Not in my backyard

A significant number of residents of Villeray, part of a Montreal borrough in the north of the city, don’t want Inuit patients in their neighbourhood. Reacting to provincial government plans to turn a vacant hospital into a treatment centre for 150 Inuit natives from the northern reaches of the province, a flyer was distributed to homes warning of “imminent danger” in the form of increased crime and prostitution should the Inuit patients be brought in. “There is a primary school, a high school and several kindergartens in the area,” says resident Nicholas Polyzos. “Why put the centre here? Just because they have a vacant hospital?” For her part, Jeannie May, head of Inuit health and social services agency, says the neighbours are confusing Inuit with homeless natives. “Most of the patients arriving in Montreal aren’t in very good health, and aren’t in shape to run around the city and party,” she says.

La Presse