13 April 2016•Update: 22 April 2016
By Barry Ellsworth
TRENTON, Ont.
Federal and provincial Cabinet ministers are expected on Wednesday to fly to the small reserve of Attawapiskat to investigate a suicide crisis that has unfolded in the remote Canadian indigenous community.
As well, 18 health and mental health workers and additional police were dispatched as the town of 2,000 faces “suicide contagion” after 11 people attempted suicide Saturday and earlier this week two separate suicide pacts were uncovered that included 15 youth in total, including a 9-year-old.
Attawapiskat Chief Bruce Shisheesh had declared a state of emergency and the House of Commons convened late Tuesday in a special session to discuss the crisis.
During the session, federal Minister of Health Dr. Jane Philpott said the conditions faced by indigenous communities – a lack of housing, chronic unemployment, drug and alcohol abuse and remote locations often in the Arctic Circle – all contributed to a sense of hopelessness particularly among youth and are “absolutely unacceptable".
“When I think that there are communities in our country where … young people in groups are deciding that there is no hope for their future, we must do better, we have to find a way to go forward,” Philpott said.
Prior to the one declared on the weekend, Attawapiskat has faced numerous states of emergency in the last decade.
In 2013, a “substandard infrastructure” contributed to rising sewage and flooding that forced the evacuation of the local hospital and the closure of the school.
In 2011, a severe housing shortage forced a number of families to live in tents and unheated trailers, some with no access to running water and electricity.
Community residents said some of those conditions still exist and Philpott said the government must do more than throw money at the problem.
“We are currently investing $300 million per year into mental wellness programs in these [indigenous] communities,” she said.
But Charlie Angus, the Member of Parliament who represents the Attawapiskat area, said during the emergency House of Commons session that there must be no more Band-Aid solutions but solid action to address “these lost children".
“Tonight might be the beginning of a change in our country,” Angus said. As for the burgeoning suicide attempts and pacts, Robert Olson, head of information services at the Centre for Suicide Prevention, told Global News that one suicide can ignite a chain reaction and start what health officials term suicide contagion.
“As its name implies, [the idea of suicide] becomes contagious,” he said. “It’s often defined as a suicide cluster, multiple suicide behaviors in a time frame and within a special geographic area.”
Another expert, Dr. Laurence Kirmayer, the founder and director of the Network for Aboriginal Mental Health Research, said one individual could influence others.
“So in an indigenous community, where many young people are closely related, they’re the same age, they’re living in much the same circumstances … there’s the high likelihood of ideas circulating, behaviors circulating and modeling going on.”
Among those expected to arrive in Attawapiskat Wednesday are Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett and Ontario Minister of Health Eric Hoskins.
