SOCIAL MEDIA KEY PART OF SUICIDE PREVENTION PLAN

Social media plays a central role in a fiveyear plan aimed at reducing the number of suicides in Nunavut. “Just about everyone up here has a Facebook account,” said David Lawson, an RCMP officer who is president of the Embrace Life Council, which helped produce the plan along with the Nunavut government, RCMP and other organizations. Lawson said the plan, outlined Monday at Facebook’s Boost Your Community summit in Iqaluit, replaces a temporary one put in place last year. The Canadian average suicide rate is 11 per 100,000 people, but Nunavut’s rate is 117. For Inuit males between 15 and 29, the rate is almost 40 times the national figure. But Facebook use in the North is also higher than the national average, said Kevin Chan, head of public policy for Facebook Canada.