Inuit rally in Ottawa in face of suicide's toll
Inuit from across Canada gathered on Parliament Hill on Friday in anticipation of Saturday's marking of World Suicide Prevention Day.
Suicide rates for Inuit youth are staggeringly high, as much as 28 times the national average in the case of males aged 15 to 24. The overall rate for Inuit is 11 times the national toll.
“I don’t blame any of us for what we’re going through. I blame the system and the services that don’t exist in our communities,” Mary Simon, president of the national Inuit advocacy group Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, said at the rally.
Simon spoke near the Centennial Flame, surrounded by people holding posters with slogans such as “Life Is Beautiful” and “Everyone Has a Role To Play,” in English and Inuktitut. Her organization teamed with the National Inuit Youth Council and the Inuit Circumpolar Council to put together the event, called Embrace Life.
“Suicide prevention is a very harsh topic to talk about and to live with, and we have to accept it because there is a lot of young people who are committing suicide,” said Jennifer Watkins, the youth council’s president.
“In Northern Canada there is not a lot of facilities for mental health, and we have to be very loud about it to the governments and to the local community.”
Nunavut doesn’t have a mental-health centre, even though most research suggests the best way to prevent suicides is by providing comprehensive medical services.
Manitok Thompson, a former Nunavut cabinet minister and a current director of Mental Health Commission of Canada, said the lack of treatment centres and of education about suicide need to be addressed, so that fewer young Inuit men take their own lives.
"There's lot of challenges but, you know, with the will we can do it. We need the resources, we need the heart to love these men and to understand them, where they're coming from," she said.
"The men need programs. They need to find the confidence in themselves, and we have not done well for our men in the territory."
Back in Iqaluit, at the Makkuttukkuvik Youth Centre, Simanaaq Pitseolak discussed what it was like to lose her cousin to suicide. Pitseolak goes to the centre often to hang out, shoot pool or play ping pong; many of the young people there have had a relative or friend end their own life.
It felt “like I had nothing anymore,” Pitseolak said of her cousin’s death. “He was like a brother to me.”
Many of the young men at the centre said they’ve been touched by suicide but did not want to talk about it, which Thompson said worries her. Giving a voice to one’s woes, among friends or family, can help with the despair that too often becomes unmanageable.
“If a child or a youth has somebody who they’re comfortable enough with to go to, then we can prevent suicide on an individual level,” Heidi Langille, a role model in the National Aboriginal Health Organization’s country-wide program, told the Ottawa crowd.
“We are around, your parents are around, your loved ones,” added Watkins. “It will get better. It might take time, but it will eventually get better.”
