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This year, several Inuit women from the Cabot Square community died in Montreal. Several others are missing. The Inuit community sees winter approaching with concern. She is concerned that there are not enough resources to prevent new deaths from happening. But why are so many women disappearing?
Last November, several members of the community came together and spoke out to commemorate the loss of those who lost their lives and to call for change in the hope of avoiding another tragedy.
Remember and survive
On November 12, under torrential rain, dozens of members of Inuit communities from across the country gathered to commemorate eight missing Inuit women from the Cabot Square community. It was in an atmosphere of exchange and advocacy that these people discussed the importance of valuing the lives of Inuit women. Under tents decorated with traditional dresses, the participants of the event hugged each other as they gave each other news. An elder said a prayer in Inuktitut to open the event. The crowd gathered, headlong, thinking of the missing. Poems composed by Inuit women during a therapeutic writing exercise were read during the commemoration. These texts all began with the phrase “I am...” and described their author.
The aim of this project, led by the Aboriginal Women's Action Network (AWAN), was to help participants find their voice and be proud of who they are. “I am a mom, an ex-sex worker, a broken star, can you hear in the silence punctuated by the sound of drops of water in Cabot Square. I am Cree-inuit. I am a survivor. I am a family. I am a friend. I am talkative. I am a grandmother. I am a mother. I am an elder.
I am 53 years old.” On this day of remembrance, Anita is thinking about her own. “I knew most of the eight women who died. One of them was my cousin. It's still too hard for me to talk about it,” she said in a knotted voice. In her mourning, the presence of all those who, despite the bad weather, came to support her, comforts her. She wants missing and murdered Inuit women, like her cousin, not to be forgotten. Anita, who has lived in Montreal for 15 years, knows how difficult it can be for them to adapt to the city. However, she is happy to be well surrounded today. “I was able to find a community at the Aboriginal Friendship Center, where I met women with whom I was able to talk.
I have made great friends and I continue to meet people there,” she says. She hopes to be able to continue her meetings to carry the voice of her Inuit sisters. Kira, a mother, shares the many projects she has in mind. “I am involved in a healthy eating program for Inuit women. I want all of us to have access to our traditional food,” says the woman who prefers to keep her true identity secret due to an ongoing legal dispute.
She lights up when she talks about the Aboriginal horse riding program she dreams of setting up. “Every time I meet Aboriginal people, they eagerly ask me when the program will start. It's good to have so much support,” she says. In the middle of our conversation, Kira stops to call out to a young woman who is heading for the subway station. The two women hug for a long time. After exchanging a few words with her friend and saying goodbye to her, Kira comes back to us. “I am glad that she is alive. I found her; her family asked me to look for her. I'm going to tell her sister the good news,” she cried, visibly relieved after several months of no news. A sister of the young woman is also missing. The last news that the relatives of Kira's friend had about her was a few months ago. They saw her pimp threaten her with death on social networks before deleting her Facebook account. “The disappearance of our loved ones is something that we Inuit women have to experience every day,” laments Kira. “We really need to make the non-native population aware of this reality,” she said, speaking about these disappearances.
Fay Blaney, co-founder of the Aboriginal Women's Action Network (AWAN), a collective of feminist Indigenous women, participated in the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. This experience made her understand the extent of the danger faced by Inuit women who die on the streets. “Every time we talk about one of these deaths in the media, we say that the woman lived a dangerous lifestyle. The media does not listen, they devalue her and erase her story. We don't want it to be repeated,” she argues. Ms. Blaney, who has been at the head of the AWAN organization since 1995, wants to give Inuit women back the reins of their own lives. She organizes feminist workshops to inform them about certain systemic issues and to equip them to deal with them.
During the commemorations, we can see that the claims of these women can be seen on the drawing of a tree under a tent. In particular, they are calling for Inuit foster families for their children and for the end of birth alerts, which alert the authorities every time an Inuit baby is born. “We want these women to find their voice and to control their future, instead of having someone else do it for them. When they have a voice, they can be the architects of their lives,” said Ms. Blaney, full of hope.
A final goodbye to Elisapee Pootoogook
The day after the commemorative event in Cabot Square, Elisapee Pootoogook, a 61-year-old Inuit grandmother, died on the construction site of a luxury condo on René-Lévesque Boulevard, very close to Cabot Square, a meeting place for Inuit. Her family tells us that Elisapee came to Montreal for five days to get health care. She had poor health and only wanted to find a warm place to sleep. Each time the grandmother took refuge in the subway, security made her leave the premises under the pretext that loitering in the subway represented a risk of spreading COVID-19.
The fatal night, having exhausted all possibilities, Elisapee went a little further than usual to sleep. She gave her life there. This tragedy caused an uproar in the Inuit community and beyond. Her death reignited the conversation on the issue of Aboriginal homelessness in Montreal.
