I'm honoured to be here.
When I read the requirements, I said I was going to come here as an individual, but I would also like to speak about some of what I do in our department.
To start with, there is an inquiry to get a better understanding of how to help those who have been impacted. I am asking this because—
[Witness speaks in Inuktitut]
The way we comprehend or interpret is different. For example, to my understanding, the term “suicide survivor” can mean “I have survived my own attempt to commit suicide”.
Inuit elders, parents, and families advise those of us who have lost a loved one not to dwell on grieving. They say we need to let go of them so that their spirit is not lost.
In Inuit tradition, one of the ways to cope with losing a loved one is through kinship naming after a loved one who has passed away. I will tell you, though, that it is difficult to do right away. At least for me it was. I had to listen to my elders' advice and respect and honour our ways and accept that. As the saying goes, it was easier said than done. I lost a daughter to suicide, and it was hard to accept that babies were named after her, shortly after, but I had to accept that and honour that as well.
I have been struggling to find support from teachers who have training and understanding about what kinds of trauma and impacts suicides can have on students.
I heard a professional say that there is a difference between having compassion and discipline. It pierced my heart to hear that since there is a lot of difference. When one has compassion, then trust can be built up with a student who has been impacted. If discipline comes before trying to understand what the student may be going through, that is a concern.
We need aftercare services. We do have family support and friends. The missing part is understanding and knowing why. We parents tend to just protect and provide for a child to cope with a traumatic experience, and try to figure out how they can learn to live without their loved one. It can be mentally hard and draining.
The school system has a huge role, because our kids are with them more than they are with their parents. It's a lot to expect, but they are the most important professionals we rely on.
I am trying to be involved, but to meet someone else's expectations. I can recall hearing some saying, “Get over it. It's now the child's excuse.” These comments, to me, are heartless or show a lack of understanding. I keep repeating myself, asking them to understand a child who has lost their parent, to have more understanding and not to treat them like a child who has not been impacted.
I am sharing these real life experiences only because all the suicides have no answers, only assumptions. We have to learn how to feel those angry moments. And as a mother, when will I stop crying and asking myself what else could have been different? Why do I feel so much shame? What did I do wrong, and why do I have to keep saying, “Have compassion, and not pity”?
I wanted to start off like that only because I want to share, as an individual who has been impacted, and who is also providing aftercare to my two grandchildren, one of whom is parentless. I know the government and other organizations have all the good intentions and are starting up groups or even walks.
But sometimes the terms, especially “suicide prevention”...as I mentioned during the first inquiry, to us when it comes across in Inuktitut, it means you were preventing the suicide.
Inuit say those words in our native language, it means they're preventing it, as if they were present at the time when an individual was attempting it. We have to find ways to work with people who have been impacted in order to find proper resources for after-care, and that's the part that's really missing in the experience that I have as a director of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit in culture and heritage. A lot of the funding that is provided through that department is for the people to retain their initiative and their own way of promoting life. They might not like the goal or the objective to be suicide prevention. The goal is for people to relearn the traditional ways and values that are relevant in their communities and in our communities as well, because today, as James said, the young people have two worlds.
When I was a teacher, I used to say the elders had the two worlds because they had to live the nomadic life and the life that is modern. Now it's as if we have to provide workshops that are promoting identity and building self-esteem in parka making and similar things—all these initiatives that are relevant to the people—and those are the ways to promote life. In the experience that I have with the elders, I coordinate the terminology and when they are not from an Inuit concept, it's hard for them.
That's the part, the Inuit perspective, that I promote in the government so that departments at least have an understanding of the needs of the people through their perspective, not the other way around .
Thank you for this time.