I've spent the last couple hours trying to write a post responding to the recent Maclean's article naming Regina's North-Central neighbourhood as the worst in Canada. But I don't know how do to it.
So instead, here is a painting I bought from a former North Central resident who came around my old office to visit my boss for a few weeks in mid-2005.
He died about two weeks after I bought this painting from him. During one of his last visits, he told my boss and I that he was going to go to Moose Jaw to
enter rehab with a friend. He said he had to leave the city since the treatment in Regina wasn't really rehab
at all when you were so close to all of your known demons – human and otherwise.
Comments 8
i love regina, and haven't been to any bad neighbourhoods in any large cities like vancouver or toronto but am i the only one that doesn't find it hard to believe that regina's north central is the worst in canada. for a city of reginas size its frightening how prevalent hard drugs, gangs, prostitution, and murder are.
obviously there are exceptions, including the artist of the painting above, and im sure that there is truly a great effort to clean up the neighbourhood. however, instead of crying fowl to macleans, maybe more should be done to improve the image of regina.
I admit that I haven't walked around North Central at night (though I did visit the Albert branch library there in the evening after dark recently) but I find it hard to believe that it could be as scary as the worst neighbourhoods in Toronto or Vancouver or even Calgary (aka “Saskatchewan's third largest city”) or Edmonton.
Well, the artist above was as much part of the problems we're talking about – drugs, poverty, etc. – as anyone so he doesn't get an exception in my mind. But at least he had an outlet – something so many don't have. And he still ended up dead which is incredibly tragic.
Instead of improving the image of Regina (which is Pat Fiacco's big push with the “I love Regina” campaign), I think Regina needs to seriously address the root causes of the problems that make North Central what it is – poverty, unemployment, drugs, gangs, isolation, lack of community services, etc. etc.
If those things were addressed, maybe instead of being dead, the artist would still be selling his paintings.
(By the way, it's a weird coincidence to click through to your blog and see that your accent was defined as “North Central” in some online poll you filled out!)
Thanks for posting!
i just finished reading the article and found nothing about it surprising. i have witnessed most of the things in the article first hand, but in the small communities of abernethy(population 213) and balcarres(population roughly 600) which make it even more believable for a city like regina. i have seen people scouring garbage dumps, abandoned houses, and even stealing old appliances to scavenge the copper wires to melt down and sell(presumably to fuel a drug or alcohol addiction). ive witnessed a former friends aunt pay the village drunk 24 beer to babysit her small children while she went to get stoned. i caught people using syringes in the bathroom of the bar i worked in to shoot up drugs, and heard them trying to convince another person to get them new syringes from the vet because the local pharmacist wouldn't sell them to them anymore. ive also seen the aftermath of people driving a car through the bars exterior wall so they could break in to steal liquor, and smokes. while having drinks in the bar one night a group of men were showing off their M-16 in the parking lot that they kept in their truck, and an aquaintance had a gun pulled on him while checking cattle in a pasture that he rented on a near by indian reserve.
again, these are all things that occured in two communities with a total population less than 1000 only 1 hour from regina. for the people that think north central reginas reputation is undeserved, get your heads out of your asses.
You're right. These types of things (crime, drugs, child abuse) happen in every Canadian community – from Toronto to Abernethy – and all sizes in between.
So people who are taking issue with the Maclean's article are at least partly taking issue with them sensationalizing something like this just to sell magazines. And Regina, a small prairie city, makes a good target since, even if everybody in the city decides to cancel their Maclean's subscription, that's no worse than losing the subscribers in one day of Toronto's morning commute.
I mean, unless Maclean's did a formal study and rated various cities on the basis of crime, income, housing prices, etc. then maybe picking “Canada's Worst Neighbourhood” is meaningless (again, other than to sell magazines.)
They don't have to paint a rosy picture because it's not. But making it sound worse than it is, isn't helping anyone either. It gives Saskatchewan's racists an excuse to trot out all kinds of stereotypes about First Nations people and it makes the job of people trying to change the neighbourhood even harder.
I've never personally been to Regina, but I can't imagine it's any worse than any other urban center. My neighbourhood in Hamilton is going down the shitter and there have always been places in the Hammer where you wouldn't hang out at night, alone. Toronto is just as bad, when I was taking classes in that fair city, my coffee break at the 2nd Cup was right beside the local methadone clinic.
Every city, as has been reiterated by others here, has its “bad” parts, and I think you make a very valid point about looking at the root of the problem. I know that Vancouver has been doing work with Harm Reducation strategies, which is a start. We need to try and give people more options in life, and dealing with poverty in a more constructive manner, is the only logical place to begin.
Thanks for your comment on my blog, Jason. I agree that formulating a response to the article was difficult, and I appreciate you sharing the painting with us.
I do indeed work at RPL, and am in the beginning stages of my MLIS via correspondence.
We have an opening for a reference librarian – have you applied?
“Dealing with poverty is a more constructive manner is the only logical place to begin.” Exactly.
Hey there,
Where are you doing the MLIS through? I don't know any Canadian schools that have a correspondence option so I assume it's somewhere in the States? How are you finding it so far?
Thanks for the tip on the RPL job. I will indeed be applying!
Cheers,
Jason