Bring Us Your Poor, Unskilled, Uneducated, Oppressed ...

"People from all corners of the globe have sought refuge in Canada, people who have started the next chapter of their lives here in Canada,"

"There's another reason that Canada's light shines brightly, and that is the contributions of refugees themselves in so many ways."

"We've seen refugees give back to their new communities and their countries, even during the pandemic."

Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marco Mendicino 

A group of Central American migrants rest along the railway track on their way to the United States in Macuspana, Tabasco, Mexico March 25, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

Immigration Minister Mendicino made an announcement on June 18 that Canada is proceeding with a new target number of refugees into the country of "protected persons"; refugees and asylum seekers set to be accepted for residence in Canada while their applications for acceptance are being determined. That acceptance for residence is to be extended to their families. In 2020 the number brought into Canada stood at 23,500. For 2021 that number is to rise to 45,000.

 

An estimated 50,000 haven-seekers, migrants declaring themselves 'refugees' entered Canada illegally in the space of two years between 2018 and 2019, numbers that are declining by a wide margin, but still ongoing where people who have entered the United States transit into Canada which has a far more relaxed reputation for accepting migrants' refugee claims. Many of those haven-seekers, are fleeing poverty, crime and conflict in their central American homelands, many seek out better economic prospects.

 

Many are drawn by Canada's generous social support system which they can draw on as soon as they enter Canada. And many of the migrants are unschooled, unskilled and if and when they look for employment, will only be suitable for low-skill work that will leave them in poverty, albeit with the added assistance of social welfare. Finding places for migrants to live, providing them with initial financial supports, medical care, language training, educational opportunities strains an already-strained system in Canada at all government levels.

 

In cities like Toronto where many of the refugee declarants head directly for temporary emergency housing -- already under strain to accommodate Canadians who have fallen on hard times and/or those whom the added financial strains of the COVID pandemic's upheaval of social, employment norms have sent into the ranks of the homeless -- an overburdened situation has been exacerbated by the presence of migrants. 

In Toronto 40 percent of people in homeless shelters in 2019 were refugees and asylum claimants. Refugees and asylum claimants represented 80 percent of the total families living in shelters in 2018. A 2018 study of homeless shelters in Ottawa revealed that close to 25 percent of those using the shelters were immigrants or refugees. When the viral pandemic struck, close living quarters in shelters convinced many to leave that shared housing in preference to living on the street.

The downtown cores of many cities now reflect the growing number of street people who have left crowded shelters to live in tent cities in public parks and on sidewalks. An issue of public safety has arisen in lock-step with illegal tent cities. So it defies logic and simple common sense to proudly proclaim Canada's readiness to increase by a wide margin an already large committed number of refugees to a country which has been unable to accommodate the needs of newly-entering people.

The Liberal government speaks of "irregular" entries to the country, when what they are is "illegal". There are legal entry points where people can declare themselves and where they know that entering Canada from the United States where a safe country agreement is in effect whereby the first country entered is the country where application should be made, is deliberately bypassed. In illegal entry a strange situation unfolds where the illegals declare themselves refugees and are enabled to make applications to remain in the country.

Germany stands out as the European country that distinguished itself in 2015 and 2016 in its declaration that it was prepared to accept a million refugees and migrants pouring illegally into Europe from Africa and the Middle East. Years later the German government finds itself supporting those they permitted entry to, many of whom are disproportionately involved in violent crime, according to the government's own data. A mere 50 percent of the migrants -- mostly young, single men -- are employed in Germany.

Robust social welfare systems that leave no one behind are viewed by many who have long been citizens and grew up in the system, as a last resort when living turns tough. To many others coming from countries with no notion of public welfare, state support through welfare seems attractive and well worth leaving home for. Those genuinely seek a better life and prepared to work toward it have indeed made Canada what it is, a country of immigrants.

In earlier generations those who entered Canada as immigrants and refugees, many non-skilled, without higher education levels, applied themselves to whatever employment was available. There were no social welfare programs of any note in that era. People lived in poverty and slowly improved their living situations, their children received good educations and found better employment and left poverty behind. At the present time, all manner of government programs in support of immigrants and refugees are available, and, it seems, less effort is put out for self-support by those feeling entitled to state support.

 

Police erected a tent at the Roxham Road crossing, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer informs a migrant couple about a legal border station a few kilometres away. (Charles Krupa/Associated Press)

 

The Liberal Government of Justin Trudeau to the Rescue!

