Cote First Nation and neighbouring communities address drug crisis through engagement meeting

A group of First Nations are taking the initiative to address the drug crisis happening in their communities through community engagement meetings.

“It has really taken a lot of lives, the drugs (of) fentanyl, cocaine, crystal meth, and we can see the impact it's having on our nation,” expressed Chief George Cote of Cote First Nation on Wednesday.

“A lot of children are orphans as a result of their moms and their dads. Their mothers and dads are burying their own children. This has been going on for quite a while now and we've been trying to find ways to stop this so what better way than a community engagement."

In addition to people from Cote, members from Keeseekoose and The Key First Nations were also present, as well as Kamsack RCMP.

The public event focused on coming up with solutions to stop the use and selling of drugs, while getting feedback from the community and guidance from the police.

“We wanted to get the perspective from the RCMP on how to battle this, what’s the legal way of enforcing our rules and our policies in our community,” Cote explained.

With a full house of people sharing their concerns, one speaker at the event voiced how she was able to turn her life around after being impacted by addiction.

“I spoke about the journey of sobriety and the steps that come with it,” Shantel Cote told CTV News.

“About not being afraid to reach out or to feel those emotions. That you have to go through every emotion in sobriety, that it’s okay to cry, it’s okay to feel alone because when you’re going through a sobriety journey, you have to do it alone. No one can do it for you, you have to do it alone.”

Chief Alvin Musqua of Keeseekoose said sharing success stories of people from the community is one way to tackle the situation.

“We had Theo Fleury in our community last week – at our wellness days - he talked about how people don’t like being preached to about their addictions, they like to follow people who have overcome the addiction,” Musqua explained.

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“That’s why I look at them as role models because they overcame such a hard lifestyle. By letting people know that there’s hope out there and there’s a testament to that with these people coming forward and sharing their stories of sobriety.”

During the meeting, solutions to address the issue were brought up, such as evicting people who sell drugs, residents installing cameras in high drug trafficking areas, and people reporting incidents to Crime Stoppers anonymously.

Although the issue is province wide, one leader from The Key First Nation told CTV News it has affected people on reserves.

"Let's say we chase a drug dealer off one First Nation and he runs to the next First Nation where they can sell,” expressed David Cote, band member of The Key.

“I think we need to communicate with one another and we need to put some kind of plan together on how we're going to deal with this problem. It’s a big problem and it’s not only happening just here, it’s all over.”

Chief Cote said the elders and chiefs from the three different nations will be putting together an action plan from the community’s feedback, and that another community engagement meeting is set to happen in October.