Quebec coroner to probe five recent Innu suicides

The Quebec Coroner’s Office will conduct a public inquest into the five suicides that rocked a pair of Innu communities last year.

Details about the inquest’s date and scope remain scant but Quebec’s chief coroner announced Wednesday that her office wants to analyze the factors that heighten the risk of suicide and make recommendations for preventive strategies. Côte Nord coroner Bernard Lefrançois will oversee the proceedings.

In November, Chief Coroner Catherine Rudel-Tessier told the Montreal Gazette her office was leaning toward holding a broad inquiry into the rash of suicides.

“An inquiry like this one, a public inquiry into how this many suicides affect a community, I can’t remember one like this,” she said in the interview.

Local chiefs called for emergency aid last fall just days after 18-yearold Nadeige Guanish took her own life in the woods outside Uashat — a reserve adjacent to Sept-Îles.

Her death marked the fifth suicide in nine months in Uashat and neighbouring Maliotenam, two communities with a combined population of about 4,000.

“The coroner ... can count on the support of council and community members to help in this difficult task,” said Mike McKenzie, Grand Chief of the Uashat and Maliotenam band councils.

“Now more than ever, we need to adopt concrete solutions and implement resources toward permanent treatment centres that can support people in distress. We have to avoid reliving the nightmare of 2015.”

The other victims were MarieMarthe Grégoire, 46, her son Charles Junior Grégoire-Vollant, 24, Céline Rock Michel, 30, and Alicia Grace Sandy, 21. After Guanish’s death, mental health workers, police and other stakeholders in the community said they were exhausted by the constant trauma associated with suicide.

Suicide rates among aboriginal youth are up to six times the national average, according to Statistics Canada.