"I very much understand that many organizations were forced to make very quick decisions. And when we have to make decisions quickly, there is a chane that there are mistakes. When we'll arrive to audit the [financial aid] programs, what we'd expect to find is a mechanism to identify mistakes."
"And if there were mistakes, that there be a mechanism to rectify those mistakes, which includes having that money reimbursed if necessary."
"Making payments properly to Canadians is important. When we approach any audit, you have to look at the risk of fraud. As soon as we suspect an incidence of fraud, or we suspect fraud, it increases risk. In that case, it means it will increase our sample size or the work we will do."
Karen Hogan, nominee as Auditor General of Canada

"The capacity for abuse or opportunistic behaviour in this program is enormous."
"If you advertise that you're going to be approved -- no questions asked -- you're going to get pensioners applying for it [the Canada Emergency Response Benefit]."
Philip Cross, former Statistics Canada economist, fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute

"It's close enough that it's likely a timing issue."
"You probably could have caught that one out of a hundred that's trying to defraud the system. But the trade-off would be that 99 legitimate applicants didn't get their money for a month-and-a-half and therefore had to go to a food bank."
David Macdonald, senior economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

"Getting that help to the 99 percent of Canadians who needed it quickly and rapidly -- even if it means accepting that one or two percent might make fraudulent claims -- was the choice that we gladly made [as opposed to rigorously checking each application for CERB]."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

A sign warns about the global COVID-19 outbreak in Toronto, Ontario. April 5, 2020. Steve Russell/Toronto Star

Well, isn't it a truism that when people are disbursing funds from a general account, not their own personal funding source, they exercise less judgement, are more profligate, and in this particular instance when a prime minister unrestrained by a Parliament that has been placed in abeyance as a response to a global emergency with a health pandemic laying people low and closing national business and trade infrastructure, leaving millions without employment, can play the saviour and receive plaudits from grateful Canadians while placing Canada deeply in debt.

Asked about the spectre of widespread fraud when the government rolled out its emergency benefits program, Justin Trudeau suggested to his questioners: just look at the unemployment figures, and most certainly they were sobering. Rendered unemployed by the pandemic a vast swath of Canadians faced economic ruin, unable to pay their bills, their mortgages, feed their families. Something had to be done, and planning for a massive rescue through borrowing to fund a plan to send out monthly cheques to the unemployed to keep them afloat, was it.

Sometimes, things simply do not compute. Last month's labour-force survey released by Statistics Canada had it that three million people lost their jobs while another 2.5 million were faced with working less than half their normal hours since the beginning of the pandemic; both totaled 5.5 million Canadians, alarming and shocking. Yet by mid-April CERB claims from 6.7 million people had been received by government; a million differential from the total for unemployed Canadians.

The Benefit is available to workers:

• Residing in Canada, who are at least 15 years old;
• Who have stopped working because of reasons related to COVID-19 or are eligible for Employment Insurance regular or sickness benefits or have exhausted their Employment Insurance regular benefits or Employment Insurance fishing benefits between December 29, 2019 and October 3, 2020;
• Who had employment and/or self-employment income of at least $5,000 in 2019 or in the 12 months prior to the date of their application; and,
• Who have not quit their job voluntarily.

Economists are of two minds over the discrepancy in numbers; one that the difference represents a statistical anomaly, the other that there are some Canadians taking advantage of a no-holds-barred open benefits scheme, the legality of their decision to declare themselves unemployed if they were not qualified under the conditions set out on applications. irrelevant to them. The gap in statistical numbers does indicate something is awry.

People who "have stopped working" and qualify for the financial aid, and have made application to register for the CERB, receive $2,000 monthly as long as they earned $5,000 within the previous year and did not leave their employment voluntarily. All political parties that form government had agreed that such an assistance program was well justified by a situation that evolved relentlessly destroying economies even as it took countless lives globally.

Despite which, a growing realization that government failed in its duty to due diligence in handing out taxpayer-funded resources has raised quite a few questions. Why it was that Employment and Social Development Canada saw fit to alert its employees to ignore any possible abuse, to approve payments even for those who had voluntarily left their employment, even those who were fired for cause; instructions that actually contradicted the rules of eligibility for the CERB. Employees in the Department claimed to have found 200,000 claims that should have been disqualified.

Anecdotal evidence of cheating abounds. People who have reported no income for years possibly working under the table, now routinely receive CERB, according to one source familiar with the system. A client of mortgage broker Ron Butler, preparing to buy a new house had received a CERB payment while fully employed, explaining that two relatives urged him to apply as they had, fraudulently. When the man's mortgage was cancelled because the real estate company reported the fraud to the bank, "His reaction was extreme disappointment", reported the broker.

