The "profile of mental disorders among Aboriginal people is primarily a by-product of our colonial past with its layered assaults on Aboriginal cultures and personal identities." Royal Commission on Aboriginal People 10

Canadian suicide data:

Canada's overall suicide rate is typically about 14 per 100,000 people; the U.S. rate is consistently slightly lower, at about 12 per 100,000. 1 These values are heavily influenced by the economy: they drop as economic conditions improve, and rise during recessions. Males are about four times as likely to commit suicide than females.

However average figures hide the existence of certain population groups which are at extremely high risk for suicide: including prison inmates, persons with certain mental health problems, and Natives.

The Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care organized a task force to study the prevention of suicide in Canada. 2 In their 1994-MAR report, they touched on the high suicide rate among Aboriginals in Canada.

They stated that:

* Suicide rates in the Canadian Native population are more than twice the sex-specific rates, and three times the age-specific rates of non-Native Canadians (56.3 per year per 100,000 persons for Native males and 11.8 for Native Females).

* Among Aboriginal males, the rate for the 15-24 year age group was 90.0. This is more than double that for all Aboriginal males: 39.0.

* Suicide among northern Native youth has reached epidemic proportions. In Alberta the rate in the northern region was 80; in the central region, 71.2, and in the southern area, 35.3.

* An extremely high overall rate of 80.2 has been found for 10 - 19 year-old Native males living on the northern coast of Labrador.

* The 1991 Aboriginal Peoples Survey indicated that 41% of Inuit, and 34.5% of Native Indians on reserves, report that suicide is a problem in their community.

The task force made seven specific recommendations to reduce suicide rates. None were specifically targeted to the native communities.

According to the report issued in 1995 by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples:

* The rate of suicide among Native youth is five to six times higher than the Canadian average. 9,10

Facts cited in an essay by Glen Coulthard of the University of Alberta indicate:

* 60% of all Aboriginals who commit suicide are acutely intoxicated at the time. This compares to 24% for non-Aboriginal suicides.

* Native communities which have retained some of their historical traditions have lower suicide rates.

* Communities which have less seriously affected by the government's paternal goals of "protection, civilized and assimilation" and remained partly isolated from the government's acculturation processes tend to have lower suicide rates.

* The Native suicide rate is much worse than the statistics indicate, because they typically do not include non-status Indians, Metis and Natives living off the reservation.

In contrast, one source indicates that: "Not all Native groups have high rates of suicide. Many Native communities have suicide rates equal to or lower than the general population. 1

Comparable U.S. data:

The suicide rates among Natives in the U.S. shows a similar increase over the national average. In 1989-1991, the Indian and Alaskan Native suicide rate was 37.5 per 100,000 vs 13.2 for all Americans. 3,4 There was a disproportionate number of suicides among young male Native Americans during this period, as males 15-24 accounted for 64% of all suicides by Natives. 8

Why is the Native suicide rate so high?

Glen Coulthard of the University of Alberta has written a paper which examines the reasons why the suicide rates among Canada's natives are so elevated relative to the rest of the population. 9 He assigns responsibility to the Canadian government's historical and profoundly defective policies towards Natives. Some contributing factors are:

Socio-economic: Poverty is common in Native communities. Living conditions are often crowded. Water and sewer facilities are often inadequate. "...45% of all status Indians living on reserve are illiterate." Coulthard makes a case that present-day economic hardship has its roots in a failed government policy which was aimed at assimilating Natives into the rest of society. The historical Native tribal society was to be dismantled; its subsistence-based economy was to be replaced by agriculture. But restrictions applied by the government guaranteed that the policy would fail, leaving Native communities without a method of supporting themselves.

Psycho-biological: Although data indicates that Natives appear to be mentally more healthy than other Canadians, the reverse is probably true. Since few community mental health services are available in Native communities, data is probably drastically underreported.

The Royal Commission reported that the "profile of mental disorders among Aboriginal people is primarily a by-product of our colonial past with its layered assaults on Aboriginal cultures and personal identities." 10 The governments' traditional assumption that Natives are inferior, uncivilized, and lacking in moral qualities, relative to European society, has been internalized by many Natives.

This leads to clinical depression, anxiety disorders, and self-destructive tendencies, including suicide.

Culture stress: The Canadian government's policies included the destruction of much of Native culture, values and religion. With the help of the Christian churches, these traditions were largely replaced with Christianity. The main players were the Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Church of Canada and the United Church of Canada.

