'Something Needs to Change,' Trudeau Told Before Visit to La Loche School Shooting Site

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau landed in La Loche, Saskatchewan on Friday morning to pay his respects to the families who lost their loved ones in the school shooting that killed four, and injured seven others.

Trudeau told reporters he was "looking forward to meeting the families and supporting a community that's obviously had a terrible, terrible week," he said, the day before he was scheduled to board a flight to the remote community.

"We'll stand with them today, tomorrow, for weeks and months to come."

The community of La Loche is still reeling from last week's shooting, as parents of the victims bury their children. Gerald Moise, father of shooting victim Dayne Fontaine, has been tending a bonfire over the last few days to soften the frozen ground in which his son's grave will be dug.

"I lost my mother and before I lost my mother, my sister [to] suicide. Now this," Moise told the Canadian Press.

In Ontario, Alvin Fiddler has given a lot of thought to the tragedy in La Loche, and has wondered if it could happen in the First Nation communities he oversees.

"There are many similarities between the challenges they face in La Loche and us," Fiddler, Grand Chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, which encompasses 49 First Nation communities in northern Ontario, told VICE News. "The sense of isolation and lack of opportunities is something we know well. And we need help now."

Like La Loche, which has Saskatchewan's highest suicide rate and is served by only one psychiatrist who flies in to serve the region every three or four months, Fiddler's communities have been reeling from poverty, rampant violence, substance abuse problems, and suicide, with very little access to proper social programs and mental health personnel.

Over the last month, five children from across the region, including one 10-year-old girl from Bearskin Lake First Nation, committed suicide. And because this usually happens in places with only a few hundred people, he says everyone is affected. Neskantaga First Nation, 500 miles north of Thunder Bay, declared a state of emergency in 2013 after seven children killed themselves.

"When we are unable to properly address the needs of, say, one incident, one suicide, if we leave things unresolved, it just triggers other things like violence and depression."

A 2010 Northwest Local Integration Network report found that the suicide rate for children under the age of 15 from that region is 50 times higher than Canada's overall suicide rate. And according to a study released this month by Statistics Canada, more than one in every five First Nations people who live off reserve reported having suicidal thoughts at some point in his or her life.

It's a trend Fiddler says has been getting worse, and is prevalent in indigenous communities across the country.

"They're getting younger and younger," he said. "Why a young person, our babies, would even begin to contemplate taking their own lives, is something we need to begin addressing by providing mental health services for children, before there's more violence and trauma."

That's why Fiddler and other chiefs from the region came together earlier this month to call for emergency relief from the provincial and federal governments to address what they describe as a suicide epidemic. They want the government to treat this as they would any natural disaster: quickly dispatching a team of crisis workers and other healthcare experts to help the community heal and find ways to stop it.

"I hope La Loche has been another wakeup call," he added, noting a close link between suicide and other types of violence, like homicide.

Related: Aboriginal Chiefs Plead for Help in Canada After Children Commit Suicide

"The shooting in La Loche is something you, of course, hope never happens in your communities, but other types of violence are very prevalent in our communities. Our police services are very busy everyday responding to all forms of violence."

The Canadian Mental Health Association found in 2012 that depression levels among youth in Saskatchewan between grade seven and 12 are 50 percent higher than adults in the province. Health advocates have been calling on the federal government to implement a national suicide strategy for years.

A team of trauma experts have been dispatched to Saskatchewan, but indigenous leaders are anxious for a more permanent solution there and in other communities, so that it doesn't happen again.

Canada's federal Health Minister, Jane Philpott, told the House of Commons on Monday during question period that her department will provide more resources to La Loche, and other First Nation and Inuit communities to fill gaps in their mental health services, but hasn't specified exactly what that means. Federal safety minister Ralph Goodale echoed her pledge.

Ottawa also vowed on Tuesday to increase funding for child welfare services for First Nations children on reserves after the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled in a landmark decision that the federal government discriminated against them by spending less on their social services than anywhere else in the country.

"Something needs to change," said Fiddler, who released a statement praising the tribunal's decision. "That possibility that something new is on the horizon is what is bringing us hope right now in the midst of crisis."

Follow Rachel Browne on Twitter: @rp_browne