More programs, intervention needed to stem violence: ITK

More community-based mental health programs are needed in all Inuit communities, Mary Simon, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami said June 9 in a statement released two days after four members of an Iqaluit family were found dead in a suspected homicide-suicide.

Simon also wants to see the immediate creation of an expert intervention team to work with leaders and mental health workers to determine how to “stem the tide of this horrific violence.”

More programs are urgently in all Inuit communities, Simon said in a June 9 news release, to respond to “senseless and violent deaths that show the troubling state of mental health in Canada’s Arctic.”

These include the horrific deaths of a man, woman and two children this week in Iqaluit as well as the recent suicides of two teenaged girls in Kuujjuaq, Simon said.

“These incidences are just the tip of the iceberg — there are many more I could mention,” she said.

“I am profoundly saddened by this continuous and accelerating pattern of violence in the Arctic and I send my deepest condolences to the families. Nunavut, Nunavik and Nunatsiavut are in social crisis. We must respond with extraordinary measures — measures commensurate with the magnitude of the issue. Our people are dying. We need help and we need it now.”

Citing a suicide rate among Inuit more than 11 times the national rate and injury the leading cause of death among Aboriginal children and youth, Simon wrote to federal finance minister Jim Flaherty in the lead-up to the June 6 budget.

Simon asked him to include a one-time $15 million investment over five years for Inuit mental health programs in Canada’s four Inuit regions.

“Surely we owe urgent action to our people and communities,” said Simon.

“As a nation, we cannot tolerate this situation in the very regions of our country that represent the crown jewel of Canada’s future. I am calling on federal, provincial and territorial governments, as well as regional and national Inuit organizations — including ITK — to assemble an intervention team to work with leaders and practitioners to determine what resources are needed immediately and in the next few years to stem the tide of this horrific violence.”