Attawapiskat First Nation, located in James Bay and home to about 2,000, declared a state of emergency on April 9, after 11 people attempted suicide that night alone.
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She says a group from Nishnawbe Aski Nation, a political organization that represents 49 First Nations communities including Attawapiskat, made plans a month ago to come into the community to talk about the suicide crisis.
Philpott said five mental health workers had arrived in the community and said they are investing more than $300 million per year in mental wellness in aboriginal communities.
Among all of Canada’s aboriginal youth, suicide rates are five to six times higher than those in non-First Nations populations, per Health Canada.
On Wednesday, Ontario Minister of Health Eric Hoskins, Minister for Children and Youth Tracy MacCharles, and Perry Bellegarde, chief of the Assembly of First Nations, flew in to meet with band officials and community members. We need a sustained commitment to address long-standing issues that lead to hopelessness among our peoples, particularly the youth. “If someone sees their relative or, say, their good friend and they seemingly have solved the problem, it perhaps incites in them the idea, hence the contagion element”.
A state of emergency has been called in the remote northern Ontario reserve because 39 of its young people have tried to commit suicide in the past month and a half.
The declaration met with a swift response from the Canadian and Manitoba governments. Charlie Angus, the region’s parliamentary critic of indigenous affairs, called the crisis a “rolling nightmare”. “And in the coming months, Canada and the provinces must work with First Nation leadership to immediately address the needs for the approximately 100 communities that exist in Third World conditions”, Day said.
“It’s going to be based on how fast the action will occur, how much the government will veer away from its old top-down approach and actually include us in discussions that will affect our lives”. It has previously sounded the alarm over flooding and raw sewage issues, poor drinking water and a housing crisis. The eldest person to attempt suicide was 71 years old, the youngest just 11, while the current spate of suicide attempts is believed to have started after a 13-year-old ended her life after being bullied at school.
“I am devastated by the situation that is taking place in Attawapiskat”, Philpott said.
Governments are still controlling the flow of money going to troubled First Nations, Day said, adding that until that stops, nothing can significantly change.
In 2011, the United Nations special rapporteur for indigenous people said he was “deeply concerned” about living conditions in the Attawapiskat First Nation, which means people of the parting rocks. She left the reserve to go to high school but went back and forth between the reserve and cities in northern Ontario as she had trouble finding families who would board her.
“We need a permanent solution, not just non-natives (counsellors) showing up for a short time”, Calf Child said.
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Torontoist has reached out to Indigenous Northern Affairs Canada for comment, and will update the article when we hear from them.
