Staff | Toronto Star · Jan 12, 2017

The grand chief of 49 northern First Nations is calling for a national suicide strategy after the loss of two 12-year-old girls since Sunday.

The small indigenous community of Wapekeka is in mourning after the suicide of a 12-year-old girl on Sunday and another 12-year-old girl on Tuesday.

There is concern that more children will try to take their lives. A crisis team has flown into the Oji-Cree community, which is about 450 kilometres northeast of Sioux Lookout, in northwestern Ontario.

Another four girls were to be flown out of the community on medical charter flights, said Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler. Wapekeka First Nation is a Treaty 9 First Nation and one of NAN’s 49 communities. Treaty 9 was signed in 1905 by First Nations leaders and the Crown in northern Ontario; it covers an area roughly the size of France.

Fiddler said NAN held an emergency call Tuesday with federal and provincial representatives to plan a co-ordinated response.

But holding emergency calls and flying in teams when suicides spike should not be the answer to a crisis that has gripped indigenous communities for decades, he said, adding that what’s needed is a national strategy that sees stable and consistent help. “It shouldn’t just be during times of crisis and stress when we all come together, which is what we do now … We need to develop a more comprehensive strategy, something that can be applied across the country — not just in NAN territories. Nunavut and Manitoba are also struggling,” he said. Wapekeka went through a suicide crisis in the 1990s but the community came together, developed a strategy and stuck to its programs, he said. Then funding became a problem, and Wapekeka struggled.