POLICE TOLD TO CUT SOUTHERN DRUG OPERATIONS

"We shouldn't be extending ourselves. We should be focusing on the
villages"

The Kativik Regional Government wants the Kativik Regional Police
Force to scale back its southern drug-fighting operations to cut costs.

"That's the bottom line for us," said Michael Gordon, the former mayor
of Kuujjuaq who is now the KRG's vice-chairman and member of the
executive council. "There isn't enough money. We shouldn't be
extending ourselves. We should be focusing in on the villages."

Gordon said the KRG wants to see "less preoccupation with operations
in the South, more work within Nunavik" from its police force.

The quality of policing in Nunavik won't be affected, he said, and
could actually improve, as the KRPF devotes more travel time to local
destinations, boosts its visibility in communities, and directs
additional resources to the region.

The KRPF's accumulated deficit now stands at about $3.5 million, and
Gordon said the KRG doesn't want it ballooning to the size of the $60
million deficit of Nunavik's Inuulitsivik health board.

"If you don't deal with it now, you have to deal with it later and it
gets worse," Gordon said.

Last May, the KRPF was heavily involved in "Project Crystal." This
project, overseen by the Montreal-based Aboriginal Combined Forces
Special Enforcement Unit, broke a drug network in Nunavik and Nunavut,
and led to the arrest of 45 men and women in Montreal and the North
and the seizure of drugs, arms and property.

"We're not really mandated to go there and work on those projects [in
the South]," Gordon said. "It's kind of a grey zone. With the
financial difficulties, we have to cut back to the basics."

But police in the South say the KRPF's involvement in drug operations
doesn't bear any direct costs: that's because the Montreal-based
Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit covers the entire costs of
staff delegated to work with them in Montreal.

The only cost attached is for freeing up police in Nunavik to work on
drug-related investigations or seizures.

"Their collaboration is essential," said Capt. Yves Trudel, who heads
the unit.

Trudel said stopping the KRPF's involvement in southern drug-fighting
operations with the aboriginal unit will leave the door wide open for
organized crime to set up shop in Nunavik.

"The improvements in communication and travel mean the drug trade is
much larger today than it previously was, and organized crime works
closely with many traffickers in northern Quebec. It's very lucrative,
because they can sell for three times the price, and it doesn't cost
them much or implicate them closely because they can use human
couriers or send it by mail," Trudel said.

Without the KRPF's involvement in drug-fighting operations,
Nunavimmiut are likely to see more gangs coming directly into the
region to sell drugs. Earlier this year, police arrested a man with
links to a Jamaican gang in a Nunavik community, who had marijuana,
crack cocaine and a sizeable quantity of money in his possession.

At least once community is reporting traffic in Ecstasy, another drug
with potentially harmful effects.

Last September, the KRG's regional council passed a resolution asking
the governments to find more money for the KRPF, so police could place
more emphasis on prevention and reinforce new municipal bylaws. When
that money didn't come through, the regional council asked police to
cut costs by stopping involvement in the Combined Forces Special
Enforcement Unit and to focus more on community policing.

The KRG says it wants the force to closely respect the mandate,
spelled out in the most recent policing agreement with the federal and
provincial governments. This says the KRPF is charged with
"maintaining the peace, order and public security in Nunavik, of
preventing and suppressing crime and violations of the laws and the
by-laws."

The KRPF say cutting drug operations in the South isn't the way to
save money or fight crime because southern Quebec is the main pipeline
for narcotics into Nunavik; possession of drugs and trafficking are
crimes; and they are the biggest cause of social problems, unrest and
poverty in the region.

Police say it's nearly impossible to maintain basic services, increase
prevention activities and keep expenses down when violent crime is
increasing and the nature of crime is changing.

The KRPF's annual budget is about $10 million, although crime has
doubled since 1998, when the last policing agreement was signed.

Other unforeseen factors also cause the KRPF to be chronically
under-funded.

These include a high staff turnover rate, lukewarm interest from Inuit
in becoming police officers, housing needs for non-Inuit police,
rental costs for their new police stations, rising costs for
search-and-rescue operations and fuel, and the call from communities
for more police intervention.

At it stands now, the KRPF provides relatively inexpensive policing to
Nunavik. To supply the same services, the Brete du Quebec provincial police
force would cost at least twice as much.