Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 19/01) - The number of suicides in the Northwest Territories last year was twice the national average.

The NWT chief coroner's office is about to release its annual report, listing the fatalities in the territories for 2000, which were investigated by his office.

Percy Kinney

The report lists 78 investigated deaths. Ten of those were suicides, down six from 1999.

"That was huge," chief coroner Percy Kinney said about the 16 suicides in 1999.

"But our average has been somewhere between five and eight so last year we were still above the high-end average.

"So far this year we are already up to eight."

The national suicide rate per 42,000 people -- approximately the population of the NWT -- was five in 1998.

The general reasons suicide rates are thought to spike up sharply per capita in the Northwest Territories stem from addiction, residential school abuses and socio-economic conditions.

Kinney said finding specific reasons and remedies are difficult.

"The whole thing is alarming," he said. "It is a very complex problem and therefore the solutions are complex."

Half of the 10 suicides happened in the Delta. Four took place in Inuvik and one in Fort McPherson.

"I know for a fact that not all of those suicides were long-term residents," said Pat Pedersen, program co-ordinator of the Family Counselling Centre in Inuvik.

"But we are dealing with a traumatized population here as a direct result of residential schools and a high rate of addiction, abuse and family violence."

The Inuvik suicide hotline -- 777-1234 -- was set up in the spring by volunteers.

"We have taken a number of calls and successfully intervened," Pedersen said.

Kinney said it might be easy to read too much into the fact that half the suicides took place in one particular area. He said there is not a trend of concentrated suicides in one region year after year.

He did say people who do take there own lives in the NWT tend to be young, between 20 and 40.

Last year six of the 10 suicides were men between 30-and-34-years-old.

Most accidental deaths in the NWT were a direct result of substance abuse. That is not so for suicide, which makes the issue even scarier, Kinney said.

Usually substances are involved in less than half of them.

Other investigated fatalities

A lot of the coroner-investigated fatalities in the NWT in 2000 were accidents.

Of the 18 deaths classified as such, eight were alcohol-related drownings snowmobile accidents and alcohol poisonings.

"In the last three to four years," Kinney said, "the one thing that jumps out at me the most is alcohol-relation."

Kinney said 2000 saw a lot of deaths because of high-risk behaviour.

The deaths that stand out for him are snowmobile-related.

In Fort Good Hope three people died after a high-speed head-on collision after a drinking party.

Kinney listed several recommendations such as introducing territories-wide helmet, permit, insurance and registration, and age laws.

"There has to be the political will," he said.