GUEST EDITORIAL: EMPOWER INNU TO CARE FOR THEIR OWN

In a worldly-wise age that thinks it cannot be shocked, the recent images of
bleary-eyed Innu children burying their noses into gasoline-filled plastic
bags and getting high on the toxic fumes are so bizarre and viscerally
disturbing they can only be received with the kind of discomfort that
follows an electric jolt.

The fact that these troubled young addicts inhabit not some dysfunctional
third world nation, or even inner city America, but a Canadian aboriginal
community is even more cause for alarm. This should not be happening in one
of the world's richest nations and a place that prides itself on its ability
to care for its citizens, whatever their need. But it is.

In tiny, isolated Sheshatshiu, Labrador, this is life. And death. More than
half of all teenagers in this community of 1,200 sniff gas, drink alcohol,
take illegal drugs and have contemplated suicide, according to health
officials. Those experts have identified at least 39 kids seriously
addicted to inhaling gasoline.

The youngest addicts are six. Meanwhile, the act of children committing
suicide or attempting it has become relatively commonplace. Earlier this
year, an 11-year-old boy burned to death in Sheshatshiu while sniffing gas
and playing with a lighter.

The chief of Sheshatshiu, Paul Rich, should be commended for blowing the
whistle on this disgraceful situation last week and asking the Newfoundland
government for help. If it was an admission that the village could not cope
on its own, it was also an urgent message to the rest of Canada that it is
not doing nearly enough to help.

It would be preferable for the children of Sheshatshiu to be given
counselling and treatment in their own community, as the Newfoundland
government intends. However, if young addicts have to be taken out of the
village to be saved, then so be it, despite the heartache and dislocation
this will cause.

The leaders of Sheshatshiu require outside help partly because they lack the
legal authority to take the addicted children into custody.

That's because the Innu are not empowered under the Indian Act to set up
their own social services or make their own bylaws. Surely this is part of
the problem.

Surely more than just one-time provincial intervention and even long term
funding increases are called for here. The governments of Newfoundland and
Canada have to build a community in Sheshatshiu that can stand on its own
and look after itself and its children. For that to be possible, the Innu
need more control over their own lives.