Toddler Deaths Spur Canada's Indians to Crack Down on Alcohol

Children won't be victims of alcohol again, residents in Yellow Quill, Saskatchewan, are vowing. Two toddlers dressed only in diapers and T-shirts froze to death there last month, left in a snowdrift by their drunken father.

Some villagers say banning alcohol is the only way to curb abuse on Canadian Indian reservations like Yellow Quill First Nation, where 3-year-old Kaydance Pauchay and her 1-year-old sister, Santana, died as the temperature plunged to minus 50 degrees Celsius (minus 58 Fahrenheit).

The deaths highlight rising alcohol addiction among Canada's 1.17 million native people. While some Indian leaders say prohibition won't work because it's impossible to enforce and doesn't deal with the isolation and poverty underlying alcohol abuse, the Natuashish Innu tribe imposed a liquor ban Jan. 31.

"Here we go again, another tragedy as a result of alcohol," said Prote Poker, chief of the Innu reservation, across the country in Labrador. "We've had a lot of tragedies in our community and we don't want to wait for that to happen again in order for us to stand up and ban alcohol."

The Yellow Quill toddlers' father, Christopher, 25, had been drinking beer and whisky and was bringing the girls to his sister's place less than 400 meters (1,300 feet) from his home. He lost his way and passed out, emerging four hours later at a neighbor's home, frostbitten and alone, according to police.

No charges have been brought and an investigation is continuing, said Sergeant Richard Whattam, a spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Saskatchewan.

"The community agrees we need to do something about the alcohol problem," said Larry Cachene, a Yellow Quill councilor, in a phone interview. "Everybody's affected by this in one way or another."

Desolate Region

Yellow Quill's 420 people will decide soon on whether to ban alcohol, Cachene said. The town lies about 280 kilometers (170 miles) northeast of Regina, Saskatchewan's capital.

Until 1951, Canada's native Indians were forbidden by law from drinking. Today, their death rate from liquor use is almost twice that of the general population and their youths are at two to six times more risk of alcohol-related problems, according to Health Canada.

While the Labrador Innu village has no liquor store or bar, a 60-ounce (1.8-liter) bottle of bootleg alcohol can be bought for C$300 ($300). The community drew worldwide attention 16 years ago when six unattended children died in a house fire while their parents were out drinking.

The deaths prompted the federal government to move the villagers to their current location from Davis Inlet to improve housing conditions. Poker said that 95 percent of the residents stopped drinking after the tragedy. Most gradually returned to the habit, he said.

Personal Experience

Poker, 45, says he started drinking heavily after his parents, four brothers and two sisters died in a 1976 canoe accident caused by his drunken father.

"It wasn't until I stopped drinking that I realized what was wrong with me -- it was the anger and grief that I had inside of me," Poker said. "We need a lot of work such as counseling, because alcohol is only a way of coping."

Native leaders including Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine and lawmakers such as Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl agree that an alcohol prohibition alone isn't enough. Bans are already in place on more than a third of Canada's 615 reservations.

"Finding solutions to addiction problems is not a simple matter," Strahl wrote in an e-mail.

Even when alcohol is banned, bootleggers often find a way to sneak it onto reservations, said Joe Linklater, chief of the Vuntut Gwitchin village of Old Crow, in the Yukon Territory. He said his community, where liquor is prohibited, is considering strengthening its bylaw to ward off smugglers.

Loss of Traditions

Prohibition doesn't address the root causes of addiction, including poverty, isolation and the loss of native traditions, said Dennis McPherson, a professor at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

"Indian reserves are black holes," he said. "It's getting worse" because elders have died and traditions are disappearing.

The Innu reservation in Labrador is accessible only by water or plane, and is more than 300 kilometers from the nearest city, Goose Bay.

In Yellow Quill, the average wage is less than a third of the provincial mean, and the median income of people 15 and older is C$5,088, a quarter of the level for Saskatchewan.

Prohibition could backfire, pushing alcoholics to drink substances that are more dangerous, such as mouthwash, said Lawrence Joseph, chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations.

"A bylaw banning alcohol is a Band-Aid," Joseph said.

Bloomberg