Stats show that Gladue reports do not always favour positive outcomes for Indigenous women

MANITOULIN—A recent investigation by the Investigative Journalism Bureau, carried in the National Post, confirms what communities have been saying—Indigenous women in this country are killed at rates six times higher than non-Indigenous women. Not a spike. A structure.

Between 2019 and 2025, 1,329 suspicious deaths of women were recorded. More than a quarter—340—were Indigenous. Of the cases that reached trial, nearly half resulted in manslaughter convictions rather than murder. And in 97 percent of those cases, the accused was known to the victim.

Experts point to systemic failure—a justice system that has not held Indigenous women with equal weight. And just beneath that conversation sits a legal principle that was never meant to be controversial, only corrective: R v Gladue.