Native Harm Reduction Montreal
Manifesto
We are Indigenous-led. We are community-rooted. We are here to keep our people alive.
Native Harm Reduction Montreal exists because our people deserve care that is honest, culturally grounded, and free from judgment. We work with Indigenous people who use drugs in Montréal, in nearby Nations, and across community networks, because the overdose crisis is not abstract to us. It is personal. It is present. It is claiming lives in our families, among our friends, and throughout our communities.
We believe harm reduction is not new to our people. Long before institutions gave it a name, our Nations practiced care through kinship, mutual responsibility, survival knowledge, and the understanding that every life carries dignity. Harm reduction, for us, is not a trend or a policy framework. It is an extension of Indigenous responsibility to one another.
We reject shame as a tool. We reject criminalization as care. We reject systems that speak about our people without listening to us, studying us without serving us, and responding to crisis with surveillance, punishment, or bureaucracy. Substance use cannot be separated from trauma, colonization, displacement, poverty, grief, and survival. Our work begins from that truth.
We are committed to meeting people where they are, not where outside systems think they should be. We bring naloxone, safer-use knowledge, peer support, resources, and honest conversation directly into the places where people live and survive. We believe trust is built person by person, conversation by conversation, relationship by relationship.
We honour the sovereignty, governance, teachings, and protocols of every Nation and community we enter. Even as Indigenous people ourselves, we do not assume sameness. We do not impose. We listen first. We ask. We move with humility. We follow community direction, because meaningful care cannot exist without respect.
We believe culture is medicine. Language is medicine. Storytelling is medicine. Ceremony, land, art, music, and Indigenous creativity all carry life-saving power. Harm reduction is not limited to supplies and emergency response. It also includes belonging, expression, memory, connection, and the rebuilding of dignity where stigma has tried to erase it.
We also believe visibility matters. Too much of what is happening to Indigenous people in the overdose crisis remains unseen, misnamed, or filtered through institutional language that strips away truth. We use media, art, storytelling, and Indigenous networks to make the crisis visible in ways that centre our voices, our experiences, and our realities.
We do not extract stories. We do not take knowledge. We do not build our work on spectacle, pity, or performance. We build through relationship. We work alongside youth, Elders, families, frontline workers, artists, organizers, and community partners. We move at the pace trust requires.
We are here to strengthen Indigenous responses to the overdose crisis across communities and across Nations. We share knowledge. We build capacity. We support one another. We create space for honesty. We connect people to tools that save lives. And we do this with the understanding that Indigenous people must be able to define care for ourselves.
Our commitment is simple:
to keep our people alive,
to keep our communities informed,
to protect dignity,
to honour sovereignty,
and to make sure no one is left behind in silence, stigma, or shame.
Native Harm Reduction Montreal
Rules of Practice
These rules translate our values into action. They are for team members, volunteers, collaborators, media contributors, and partner organizations.
1. Community comes first.
We respond to what community members actually say they need. We do not assume, prescribe, or impose.
2. We listen before we act.
Every Nation, family, and person has their own realities, teachings, and ways of doing things. Listening is the beginning of all good work.
3. We respect Nation-specific governance and protocols.
We do not enter communities as experts over them. We follow local leadership, local knowledge, and local cultural direction.
4. We tell the truth plainly.
We do not sugar-coat the overdose crisis. We do not hide realities. We speak with clarity because trust depends on honesty.
5. We do not judge people for using substances.
There is no moralizing in this work. People are treated with dignity, compassion, and respect at all times.
6. We recognize substance use in its full context.
We understand that substance use is connected to trauma, colonization, displacement, grief, and survival. Our responses must reflect that truth.
7. Harm reduction is not separate from Indigenous teachings.
We carry forward traditions of care, kinship, mutual aid, and responsibility. Modern tools and cultural knowledge belong together.
8. Naloxone and safer-use tools save lives.
We support access to practical harm-reduction supplies and accurate information without shame or gatekeeping.
9. Culture is part of harm reduction.
Ceremony, language, art, land-based practices, and storytelling are not extras. They are part of survival, healing, and reconnection.
10. Creativity is a valid way to reach people.
Media, music, visual art, and collaborative storytelling are legitimate tools for awareness, pride, and connection.
11. We build relationships, not extraction pipelines.
We do not take stories, images, or knowledge from people or communities for our own gain. We ask permission, give context, and prioritize reciprocity.
12. We protect dignity in all representations.
No person’s story is used to create pity, spectacle, or institutional branding. Indigenous people are not case studies. They are relatives, community members, and knowledge holders.
13. We move at the speed of trust.
We do not rush community relationships for deadlines, optics, funding pressure, or outside expectations.
14. We work alongside, not above.
Youth, Elders, peers, frontline workers, artists, and organizers all hold valuable knowledge. We collaborate horizontally whenever possible.
15. We centre Indigenous voices in public communication.
When we speak publicly about the crisis, we do so in ways that foreground Indigenous experience, Indigenous language, and Indigenous realities.
16. We challenge stigma wherever we find it.
Whether it appears in institutions, media, policy, community discourse, or service systems, we push back against language and practices that dehumanize our people.
17. We share knowledge to build capacity.
Our work is not just service delivery. It is also about helping communities strengthen their own responses, structures, and local leadership.
18. We support Indigenous self-determination in harm reduction.
Communities must be free to shape responses that fit their own voice, culture, and reality.
19. We stay accountable to the people, not only the funders.
Growth, funding, and visibility matter only if they strengthen real community care and remain aligned with Indigenous values.
20. Our purpose is to keep people alive and connected.
Everything we do should move toward safety, relationship, dignity, and survival. If it does not serve that purpose, we reconsider it.