Who went on to relate that to his experience other instances of questionable use of the program had occurred, as for example, a friend living in a $2.5-million house, with $3 million in liquid assets having closed her business during the lockdown, experimented by applying for the CERB, and a day later a $2,000 payment was deposited directly to her account. Indicating that irrespective of personal assets, eligibility for CERB is not ruled out. Much like the universal payment scheduled to go out under COVID conditions to all Canadian seniors receiving Old Age Security when only low-income seniors should be awarded that payment.

By April 19, 6.73 million Canadians had successfully made application for CERB; consequently $19.8-billion had made its way from government coffers to applicants' bank accounts; the number of applicants whose total figure has since increased to close to 8 million. The government rescuing the unemployed from defaulting on mortgages and making use of food banks. Now Canada requires a rescue from its incompetent government.

A cyclist rides past graffiti stating “People Over Profit No Jobs = No Rent in Toronto during the Covid 19 pandemic. More than 7.1 million Canadian residents have applied for the $2,000 monthly Canada Employment Response Benefit since April 6.

Generous To A Fault : Canada's Solution to COVID-Linked Unemployment or The Irresistible Appeal of Petty Larceny

"Effective immediately, while processing a claim, if an agent uncovers information that suggests potential abuse of the EI system by a client, an employer or a third party, they do not impose a stop pay and do not refer the file to integrity unless it is considered an urgent investigation."

"This is a result of the integrity service branch suspending all non-official investigations. In addition to suspension of Claimant Information Sessions [CES], in-person interviews and on-site visits, they have suspended all Integrity Operations activities for compliance and enforcement of the EI program."

Employment and Social Development Canada, memorandum to employees

"Governments should be assuming that everyone is honest, but that doesn't mean they should suspend any and all attempts to follow up potential cases of fraud."

"Even a small percentage [of fraud] can mean hundreds of millions of dollars wasted."

Aaron Wudrick, federal director, Taxpayers Federation of Canada

"In normal times, it is essential that the EI [employment insurance] integrity branch do their job to limit abuse and error."

"The government is using its spending power to buffer the impact of unemployment and loss of business."

"[Auditors] will have a number of years to address program error -- and they will."

Kevin Page, (former) Parliamentary Budget Officer

The employment insurance section of the Government of Canada website is shown on April 4, 2020. Jesse Johnston/The Canadian Press

Tens of millions of applications for emergency and employment-insurance (EI) benefits have flooded into offices of the Employment and Social Development Canada department from Canadians eager to apply for financial assistance as a result of having lost employment due to the federally-imposed lockdown in Canada in response to the global pandemic which has infected tens of thousands of Canadians (71,157) and caused the deaths of thousands (5,169). 

Canada's prime minister, in empathizing with the rising number of unemployed resulting from his mandated lockdown conditions under these hugely unusual circumstances in the global threat from SARS-CoV-2, promised that tax-funded relief will be going out to people in financial duress who qualify, as soon as possible. Now, federal employees who vet those millions of applications have been advised to ignore obvious instances of cheating on the part of applicants who don't qualify.

Should employees come across what they feel is abuse they must, under these new rules, continue to process the payment and refrain from referring the questionable file to the department's integrity branch. The memorandum issuing these new guidelines states the suspension of the integrity-operations branch of the EI program, directed to give aid in managing the new Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) payments.

Helena Hanson | Narcity

An inside source has spoken anonymously for fear of reprisal, to news outlets, informing that some 200,000 applications were "red flagged" before the issuance of the memorandum from department headquarters. These flagged applications were considered to be potential fraudulent claims, some flagged for dubious claims of past employment income and applications from people living abroad as well. 

According to the minister is charge of the department the government is well aware of a heightened risk of fraud related to pandemic-aid programs but felt it to be more important to ensure that Canadians receive the promised financial aid speedily. Their intention was to make an effort once the emergency situation had passed to identify the fraudulent claims and claim unwarranted payments be returned to government coffers. For the time being, civil servants are to ignore any possible abuse of the system.

The newly-established CERB program sends out $500 weekly to the unemployed who have applied for the assistance during an initial four-month period for people whose jobs have been lost as a result of the pandemic and lockdown. They must have earned at least $5,000 in 2019 or the previous 12 months. People eligible for Employment Insurance backed by their work history receive the same amount for the same period of time.

