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NOVEMBER 20, 2000

As the Innu community of Sheshatshiu, Labrador, struggles to deal with high rates of drug abuse, a judge today may decide to remove up to 39 children and teenagers from their homes.

To parents, some of whom are resisting intervention, and to outsiders, the move is drastic and unnecessary. To leaders in the community, like Chief Paul Rich, taking the kids away is the only way to help them.

Last Wednesday, Rich wrote the government and asked for the children to be removed without parental consent. On Friday, a group of social workers began conducting formal assessments on each child, which are necessary if any are to be taken from their parents.

But even if the government were to remove every child, there might not be anywhere for them to go. On Sunday, Rich was told there were no facilities to treat all of them.

Rich has invited television crews to the community to document the problem. Viewers on CBC watched as children -- some as young as six, all under 16 -- sniffed gasoline through paper bags.

The risks from sniffing the flammable substance are high: brain damage and sometimes death. One 11-year-old died when he caught fire earlier this year.

Drug abuse isn't the only problem facing the community, however. Innu in Labrador have a high rate of suicide: 1 in 500 in the community of Davis Inlet, compared to 1 in 7,143 for all of Canada since 1990.

As Innu leader Napes Ashini prepared to deliver a report on suicides last year in November, his own son shot and killed himself. That report criticized the government for its "appalling" treatment of Native people.

The government has attempted to correct problems in Davis Inlet by moving the entire community to a nearby location. But besides being behind schedule and over budget, leaders there say the effort hasn't helped much.

Read the Report:
Canada's Tibet – the killing of the Innu (Survival International 1999)

Related Stories:
Innu finances questioned (First Nations 10/20)
Relocation of Innu targeted (First Nations 10/19)