The life of a paramedic comes full circle

REGINA — When Emile Gariepy arrives at work each day at Regina’s Wâhkôhtowin Harm Reduction Centre, he doesn’t see homeless people or addicts — he sees people. Gariepy manages the operations of the centre’s safe consumption site and is one of two full-time paramedics in the province dedicated to providing harm reduction services to clients. “The people who come into our centre every day are using drugs,” Gariepy says, “and yes, they are addicted. Many of them are living on the streets. But they are people first.”

Gariepy’s empathy has an authenticity that is rooted in his personal history. His journey to working at Wâhkôhtowin Harm Reduction Centre began long before he earned his qualification as a primary care paramedic at Saskatchewan Polytechnic. Going back to his childhood, Gariepy experienced the family trauma that many of the people he now helps share.

“I don’t mind talking about my past,” says Gariepy, when asked about his career path. “I was addicted for a long time and homeless for six years. I used drugs from the age of 14. It wasn’t an easy life.”

Gariepy, who was born in Ontario but moved around as part of a military family, arrived in Regina at age 12, where he was taken from an abusive home by his mother and dropped off with relatives. “It was an unpleasant shock,” Gariepy recalled. “I had to get away from my father, but moving from Vancouver Island to Regina wasn’t easy. My life became a pattern of trauma and addiction — it’s a familiar story.”

Gariepy was soon jumping on freight trains and moving from place to place, leading an increasingly difficult existence. “It wasn’t until I found out I was going to be a father that I really felt motivated to get my life together,” he says. An overdose near the end of his addiction was the final push he needed. “It was extremely traumatic,” he recalls. “In the hospital I said, ‘I’m never going to do drugs again.'”

Gariepy explains that one of the hardest things about getting sober is cutting off friends: “I knew I didn’t want to go back to that life, but it’s hard to leave people behind. Your friends on the street are like your family: they might rob you, but at the same time they’re there for you through all the hard times. I spent three months in the woods with my real family when I started recovery and that gave me the space I needed to break the cycle.”

Once he was on his feet, Gariepy enrolled in the Adult 10 program at Sask Polytech (then known as SIAST), where he found a new support network of faculty and staff. “Some of them have always stuck with me,” he says. “I had an English teacher who went above and beyond and really helped me and other students through a lot. I had some learning challenges and my teachers went out of their way to help me, giving me extra time when I needed it.”

Gariepy worked in construction for a few years after graduating. “I got tired of it and joined the military looking for a more career-oriented job,” he says. “The Canadian Forces recruitment office told me I had to take an aptitude test if I wanted to be a weapons technician and advised me to study for it. I didn’t do it and failed. I knew I needed more training, so I went back to Sask Polytech to do my Adult 12.”

After graduating from high school, Gariepy met with a career counselor on the Regina campus to assess his strengths and interests. She questioned whether he really wanted a military career and suggested becoming a paramedic, which could lead to a stable career with less travel to get away from his daughter.

Gariepy enrolled in the Primary Care Paramedic program at the Regina campus. “It was really challenging to take such an intensive course,” he recalls. “My whole life up until that point I had been seen as a failure, a dropout, and not a good person. But I got good grades and kept improving. The professors at Sask Polytech are great. The paramedic program is fast-paced and the work can be stressful – not for someone who can’t handle the pressure. But they believed in me and I realized I could do it.”

Gariepy graduated in 2017 and began working full-time on an ambulance, honing the skills he now uses every day to save lives. Four years into his new career, he got a call from a social worker telling him that a mutual friend was planning to open a harm reduction site. They connected, and Gariepy decided to join him. Together, they opened the Wâhkôhtowin Centre, Canada’s only Indigenous-led harm reduction and safe consumption site. “We’re a little different,” Gariepy explains. “We help prevent overdoses by supporting people who are using drugs under the supervision of a primary care provider. I have seven part-time counselors who staff the centre on the weekends. We focus on harm reduction, but we’re also there as a resource to help people learn and recover when they’re ready.”

“People often say they don’t understand what the point of safe consumption spaces is,” he adds. “I tell them, ‘We’re not enabling people. We’re giving them a seat belt so they’re a little bit safer than if they were using alone.’ What people don’t see is that the person who comes in to use might one day decide to make a change.”

When asked if he’s worried about exposing himself to a lifestyle he’s worked so hard to break away from, Gariepy doesn’t hesitate. “I know what it feels like to wake up feeling bad,” he says, “and I also know what it feels like to wake up feeling good. I like being a positive role model for my daughter.”

“Society needs to look at the root causes of addiction. Mental health plays a huge role and I’ve come a long way in figuring out what I needed to do to get my own mental health in good shape. I’ve worked through my own family trauma. My dad’s been sober for a while now and I’ve forgiven him. But I had to work through my own situation first.”

Gariepy notes that fulfilling work can have a significant positive impact on mental health and well-being. “When you wake up in the morning and you’re excited to go to work, you’ve found the right career,” he says. “For me, this isn’t just a job or a paycheck, it’s a purpose. This is healthy work that I feel good about. I love this place. I can’t imagine not having it in my life.”

“How many times can most people say they’ve saved a life?” Gariepy asks. “Being a paramedic is a rewarding career, especially in the harm reduction field. There’s a diversity and unpredictability in what each day will look like. That’s exciting and makes me happy.”

“This work isn’t easy though. We can’t get funding to stay open as long as we know we have to, and seeing people suffer or lose takes its toll. We have to keep changing people’s minds, convincing them that what we’re doing here is important.”

Gariepy loves change, and attributes it to his restless nature and his ADHD. While he doesn’t know where his life and career will take him, he knows he will always be connected to Wâhkôhtowin, the center he helped build from the ground up. Most importantly, his connection to the people. “I know them,” Gariepy says. “I know them as people, and I care about them.”

For more information about Sask Polytech’s Primary Care Paramedic program, please visit our website: Primary Care Paramedic (saskpolytech.ca)

For more information about Adult 10 and 12 at Sask Polytech, visit our website: Literacy and Adult Education (saskpolytech.ca)

— Submitted by Sask Polytech Media Relations