'People are broken': Innu social worker says Angela Gregoire story a familiar one

A social worker and health director in Sheshatshiu, Labrador says the story of Angela and Pierre Gregoire and their struggles with abandonment and addictionis a common one in his community.

"People are broken sometimes it's hard for people to be fixed," said Jack Penashue.

To understand the cycle of trauma, Penashue said, you have to know the history of Sheshatshiu, an Innu community settled in the early 1960sagainst the will of the people who would live there.

It's the town whereAngela Gregoirelives, and was home for a time to her son, Pierre, who overdosed and died in a KFC washroom in Toronto in February. He was 28.

"Remembering the beautiful babyI had. It's like a picture that will never be away from my heart,"Gregorietold CBC News, fighting to talk through her tears."My sonwill always be my boy."

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According to Angela Gregoire, there were many parallels between her son's life and her own.

Both were removed from their biological families at an early age and lived in foster care in Quebec. Both battled the demons of drug addiction.

Pierre's time in care was happy and loving while Angela was neglected, but both struggled with the scars left from feeling abandoned as children.

"He was so mad at me. He told me, 'Mom how come you left me?'" Gregoire remembered her son saying when she went back to Sheshatshiu, leaving three-year-old Pierrewith a family near Montreal.

"That was the biggest mistake of my life."

Three generations of trauma

Jack Penashuehas seen this before. He's lived it. And now in his job with the Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation, he tries to help other people break the cycle.

"Safe to say there is like three generations of people who have been involved in the system from day one. Their children are involved, their grandchildren are involved."

I didn't realize the trauma that he also went through. When I heard his stories, it made a lot of sense.- Jack Penashue, talking about his father

Penashue said many elders in Sheshatshiu remember growing up in "nutshimit" the country. He describes the time as "egalitarian,"no personal property, everyone working toward common goals.

Adapting to life in Sheshatshiu was gruelling, he said. Daily routines were erased, Catholicism and formal education were introducedincluding residential school and the Sixties Scoop.

And for the first time, the Innu encountered alcohol.

Penashue said his parents and many others turned to booze to cope with the upheaval. For his father, that included astay at the notorious Mount Cashelorphanage in St. John's.

"If my father was alive, he would tell you the story of what he did to me," Penashue said.

"I had to confront him about that I didn't realize the trauma that he also went through. When I heard his stories, it made a lot of sense."

Penashue said his own drinking had become a problem by the time he was in his early 20s.

"I've broken away from that idea of abuse,but there's still young men like Iam that are still in that system,that trauma. That's unfair, but that's how it is."

Even now 30 years laterhe said, staying sober takes work.

Penashue said the community is trying to help families improve their parenting skills.It's hired social workers and has a group home and transition home for youth who do not have family support.

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He said there are about 50 families in Sheshatshiu who foster children, but many other young peopleare still removed from the community.

"That is also unsafe, in my eyes, because you are removing them from what they feel comfortable."

Treating parents for alcohol addiction is important, Penashue said, along with using models that tap into the strengths of Innuculture.

"There's other ways of doing it why can't you do counselling, or develop models out there in the country?" he asked.

"It doesn't have to be hopeless."