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They sat around a couple of folding tables pushed together in a cavernous room with Brown and Marin at the head. Each participant spoke for a minute or two. Drouin’s message was closest to Marin’s: he complained about street prostitution and the criminality he and his wife witness on Sunday afternoons after church, the likes of which people who don’t live in Vanier wouldn’t believe. Vanier is treated like the “bastard child” of Ottawa, he said, and he’s tired of it.

But the recurring theme was that young people need opportunity. Education, mentoring, productive things to do, chances to learn and to prove themselves.

“You’ve got to give them that power,” Bahdon said. “When they graduate from university, or they graduate from high school, there’s no future for them. Their parents live on assistance … There has to be something that the youth have to look forward to.”

No doubt Brown and Marin are keen on youth employment. But they talked about gunfire.

“As of today, Ottawa has experienced 57 shootings. It’s the highest ever. When you have a number like that — not just in Vanier, but you can see a disproportionate amount of shootings in Vanier — we have to look at this, we have to have this conversation,” Brown said.

We have to tackle serious crime before we can move onto more minor matters, Marin agreed. “A fish rots from the head,” he said.

They were flanked by placards the party had made up, plotting each of the 57 incidents this year (some in which people have been hit, some not) on a map of Ottawa. None of them has been in Vanier.