Acting Chief Shirley Robinson of the Cross Lake First Nations community declared a state of emergency two weeks ago on Wednesday, March 9 because of the rising number of suicides, formally asking Health Canada to send in a crisis team. There have been six suicides since December 12: four were high school students, one was a young person visiting the community for a funeral, and one a mother of three. 140 people have come forward and asked for help since the first, admitting to attempting or seriously contemplating taking their own lives.
Pimicikamak Cree Nation, also known as Cross Lake, is a community of 8300 members. Their proximity to a hydro generating station located 500 kilometres north of Winnipeg causes regular grief. Hydro development has led to regular flooding for the last forty years, forcing people from their homes, impacting wildlife, and affecting transportation routes. Last year, Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger personally apologized for the hydro development’s damage to their traditional lands, recognizing that it “can affect the cultural identities of aboriginal peoples because of the close relationship of aboriginal peoples to the land and resources.”
Pimicikamak first approached federal officials in early January after the second suicide, but continued to cope on their own. However, by this point they are desperate and their resources are insufficient. Chief Robinson says, “The way it’s been is that while we’re in the middle of dealing with one person, we get a call to go to another.” She says they need a serious intervention, and hopes the federal and provincial governments will deliver. “Our school counsellors, our teachers, chief and council, our clergy, elders, our doctors and nurses, we’ve all come together and we’ve tried. We’re tired. We need that support, we need that assistance … this is too much for me.”
Most of the six suicide victims were youth. The youngest was Finola Muswaggon, who was buried on what would have been her fifteenth birthday. Another was 21-year-old Anita Scatch. Her grandfather told CBC how “My life has never been the same since she’s gone. It has been very lonely. I cry all the time, visit her grave. My heart goes out to youths of Cross Lake.” A third victim was first cousin to Chief Robinson and mother of three, Lucille Blacksmith. The other three victims were high school student, the oldest being only 18 years old.
It is impossible to know their motivation: “There’s so many unanswered questions … because they took the answers with them.”
Chief Robinson has commented on the level of despair she feels in her community: “There’s so much hurt, there’s so much pain. You can feel it in every direction of our nation.”
Poverty, lack of opportunity, unemployment, and history are some of the many factors playing into this tragedy. For example, Pimicikamak has a ridiculously high unemployment rate of 80%. Homelessness and overcrowding are becoming growing problems with the current housing crisis. There are also so many issues making the youth feel that suicide is the only way out. Cora Morgan, Manitoba First Nations family advocate, has commented that “The quality of life for our young people is so low.”
There are currently 170 students on suicide watch at the local high school, ten of whom are considered to be at high risk. “We’re trying to carry on as much as usual. It’s not that easy,” said principal Gordon Hum, who has been working with counsellors to speak with at-risk students. Some of the common responses they are hearing include: Nobody is listening to me. There’s nothing for me in the community. I’m lonely. I’m grieving the loss of someone who ended their life.
Hum talks about other schools he has worked in, where suicide was much less prevalent. “If I had one suicide a year… We can deal with it and move on. But when you have five back-t0-back in such a short period of time, it’s difficult to move quickly to heal.” He also believes in a variety of triggers causing students to take their own lives, including family issues and stress. “Some kids are very, very lost.”
Historic injustices are another huge factor. Although this is one that many Canadians like to ignore, the trauma of residential schools is a real problem. Gabor Maté is a retired physician and author specializing in addiction, stress, and childhood development. He has said, “The average Canadian citizen has got not the faintest sense of what it is like to be a native person in this country… On the one hand, suicide is traumatic, but on the other hand, suicide is also an outcome of trauma. It’s just one more link in the chain of trauma.” Abuse-triggered PTSD or addiction are some of the effects that survivors—and even children of survivors—face today.
Eric Robinson is the Provincial Aboriginal Affairs Minister and a residential-school survivor himself. He said, “People can brush this aside and say: ‘They’re Indians. They’re the responsibility of the federal government’ … But these are Manitobans. They’re fellow citizens.”
This is also not an isolated problem. For one thing, Pimicikamak has declared a state of emergency for youth suicide in the past. Other First Nations communities are facing similar tragedies: Cree leaders are calling the suicide crisis a pandemic. For example, a Northwestern Ontario community called for emergency relief in January after several suicides by young people, the youngest only ten years old, within the span of a couple weeks. And Nunavut’s Premier declared a suicide crisis in October 2015. Sheila North Wilson, grand chief of an organization representing First Nations of Northern Manitoba, said “We’re seeing evidence of despair and poverty in our communities…Opportunities and resources that are afforded to the rest of Canadians are not being afforded to our people.” Chief Robinson made a similar comment: “I don’t want to put any more of my people six feet under. We deserve the same standard of health care as any other Canadian.”
The statistics paint the same bleak picture. Suicide and injuries from self-harm are the leading cause of death for Aboriginals in this country up to 44 years old. Suicide rates among Inuit youth are eleven times the national average, which is among the highest in the world. Overall, First Nations youth are six times more likely to commit suicide than non-aboriginal Canadian youth. Finally, a 2010 report found that suicide rates for children younger than fifteen among Ontario First Nations is over 50 times the national average. These numbers are tragic.
They are also meaningful: there is only so long we can continue to brush Aboriginal issues under the rug.
Eric Robinson, along with Premier Selinger and other provincial leaders, met with Pimicikamak leaders to discuss the situation, and are waiting on the community to send specific requests. He also has plans to pay a personal visit to the community and discuss the youth’s needs with the youth themselves.
At the time of writing, Health Canada has sent in four more mental health therapists, and the Northern Health Region Authority is sending in four crisis counsellors. The number of health care professionals is also increasing such that nurses are regularly available.
Canada’s Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Carolyn Bennet and Health Minister Jane Philpott believe that while the immediate crisis must be addressed, we cannot ignore the root of the problem. They cite a poor child welfare system and a lack of youth recreational facilities as some of the factors causing despair among the youth. Bennett is working in conjunction with the Assembly of First Nations on a plan to improve child and family services, as half of the victims had a connection to this program: two of the teenagers had been in foster care, and the mother had children in the CFS program. She also believes that cultural identity is key to both mental and physical health: “We need people to feel good about who they are as indigenous youth.”
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