On Monday, November 22, dozens of people gathered in Cabot Square, a place that Elisapee frequented, in her memory. The Makivik Corporation, an organization that represents the interests of Inuit in Quebec and Ottawa, sent a letter of invitation to Mayor Valérie Plante and her office, as well as to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, Ian Lafrenière. None showed up — an absence that angered several members of the community. The following day, Ronald Coolem, Elisapee's son-in-law, and his family from Montreal flew to the Far North with the body of the deceased.
All together, they held a ceremony there in memory of the Inuit elder. “Her husband is waiting for her. Two- and five-year-old children are wondering when grandma is going to come home,” he told us.
Mr. Coolem said he was very disappointed at the absence of politicians at the Montreal commemorations. “It's something you can't hide. We're just going to lose even more people during the winter,” he testified after the event.
He found it unacceptable that his mother-in-law, who had come to Montreal for five days to receive health care, ended her days like this. He was outraged that Aboriginal people were being treated that way. During the ceremony, Lizzie Puttayuk, niece of the deceased, spoke.
On stage, she opened a Bible to recite a prayer in Inuktitut. “I prayed for her to rest in peace. At the same time, I want to send a message to her family to reassure them and tell them that another world exists,” she told us after the event.
Photo: Diamond Yao
Ms. Puttayuk remembered her aunt as a kind person who treated everyone with respect. She admired his excellent English and his Scrabble prowess. His death came as a huge shock. She too was outraged at the fact that her aunt had died in such conditions.
“I can't live in the North, so I'm staying in Montreal. Why is it so difficult to give us a roof in Montreal?
I don't like living in shelters,” she said with frustration, saying that it was impossible for her to sleep well in shelters, or else she had to wake up in the cold very early. “We have the right to be healthy and safe.”
What does the city plan to do?
Questioned on this subject, Marikym Gaudreault, Valérie Plante's press secretary, told us that her office had not been informed of the tribute paid to Elisapee Pootoogook on November 22. Ms. Gaudreault also said she did not know that at least nine Inuit women had lost their lives this year, adding that her office had only identified one missing woman. The right to be healthy and safe is what the Inuit community in Montreal is asking for. For any answer, the office of the mayor of Montreal indicates that it is working to deploy a new resource.
“We want a permanent shelter for Indigenous people, a shelter that is culturally appropriate and heated near Cabot Square. We are currently having discussions with the provincial government,” Ms. Gaudreault tells us. She confirms that, by the end of fall, a permanent shelter will be open for Indigenous and Inuit people. The municipal administration doubled the funding dedicated to homelessness issues, increasing it from $3 million to $6 million. And it plans to build 1,200 homes for homeless people, including units for Indigenous people and 23 homes for Indigenous women and their children. Another portion of this money will go to community groups that fight homelessness. The City's initiatives have been welcomed by many members of the Inuit community. “It's fantastic! exclaims Kira upon learning that a permanent Aboriginal shelter will open by the start of winter. “I had heard about it, but I was not sure if the project was going to happen.” Joey Partridge, a member of the Southern Quebec Inuit Association, is also receiving this news with optimism. “Yes, 1,200 additional homes is a good start. I think it's going to really help people,” he said. But I want to see it for myself before I claim victory.” He wants to see the new shelter offer cultural activities in Inuktitut and other Aboriginal languages.
The speaker is also pleased that the Mayor finally agreed to meet with him on December 6 to discuss issues affecting the Inuit. “The director of the Southern Quebec Inuit Association really made a lot of efforts to make governments listen to the requests of the Inuit,” he said. But there was no progress until recently when people started to understand that there were a lot of Inuit on the streets.”
Serge Sasseville, city councillor for the district of Peter-McGill and a member of the opposition, did not have received an invitation, according to his party's press secretary. Benoît Langevin, Ensemble Montréal's homeless spokesperson, said he would have liked to have been there. He is critical of the Plante administration. “Why is it that, for four years, when temperatures of -20°C are reached, we have not yet implemented winter measures for homeless people? ” According to him, the difficulties in finding a permanent location for an Inuit shelter come from zoning regulations in downtown Montreal. “The owners of Ville-Marie do not want a rooming house and a refuge near their properties, because that would lower their land value,” explains Mr. Langevin. He denounces the fact that many homeless people have nowhere to sleep at night because of health measures, which reduce the capacity of shelters, and because several resources are not open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The spokesperson talks to us at length about the issues specific to the Inuit community in Montreal, including the lack of health services in the North and the lack of psychosocial support. However, Mr. Langevin did not talk to Résilience Montréal and the Foyer des Femmes Autochtones de Montréal, organizations that serve the Inuit community in Montreal. Minister Lafrenière and the federal Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, Marc Miller, both declined our interview requests.
