Devastated town has much to say to Trudeau
LA LOCHE, SASK.— When Justin Trudeau visits La Loche on Friday, residents say there is one thing he needs to do — listen.
The prime minister is expected to arrive in the northern Saskatchewan First Nations community on Friday morning, exactly one week after a 17-year-old boy allegedly went on a shooting spree that killed four people and wounded seven others.
The Prime Minister’s Office did not release an itinerary, but according to the MP for the area, Trudeau will stay in La Loche for at least five hours and has requested meetings with local leaders, first responders and teachers at the school where most of the violence took place.
He’ll be joined on the trip by Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall. Schools across the province will observe a moment of silence for the victims at 9 a.m.
Chief Teddy Clarke of the Clearwater River Dene Nation said that the prime minister’s visit would send a powerful message to local people still reeling from the shooting.
“People will see that we do have a government that cares,” he said.
There’s no consensus in the town of about 3,000 people about what may have caused last Friday’s violence. Some see the shooting as related to the remote community’s struggles with social problems such as suicide, addiction and crime. Others point out that mass shootings happen in cities all over the world and view the murders as a random event.
But whether or not social conditions were a factor in the violence, many residents are hoping that Trudeau will use his visit to make a commitment to assisting a community that is in dire need of the kinds of services most Canadians take for granted.
“I do know that we are not a community that has been well served by our government agencies,” said Lorna Lemaigre, who co-ordinates the Our Families First program at the Dene Empowerment Centre on La Loche’s Main St.
She said that previous governments had tried to impose top-down solutions in places like La Loche, and ignored local input. The result is an inadequate social service net that provides little recreational or educational programming for young adults, she said.
“I hope he will take the time to truly listen and hear the community’s voice,” Lemaigre said.
Dale Janvier, a 43-year-old unemployed La Loche resident, said he hoped Trudeau would offer a lifeline for older residents as well. Like many men in the town, Janvier used to work in the Alberta oilsands (Fort McMurray is only about a two-hour drive when the winter road is passable). But he lost his job as the tumbling oil prices forced mass layoffs.
He said it’s difficult to learn a new trade because there are few training programs in La Loche. He hopes Trudeau will provide funding to set some up.
“Most of our people have to go south for skills training,” to places such as Saskatoon, La Ronge or even Buffalo Narrows, which has a smaller population than La Loche, Janvier said. “Our people could be running our own affairs, no?”
Whatever commitments Trudeau makes on Friday, it’s unlikely his government can solve all of La Loche’s problems. Common complaints, such as the town’s lack of a bank, café or motel, are probably out of the prime minister’s hands.
And any assistance given to La Loche will likely spark cries for equal treatment from other communities across the region, which are also in need. In 2011the Northern Saskatchewan Health Indicators report found that the median income in the province’s north was 60 per cent of the provincial median, and less than half the population graduated from high school, compared to 80 per cent in the province as a whole.