INUVIK
RCMP officers may rotate through communities every two years or so but officers hope a workshop held last month will leave a more lasting impact.

Students and RCMP officers from every province and territory travelled to Regina in February to participate in a workshop to discuss the biggest issues - and their root causes - facing Indigenous communities. - photo courtesy of Kieran Ritias

High school student Kieran Ritias joined a member of the Inuvik detachment in February for a program in Regina at the RCMP training facility known as Depot. There they joined other such pairings from indigenous communities across the country to discuss root causes and potential solutions to high crime rates.

"Drugs and alcohol was the big one," said Ritias.

"But we had to try to find a root cause for it, too. Here, I think the root cause is family relationships."

As for solutions, Ritias and Const. Mackenzie McGuffin - his trip mate - received $300 to implement a program of their choosing to combat the effects of substance abuse in Inuvik.

"We decided on activities," Ritias said.

"Sports would be a good one, like having basketball games for families in the summer."

McGuffin agreed that sports are a good way of getting people out and working on building strong family dynamics.

"We talked about the root causes, and what we heard was that kids have too much free time and poor family relationships as underlying issues," McGuffin said.

"We kind of came up with family activities, to help build a healthy family relationship instead of the opposite."

McGuffin said that while the workshop was organized by the RCMP, the idea was to leave something in the communities that would be sustainable once specific members had moved on. He said the project belonged to Ritias and that he was just there to help.

"It was about gathering youth perspectives of the issues they see in their communities," he said.

"They see them in a different way, but they see the issues too. They're not blind to it."

Other possible ideas included a cooking class but McGuffin said they would start with sports because the cost of a gym and some gear is low. If it all goes well, he said they might apply for more funding.

Whatever the results in the community in the future, Ritias said he got a lot out of the conference itself.

"A lot of the problems communities are facing are the same," he said.

"We learned how a lot of places around Canada have a lot of issues."