Atwater Park Area At Your Own Risk!

Editorial




Most of us Nunavimmiut are very well aware of the problems that have been reported in the western part of Ste Catherine street near Atwater Park but you truly have to witness it to believe it and understand it better. One sunny afternoon last week I was visiting a patient at the children's hospital and spent a few hours in the park with a relative and I did see a few things that kind of made me understand the situation a little better. Middle aged men both white and black appear to be pimping girls forcing them into a life of prostitution, drugs, std's and many other problems. One Qallunaat with wrinkles on his face that looked as thou he was hit by a bulldozer was sitting with two girls that looked as thou they were in their early twenty's. They were sitting maybe fifty feet away from me and I was able to understand their conversation. The two girls spoke to each other in Inuktitut and sounded as thou they may be from Kangiqsualujjuaq but I could be wrong. They were being exploited by this wrinkled scumbag that was pocketing the money he made from them selling their bodies and he was paying the girls with drugs which I presume must have been crack. I thought to myself, now these girls must have families that are worried sick about them. They might have brothers and sisters that miss them nieces and nephews or cousins that are wondering what ever happened to......? I felt like telling these two young girls to get the hell out of that place and get some help but I did not get a chance to speak with them and I feared for my own safety If the white scumbag heard me. They eventually left and walked towards the McDonald's at the next corner. I waited around thirty minutes to see if the girls would come back alone and maybe I can talk with them but they never came back. I then came across a girl from Salluit that I haven't seen in years. She noticed me and I believe she may have remembered me, she was with a tall black guy and didn't end up talking to her, she did not look very happy but shoock her head as a hello. I then went back to the hospital for a bit and walked home afterwards with a sad feeling that we need to do something for these poor girls. I say girls because the homeless and drug problem near Awater is mostly young women from Nunavik and not men.

I have read some of the newspaper articles and of course I have heard about what goes on in that area but to see these things happen with my own two eyes and to witness it made me sick and I started to think about it more and more in the days after.

What can we do?

We need to educate our kids and young people about some of the risks because at some point it's too late and at that point there is a risk that they can fall into that pattern of drug and alcohol abuse. These things do not tend to get better with time but I have seen some success stories and it feels good to hear em' and to see, believe me! If you have young adult in your family going to Montreal, take the extra time to stay in touch with them. Ask them what they're up to, where they're going. We don't need to see any more Nunavimmiut or Nunavummiut fall into this pattern down south far awar from their families and their communities. The lure of the big city is just too much for some people sometimes and there are very serious life threatening consequences that are sometimes associated with that. Do not trust anyone in the south that may go out of their way to be friends with you because you are inuk or first nation. These pimps and drug dealers have years of experience sometimes and know exactly what to say to make their wallet bigger or feed their sickening habit. The friendliness is very often a trap it sometimes difficult to judge the situation but I am suspicious of anyone that goes out of their way to be extra friendly because of not who you are but what you are. At Atwater park and on the nearby streets, there is a very unfriendly reminder of the concequences for someone that falls it that trap.

In conclusion, it is almost impossible for anyone not to care about these kind of issues because it concerns every single one of us. There are no words that can explain the sympathy and sadness I feel for the families of these young people that are in that situation. Imagine raising a child with all the love and responsabilities you were brought up with as a kid and just when you think they are old enough and responsable enough to make the right decicions in life, they meet a piece of shit that changes their life more ways then one. This happens way more then we would like to think, it's time to get tough on drug abuse and the dealers.

LINKS

I have linked an article that was published by Jane George of Nunatsiaq News a few years back, it goes to show how things haven't changed.
http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/archives/nunavut000131/nvt20121_08.html

Interesting Gazette article about the area we discussed
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Residents+hold/2705248/story.html

Chez Doris
1430, Rue Chomedey
Montreal, QC H3H 2A7
514-937-2341
www.chezdoris.ca