Canoe – Infos – Québec-Canada: Coût de la vie très élevé
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
My Montreal: Inuit students adapt to life at college
John Abbot College is helping Inuit students cope with the challenges of being on their own
Students in Montreal's colleges are settling into regular routines in what for many of them is their first time living on their own.
The culture shock for Inuit students coming from the Far North is much greater than for students heading downtown from the suburbs.
Sapina Snowball, in her final semester at John Abbott College in Ste. Anne de Bellevue, says everything is feeling somewhat alien to her.
"I'm stuck in two worlds right now," said Snowball.
Part of her is focused on studying and socializing with fellow students. The rest is thinking about her home town of Kangiqsualujuaq in Nunavik.
"My family is there. Of course I want to spend time with them, or the other me wants to stay here," she said.
No options in Far North
Inuit who want to attend post-secondary education almost certainly must leave home: there are no schools of higher learning in northern Quebec, and only one college in each of Canada's three territories.
Counsellor Gail Richardson says the homesickness takes a severe toll.
"Just being away from home, facing severe homesickness, being away from family and friends, being away from the land, the villages... It's a completely different life," said Richardson.
Melissa Ruston, who is set to graduate this year, knows the challenges all too well.
Back in Nunavik she was a top student.
"I was like the best in the class," said Ruston. "Sorry to brag but I always got the academic achievement, outstanding effort." At John Abbott she's maintaining a 70 per cent average.
"Oh my goodness its very challenging, especially the educational system up north is very low, it's very limited.
"When I came down here, I had to work twice as much," said Ruston.
Her twin brother could not handle the transition and dropped out.
Last year eight of the 21 Inuit students at John Abbott did the same.
So far this year, one student left after just a few days.
Helping students cope
John Abbott is a leader in helping aboriginal students adapt to life in the south.
First-year Inuit students must stay in a residence exclusively for aboriginal students, and they have free access to a resource centre staffed by Louise Legault.
"This room in itself is a place where they can do homework, use the computers, eat lunch meet their friends," said Legault.
They are also required to take two courses geared to improve their basic academic skills, improve their English, and helping them choose a career path.
"There's a lot of support," said Ruston. "They give us tips and advice on how to write essays. They give us tutors if we need any."
Students come back
While many students fail to thrive during their first exposure to urban life and rush back home, many do return.
Raingi Uquaituk first attempted to study at John Abbott in 1999, but dropped out when she became pregnant.
A decade later, and with a second baby at home, Uquaituk is back and determined to finish what she started.
"It's not really easy, especially when I got pregnant and I had to stop for what I was doing, but I always come back," she said.
Uquaituk is due to graduate in December, having finally accomplished what she could not do back home.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
From Nunavut to Lourdes (A serious failure of our justice system)
Category: Religion
Posted on: October 4, 2010 10:51 AM, by PZ Myers
Eric Dejaeger is a Catholic priest and pedophile who benefited greatly from church policy: when it was learned that he was a child-raping monster, the Catholic Church did the upright, moral thing and kept him on as a priest, but simply shipped him off to the Canadian north where he'd only be raping the Inuit. When the law caught up with him even in that remote place, he fled…and guess where he found shelter and employment? Back in the arms of Mother Church, of course.
The Belgian-born priest, who became a Canadian citizen in 1977, is wanted for three counts of indecent assault on a male and three counts of buggery for incidents involving minors and alleged to have occurred between 1978 and 1982 in Igloolik. These charges were laid after he completed a five-year sentence in April of 1995 (a penitentiary stint, a halfway house then probation) for abusing children in Baker Lake, then part of the Northwest Territories, now part of Nunavut. Dejaeger left Canada before his first court date in June of 1995 and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest.
Six years later, the Interpol red alert was circulated. Nine years after that, in May of this year, Belgian journalist Douglas De Coninck published an article detailing Dejaeger's life on the lam. The priest worked with pilgrims in Lourdes and participated in masses. A member of the Oblate Order of Mary Immaculate, he was living at the order's villa in Blanden. Several months after the article appeared, Dejaeger voluntarily turned himself in at the Leuven police station.
Unfortunately, the Belgian police just turned him loose again, stating that there was no extradition order from Canada. He's on the run again. Given his history, I can guess where we'll find him: turn over a few churches, and he'll be found nestling amongst the friendly priests.
But let's not just blame religion! There's also another nasty story here, of secular authorities turning a blind eye to his activities. He'd been brought before a Canadian judge who didn't seem to think Dejaeger was such a bad fellow.
Oddly, Justice Ted Richard of the Northwest Territories Supreme Court wrote in his sentence decision that Dejaeger was not a pedophile even though "it does not appear that he stopped this activity on his own but only when he was caught." It's unclear how he was caught.
Dejaeger admitted to, among other sexual acts, having anal intercourse with boys and digital vaginal penetration with girls. Yet Richard seemed to praise the priest's restraint:
"Because of the age of the victims of these assaults, consent is not an issue or a factor to be considered. However, it should be noted in fairness to the offender here that no violence was used in committing these assaults," Richard wrote 20 years ago.
Priests don't use violence, usually. They've got the shackles of tradition and dogma to hold their victims down for them.
And of course the real crime here is that these monsters in dog collars were dumped on the native peoples of Canada to rip their way through several generations, and there is no sign of remorse for that from the Vatican.
article source
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/10/from_nunavut_to_lourdes.php
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