Report highlights gaps, innovations in northern mental health care

“Change is coming” and more culturally appropriate mental health supports are becoming available in Nunavut, according to a recent report on the state of Canada’s mental health system.

The Canadian Mental Health Association report, The State of Mental Health in Canada 2024, says more innovative services are being provided in Nunavut, which has the highest rates of suicide and self-harm in the country.

Innovations — including Inuit paraprofessionals trained to provide mental health support, an on-the-land-based mobile addiction treatment program near Cambridge Bay, and an Inuit-designed addiction and treatment centre being constructed in Iqaluit — are noted in the report.

But the place where a person lives in Canada still matters when it comes to the services available to them, said Leyna Lowe, national senior research and policy analyst at CMHA.

“This report tells us that people receive drastically different care depending on their home province or territory and that people across Canada are doing worse in some places, particularly in the north and in rural parts of Canada, and distress is higher among Indigenous and racialized populations,” Lowe said in a news release on the report.

In October, the Nunavut government announced a five-year plan to prevent suicides and support young people.

The plan outlined 25 action items that included strategies like promoting Inuit culture in schools, increasing employment, and strengthening helpline services.

Despite the province of Québec reporting the highest rates of good mental health across Canada, Indigenous populations experience a high suicide rate and face disproportionate levels of inadequate housing.

“In 2019, the rate of suicide in Nunavik, northern Québec, when adjusted to 100,000 population, is 177.1 compared to Québec’s overall suicide rate of 13.1/100,000,” the report said.

It noted 27 per cent of the Nunavik population live in housing that requires major repairs and 47 per cent live in housing that is considered crowded.

In Nunavut, the study found a rate of self-harm nearly six times higher than the national average ­of 64.9 incidents per 100,000 population.

The rate of death by suicide in Nunavut was nearly seven times the national average.

“The data on service access are scarce, but we know that Nunavut has about one-third the mental health, addictions and substance use health care providers compared to the national average,” the report says.

The CMHA report calls on the federal government to write mental health care into law to guarantee funding and to invest 12 per cent of health care spending in mental health, addictions, and substance-use services.