Moses Beaver’s sons tell inquest their requests for help for Oji-Cree artist were brushed off – CBC
May 08, 2023
NAN leader asks inquest, now in 4th and final week, why recommendations from previous inquests not in place
Over the past three weeks, the jury probing the inquest into the 2017 death of Moses Amik Beaver has heard numerous calls for better mental health care in remote First Nations and the Thunder Bay District Jail, as well as a reminder that much of what witnesses have recommended has been heard before.
Beaver, a Woodlands artist from Nibinamik, an Oji-Cree First Nation in northwestern Ontario, was 56 when he died by suicide while he was in custody. The inquest — which the Ontario Coroner’s Act says is mandatory when a person dies in custody — is entering its fourth week.
Since 2002, 13 people have died in the jail. At least seven of them were Indigenous. Inquests have been completed into 10 of those cases. The most recent was the joint inquest into the deaths of Don Mamakwa and Roland McKay that ended in November.
Those inquests have yielded hundreds of recommendations, but many of them have not been implemented, according to a CBC News review of the eight inquests completed from 2002 to 2020.