The memo instructing claim workers to ignore potential faulty applications also instructs them to consider as "urgent" matters that clearly should be referred for investigation, such as applications on behalf of the deceased, dormant social insurance numbers, and those never used until the processing of the benefit claim, along with false records of employment. According to the inside source, however, even evidence of fraudulent employment records is being overlooked, paving the way for CERB or EI to be paid out.

International students whose visas permit them to work 20 hours weekly only during classes are claiming to have put in 40 hours weekly, as they make application for EI. Applicants across Canada apply for CERB or EI even while they are being paid by employers under the table, pointed out the internal source. In their considered experience, it is doubtful that the 200,000 red-flagged cases will be investigated at a later date, since each would take days and manpower; resources not available. Those fraudulent claims will be, he warns, written off.

On another occasio,n a Canada Revenue Agency employee informed the federal broadcaster CBC how common applicant abuse is, citing an elderly woman and her two disabled children applying for CERB, though none was eligible. And according to Radio-Canada, even inmates at a Trois-Rivieres, Quebec prison have received CERB cheques. 

The CERB applies to wage earners, contract workers, and self-employed individuals who meet the following as per Canada.ca:

• Workers who must stop working due to COVID-19 and do not have access to paid leave or other income support
• Workers who are sick, quarantined or taking care of someone who is sick with COVID-19
• Working parents who must stay home without pay to care for children that are sick or need additional care because of school or daycare closures
• Workers who still have their employment but are not being paid because there is currently no sufficient work and their employer has asked them not to come to work
• Wage-earners and self-employed individuals, including contract workers, who would otherwise not be eligible for Employment Insurance

Applicants must have been out of work for at least 14 consecutive days within the 4-week period in which they apply for the payment.
They must also have earned at least $5,000 in 2019 or in the 12 months immediately preceding their application. This income can be from employment or self-employment, maternity or parental leave benefits.
You must also be a resident of Canada and at least 15 years of age or older.
Recent information provided by CRA is that you can count non-eligible dividends towards the $5,000 income requirement to be eligible for CERB

Heading Back to Business as Usual

"I'm going to have to make a decision, and I only hope to God that it's the right decision. But I would say, without question, it's the biggest decision I've ever had to make."
"I call it the opening-our-country task force, or opening our country council. [The group will include] very, very great doctors and business people." 
"In the midst of grief and pain, we are seeing clear signs that our aggressive strategy is saving countless lives."
"I think we will be substantially under that number [of projects that the infectious outbreak could cause between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths]."
"There's something good going to happen. I really believe that. There's something very good going to happen. We have to get back." 
U.S. President Donald Trump

"There are places around the country that have seen consistently low levels."
"And as we ramp up testing and can feel more confident that these places actually can do surveillance and can do public health follow-up, some places will be able to think about opening on May 1." 
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams 

President Donald Trump and Surgeon General Jerome Adams at Friday's coronavirus briefing. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo

"[More than 600 CDC [Centers for Disease Control] employees are stationed around the country assisting with coronavirus response efforts, but the agency is] going to have to substantially amplify [that workforce to ramp up contact tracing]."

"Obviously, if we're going to try to get this nation back to work shortly after the end of this month, we're far along in those planning processes, as we speak."
Dr. Robert Redfield, director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

"[New York recorded 777 deaths Thursday, but the statewide headcount at intensive care units was down 17.] That means there are fewer people in the intensive care units statewide than there were." "And again, that's the first time we've seen a negative number, so that's good. The three-day average of that is down."
"A change in intubations is a tick higher than it's been the last few days, but it's overall down. The three-day average is also down."
New York Governor. Andrew Cuomo

"[While] we are starting to see the leveling off and the coming down [of coronvirus-related metrics], Americans must keep up their social-distancing practices."
"This is not the time to feel that since we have made such [an] important advance in the sense of success of the mitigation that we need to be pulling back at all."
"Now is no time to back off. The virus will decide [when the country can re-open]."
Dr.Anthony Fauci, infectious disease expert, White House advisor

Like a racehorse champing at the bit, the man who is president of the United States of America, a man whose experience is that of a high-powered business executive focused on getting ahead, on competition, on fixing the best deal and forging full steam ahead, envisions a swift end to America's novel coronavirus lockdown and a smooth return to business as usual, lifting his country back up by the bootstraps of financial duress.

