Drug smuggling, intimidation concerns: Nunavik police officers to patrol streets of Montreal

Officers from the Nunavik Police Service (SPN) will be patrolling the streets of Montreal alongside the SPVM in the coming weeks to encourage Inuit living in the city to denounce criminals who are bringing drugs to Nunavik.

The SPVM and the SPN, at a Monday press conference, explained that events in Quebec’s north since last May are having an impact on the sense of security of Inuit living in Montreal.

Drug smuggling, organized by criminal groups from the south of the province, is at the origin of “assaults” and “intimidation” that have taken place in Montreal, authorities say.

“Southern criminal groups” organize and recruit “Inuit members” who live in Montreal “to transport drugs to Nunavik,” said Pierre Larose, chief of the SPN, during the press conference in Montreal.

Chief Larose explained that police officers managed to “destabilize” the smuggling network with various operations. But in response to these operations, criminals began to “intimidate Inuit who live in the south.”

“We see a lot more and more drugs coming in, hard drugs coming in Nunavik, and for our elected person, it’s a concern, and for us too,” said Larose.

The police officers therefore want to encourage victims to file complaints by meeting with members of the community over the next two weeks.

Officers from both police services will patrol the following sectors: downtown, Ville-Marie East, Ville-Marie West, Westmount, Plateau Mont-Royal and Dorval.

“Two weeks is probably not enough,” admitted Larose, but “it’s a start.”

He added the initiative by the two police forces includes “joint patrols in neighbourhoods frequented by Inuit, the exchange of detailed information on criminal activity and the provision of prevention advice to members of the Inuit community concerning, among other things, how to report threats and harassing behaviour to authorities in a confidential manner.”

“With all the issues that we’re facing, it is not just one person’s job or one organization’s job to tackle the issues that we’re facing at the moment,” said Hilda Snowball, chairperson of the Kativik Regional Government.

Larose summarized the series of events that led to the police initiative.

“In May 2024, members of a criminal group from southern Quebec smuggled drugs and alcohol into the village of Akulivik.”

These groups, which were not named by the police, “attempted to recruit Inuit vendors and mules to transport illegal goods to Nunavik and Montreal,” continued Chief Larose, indicating that the mules and vendors were mainly young women.

“Majority of them are Inuit women and with the intimidation that are happening, it’s also the vulnerable people, for example, elders as well,” said Snowball.

And then, in July, a “similar situation occurred in Salluit,” a village located at the northern tip of Nunavik.

“Searches and seizures of contraband alcohol and drugs were then carried out by our integrated investigation and police operations team.”

But in response to these operations, the criminals have “retaliated so far,” the police chief added.

“In Montreal, for example, they intimidate, threaten, and assault Inuit so that they remain silent and do not identify them,” he said.

The head of public security on the executive committee of the City of Montreal, Alain Vaillancourt, said that the initiative “is in line with our desire to work closely with our partners, from the urban environment and Indigenous governments, to develop projects, adopt policies and offer services adapted to the needs of Montreal’s Indigenous communities.”

-This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews

-With files from CityNews