Inquest witness Anawak blasts the Nunavut government’s inaction on suicide

Jack Anawak, the veteran Nunavut politician, said Sept. 23 at a special inquest on suicide in Nunavut that the Government of Nunavut’s foot-dragging on the implementation of its suicide prevention strategy and action plan shows a “stunning” lack of leadership that warrants an investigation of its own. “We need to clear out the deadwood in our government,” Anawak said. (FILE PHOTO)

Jack Anawak, the veteran Nunavut political leader now running for the New Democratic Party in the Oct. 19 federal election, didn’t mince words when he testified as an elder Sept. 23 at the suicide inquest being held in Iqaluit this week at the Nunavut Court of Justice.

“We need to clear out the deadwood in our government who don’t understand [the suicide problem in Nunavut], and get people into these positions who do comprehend what is going on and are committed to addressing [the problem],” Anawak told the six-member jury of the discretionary coroner’s inquest.

Anawak’s impassioned testimony came on the eighth day of the 10-day proceeding, scheduled to wrap up Sept. 25.

Sept. 23 marked the last day of the inquest’s testimonies, which have included evidence from researchers, the Nunavut RCMP, the Government of Nunavut and two families who shared their experience with suicide.

The jury will now deliberate recommendations on how governments and other agencies can implement a stalled suicide prevention plan for a territory suffering from a rate of suicide about 10 times higher than any other Canadian jurisdiction.

Anawak told the jury that he signed the initial suicide prevention strategy, adopted by the GN in 2010, when he was a vice-president at Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.

“You can imagine my shock and disbelief at the stunning lack of GN leadership across the board to get this strategy implemented,” he said.

That lack of leadership, Anawak continued, led to no trauma counselling training in Nunavut communities, no workshops on suicide prevention, intervention and post-vention, no opportunities created for younger Nunavummiut to benefit from the knowledge and resilience of elders, and no inter-agency or inter-departmental task forces to address the issue.

“This shocking non-involvement and disinterest on the part of those charged with… implementing the actions and tasks embedded within the strategy is unbelievable and deserves a thorough investigation on its own,” Anawak said

Like many other Nunavummiut, Anawak said he carries a “great weight of trauma” from seeing family, friends and colleagues die by suicide over the years.

But that hasn’t always been the case in Inuit society, he added.

“Elders are in agreement in all four land claims settlement areas that there was almost no deaths associated with suicide among young people,” before the arrival of southerners to the North in the mid 20th century, he said.

Before that, Anawak says Inuit had a tested system of governance based on survival values such as taking a longer view of things, conserving energy, persevering, and “sivummut” — always moving forward.

“These Inuit values are strongly anti-suicide in nature. So what happened to our culture that now leads in deaths by suicide?” he said.

Forced moves into large communities, governed by non-Inuit with “various and specific forms of authority over us,” resulted in Inuit being marginalized, causing disorder, confusion, dysfunction and fear, Anawak said.

Abuses suffered at residential schools, where children “were raised in a herd,” resulted in more trauma and breaches of trust between non-Inuit-run governments and Inuit.

Today, many newcomers to Nunavut fill senior positions in the GN but are “shocked and puzzled” about the territory’s high suicide numbers because they lack the personal experience with the tragedy that is all too familiar to most Nunavummiut, Anawak said.

“It is therefore quite understandable that there has been some avoidance, hesitation and unfamiliarity with how to deal with this topic,” he said.

For Nunavut to succeed in its own suicide prevention efforts, Anawak said elders need to be given more opportunity to help and teach youth.

Anawak’s other recommendations to the inquest’s jury included Inuit pride campaigns stressing historical resilience, training local community members in grief support, and providing support to families long after a loved one dies of suicide.

“Nunavummiut need to see people do care, will act, can support them, do understand and will be there for them in their most painful hour,” Anawak said.

Bernadette Dean, a social development coordinator with the Kivalliq Inuit Association who testified after Anawak Sept. 23, became emotional when telling the jury about a land camp held a number of years ago that brought elders and youth together to deal with trauma.

“I remember it was so powerful to see…,” Dean said, crying and unable to go on.

A young man at that camp, Dean eventually continued, who was 16 or 17 at the time and who had lost his father to suicide, lay on the ground while elders encouraged those around him not to touch him, to let him grieve.

“When I see that young man today, so many years later, I’m always grateful he is a capable man now, he has a family, his own family, he’s a homeowner and he still hunts,” Dean said.