A shocking photo of two 10-year-old boys sleeping rough outside a supermarket in Iqaluit was published across Canada on August 15, 2009. Many Canadians asked how it could be that, in one of the world’s richest countries, children were homeless in an Arctic community. There’s nothing new about this kind of tragedy; social conditions among the Inuit as well as most other Native Canadians are appalling and have been for decades. But many of them live in places that are isolated and remote from the probing eye of the news media.
Reports on Inuit Living Conditions
The shelves of social agencies are groaning under the weight of reports outlining how badly Canada’s Native People are doing.
The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in 1996 is an example. Writing in The Globe and Mail (August 19, 2009), Marie Wadden pointed out that the Commission questioned, “How can Canada claim to ‘own’ the Arctic when it can’t provide adequate housing, health care, and schooling for our Inuit, who number only in the tens of thousands?”
A decade after the Royal Commission the YWCA released a report, “You Just Blink and It Can Happen: A Study of Women’s Homelessness North of 60.” The November 2007 report said, “A pan-territorial study on homelessness paints a disturbing picture of the despair many women in the North are facing on a daily basis.”
The report quotes one of the participants of the study: “In winter, lots of women move from place to place, couch surfing. It’s not really safe but we can’t sleep outside and there’s no place else to go.”
Kelowna Accord an Attempt to deal with Social Dysfunction
These and many other studies have identified the problems. Doug Cuthand, sums them up in The Saskatoon Star Phoenix (August 21, 2009): “High unemployment, alcohol and substance abuse coupled with poor living conditions have created a society in crisis.”
An attempt to address the troubles was made with the signing of the Kelowna Accord in November 2005. This was the result of lengthy consultations among Native People and various levels of government. It was to inject $5 billion over 10 years to improve the education, employment, and living conditions for Aboriginal peoples.
However, as The Toronto Star reported on July 17, 2008, “Shortly after coming to power in early 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government shelved the Kelowna agreement.”
Inuit Children among the Worst Sufferers
The social dysfunction in many remote Aboriginal communities brings a heavy burden on the young. The Saskatoon Star Phoenix article comments “Our young people are committing suicide at a rate that’s anywhere from five to six times that of the general population. One-third of all deaths of Aboriginal youth aged 10 to 19 are attributable to suicide.”
Among Inuit youth the problem is particularly deplorable with a suicide rate that is 11 times higher than Canada’s national average. This, writes Doug Cuthand, gives young people of Inuit descent the dubious distinction of having the highest suicide rate in the world.
See also: Bad Living Conditions for Aboriginals
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