Many native children grow up with little knowledge of their original culture. The government financed religious institutions so that they could establish residential school systems. Sometimes, children were kidnapped and taken long distances from their communities. In school, they were isolated from their families or origin and forcibly stripped of their language, religion, traditions and culture.

Not mentioned in Coulthard's essay was the extremely high level of physical and sexual abuse suffered by Native children at the religious schools. The result has been, depression, difficulty in effectively parenting future generations, loss of culture -- and suicide.

A talk by National Chief Matthew Coon Come:

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Matthew Coon Come gave a talk on 2001-FEB-26 to a native health conference in Ottawa. 4 He made the following points:

A First Nation Community in northern Manitoba recently had several suicides in one year. They begged the chief medical examiner of the province to hold an inquest. He refused. The community then wrote a letter to the provincial minister responsible. While waiting for his response, there were two more suicides.

The minister finally refused, stating that the situation in this small community was not unusual; other aboriginal communities were also experiencing suicides. Since then, there have been two more suicides.

Chief Come asked "What if another community in Canada with a population of 5,500 people had over 100 attempted suicides recorded by the RCMP in one year? Would there be an inquest? Would there be news? Would people be angry? Would a government be forced to act -- to do something about it? "

There are also overwhelming health concerns:

"...Aboriginal children have less than half the chance of other Canadians to survive their first year of life." [Editor's comment" We hope that this is in error. This would imply that the infant mortality rate among newborns is greater than 50%. We suspect that he meant that the mortality rate was twice that of the rest of Canada.]

The death rate of aboriginal people from injury, poisoning and violence is five times higher than the Canadian average.

The incidence of fetal alcohol syndrome is 25 times greater than the world's average.

The incidence of TB is ten times higher than in the rest of Canada.

In some northern Cree communities, almost half of those over 45 have diabetes.

Chief Come attributes these problems to:

The elimination of traditional Naive culture and the "sudden and forced elimination of our traditional means of subsistence...As people turn away from their lands, they grow obese and become ill."

Poverty and unemployment in Aboriginal communities. Youth have no hope of finding a job

Many of the homes are infected with mould.

There is a serious housing shortage.

Medical services are under funded. Some clinics are closed because of lack of staff.

Solutions:

The B.C. Institute on Family Violence conducted a telephone survey of 35 Aboriginals from British Columbia. They made a number of recommendations to alleviate self-destructive behavior among fellow Natives:

* Natives must regain positive self-image -- particularly the youth -- by reintroducing traditional religious and cultural practices.

* Recognize suicide as a major social problem; develop suicide prevention programs and crisis management teams

* Promoting individual and community wellness.

* Improving parenting skills.

* Provision of traditional, holistic therapy.

* Training Aboriginals for caregiver and administrative positions.

* Cooperation among all levels of government to improve economic conditions on reserves.

References

* "Suicide in Canada," at: http://www.sarnia.com/groups/suicideprevention/

* "Canadian task force on preventive health care: Prevention of suicide," at: http://www.ctfphc.org/Full_Text/Ch40full.htm

* "Statistical information" at a web site that has gone offline and whose URL has been picked up by a porn company.

* "Indian Health Service Trends, 1989-1991"

* Black Bear, "Life is a gift, we must nurture it..." at: the same web site as is mentioned above in Reference 3.

* Matthew Coon Come, "Brave words from a native leader," Toronto Star, 2001-FEB-3, Page A28 (Editorials and opinion page)

* Za-geh-do-win Information Clearinghouse. Provides information to any resident of Ontario, Canada who requires info on issues relating to aboriginal people. They have a list of materials on suicide at: http://www.anishinabek.ca/zagehdowin/suicide.htm

* "CDC, Violence Surveillance Summary Series, No. 2. 1996," cited in: "Suicide in the United States," Center for Disease Control, at: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/suifacts.htm

* Glen Coulthard, "Colonization, Indian policy, suicide and Aboriginal peoples," at: http://www.ualberta.ca/~pimohte/

* "Choosing Life: Special Report On Suicide Among Aboriginal People," Royal Commission on Aboriginal People., Ottawa: Canada Communication Group Publishing, 1995. Cited in Reference 9.

Copyright © 2001 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance

Originally written: 2001-MAR-2

Latest update: 2001-MAR-2

Author: B.A. Robinson

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