"House of Commons holds emergency debate on suicide crisis"

OTTAWA - The House of Commons held an emergency debate on the suicide crisis playing out in Attawapiskat First Nation as well as other communities Tuesday night.

The debate, requested by NDP indigenous affairs critic Charlie Angus, was scheduled to take place today after 6 p.m. ET and last until around midnight.

Angus, whose riding encompasses the troubled northern Ontario community, said Canadians living the south would not tolerate the lack of mental-health care provided to indigenous children.

Attawapiskat's chief and eight councillors declared a state of emergency on Saturday, citing 11 suicide attempts so far in the month of April and 28 recorded attempts in March.

"These nightmares and tragedies should serve as wake-up calls that there isn't time to wait," Angus said in a letter requesting the debate.

"An emergency debate is required in order to allow parliamentarians to address this crisis and show that as parliamentarians we are willing to work together because the days of shrugging off the tragedies or tinkering with Band-Aid solutions are over."

Canada has heard cries from communities including Attawapiskat, La Loche, Sask., and Cross Lake, Man., Angus added.

In the Commons on Monday, Health Minister Jane Philpott said five mental health workers had arrived in the community of about 2,000 people.

"This is one of the most serious and pressing tragedies that our nation is facing," she said.

"I am devastated by the situation that is taking place in Attawapiskat. I am working with my colleague, the minister of indigenous and northern affairs to respond to this tragedy.

"We are responding to both the immediate needs and long-term needs of this community."

Aboriginal leaders are also scheduled to address the Commons indigenous affairs committee on Thursday after northern Ontario First Nations communities declared a public health emergency earlier this year.

Chelsea Jane Edwards was deeply saddened when she heard her remote northern Ontario First Nation of Attawapiskat had declared a state of emergency over a recent spate of suicides.

But she wasn't surprised.

Edwards, who's now studying policing in New Brunswick, knows first-hand how hard life can be in the James Bay community of about 2,000, particularly for young people.

"It's not surprising at all; it's devastating," the 20-year-old said of the news that has put Attawapiskat in the national spotlight this week.

"When you've been living your entire life in poverty it comes with many issues. They will range from mental health, to inadequate housing, to not having enough to eat because you have to share the food with everyone in the household... I just feel like the action was long overdue."

For Edwards, the community's plea for extra resources to deal with the situation was one she understood.

"The services provided are really inadequate and underfunded," she said. "I was depressed every time I would go back. I had a hard time readjusting coming from off the reserve to back on the reserve."

Edwards' family moved to Attawapiskat, where her mother's side is from, when she was a baby. She left the reserve to go to high school but went back and forth between the reserve and cities in northern Ontario as she had trouble finding families who would board her.

She still considers herself lucky because her family supported her through high school and she was also able to get involved with Shannen's Dream, a youth movement calling for better education for First Nations children.

Her activism took her to Ottawa, Toronto and even Switzerland, where she led a delegation of aboriginal youth before the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

After graduating high school, and despite the adjustment issues that resulted from going back and forth, she returned to Attawapiskat for an entire year before starting her post-secondary degree. She continues to call the community home.

"I was really exhausted. I needed to be around my family," she said of her decision to return. "I needed to be home."

Attawapiskat is a place, however, that comes with its challenges, she said.

There was a time when Edwards had to sleep on a couch because there was no room for her to have her own bed, she once had to wait months to see a counsellor and even when she did, it was uncomfortable to open up because the person she was speaking to was part of the community where everyone knows everyone.

The need for counselling and mental health support, particularly for the reserve's young people, is significant, Edwards said.

"Honestly, there's no social activity," she said. "For myself, I felt isolated, I couldn't really interact with other people, I just felt like I was in my own little bubble and it was hard to talk to other people about certain things,"