Suicide Among Natives

Native leaders are bemoaning the fact that suicide among young natives is at epidemic proportions. They understand they have a serious problem but are not sure how to solve it. This is almost certainly a prelude to asking the government for more money to provide more native recreation buildings and more native counseling programs.

It's a sad state of affairs when such a large group of teens have no future and that's one of the big reasons they become depressed enough to commit suicide. It's not more recreation buildings they need but more jobs to build a future on. When youngsters see 70% unemployment in their future, of course they will wonder about the purpose of their lives.

I've always believed that native reservations are the true downfall in their society. Anything that keeps them from integrating into their resident country can only serve to hold them down. The stimulation of joining a diverse society like we have in Canada will offer them more ideals than they are presently getting on a mainly unemployed reservation. It just makes sense.

There is an old saying, "Welfare breeds welfare.", and that holds true whether it's in a slum or on a reservation. We need heroes in our lives to inspire us to attain better lives. If most of the people we're surrounded by every day lead useless lives then what is there to inspire us? The cheque comes in the mail every month so why slave 40 hours a week for it? Well, with work comes the sense of feeling useful.

What these young natives are experiencing, but on a much higher scale, is the inactivity some seniors feel after retiring from a job they've held all their lives. It's a feeling of, "What am I good for now?". For a teen to feel that way is a disaster waiting to happen.

Natives don't need more recreational time, they need their leaders to lead them into more useful lives. In my eyes, the best way to do that is to demolish reservations and integrate natives with the rest of society. I don't know how easy or difficult it would be to convince them that a monthly government cheque which allows them to remain idle is actually killing them.