this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2026
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The Vanishing Men of Vancouver Island (www.dismantlethemedia.ca)
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by rabber@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca
 

We are finally talking about this now eh? I lost a cousin over 12 years ago, vanished into thin air. Nobody cared. Especially the RCMP. Much like all these guys. A few posters and a lazy facebook post was all my beloved cousin ever got.

My favourite part of the article is this:

National statistics reflect a severe and often overlooked reality regarding violence against Indigenous men:

Between 1980 and 2012, Statistics Canada documented 1,750 Indigenous male homicide victims, compared to 745 Indigenous female homicide victims.

In this timeframe, 71% of all murdered and missing Indigenous people were men and boys.

According to 2020 Statistics Canada data, Indigenous men are seven times more likely to die by homicide than non-Indigenous people, and four times more likely than Indigenous women.

We hear so much about missing indigenous women. I had no idea the stat for men was 4 times higher. Why doesn't anyone care?

There is almost certainly an active serial killer operating on the mid island for years now, and I hear random people saying this more and more. Sadly we are on our own over here it seems.

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[–] minorkeys@lemmy.world 41 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I've only ever heard of violence against women, highway of tears etc. That this was known and never mentioned is absolutely typical of how unvalued men are to society and how insignificant men's journeys are. Nobody gives a fuck. 71% of the victims yet it's never been brought up even during the highway of tears media coverage.

[–] rabber@lemmy.ca 23 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Followed highway of tears stories my entire adult life. Never heard of indigenous men going missing even once.

Call me a conspirator all you want but human trafficking is rampant in BC. It's not just sex related. Young men are probably being kidnapped and forced into labour or harvested for organs. There is plenty of wilderness here to misbehave. Just go 10km out of town and you are in the sticks. It's almost impossible to find someone who went missing for nefarious reasons here.

Talking about island specific, think about the population here:

Drunk tourists

People moving here alone because they are depressed and running from their issues

Transient workers from abroad

It's ripe for this sort of crime and people think it's way safer here than it actually is.

The rcmp just say all these men killed themselves but I know my cousin and he did not kill himself. He vanished into thin air.

https://www.edmontonpolice.ca/CrimeFiles/MissingPersons/2010to2019/JasonBEAUPIT

Dude wasn't even last spotted over there. Numerous reports of him being last seen in Duncan. This is how much the rcmp cared.

[–] Mycatiskai@lemmy.ca 33 points 4 days ago (2 children)

There was a serial killer in Ontario, Bruce MacArthur that was planting the remains in gardens he landscaped. He disappeared 8 south asian and middle eastern men from the gay village. I remember seeing the posters on stores in the area when I lived in the area.

If the group being taken isn't high society then the cops won't care. Prostitutes in Vancouver, middle eastern gays in Toronto, or poor people in Victoria. They don't matter to the police so there isn't a priority.

[–] maplesaga@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

It kind of makes sense, most people have a routine, people they live with that depend on them. I wonder if homeless people just wander the streets, get high in different areas, are gone for days. Maybe the police have no means to solve something like that, and I'd be curious what their budgets are.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago

If the group being taken isn't high society then the cops won't care.

That's a disingenuous way to present the following information:

  • mispers cases are hard. They're often dry failures after a big slog.
  • the lack of progress isn't reported in media unless it's about someone famous or rich
  • there's absolutely nothing the extra reporting does except inject some seagull management in the mix
  • spend too long on a case where there may not even be a crime, and you have a talk about priorities in this continuing budget crisis.

So when you want to say "they're often hard thankless long-shot cases and there's not a lot of positive news and often not even a charge," you chose to say instead "they don't care if you're not rich."

And that's disappointing.

[–] villasv@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Why doesn’t anyone care?

Why would we think that nobody cares? I don't understand this outrage bait; obviously a lot of people care about this

[–] rabber@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Because most of these cases are treated as write offs and they really don't care. Having personally lost someone in the area

[–] villasv@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

most of these cases are treated as write offs and they really don’t care

Yes, that's systemic racism and oppression in the works. Not only the RCMP isn't invested on helping out, they are part of the problem. Doesn't mean that nobody cares, though.

[–] rabber@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The person I lost is white but I get what you are saying

[–] villasv@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

My bad, I jumped to conclusions since a lot of the case discussions are indigenous. I hope someday you and their other loved ones impacted by this negligence get some closure, even if it doesn't come from the institutions that should have helped.

[–] rabber@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

They were last seen on a reservation, however

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] villasv@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Yes, clearly this thread has shown that some people care

Why doesn’t anyone care?

They only people who care about a man are the people he is paying for, and maybe not even then.