'This is our nightmarish reality': Manitoba MLA talks about northern suicides

Suicides are so common in Manitoba's north that many people carry box cutters to rescue potential victims, a Liberal member of the legislature says.

"Where I'm from, most people carry box cutters because you never know when you will come across a child hanging from a tree," saidJudyKlassen, who was elected in April to representthe Keewatinook riding.

"This is our nightmarish reality. I put my name on the ballot because I'm tired of burying my people from highly preventable causes."

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Klassendescribed the shocking state of her homecommunity of St. Theresa Point a remote fly-in reserveabout 500 kilometres north ofWinnipeg in the provinciallegislature on Thursday.

"There's been a couple of times when children have gone missing and that's always my gut reaction is to grab the box cutters," Klassen told CBC News in an interview on Friday.

She recalled an incident five years ago that prompted community members to carry the cutters. Klassen'sdaughter happened to come across a group ofpeople struggling to rescue a young woman who tried to hangherself.

"No one had any tool at that time to help cut her down and it was just, everybody was trying to lift her up and keep her from passing away from her strangling," Klassen said.

"My daughter saw 20 people in a tree, trying to lift, and just the emotional impact when you're trying to lift a child, for some reason the child is, like, 400 pounds because of the added mental anguish that you're [facing in]trying to save this person's life.

"It took many people to try and keep her upwards so that she wouldn't strangle."

'This is our nightmarish reality': Manitoba MLA talks about northern suicides

8 years ago

Duration 2:49

Suicides are so common in Manitoba's north that many people carry box cutters to rescue potential victims, according to a Liberal MLA.

That young woman was saved and she recovered from her injuries. Today,she is the mother of a six-month-old child, Klassen said, adding she asked permission from her community'selders before sharing the community's story.

"They said by all means, because we need to get the attention out that this is our daily life," she said. "Kids when they go missing, it's not like, oh, they must be at a family friend's for a couple hours. It like, let's find this child now.

"It's embarrassing that it's taken us to this level where we have to walk around with box cutters. It needs to be brought out that that's how much the crisis is affecting us."

Klassen said she raised the story in the legislature tocriticizetheProgressiveConservative government for not announcing more in its recent budget to help Indigenous people.

The budget addresses the concerns of southern Manitoba and ignores many of the serious issues faced by those in the north, she said.

"I don't doubt everyone here is committed to the people of southern Manitoba [but] to the Manitobans ignored by this budget, I will say I will work tirelessly for your cause because all people'slives matter to me," Klassen said in the legislature.

"I will continue to educate all members here because clearly,there is an ignorance to the real life-and-death situations that people north of the 52nd parallel face."

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