Yet he also makes due reference to his version of consultation, that his bold strike against the economically ruinous constraints on business occasioned by the need to shut down the communication corridors of the sinister coronavirus striking at will, can only proceed when the health professionals advising him give clearance to the resumption of the open economy. He will be guided, he assured the public, by facts and recommendations from health experts and it is they who will ultimately determine when steps are to be taken to reopen the economy.

Clearly, he has paid little mind to his own top infectious disease expert, Dr.Fauci, who hasn't hesitated in the past, nor the present, to gently 'correct' his president. The U.S. is facing a forecasted loss of jobs of up to 20 million by the end of April. That, to be balanced against the potential of a 200,000 death count with the precipitous lifting of the shelter-in-place orders. Figures provided by the departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services. On the other hand, should social distancing continue, the projected death count would be reduced by 60,000.

As matters now stand, the U.S. has recorded the world's highest confirmed COVID cases, at over 485,000, resulting in over 18,100 deaths from the virus. Italy alone has a greater number of fatalities. The epicentre in the U.S. of COVID-19, New York, tallied 777 several days earlier, down from799 deaths daily, Governor Cuomo reported yesterday. Intensive care unit admissions had declined "for the first time since we started this journey".

Drone images show bodies being buried on New York's Hart Island on Thursday.

Contract labourers have been burying two dozen bodies of COVID victims daily -- their caskets lowered into freshly dug trenches on Hart Island, at the western end of Long Island Sound. Ordinarily weekly, roughly 25 bodies are buried on the island, a number that tripled in recent weeks. The caskets are lifted out of refrigerated trucks by Rikers Island jail inmates. 

With over 90 percent of the U.S. under stay-at-home orders, Easter weekend saw religious services livestreamed or broadcast, with most churches empty instead of typically overflowing with worshipers. "Satan and a virus will not stop us", declared Rev.Tony Spell, pastor of Life Tabernacle Church near Baton Rouge, Louisiana who expects over 2,000 people to gather at his evangelical megachurch on Sunday.

And that event may just turn out to be a wholesale new epicentre, spreading a new outbreak to scupper the president's May 1st cherished opening of the economy.

Zimbabwe, Where Hunger Stalks

"Inflation is a rampant problem and people said, 'We'd prefer the food."
"[This month the World Food Program plans a switch to a] fully in-kind food program [for the first time, to distribute monthly rations of grain, oil and nutritional supplements for children under five]."
"The weather forecasts are basically saying we're looking at a very dry growing season." 
Gerald Bourke, spokesman, southern Africa operations, World Food Program

"Life is hard, all things are expensive, there are no price controls and inflation just keeps getting worse."
"The money here is valueless now."
Benjamini Dunha, 57, plumber, Harare

"I cannot stress enough the urgency of the situation in Zimbabwe."
"[Sixty percent of the country's 14 million people are] food-insecure, living in a household that is unable to obtain enough food to meet basic needs."
Hilal Elver, United Nations human rights expert on food security

"We used to buy favourite foods, such as ice cream, cheese, bacon, sausages and ham, and prepare good breakfasts for our families."
"These things are a vision of the past now."
Moreblessing Nyambara, 35, Harare schoolteacher

"This is not just a food crisis. It is a wider, more complicated situation."
"People have to make choices: Do I seek H.I.V. treatment or food?"
Ursula Mueller, deputy emergency relief coordinator, United Nations

Children in Mafomoti village, in Zimbabwe’s Mwenezi district, wait while their mothers prepare their only meal of the day. Photograph: Aaron Ufumeli/EPA

This is former President-turned-tyrant Robert Mugabe's legacy for Zimbabwe. He began as an African independence hero, wresting his country from British colonial rule, transforming Rhodesia into the independent Republic of Zimbabwe. Freedom fighter to President, he then became a dictator, ruling like an African potentate. White farmers who had remained in Zimbabwe after independence, who considered themselves citizens, and whose farming expertise helped Zimbabwe become an African cornucopia of produce sufficient to feed its population and trade the surplus, became targets of land confiscation.

The 'freedom fighters' whose exploits as Mugabe entitled stalwarts were given title to confiscated farms. Black Zimbabweans who had worked on the white-owned farms found themselves out of work, and Mugabe's friends who then owned the farms were disinterested in farming, knew nothing about it and cared less, and the land went fallow. From that point on, food became scarce and was imported, inflation rose, the Zimbabwean currency became useless, unemployment soared.

