In early January, the federal government announced a contract with an Ottawa-based software company to run a pilot project that detects suicide risks through social media.

Advanced Symbolics Inc. will sift through posts from more than 160,000 public accounts, searching for indications of suicidal thoughts. Compiling this information on the basis of geographic region, they will determine which parts of the country urgently require suicide prevention resources, which the government would then distribute accordingly.

The project would be an innovative solution were it not for one problem: the government already knows where suicide risks are highest. And yet they have failed time and again to address the crisis.

Indigenous communities across the country are facing a devastating epidemic of suicide, which has spanned decades. Among Indigenous youth and adults under 44, suicide is the leading cause of death, with Indigenous youth being between six and 26 times more likely (depending on gender and location) to commit suicide than non-Indigenous youth.

Children as young as 10 and 12 feel compelled to take their own lives – the result of intergenerational trauma rooted in residential schooling, the child welfare system, and ongoing settler-colonialism.

Some Indigenous communities face resource shortages that render adequate healthcare, education and support inaccessible, and have been asking for resources to combat the suicide crisis. The government, however, has been criminally slow in its response.

In May 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal declared the Canadian government complicit in the suicide deaths of two 12-year-old girls, Jolynn Winter and Chantel Fox from Wapekeka First Nation. Wapekeka asked the government for funding months before the suicides occurred, but the government failed to provide it in time – the tribunal later ruled that appropriate funding allocation could have prevented the girls’ deaths.

Charlie Angus, NDP MP for Timmins-James Bay, has witnessed the impact of insufficient mental health support for Indigenous youth, and shares this concern.

“We’re losing children almost every day,” he said. “Putting people on the ground and working with them and supporting them would go a lot further. That means spending money – something the government seems reluctant to do.”

The many suicides taking place in Indigenous communities should weigh heavily on the conscience of the government. Despite the scope of the crisis, communities face budget cuts and are yet to receive resources promised by the Liberals.

With the announcement of this software, the question is why the government has invested time and money into data collection by a third party instead of acknowledging the insights of Indigenous leaders and community organizers gathering information on the front lines for years.

“With any kind of survey, it’s not fully accurate – you never get the total picture,” explains John Spence, ‎director of health at the Keewatin Tribal Council.

He says that while he doesn’t want to write off the project altogether, the most significant need is still for support on the ground – a sentiment shared by Bill Yoachim, executive director at Kwùmut Lelum Child and Family Services.

“We don’t need more data, we need more action,” he said. “We shouldn’t have to wait for an epidemic – one is one too many.”

But some Indigenous leaders, such as Chief Ignace Gull of Attawapiskat, remain hopeful about the scope of the project.

“We need access to specialists – people who know what to do, who know how to react when something happens. I think technology can be part of the help that’s initiated by the government,” he says. “But there’s got to be more than just that.”

Liberal MP MaryAnn Mihychuk, chair of the Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs, adds that consulting social media means moving with the times. “It sounds strange, but I think it deserves a chance. We need to find new ways to reach out to young people.”

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The decision to fund the software project has already been made, so what remains to be seen are the steps the government will take in its wake.

Canada must make immediate efforts to meet the requests of Indigenous communities facing the epidemic of suicide; ultimately, they know their needs better than any software ever could. Until that happens, the federal government will continue to be known for standing by and watching while Indigenous children lose their lives.

Inori Roy is a freelance writer and student at McGill University.