Content warning: Mentions of suicide

Feb. 2 to Feb. 8 marked Quebec’s Suicide Prevention Week. The province entered the awareness week with a statistic that sounds like a clear public health win: The suicide rate has dropped to 11.9 per 100,000 people, making it the lowest observed since 1981. However, this provincial average obscures the fact that progress has not occurred evenly across Quebec. The Institut national de sante publique du Québec (INSPQ) reports that Nunavik, an arctic region in Northern Quebec primarily inhabited by Inuit, had the highest suicide rate by far, with 122.7 suicides per 100,000 people—over 10 times more than the provincial average. 

The uneven jump in suicide rates disproportionately affects Indigenous people in Canada, and this difference is not coincidental. If a region’s suicide rate is over 10 times higher than the rest of the province, this discrepancy cannot be explained as a statistical outlier. Nunavik’s case reflects the persistence of the deeply embedded power structures of colonialism, racial discrimination, and the intentional erasure of culture and language in the province. 

Quebec’s suicide-prevention messaging often emphasizes reaching out, breaking the stigma around mental health, and reminding people that they are not alone. Those are not empty gestures, but stigma alone cannot explain a tenfold regional gap. This year’s campaign theme, “tendre la main, soutenir l’espoir” (extend a hand, support hope), captures that emphasis on individual intervention and interpersonal relations as key to combating suicide. 

But if awareness and social stigma were the main barriers, there wouldn’t be a stark geographic pattern; Nunavik’s disparate suicide rate instead points to an uneven landscape of support and access. In practice, ‘reaching out’ can take on very different meanings depending on whether suicide-prevention services are stable, staffed, culturally safe, and close enough to be accessed before a crisis escalates. A generalized campaign cannot, and should not, substitute consistent, local, and culturally-grounded care. 

Research on the pervasive harms of Canada’s residential school system demonstrates that state policy has created intergenerational risk through family separation, abuse, and cultural suppression. A Western University study highlighted the link between increased rates of suicide, intergenerational trauma, and residential schooling. By forcibly separating children from their families and communities, residential schools also laid the groundwork that perpetuates downstream inequities and raises suicide risk today, including lower educational attainment, lower income, unstable employment, and poorer housing conditions. 

INSPQ also noted that Nunavik lacks emergency rooms, and that consultations in its 14 local community service centres may not be as effective as ER visits elsewhere. When staffing is unstable and specialized services are concentrated at the two regional hospitals, this can result in time-sensitive delays and transfers.  

With Nunavik’s small population of approximately 14,000, each death in the province carries an outsized statistical weight. In small, tight-knit villages, the impact of a single suicide can ripple through extended families, peer groups, schools, and frontline workers, intensifying grief and strain on already limited support systems. Public health guidance on suicide clusters emphasizes that closely connected communities can face a heightened risk of additional deaths after an initial loss. This cascading vulnerability is itself a product of the structural conditions colonialism created: Isolated communities with minimal services bear disproportionate grief, with disproportionately fewer resources to absorb it.

The Quebec government must treat colonial policies as living determinants of health, not just features of history. When the province headlines its declining suicide rate, it obscures the systematic inequalities keeping Nunavik’s rate disproportionately high. The same report used by Quebec to demonstrate progress also shows where mental health programming has not translated into prevention outcomes and well-being.

The key imperative during Suicide Prevention Week isn’t just whether reaching out matters—it’s applying that message to systems that people can actually reach. Culturally safe care is inseparable from addressing racism and power imbalances in service delivery. 

Nunavik’s disparate rate doesn’t erase Quebec’s progress, but it does complicate it. It suggests that any honest accounting of prevention has to hold two truths at once: The provincial average is falling, but regional crises remain severe. If Suicide Prevention Week is meant to describe the province’s reality—and not just offer a reassuring statistic—then local disparities are where the prevention has to begin.

If you or someone you know needs support, help is available 24/7 via suicide.ca or the AQPS.