Leaving the North for Southern Quebec
Alisha Tukkiapik, a member of Québec Solidaire and former provincial election candidate, wants to demystify the reasons why Inuit women move to Montreal. “What people don't understand is that it has nothing to do with alcohol and drugs. Inuit women are leaving Nunavik because of the lack of infrastructure and services, she says. There is a serious lack of adequate housing in the Far North. These women come to the south to rest from a life where they are crammed into cramped homes,” explains Ms. Tukkiapik. She laments the fact that the three levels of government do not understand the harshness of the Arctic social and environmental climate and offer them poorly built and poorly adapted housing that deteriorates easily. In 2014, A report of the Société d'habitation du Québec concluded that there was a deficit of 899 social housing units in Nunavik.
Among other things, there would be a lack of housing for families. In this regard, $250 million will be paid for infrastructure in Nunavik from 2018 to 2028, tells us Nicolas Moquin, communications advisor at Indigenous Services Canada. Mr. Moquin does not mention the measures that the government plans to put in place to solve housing construction problems. Ms. Tukkiapik is extremely critical of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. “People want to talk about reconciliation, but we haven't even finished talking about the truths. And the truth is that there are not enough resources allocated to us, under the pretext that there is no budget,” she is outraged.
The politician wants ambitious investments in education and health care for Inuit. “We have a lot of intergenerational trauma and don't have access to help to heal. That is why there is an epidemic of suicides in our communities,” she believes. Janis Qavavauq-Bibeau, intervener at Montreal Native Women's Shelter, indicates that several factors push Inuit women to leave the Far North for the South. In addition to the housing crisis, there is access to medical care, which is why Elisapee was in Montreal. During their stays, those who cannot afford housing turn to organizations that welcome Inuit traveling for medical reasons.
“The problem is that in these organizations, you can't consume alcohol. This rule does not take into account the historical realities of Inuit people. Many drink because there has been a lot of damage done to them in the past,” explains Ms. Qavavauq-Bibeau, who is tired of the prejudices and stigma surrounding alcohol and the Inuit.
She highlights the need to have resources for people who use, and an intervention approach that supports people while respecting their experiences. To illustrate these tragedies that mark several generations, the intervener cites residential schools, whose experience has left intergenerational consequences for most members of Inuit communities, and The massacre of sled dogs by law enforcement in the 1950s, among others. For the Inuit, who used their dogs as a means of survival, this massacre marked the end of their nomadic lifestyle and the beginning of their dependence on the government. She remembers that we need to address the root causes of problems, that is, the wrongs committed by Canadian institutions.
Ms. Qavavauq-Bibeau also believes that it is necessary to have health care adapted to Inuit realities, and that adapted mental health care is very difficult to access, both in the Far North and in Montreal.
To be able to live with dignity in the north and in the south
Many obstacles stand in the city in front of Inuit women who come from their northern communities. Mr. Partridge of the Southern Quebec Inuit Association believes that interventions to protect these women need to start as soon as they arrive. His organization wants to partner with airports and hospitals to be able to inform newcomers. “We want them to know where are the women's shelters, housing, churches as well as Aboriginal and Inuit organizations that they can turn to for support in Montreal,” he says. He hopes to be able to set up a similar initiative in Nunavik, so that women can better plan their stay.
He wants the support of the various levels of government to open an Inuit cultural center in Montreal that would offer various programs in Inuktitut and whose employees would be Inuit. “This will give women a place to go to find people who understand their language and their realities,” he says. In addition to the lack of a fixed address and the danger of pimps, there are difficulties related to the language barrier, culture and lack of education and professional experience, which make women who leave their community to settle in Montreal even more vulnerable.
Ms. Qavavauq-Bibeau suggests that basic health care be offered to Inuit women in the north as well as in the south, as well as housing and healthy food. “This would allow them to have some stability. They also need programs that support them and offer them psychological support.”
While waiting for government measures, Janis Qavavauq-Bibeau and Alisha Tukkiapik end with the same thought: systemic racism must be recognized by the provincial government in order for things to progress.
“I want them to stop denying systemic racism. Denial hurts us. We want concrete solutions,” says Ms. Tukkiapik. A recognition that, according to Ms. Qavavauq-Bibeau, would give hope to all Inuit women.
To go further
- The federal government plans to provide $130 million to Makivik Corporation over the next four years. He also maintains that a funding agreement of more than $70 million over 10 years between Indigenous Services Canada and the Nunavik Regional Health and Social Services Board (RRSSSN) was signed in 2019. A $129.5 million fund was also granted to Inuit last year to help them manage the health crisis.
- In education, the Government of Canada is proposing $150.6 million in funding over two years starting in 2021-22 to support Indigenous students through the Post-Secondary Student Assistance Program and post-secondary education strategies for Inuit and the Métis Nation. It is also providing $26.4 million in 2021-22 to Indigenous post-secondary institutions to help them deal with the pandemic through the Post-Secondary Partnerships Program and post-secondary education strategies for Inuit and the Métis Nation. Nicolas Moquin, communications advisor at Indigenous Services Canada, indicates that in addition to the mobilization efforts of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami organization, an Inuit Post-Secondary Education Strategy has been put in place by the federal government. This strategy, worth $147.3 million, supports Inuit students by providing them with financial assistance during their studies.