Lynn Keane lost her 23-year-old son to suicide in 2009. After two years of trying to understand why and reaching out to friends for support, she was able to start writing about the tragic experience. She soon became a vocal advocate for a national suicide strategy in Canada, writing articles and appearing on television news, radio shows, and international TED talks.
Canada remains one of the few industrialized countries without a national suicide prevention strategy, and Keane and other advocates say the federal government is long overdue in implementing a strategy that can prevent suicide and save lives.
“You just have to look at the news at any given week and there are spates of suicides in this country, particularly in Indigenous communities, throughout the year,” Keane said in an interview.
She notes suicide is the eleventh leading cause of death in Canada, with around 4,000 deaths per year. But among those aged 10-24 it is the second leading cause of death, and therefore it is incumbent upon the public to demand a national strategy from the federal government, she said.
Advocates like Keane point to Indigenous communities such as in northern Ontario where four young people aged between 12 and 16 took their lives last month. Within the region, the Nishnawbe Aski Nation has reported at least 22 suicides since Jan. 1 among a population of 45,000.
It’s become a disturbing trend in far too many First Nation communities, said Keane, where suicide claims about 5 to 6 times more youth than in the non-Aboriginal population. Among the Inuit population, in Nunavut, people take their own lives at 13.5 times the rate of the Canadian average.
“With everything we know to date, it just begs the question why the federal government and [Health] Minister Jane Philpott’s office are not focused on a national suicide prevention strategy,” she said.
