La Loche will need years to heal from high school shooting: NDP MP

It has been more than a month since a shooter killed four people and woundedseven others in La Loche, Sask., but the community's former mayor and current MP knows the healing process is only beginning.

It is going to take years to heal from this incident, Georgina Jolibois said Thursday in a wide-ranging interview with The CanadianPress.

Jolibois, who served as mayor of the northern Saskatchewan community for 12 years, said she wants people to treat this as a national tragedy.

"This is a Canadian experience," she said. "It is a horrific tragedy, it is a painful tragedy. It affects me, it affects you, it affects all of Canada."

Joliboiswas at her home on Jan. 22 when she learned aboutthe shootingat the nearby school she had attendedyears earlier.

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"I was outside the high school and then what I saw and what I heard ...I was shocked as well as the whole community," she said. "Even ... grown men, local fire department, they were in tears. They were in shock with what they had witnessed inside the school."

StudentsinLa Loche will this week return to the classesfor the first time since theshooting, which killed a teacher anda teacher's assistant.Two teenage brothers wereshot dead in a nearby home.

Jolibois said she wants to make sure this isn't treated as a "La Loche issue."

"Itjust so happened that it happened at home," she said. "I hope no one ever has to live through this kind of experience again."

'Iam hoping... both levels of government willkeep their promises to the community of LaLocheand to the reserve ClearwaterDeneNation, because it is a complex issue.'- NDP MPGeorginaJolibois

One of the major challenges for the community has been a lack of Dene-speaking therapists who can work withthe community.

"We are Dene people. The kids, the youth, the people, the families, including I, speak Dene," she said. "The help that was brought in ... mental health and other service providers that came in ... they don't speak the language."

Both the Saskatchewan government and the federal government have promised to support the community, Jolibois added.

"It is going to be interesting," she said."Iam hoping... both levels of government willkeep their promises to the community of La Loche and to the reserve Clearwater Dene Nationbecause it is a complex issue."

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Joliboisis also waiting to see if the Liberal government follows throughon its overarching promise of a nation-to-nation relationship with Aboriginal Peoples.

She knows she's not alone.

"It would be really sad if they didn't follow through with a number of things ... because a lot of people are hoping for change and improvements in First Nations and aboriginal communities," she said.

Part of being an MP will involve giving a voice to struggling communities like La Loche, she said.

"I wanted to take my dream to a higher level," she said. "Why in Ottawa? Because it is not just ... La Loche ... with the significant social problems that we have. At the national level, it has to have ... attention."