Bearspaw First Nation Chief Darcy Dixon says most deaths in his community are from opioid overdoses involving fentanyl.Rick Bowmer/The Canadian Press
Indigenous Services Canada officials are set to meet with the leaders of a First Nation in Alberta this week to discuss support for the small community that is struggling to cope with the devastating impact of the opioid crisis.
Bearspaw First Nation Chief Darcy Dixon said his people have faced such high mortality in recent years that life expectancy has dramatically dropped and funerals have become a financial burden.
“There’s not enough funding coming into the region” to deal with the opioid crisis, the Chief said in an interview Sunday. “I don’t think they truly understand the impacts we’re facing here on the ground,” he said of ISC.
Bearspaw First Nation, a community of fewer than 2,000 registered members located about 60 kilometres west of Calgary, saw 28 deaths between April, 2022, and March, 2023, and is on track to exceed that number this year with 16 deaths since April, according to Mr. Dixon. Most of these deaths are from opioid overdoses involving fentanyl, he said.
“These are my people, most of them young who will never have the opportunity to live their lives,” Mr. Dixon wrote in a letter to Indigenous Services Canada on July 21. The average age of the deceased was 44 years old. Many are survived by young children, he said.
“The tremendous increase in expenses for funerals has created an extreme financial hardship on my Nation and my people,” Mr. Dixon wrote in his letter. “We have had no choice but to take funds allocated for essential services to pay for funeral services.”
The Chief asked ISC for “at least $250,000″ to cover the costs of funerals, which amount to about $10,000 each, he said.
Local media outlet CochraneNow and CBC News first reported the story, and Bearspaw First Nation shared a copy of the letter with The Globe and Mail.
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Between 2015 and 2021, life expectancy dropped seven years for First Nations people in Alberta, going from 73 to 66 for women and from 67 to 60 for men, the Chief wrote in his letter. He appeared to be referencing a recent report by APTN citing data from Alberta Health Services, which The Globe could not independently verify.
Indigenous people’s life expectancy is 16.4 years below that of all other Albertans, falling below 64 years of age, according to the province’s 2022-23 Health report. Indigenous people include First Nation, Métis and Inuit people.
“It is difficult to believe we are talking about a group of people in Canada,” Chief Dixon wrote.
The Chief said ISC has so far declined to provide additional funding to deal with the crisis and the cost of funerals. “The federal government is failing us,” he wrote.
Chief Dixon said the current governance structure of his community, amalgamated with Wesley First Nation and Chiniki First Nation under the Stoney Tribal Administration, “handicaps us from addressing the underlying causes such as drug addiction and poverty in a proper and co-ordinated fashion.”
He said the Stoney Tribal Administration “does not represent our interests” when it comes to additional funding for funerals. The administration did not respond to questions from the The Globe about the issue.
ISC spokesperson Carolane Gratton said the department “is deeply concerned by the loss of lives in Bearspaw First Nation by suicide and by opioid overdoses as a result of the legacies of colonization.” She said ISC is working with the community and other partners to address the substance-use crisis in Alberta.
Ms. Gratton said Bearspaw First Nation was successful in its request for proposals in support of a mental-wellness crisis response team for 2022 through 2024, which would provide “a vital resource to help the community deal with the ongoing crisis.”
She said that ISC officials are scheduled to meet with the First Nation in the coming days to discuss the establishment of this team and support “across the mental wellness continuum of care.”
Chief Dixon said the team, which often responds to calls for overdoses, is not enough to meet the needs of the community. “We’re lucky to have the team, but there’s only so much they can do,” he said, calling for more resources to prevent overdoses from happening and to treat addiction.
The Chief said that, based on past experience he had with ISC officials, he was not optimistic about the coming meeting and reiterated the importance of dealing directly with the federal government, without the imposed intermediary of the Stoney Tribal Administration.
Regarding governance, Ms. Gratton said ISC is working with the administration and Bearspaw First Nation “on an ongoing basis to help advance their request for a separate funding agreement.” She did not say whether ISC was planning to fulfill Chief Dixon’s request for funding to deal with funerals.