DRUG INFLUX WORRIES CHIEF

The chief of a remote Northwestern Ontario aboriginal community says
drug dealers will continue to have the upper hand until a regular
police presence is re-established on his reserve and others like it.

"The drugs have been coming in for a long time," North Spirit Lake
First Nation Chief Isaac Linklater said Friday.

"The police really should get on it, because it's hurting our children."

North Spirit Lake, home to 300 Oji-Cree an hour's plane ride
northwest of Sioux Lookout, hasn't had police constables posted there
since the reserve's police office burned down two years ago.

Linklater said drug carriers routinely bring in drugs from Manitoba by plane.

"Every welfare day, a drug dealer comes in," Linklater said.

"It's not just happening here -- it's all around us (at other remote
reserves)."

Police did make an arrest this week, apprehending a 20-year-old North
Spirit man who allegedly was caught with more than $6,000 worth of
crack cocaine and marijuana.

The man was to have appeared for a bail hearing Friday in Kenora.

But Insp. Rob Davis of Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service said a constant
police presence on North Spirit won't likely be in place until some
time next year.

Modular police offices equipped with jail cells and interview rooms
have been ordered and will be transported to North Spirit and other
reserves in need of them as soon as seasonal winter roads are up and
running, said Davis.

"We have a lot of dilapidated buildings that will be replaced as soon
as the roads are ready," said Davis, who is based in Sioux Lookout.
Davis said it's not safe for police officers to reside in a remote
community unless they have access to a holding cell.

Having an officer living in a native community won't eliminate drug
problems, but it should serve as a deterrent, Davis added.

For Linklater, having an officer based on his reserve can't come soon enough.

He said he has heard of cases in which residents have sold their
furniture in order to buy drugs.