Living In The Past

"The people of Kimmirut are very friendly.  It's violent to be targeting RCMP and it's scary.  But I wish that southerners could see the positive side of Kimmirut."

This is a statement by Kimmirut Mayor Qinuayuaq Pudlat.  And here's another statement by the good man:

"Back in the days, they had elders that were open to talking to people with problems.  Some of the people tend to be bottled up inside.  Some people start using alcohol and it comes out (in the wrong way).  The residents of Kimmirut need to talk about the problems that may arise in these kinds of situations."

"These kinds of situations" refers to the number of young men resident in the area, who become rip-roaring drunk, pick up firearms and target members of the RCMP stationed there, and living among them to keep the peace.  Nowhere else in Nunavut does this seem to occur.

Ping Kolola, now serving a life sentence for the first degree murder of Constable Douglas Scott in 2007, was drunk when he shot the RCMP officer.  Constable Douglas Scott was killed while seated in his vehicle, by a gunshot to the head. 

"There must be this undercurrent of anger from those who do this kind of action against police and we have to address it at the community level and the government level.  To be effective, it has to be community-driven solutions", according to Supt. Hilton Smee.

There have been eight incidents since 2006 in a community of400 people.  Shots were also fired into the homes of two Mounties who were with their families; on those occasions no one was injured.  A large amount of alcohol is now in Kimmirut since it voted to allow legal shipments into the community.  Before that, bootleg liquor was widely available.

In 2006, Nunavut's rate of violent crime was four times the national average.  A year later its rate of domestic violence was 13 times the national average for women and 14 times for men.  In 2010, the rate of sexual assault was accounted to be ten times that of the rest of the country.

RCMP officers stationed in Kimmirut become intimate and involved with the life of the community.  "It's because we represent authority - a very visible authority within the community.  I don't see anything else there", Supt. Smee finally conceded.  "If the officers aren't safe, the community's not safe."

Another instance, yet again, of isolated communities caught between culture and heritage, modernity and social strictures.  And the incessant threat of alcohol abuse and the frustration of the young and the bored.  Where at one time in history those living in that environment spent all their time struggling to survive, survival now assured, there remains little purpose to life without challenges.

In ensuring peace between people because of the authority of their presence, the federal police force earns the resentment of people, particularly young men who have nothing to do, nothing to aspire to, no interests in life other than deadening their personal demons through the dementia of drink.   Inspiring them then to act on their aggressive impulses.

So much for living in the past.