The Star Phoenix – Jack Hicks, who helped draft suicide prevention plans for Nunavut and the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, said the provincial government’s “Pillars for Life” strategy doesn’t have a clear path to implementation and sets goals that are “so vague as to be meaningless.”

Nor does it address the underlying reasons for high suicide rates among northern communities, Indigenous people or youth. The word “trauma” does not appear in the plan, which Hicks takes as a sign that First Nations and Métis concerns are not adequately represented. The document is only eight pages long, three of which are taken up by the bibliography and the introduction.

Hicks said it doesn’t get at the root of why Saskatchewan’s suicide rate, which was roughly double the national average in 2018, is so high in the first place.