Canadian Government Holds Emergency Debate Over Native Suicides

Canada's parliament will meet in an emergency session on Tuesday night over a disproportionately large number of suicide attempts by Native teenagers in a remote, poverty-stricken community whose people feel isolated from the rest of the world.

A state of emergency has been declared in the Attawapiskat First Nation in Ontario due to more than a dozen minors attempting suicide over the past weekend alone.

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They follow 28 attempted suicides in March, some of them adults, health officials said.

Children as young as 11 years old were among those who attempted suicide during the past few days and police began 24-hour patrols in response to the crisis.

The emergency parliamentary session was requested by New Democrat legislator Charlie Angus whose constituency includes Attawapiskat. Angus wants Ottawa do more "to end this cycle of crisis and death among young people," Reuters reports.

Health Minister Jane Philpott told reporters that there are "huge gaps" in mental health services for aboriginal communities, and the government would work to address them.

"It is completely unacceptable in a country as rich in resources as Canada that young people should get to the point that their life seems worthless and that they would want to end it," she said in parliament.

Jackie Hookimaw-Witt, whose teenage niece committed suicide last autumn, said it was the third attempt for one 13-year-old girl who survived on Saturday. She said the girl had been challenged to kill herself on social media.

Suicide pacts among teenagers seems to be a growing problem.

"An individual attempt at suicide is bad enough itself, but if there seems to be a group thing, it's even more cause for alarm," said National Chief Perry Bellegarde of the Assembly of First Nations, Canada's main aboriginal political group.

Canada's 1.4 million population of First Nation members, who make up about four percent of the population, have a lower life expectancy than other Canadians and are more often victims of violent crime.

Critics of the Canadian state's dealings with the native population say that much more investment and attention is needed to tackle the challenges of the people of the First Nations.