Washington D.C., Mar 25, 2021 / 14:00 pm
A Canadian suicide prevention group is raising alarms that the country’s new assisted suicide law could especially harm indigenous peoples.
The Embrace Life Council, an anti-suicide organization based in Canada’s northern territory of Nunavut, says that the proposed expansion of assisted suicide, Bill C-7, was crafted without proper input from indigenous voices and may exploit deficiencies in the territory’s mental health system.
“More research is required to determine the relationship between mental health and the current public health emergency of suicide in Nunavut,” said a letter sent to Nunvaut Senator Dennis Patterson from the Embrace Life Council, reported by the CBC.
The group said that mental illness creates a “significant impact on productivity, morbidity and mortality” in the territory.