The more recent droughts that have impaired crops and created even greater scarcity of food arrived at a time when Zimbabwe's new president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, who had been an ally of Mugabe, was ostensibly attempting to turn the economy around, and bring stability back to the country, but he doesn't appear to be much less of a despot than his predecessor, and just as haplessly corrupt in his inept administration.

Food aid is desperately needed. The crisis is being attributed to southern Africa's climate crisis, with drought conditions ensuring fewer crops to harvest. With insufficient nutrition people's health declines and crime increases along with other "negative coping mechanisms", according to Ursula Mueller of the United Nations. Basic maladministration, corruption and gross incompetence come to the fore in Zimbabwe, just as it all does in all too many areas of the African Continent.

People line up, anxious and early for the opportunity to buy subsidized maize meal offered by the government-operated Grain Marketing Board depot. Affordable prices for many, enabling them to have food for their families. So hundreds of people patiently wait in line for hours until a guard exits the depot to announce that the supply is rotten, removing it for sale for the day. Frustratingly enraging; is the food going elsewhere, and the story being circulated untrue? They will never know.

Benjamin Dunha earns 700 Zimbabwe dollars monthly as a plumber, the equivalent of $38 at official exchange rates. His salary less than a year earlier was worth closer to $700.00. He has eight children to feed. He has been able to provide them with vegetables and sadza, a thick porridge of boiled maize meal. Now that porridge will be absent until he is able to find another source.

Hunger haunts Africa. In Zimbabwe, the annual inflation rate is the world's highest, at 300 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund. Buying any food beyond maize meal is considered a luxury. The World Food Program plans to double the number of aid recipients in Zimbabwe to four million, this year.

A woman pours food aid into a sack at a distribution point for Mafomoti primary school in Zimbabwe’s Mwenezi district. Photograph: Aaron Ufumeli/EPA

"I didn't know what was going on ... I thought the kids were just playing around or something, like a locker slamming and stuff."
Norma Janvier, school coordinator, La Loche Community School

"My nephew doesn't know why. He doesn't understand why a quiet person, who was so happy, would do something so horrible."
Anonymous community member

"Right now, La Loche is devastated. Both Clearwater and La Loche, a lot of people are in shock. This is something that you only see on TV most of the time."
Clearwater River Dene Nation Chief Teddy Clark

RCMP on the scene after a school shooting at La Loche Community School on 
Jan. 22, 2016. Liam Richards / Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Because of the youth-protective nature of the federal Youth Criminal Justice Act the identity of the shooter at the "Dene Building", reserved for grades 7 to 12 at the La Loche Community School in the town of 3000 residents, has not been divulged. A little bit of fantasy, since he is known to have shot to death his two cousins, 13-year-old Drayden and 17-year-old Dayne Fontaine. Their 17-year-old friend and family member shot them at their home.

And then he went on to the school to shoot two teachers, one herself a former student at the school, 23-year-old Marie Janvier, and 32-year-old Adam Wood, only several months on the job at La Loche who had taken a teaching position there, moving from his hometown of Uxbridge, Ontario. One town resident speaking later to reporters said: "You only see this stuff happening out there -- you don't think of it happening in a small town".

Actually, it's likely enough that this is the kind of thing that will happen in a small town. When that town is inhabited by a people sharing a past, a present and a future, all troubled. When, like most towns or reserves on which First Nations live, a profoundly troubling dysfunction jars the very prospect of normalcy because so many teens commit suicide, and drug- and alcohol- dependence is high, along with the crime rate.

The aunt of a coeval of the 17-year-old shooter who professes puzzlement that a happy, normal boy could become a killing psychopath obviously discounts a shadowy world she is not familiar with, where an undercurrent of the forbidden and the dark thrills to be shared are posted on social networking sites. The boy now in custody for the murder of four people and for injuring another seven had messaged his friends: "Just killed 2 ppl. Bout to shoot ip [sic] the school."

There is a chilling remoteness about the conveying of such a message where two cousins as close as brothers become emotionally disengaged "ppl", and the intention to continue the killing spree is expressed in the intention to "shoot up the school". In remote towns and reserves where people lead lives of quiet desperation expressing their fears and rage in violence, what is normal?

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Joshua Mercredi    Officials stand outside of La Loche Community School after a deadly multiple-shooting on Friday Jan. 22, 2016.

 

Newspaper accounts of the tragedy point out that La Loche has struggled with a suicide epidemic expressed in an annual rate of suicide in the Keewatin Yatthe Regional Health Authority that encompasses the town and others alongside it averaging 43.4 deaths by suicide per 100,000 people; triple the provincial average.