Both women were staying at the Ullivik health center after traveling south from northern Inuit communities. Mary Ninguik is from a village of only a few hundred people and traveled to Montreal to give birth. She also lives in Ullivik and was saddened to hear that 22-year-old Mary-Jane Tulugak from Puvirnituq and 26-year-old Nellie Niviaxie from Umiujaq were killed on two separate highways in the early hours of Friday and Saturday respectively. “I found out about it, the first (Tulugak). I knew her and she was younger than me and I’ve known her since I was maybe 12 or 13,” Ninguik said. CTV News reached out to Ullivik for answers, but was directed to the Nunavik Regional Health and Social Services Board (NRHBHSS). “Although isolated, each case is extremely traumatic for all involved,” said health board spokesman Steve Kelly. “The circumstances seem very similar to the first one, someone residing in Ullivik very temporarily.” Kelly said Niviaxie was accompanying someone receiving care. This is not the first time that a person staying at Ullivik has gone missing while staying at the facility. In April, a man who lived there was killed by a train on nearby tracks, and in 2018 a woman was struck and killed by a truck a few blocks away. Neither was ruled a crime by the police. Most residents in Ullivik are from small northern communities and face a very different reality when they come south to Ullivik on the side of a major highway in the Montreal suburb of Dorval. “It’s different in the village,” said Suvaki Tooktoo. “There’s no traffic… There’s no parking space or anything, no shops.” Sources with knowledge of Montreal’s Inuit community told CTV News they are concerned about the lack of coordination and services provided at the centre. The health authority said that staying in Ullivik is like staying in a hotel and that they cannot force them to stay inside or monitor their activities. “It’s just like anyone else staying in a hotel or staying in nearby areas,” Kelly said. “We don’t have control over their coming and going. We’ve tried to make them aware of being down south, staying in Montreal, the dangers, so on and so forth, not only in terms of traffic, but only the difficulties in Montreal coming from a northern community.” A spokesman for Quebec Indigenous Affairs Minister Ian Lafrenier said he had spoken with people at the Nunavik health board. “I am reassured by the follow-up that will be done directly with Ullivik,” spokesman Mathieu Durocher said in an email.
