'We are here today because we know we cannot wait.'

The day after a Cape Dorset man shot himself in the head last week, the Nunavut government rolled out a new plan to train scores of Nunavummiut in the art of suicide prevention.

"Today we're helping those people who are depressed, overwhelmed or feeling hopeless," Premier Eva Aariak said during the March 12 announcement in Iqaluit.

Using $823,000 from a federal government aboriginal health fund, the GN will buy an off-the-shelf suicide prevention program from a Calgary-based company called Livingworks Education Inc., then adapt it for use in Nunavut.

The Nunavut version of the program is called Uqaqatigiiluk, or "talk about it."

Under the Uqaqatigiiluk program, people who are in frequent contact with youth – social workers, teachers, health workers community organizers, police, and others – would learn how to spot people who are at "immediate risk" of suicide.

About 15 minutes, prior to Aariak's announcement, Nunavut RCMP issued a statement on the latest of a long list of Nunavut residents who have died by suicide.

Police said that on March 11, they received a call about a man who "threatened to kill someone or commit suicide" while driving a snowmobile impaired.

After watching the man brandish a "long-barrelled weapon" in front his window at house 233 in Cape Dorset, police entered the dwelling.

There they found the man lying on his living-room floor, dead from a single, self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

About 20 Cape Dorset residents have died by suicide since 1999, including a 12-year-old boy who took his life in the spring of 2008. Between 1999 and 2008, 271 Nunavut Inuit died by completed suicides.

The program that Aariak announced last week is intended to help caregivers and frontline workers identify such people before they're able to harm themselves.

After learning how to spot people in distress, the trainees would then learn how to persuade such people from attempting to carry out any suicidal plans they might be contemplating.

If it works, Nunavummiut may suffer fewer self-inflicted deaths and serious injuries in the future.

"We can have more Nunavummiut feel more confident and competent in helping to prevent the immediate risk of suicide by someone they know is at risk," Aariak said.

The program, called Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training, or "ASIST," now used in England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, Russia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Norway and numerous U.S. states.

More than 750,000 people around the world have been trained in the ASIST program, which the Livingworks principals first developed in 1983.

It now appears to be the world's most widely-used suicide prevention program.

Between now and April 1, 2010, the GN will train people in 11 Nunavut communities and at professional development conferences.

They also used a three-day workshop in Iqaluit last week to train about two-dozen Nunavummiut from around the territory and to ask them how the ASIST material can best be adapted to Nunavut.

"We are here today because we know we cannot wait. We need to start today," Aariak said.

Nunavut's suicide rate between 2004 and 2008 stood about 110 per 100,000 – about 10 times greater than Canada's rate.

"We cannot stop all suicides from occurring. But the work that has taken place gives me hope that we are on the right path," Aariak said.

The premier also linked the GN's new suicide prevention plan with the commitment that her cabinet made last month after a retreat in Cape Dorset: to improve the quality of life in Nunavut and to better apply Inuit culture.

The GN is working with Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. and the Nunavut Embrace Life Council on the Uqaqatigiiluk project.

Staff with the Department of Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs and the Department of Health and Social Services are in charge of carrying it out.

People in distress may call the Kamatsiaqtut helpline from anywhere in Nunavut or Nunavik at 1-800-265-3333 or 979-3333 in Iqaluit.

People looking for written documents with information on suicide prevention, in English, Inuktitut and French, may download them from this web site run by the National Aboriginal Health Organization: www.honouringlife.ca.