Due to a lack of recurring funding, the listening service of Interligne — formerly Gai Listening — will no longer be offered at night as of March 31. To make him aware of the importance of the resource, the organization is launching an advertising campaign on Wednesday inviting its users and allies to leave messages on Premier François Legault’s voicemail, “to remind him that the night saves lives”.
Interligne had announced last fall that in the absence of an increase in its government funding, which is experiencing a historic delay, it would no longer be able to respond to nocturnal distress calls from its customers. A recurring sum of $300,000 would be necessary to ensure the survival of the service between midnight and 8 am.
“The goal is to save the night service and allow our organization to offer decent working conditions. Our wages are barely higher than the minimum wage, which will soon increase at least from May”, indicates Pascal Vaillancourt, general manager of Interligne.
Otherwise accessible 24 hours a day, an average of 35,000 calls are made annually to the Interligne listening and referral line; of the number, about a third are carried out at night, the organization indicates.
A service that he considers vital and essential, especially since the calls made in the middle of the night are more “intense”, according to Mr. Vaillancourt.
“These are distress calls, sometimes suicidal, from people who suffer from anxiety and isolation, explains the general manager. At night, it’s also a more intimate moment, we have people who take advantage of the fact that others are sleeping to call us. »
Vulnerable clientele
This request is all the more essential since Interligne’s specialized line is the only one of its kind in Quebec and Canada, a resource of which we should be proud and which we should seek to protect at all costs, believes Mr. Vaillancourt. .
“Our workers are specially trained for the issues of the LGBTQ+ community,” continues the general manager. There are of course other crisis lines, but since they generally support the heterosexual and cisgender population, there is an opportunity to offer support while committing microaggressions, for example by misgendering someone . »
What’s more, the LGBTQ+ clientele is more vulnerable than others; in particular, they are more prey to mental health problems, to have suicidal thoughts, to develop a drug addiction problem or to experience homelessness, underlines Mr. Vaillancourt.
“The reason for this preponderance is simple: even if the mentalities have advanced, the members of the community still experience stress faced with the acceptance of their identity or the prospect of revealing it; they are victims of intimidation or fear of experiencing violence”, enumerates the director.
Call to leadership
The voice message strategy, to which a poster campaign will be added, among other things, is a reminder of the unsuccessful steps taken by the organization to see its funding adjusted to its current needs.
“We really liked to take up the concept of forwarding calls, as ours to the government have remained unanswered, illustrates Mr. Vaillancourt. What we want is for the Prime Minister to see the importance of a service that is truly adapted to LGBTQ+ communities. So we invite people to wake up Mr. Legault.
“The government has already hinted that our resource was not a mental health service, which is what we do,” he continues. We would like our government to show leadership. »
This dispatch was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta Exchange and The Canadian Press for the news.