Beyond Local: ‘These are my people’: Bearspaw chief appeals to ISC amid Nation’s opioid crisis – St. Albert Gazette
August 10, 2023
Twenty-eight of the Bearspaw First Nation’s roughly 2,000 members died primarily of opioid poisoning in 2022, according to Chief Darcy Dixon.
ÎYÂRHE NAKODA – Twenty-eight of Bearspaw First Nation’s roughly 2,000 members died primarily of opioid poisoning in 2022, according to Chief Darcy Dixon.
In a letter to Indigenous Service Canada (ISC) last month urging better methods of working together with ISC and Health Canada, the chief states the Nation is on track to exceed that number this year with 16 related deaths from April to June, at an average age of 44 years old.
“These are my people, most of them young who will never have the opportunity to live their lives,” wrote Dixon. “We are related to all of them. This is clearly a health and safety issue for ISC Alberta Region.”
The letter was directed to the attention of Alberta regional director Jamie Brown, who the chief said he has written to many times “about the high number of deaths and a rapidly declining life expectancy” of the Bearspaw people.
