Task force wants to cut suicide rate in half by 2007

PATRICIA D’SOUZA

A task force created by the Government of Nunavut to address suicide prevention and community healing hopes to cut the territory’s suicide rate in half in less than four years.

It’s an ambitious goal, but the elders on the task force believe it is within their grasp.

“Yes, it’s possible,” said Kautaq Joseph of Arctic Bay, one of seven members of the task force, and one of two members present for the group’s Iqaluit consultations this week.

But she admits it’s a daunting challenge.

The task force has been travelling Nunavut for the past two months, meeting with stakeholders and ordinary people to discover new ideas for combating what Amittuq MLA Enoki Irqittuq described in an address to the legislative assembly last year as “the walls of grief, silence and inaction.”

Since its creation in April 1999, Nunavut has seen more than 100 completed suicides. And the number continues to grow almost daily.

“Nunavut has one of the highest rates of suicide in North America,” a report tabled in the legislative assembly last year says. “With a population of approximately 25,000 people, Nunavut has a suicide rate 6.8 times the national average.”

Canada has a suicide rate of 13 per 100,000 people. The report calculated a comparable number for Nunavut by taking the number of suicides from April 1, 1999, to March 31, 2000, and multiplying by four to account for the territory’s small population.

This gives Nunavut a suicide rate of 88 per 100,000 people.

But there aren’t a lot of new ideas out there, Joseph admitted. “I didn’t hear anything new,” she said in an interview after a public meeting this past Monday.

What task force members heard, however, was a lot of willingness to help.

“I expected a tougher job than this when we started, but because of the support from the public, it has been a lot easier,” said Norman Komoartok of Pangnirtung, one of the chairs of the task force.

Annie Quirke, one of the founders of Iqaluit’s Tukisiniarvik Centre, said the small group that came out to the Anglican Parish Hall on Monday should meet in her office to discuss the task force’s work in more detail.

“We should be willing to help even though we don’t get paid,” she said. “We should be together and help each other as a community.”

But there was also criticism of organizations that don’t seem to be offering as much support as they ought to.

“There’s not much motivation when you don’t see the local government at meetings like this,” said Simon Nattaq, a former deputy mayor of Iqaluit.

Though filled with optimism and determination, task force members were a little disappointed that the meeting drew only four Iqaluit residents. A few more trickled in as the evening drew on.

More worrisome is that no youth came out to share ideas, or even listen. Men and woman between the ages of 18 and 30 account for more than 60 per cent of the suicides in Nunavut. Men in that age range make up the highest risk group, with almost three-quarters of completed suicides.

“The youth are hurting and a lot of them don’t know who they are or where they want to go in life,” Joseph said during the public forum.

But during a series of scheduled interviews with stakeholders on Tuesday, task force members found out one of the reasons youth stayed away.

“It’s intimidating [for youth] to approach adults because they’ve been in shit by adults before and they think they’re always going to get in shit,” said Pierre Wolfe, a member of a youth documentary crew assembling footage regarding suicide and suicide prevention.

“It’s intimidating to approach adults because a lot of times they have a lot on their minds already. A lot of times we get talked down to,” he said in Inuktitut.

The group’s video showed that kids are sometimes the best counsellors for other kids, and are often the front-line workers in the area of suicide prevention because kids will always go to their friends first.

But the 10 young men and women who gathered before the task force on Tuesday admitted that elders are equally important.

Joseph agreed. “Although you may be shy, just go ahead,” she said.