For many Canadians, suicide is a tragic event read about in the news or heard about third hand – for most it is something that happens to other people.
For aboriginal Canadians, suicide is an all too common fact of life. It is a horror that has touched nearly every individual or family directly. Walk up to any First Nation, Metis or Inuit person across the country and ask if they know a person who has committed suicide and the answer will likely be yes.
According to statistics Canada, the suicide rate among First Nation males is more than five times higher than the national average – 1.5 times for First Nation women. For Inuit people, the rate is a staggering 11 times the national average.
It is not surprising then that a recent report indicates that one-fifth of First Nation people living off reserve have contemplated suicide about double the rest of the population. We expect had those stats included those living on reserve the results would be even more skewed.
In Nunavut, suicide has reached near epidemic proportions. In the territory of only 36,000 people 471 Inuit have taken their own lives since 1999 – when it divided from the Northwest Territories. Not a single Inuit family in Nunavut has been spared the pain suffered by suicide survivors.
Reports such as these are not new. Unfortunately they no longer even represent much shock value as report after report is issued each year demonstrating the same trends.
Governments express the need to help and a litany of causes is cited like some macabre laundry list. Residential schools, social problems, low education, racism, isolation and in most cases a combination of all those factors have contributed to the continuously high body counts.
Each study and each cause is followed by an equally long list of action statements, from improving education, implementing better treatment programs, money for cultural programs and the list goes on.
Ultimately every conference, study and recommendation amounts to little more than lip service. For more than a decade there has been a focus on suicide rates among aboriginal people. For more than a decade the rates have seen no significant improvement.
According to the Conference Board of Canada, in 2011 Alberta ranked 10th in a list of all provinces and territories for its aboriginal suicide rate. The province was also criticized back in November for failing to move on recommendations to prevent suicide deaths of aboriginal teens in its care. Those recommendations were made 30 years ago after an aboriginal teen took his life in 1984 while in government care. Between 1999 and 2013, 14 more aboriginal teens in Alberta care killed themselves.
If a single jurisdiction refuses to address problems with its own system, it is hard to imagine how we can expect a nationwide strategy to help address a chronic problem in the general population.
Canada’s failure as a whole to address the suicide problem among aboriginal people is a black mark this nation should wear with shame and the knowledge that it has not failed to act but refused to.
