Elevated suicide rates demand action
Fix ‘unacceptable’ social inequity to cut Inuit suicide rates, report urges
OTTAWA — Reducing suicide rates among Inuit begins with fixing the social inequities that have traumatized Inuit communities for generations, says a new suicide prevention strategy released by the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami on Wednesday.
“The social inequity that exists in Canada is unacceptable,” says Natan Obed, president of the ITK, the political body representing Canada’s 60,000 Inuit. “That inequity is playing to huge social challenges, and suicide is one of the results of social inequity for Inuit in Canada.”
The rates are shocking. While Canada’s national suicide rate hovers around 11 or 12 suicides per 100,000, rates in the four regions of Canada’s Inuit Nunangat range from 60 per 100,000 in Inuvialuit Settlement Region of the western High Arctic to 275 per 100,000 in Nunatsiavut in northern Labrador. Rates in Nunavut and Nunavik in northern Quebec are about 10 times the national average.
“The elevated rates of suicide among Inuit demand that we respond with action,” the report says. “This public health crisis has continued for decades, despite being preventable. We have lost hundreds of people to suicide and each of these losses diminishes our society.”
Obed was joined by Health Minister Jane Philpott, U.S. Ambassador Bruce Heyman, and other officials representing Inuit, government and the health care system to unveil ITK’s National Inuit Suicide Prevention Strategy Wednesday afternoon in Kuujjuaq, Que.
Philpott announced $9 million in federal funding to bolster mental health services and early childhood development programs and other suicide prevention programs administered by Inuit in conjunction with Health Canada.
“We are committed to working directly with Inuit leaders on issues that are important to them, including turning the tide of suicide that is having a devastating impact on Inuit youth, families and communities,” Philpott said.
Inuit suffer the same mental health disorders that affect other Canadians — clinical depression and schizophrenia, for example — but also deal with “intergenerational trauma” stemming from forced resettlement after the Second World War, Obed said.
Poverty, poor housing, hunger and bad health (in the 1960s, nearly half of all Inuit had spent time in the south to be treated for tuberculosis) have plagued Inuit communities for generations. That trauma has led to addictions, family violence and sexual abuse.
“Child abuse, neglect and even the physical disciplining of children is not a part of our history or culture. Yet the prevalence of physical and sexual violence against children is disturbingly high in our communities,” the report says.
Not everyone who suffers trauma or is dealing with mental illness is destined to die by suicide, but many who do share these risk factors, the report notes.
It offers a grim comparison of Inuit society to the rest of Canada: 29 per cent of Inuit finish high school, compared with 85 per cent nationally; just 45 per cent of Inuit are employed; the median salary of Inuit (who face the highest costs of living in Canada) is $17,778, compared with the national figure of $77,683; and an Inuk’s average life expectancy is 70.8 years, a decade less than the national average. Fully 70 per cent of Inuit households reported they didn’t have enough food to eat, compared with 8.3 per cent in the rest of Canada.
The report was written in consultation with Inuit as well as Health Canada, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto and other agencies. Obed had hoped to release the report in Hebron, an isolated outpost in Nunatsiavut, Labrador, where Inuit families lived until 1959 when the federal government forced them to move to larger communities. Bad weather forced the announcement to made in Kuujjuaq, near the shores of Ungava Bay.
The report lists an ambitious strategy to tackle six priorities for reducing suicide: • Create social equity; • Create cultural continuity; • Nurture health of Inuit children; • Ensure access to mental health care; • Heal unresolved trauma and grief; and • Mobilize Inuit knowledge for resilience and suicide prevention.
Child abuse, neglect and even the physical disciplining of children is not a part of our history or culture. Yet the prevalence of physical and sexual violence against children is disturbingly high in our communities.” Report