In Quebec, Inuit are 15 times more likely to be jailed than average: provincial data

The disproportionate detention rates for the Inuit are a result of an "outraging lack of resources that would not be tolerated anywhere else in Quebec," a lawyer said.

Osman Ilgun was arrested in September 2021 and soon transferred to a detention centre 1,500 kilometres away from his home in the Inuit community of Quaqtaq in Quebec’s Nunavik region.

At the jail in Amos, Que., he was fed raw food — he says he believes guards stereotypically assumed Inuit eat raw meat. He said he was forced to quarantine for 28 days, adding he had limited access to showers and phone calls with family during that time.

“My mother, she was so worried because I didn’t have access to the phone to tell her what’s going on,” said Ilgun, who was charged with sexual assault. He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

Ilgun was one of the 617 Inuit admitted to a Quebec jail in the 12 months ending March 31, 2022. That number represents 4.5 per cent of the 13,613 Inuit living in the province — a rate 15 times higher than the average incarceration rate in Quebec, provincial data shows. It’s also a rate almost twice as high as that of any other Indigenous group in the province.

The disproportionate detention rates for the Inuit are a result of an “outraging lack of resources that would not be tolerated anywhere else in Quebec,” said David Boudreau, a legal aid lawyer who has been working in the province’s North for more than five years.

Boudreau said programs aimed at preventing crime and diverting offenders from the justice system are often not available in Quebec’s Nunavik region, home to the majority of Inuit who live in the province.

Sexual education programs and services to help people heal from trauma have been lacking in the region for decades, “which leads to that never-ending cycle of abuse,” he said. Nunavik courts handle many sexual abuse cases, but treatment programs open to offenders in southern Quebec aren’t available to those living in the North, he added.

Often, the only professional support accessible to residents is provided by social workers who usually come from the south and are “often” asked to address problems beyond their professional capacity, Boudreau said.