Stephanie McDonald
Northern News Services
Monday, July 16, 2007

IQALUIT - A new suicide prevention strategy aims to strengthen the Government of Nunavut's working relationship with the Embrace Life Council, among other priorities.

Titled Annirusuktugut, the five-year suicide intervention and prevention strategy lays out six priorities. Among these objectives is greater cooperation between government departments dealing with suicide and increased programming to promote healthy lifestyles.

The statistics are staggering: 40 per cent of reported deaths in Nunavut since its creation have been suicides, a rate nine times the national average.

"The strategy was written because the number of suicides are going up and the government really wants to do something about this," said Pat Angnakak, director of government priorities.

The strategy will work as a tool to assess what programs and services are currently available, if they are meeting a community's needs, and how they could be improved.

"We need to know where we stand first before we can really go out and help anyone else," Angnakak said.

The working committee was comprised of one or two representatives from each of the government departments, except the Department of Finance.

"We want to bring the numbers way, way down... Behind the strategy there are people who really care about this issue and some of us have been touched personally by suicide in the family, so this means a lot," Angnakak said.

An assessment of government programs and services is the first step, and the second is to provide support for the work of the Embrace Life Council.

The council is a body of 11 different organizations working on suicide prevention, and has contacts in each of Nunavut's communities.

"We think they should take the lead in developing a territorial wide suicide intervention strategy," Angnakak said.

Despite the significance placed on its current and future role on the issue, the Embrace Life Council executive director said she wasn't invited to sit on the committee or consulted on the content of the strategy.

Nevetheless, executive director Lori Idlout threw her support behind the government's initiative. "We are pleased that the government of Nunavut is working towards improving its programs and services," she said.

Idlout is especially pleased to see that elders and Hunters and Trappers Organizations (HTOs) are seen as main players in suicide prevention in the government's strategy.

"Elders are definitely a very important player in any community," Idlout said. "They hold of lot of knowledge on what effective coping mechanisms might be."

In the past three years the Embrace Life Council has supported more on the land programs for youth, seeing it as a way to build confidence and identity.

Angnakak said she had met with Embrace Life's president while Idlout was on holiday and the council had been given an advance copy to comment on.