OTTAWA
Counselling services and healing centre administrators are protesting the planned closure of an addictions treatment centre that some say has proven beneficial to the Inuit of Nunavut.

To some, the forced closure of the Mamisarvik Healing Centre in Ottawa, to take place March 31, is yet another blow to healing opportunities that have taken place since the Aboriginal Healing Foundation shut its doors in December 2013.

The trauma and addiction treatment facility, which has been in existence since 2003, is an Inuit-specific treatment agency that provides four treatment cycles per year to residents of Nunavut and other parts of Canada.

The closure also highlights the lack of treatment facilities in Nunavut.

"It is with great sadness that we announce the indefinite suspension of services at the Tungasuvvingat Inuit Mamisarvik Healing Centre while we evaluate the structure and feasibility of delivering our residential addiction and trauma recovery counselling program," stated Tungasuvvingat Inuit's executive director Jason LeBlanc in a news release.

Noel Kaludjak, former regional director at Kivalliq Counselling and Support Services based in Rankin Inlet, said programs in Rankin Inlet also experienced the fallout after the Aboriginal Healing Foundation funding stopped, as did many aboriginal grassroots programs across the country.

About Mamisarvik, Kaludjak said, "It's a place where you can go and feel welcome with your culture. It helped quite a few people from the North, people from Nunavut, overcome some of their addictions. The closing of it will have quite a bit of impact."

Mamisarvik is a culturally appropriate "home away-from home."

Two-thirds of the dedicated, 20-member staff is of Inuit descent and clients are encouraged to speak Inuktitut or English in their recovery work, whichever they prefer, according to the centre's website.

Being in an Inuit-specific program means clients can understand where they come from, why they suffer from trauma and addiction, he says, adding, "It helps us to understand our place in our family and in our community.

"And youth, they can understand why they are having these issue, like the high suicide rate."

Programs funded by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation brought Inuit a long way, said Kaludjak.

And long-term funding was never put in place for these to continue.

"A residential treatment centre is not financially sustainable exclusively on a pay-as-you-go model. We are in need of ongoing operational funding as most other treatment centres receive from one level of government or another," stated LeBlanc.

"We have a proven model of success that has empowered hundreds of lives and we want to link with people who can support those outcomes."

Kaludjak firmly believes not only should Mamisarvik receive stable, long-term funding, but each region in Nunavut should have its own treatment centre, as well.

"It would go a long, long way to prevent suicide, prevent crime, prevent violence. They wouldn't have to be sent down to other places. They would be in their own territory," he said, adding homesickness is always an issue for Nunavummiut.

"We would have our own elders, our own people helping our people."

In fact, included in the jury recommendations from an inquest into the high rate of suicide in the territory last September was a recommendation to the GN Department of Family Services that "(The department) shall open substance abuse treatments centre in each of the three regions by September 2018."

Kaludjak insists the territory needs a long-term plan.

"Not just a temporary plan, but a permanent plan. It would be very, very helpful to our people. I know the government is very short on funding but we need to look at things for the future. It's urgent. Our people need a place to go to get help. Putting people in jail is not going to solve the problems."