian forces when it comes to the percentage of its officers who identify as Indigenous, according to recent data from Statistics Canada — but it's still not matching the diversity of the city as a whole.
Last year, there were seventeen Indigenous officers with the service, according to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics Police Administration Survey.
That's 7.5 per cent of the 228-member force.
Across Canada, 5.4 per cent of police officers are Indigenous, which mirrors the population as a whole; just under five per cent of the Canadian population is Indigenous, according to 2016 census data.
In Thunder Bay, however, nearly 13 per cent of people are Indigenous, meaning the composition of the Thunder Bay police force still falls short of mirroring the local population.
Women and visible minorities underrepresented
The force will look at all aspects of recruiting as part of its diversity project, said Chris Adams, the director of communications for the Thunder Bay Police Service, and that includes attracting more Indigenous officers.
It launched the project in October of last year and the force said it plans to put more emphasis recruiting under-represented people, improving internal cultural training and revamping the Aboriginal liaison unit with a focus on community policing.
Statistics Canada also found that just 16.7 per cent of Thunder Bay Police Service officers are women, making it the seventh worst force in the country for gender parity, out of 50 forces in cities with more than 100,000 people.
Nationwide, 21 per cent of police officers are women.
Just 1.3 per cent of Thunder Bay Police Services officers are visible minorities, according to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics Police Administration Survey, which is higher than the city's visible minority percentage, which is less than 0.5 percent.