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Aboriginal People in Manitoba 2000 Chapter 2 : Health

National First Nations suicide rates have remained fairly constant since 1980. Suicide rates differ between First Nations and non-First Nations populations more than any other cause of death. The differences are most extreme in the younger age groups, and decline sharply in older age groups. By age 60+ there is no significant difference. However, as we have noted, there are few First Nations people in this older age group.

Suicide is endemic among First Nations youth, especially males. By contrast, non-Aboriginal youth are no more likely to commit suicide than any other age group.

Nationally in 1989-93, the death rate by suicide for male youth aged 15-24 was 126 per 100,000 annually, a rate more than five times the national rate for all males in this age group. The comparable rate for First Nations females was 35/100,000, far less than among First Nations men, but over seven times the national rate for females of this age.

A special report on suicide produced for the 1996 Canadian Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) linked youth suicide, mental illness, and drug and alcohol abuse to cultural alienation or stress. This is caused by:

…loss of identity, loss of control over living conditions, restricted economic opportunity, suppression of beliefs and spirituality, weakening of social institutions, displacement of political institutions, pervasive breakdown of cultural values and diminished esteem, discrimination and institutional racism and their internalized effects, and voluntary or involuntary adoption of elements of an external culture and loss of identity.⁵

Since 1980, First Nations suicide rates have increased by 45% among children aged 14 and under, an age group for whom suicide is virtually unrecorded among non-Aboriginal Canadians.

Hangings remain the most commonly reported suicide method for ages 15-24 and 25-44, though firearms are increasingly used for ages 15-24, and both firearms and drug overdoses for ages 25-44. Firearms are more frequently used by males, and drug overdoses by females. Among all First Nations suicides reported in Manitoba from 1989-93, 58% were by hanging, 29% by firearms, 8% by drug overdose, and 6% by other means.