It's annoying when you spend hours and hours putting a puzzle together only to find one piece is missing. Canada's parliamentary committee looking into high suicide rates of indigenous children are missing a very large piece of the puzzle, but seem to be happy with the picture anyway.
CBC News
Indigenous people need resources 24/7 to cut suicide rates, committee recommends
Parliamentary committee makes 28 recommendations after more than a year of consultations, research
A Canadian parliamentary committee examined the issue of Indigenous people taking their own lives and released its report Monday. The committee held public consultations and heard stories of how suicide affects First Nations. This picture shows Rebecca Hookimaw, 16, of Attawapiskat in April 2016. Her sister, Sheridan Hookimaw, took her own life at 13. (Nathan Denette/Canadian Press)
Canada's Indigenous people need resources round the clock, and culturally appropriate programs and services that are community led and controlled as part of a suicide prevention plan to reverse "decades of unjust policies," a parliamentary committee says.
These are among 28 recommendations in a report released Monday by the House of Commons standing committee on Indigenous and northern affairs, which had been collecting research and holding public consultations since May 2016.
'We need to send a message to Indigenous Canadians,
and especially to young Indigenous people,
that their lives have value, that they matter.'
- MaryAnn Mihychuk, Liberal MP
"We need to send a message to Indigenous Canadians, and especially to young Indigenous people, that their lives have value, that they matter, and to hold on to hope," said Liberal MP MaryAnn Mihychuk, chair of the committee.
"We recognize that they are losing hope because they have difficult lives and are suffering from intergenerational trauma as the result of decades of unjust policies, and that we must act together to restore hope.''
Suicide is a leading cause of death among Indigenous people, according to the Toronto-based Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, which submitted a brief to the committee. Rates of death by suicide among First Nations are two times higher than the national average, CAMH said, citing Statistics Canada data.
As part of its work, the committee heard from 99 witnesses, including over 50 indigenous youth representatives, First Nations, Inuit and Métis leaders, academics and health organizations.
MPs on the committee say the witnesses shared difficult personal stories of suicide.
Health Minister Jane Philpott, in her testimony, called the high rates of suicide in Indigenous communities a "public health crisis" that has its roots in "long-standing social inequity ... in colonialism, racism, assimilation, residential schools, intergenerational trauma, poverty and so many other issues."
Philpott said programs in Indigenous communities have been "under-resourced" for a long time — there hasn't been enough money to build new facilities and repair old ones, or to hire and train enough professionals.
'We need to send a message to Indigenous Canadians, and especially to young Indigenous people, that their lives have value,' MaryAnn Mihychuk, chair of the House standing committee on Indigenous and northern affairs, said in releasing a report Monday that examined the problem of suicides in Indigenous communities. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)
She said the $270 million pledged in the 2016 budget to help with health facilities for First Nations was "only a drop in the bucket in terms of what the need is."
The report found that intergenerational trauma was one of the key factors in the prevalence of suicide and mental health issues in Indigenous communities.
On this the report is right on. Intergenerational trauma is probably the key factor in suicide and mental health issues in indigenous peoples. But to argue that the main cause of intergenerational trauma is racism is off the mark. Yes, racism has been and still is a serious issue with regard to how unfairly indigenous peoples have been and are treated. But, with regard to child suicides and mental illness, the dominant issue, I believe, is child sex abuse!
Abuse, especially child sex abuse, was perpetrated upon indigenous children in residential schools. Those children, many of them, returned to their villages bringing the evil with them and inflicting it upon many of their own children, who, in turn, inflict it upon theirs.
I believe a serious investigation into each indigenous child who committed suicide would reveal sexual abuse in almost every one.
Racism is evil and it is certainly a big part of the picture. Industrial scale indigenous child sex abuse appears to have started in residential schools; that's our fault. That we did nothing to remedy the abuse even through several generations - that's our fault, too. If we ignore this gaping hole in the picture for another generation or two - that will be our fault also.
But let's not make racism a scapegoat for all of indigenous peoples' ills. There is no excuse for child sex abuse regardless of how you were treated. At some point those who perpetrated sexual assaults on children knew they were doing wrong. As long as we gloss over this reality, those perpetrators will never have to deal with their guilt in sexual assaults or their contribution to the suicides of children. That will make healing impossible!
Limited access to mental health services "across a continuum of care" was another.
This is a problem for all sexually abused children. Children don't heal from devastating trauma according to a schedule of 12 visits to a psychologist per year or whatever it happens to be. Children need help until they are whole again regardless of the cost.
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